Baeraad's Tome of Finite Wisdom

Epilogue: Awakening

baeraad — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:09:19 GMT

Here we are then, at long last.

This was a really fun story to write. It was also a really freaking tricky one. Those first three chapters were complete disasters - I had all sorts of ideas that just weren't working out, so in the end I had to scrap my entire synopsis and write by the seat of my pants for the rest of the way.

It turned out pretty interesting at the end, though, I think. Dara really came alive for me after a while (I think that the exact point when she started writing herself was marked by my realisation that unlike the rest of the citizens of Shadowed Citadel Demesne, who guzzle tea like there's no tomorrow, Dara drinks coffee. Black. And strong enough to sit up and bark). She is my kind of heroine - very strong in some ways, very weak in others, and unable to ever do anything halfway. I loved writing brooding, vulnerable, self-hating Dara, and I loved writing grandstanding, all-powerful, scenery-chewing Dara. Whatever her current mood, she was always a lot of fun.

This also marks the first time I've managed to write an actual sequel to Flesh of my Flesh. I've had a number of false starts, but I think I understand, now, what a Demesne really is - and how diverse they can really be. There's a thousand of them in the Demesneverse, and you can bet that every damn one of them is threatened by some kind of apocalypse and needs an angsty, maladjusted hero to save it. I look forward to writing many more stories set in this world.

Epilogue

Dara woke up and wasn't dead. This came as a bit of a surprise to her.

She was lying in a soft bed, and she was in no immediate pain. She wiggled her fingers and toes experimentally, and they all seemed to be attached. She wondered, vaguely, how much of what she remembered that had been real, and how much had been a dream. She was pretty sure that some of the last few days had been real and that the world really had gone that crazy, but she had some trouble sorting it out from the feverish visions she had had while asleep.

She opened her eyes. He Who Comes was standing over her.

With a scream, Dara raised her hands, and the whole room trembled. She was in the middle of a Witch Stone building, she could feel it - she had any number of rocks to throw at him...

Except that hadn't worked before, had it...

Her hesitation gave him a chance to wave his hands in a frightened and very un-demon-prince-like fashion.

"No, no, it's all right!" he yelped. "It's me! Completely demon-free! Please don't make the floor collapse under me, I've just managed to get my hair back in order after last time!"

Dara relaxed slightly and looked around blearily. She was lying in a narrow but soft bed, in a simple, Ascetic-looking room without windows. She appeared to be wearing some kind of white nightshirt, and she felt clean and without any injuries, though she had some remaining blurriness in her head - indicative, probably, of having been sedated.

Aseena was sitting on a chair by the wall. Rinabaar was just getting out of his own and stepping over to Jalon.

"I think the sight of you is upsetting her," he said. There was a polite but firm suggestion of so get your upsetting ass out of here in his tone.

"No, no, it's fine," Dara said weakly. She pressed two fingers to her forehead. "Where am I? What time is it? What's going on? Someone start feeding me information, or I will get cranky."

"You're in Lordshaven Hall," Aseena said. "It was the nearest place we could think of to take you, after we dug ourselves out of what was left of Ravenscar Hold. You took a bit of a bump to the head. Kim had a friend of hers here to heal you, but after that she thought she'd better keep you sleeping for a while. Healing takes a lot out of the body, and this is the second time in two days that you've had to be cured of a concussion." She grinned crookedly. "We don't want to damage that mad genius brain of yours."

"Did I save the world?" Dara said.

"Yes," Aseena said.

Dara glanced at Rinabaar.

"Did you and I...?" she said.

Rinabaar smiled faintly.

"We did," he said.

"Oh." Dara sank back onto the pillows. "I don't know what feels more surreal. All right, so what about He Who Comes?"

"He... disappeared," Jalon said. He grimaced. "I wish I could say that it's all a bit of a blur, but it isn't. I remember very clearly wanting to kill everyone in the whole world and then sit around and brood among the ruins for the rest of eternity. I remember how that felt like the most beautiful idea in the world. It's... a little upsetting."

Aseena got up and put his arms around him from behind, resting her chin on his shoulder. Jalon smiled weakly and put his hands on hers.

"But... yes," he said. "Then all those thoughts and feelings just... evaporated, and all that was left was me. At that point, of course, I was a little too busy landing in a pile of dust that had once been Ravenscar Hold to really appreciate it, but still, it was a bit of a relief." He winced. "Of course, then I had to talk very quickly to keep Rinabaar and his merry men from cutting me down where I lay..."

"Tensions were... running perhaps a little higher than they should have been," Rinabaar allowed. "We did listen for long enough to administer the regular tests of demonhood and find you to have been de-possessed."

"Was I the only one who got knocked out?" Dara said. She shook her head. "Well, that's really embarrassing..."

"We think that you weren't so much knocked out as finally collapsed from your existing injuries," Aseena said. "But was it strictly speaking necessary to destroy the actual floor we were standing on?"

"I wanted to make sure there was no active Witch Stone left at all," Dara said. "Pardon me for not wanting to take any chances when the world was hanging in the balance!"

"All right, fair enough," Aseena said. "But... 'DAMN I'M GOOD'?"

Dara hurrumphed and looked away.

"I was in a slightly excited state at the time," she muttered. "So sue me. What happened to the demons?"

"They breached the walls," Rinabaar said. "There were... civilian casualties. But they broke and fled when He Who Comes died. As far as I have heard, they are not rallying. We are safe."

"Of course, a big chunk of the city is in ruins," Aseena said. "Don't worry. We told everyone that you had no choice. There's hardly anyone looking to strangle you at all."

Dara groaned.

"I'll add the suddenly homeless people to Kroll's cronies, just about everyone in the Ministry of Safety, and whatever might remain of the Unhallowed Sixty-Six on the list of everyone who hates me right now," she said. She swung her feet out of bed. "I suppose I should start dealing with that."

"Where should we start?" Rinabaar said.

"We?" Dara said. She looked around the room. Rinabaar was standing at a relaxed attention by the door. Jalon was smiling at her, and Aseena doing the same over his shoulder.

"We made a pretty good team," Aseena said. "And you need someone to supply the people skills."

"I have been responsible for your physical protection on numerous assignments," Rinabaar said. "I have no intention of depriving you of that protection when you may need it the most."

"And I'm... pretty much completely useless," Jalon said cheerfully. "But I can tag along and look very pretty doing it."

Dara felt some unused muscles in her face twitch. She had a feeling that she was doing that thing that Aseena called 'trying to smile, but not remembering how to.'

Absentmindedly, she trailed her fingers over the wall at the side of the bed. Witch Stone, her destiny and birthright, her servant and only friend... except that wasn't true anymore, was it? Not by a long shot.

"All right," she said. "Someone get me some clothes. No rest for the wicked. Let's make sure that the world stays saved."

The End.

Chapter nineteen: Coming

baeraad — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:39:09 GMT

Only the epilogue left now.

Name: He Who Comes
Home: -
Caste: -
Lifestyle: -
Character: Artistic
Tragic Flaw: Arrogant
Demon points: 20
Talents: Epic Athletics, Basic Charm, Epic Perception
Skills: Advanced Entertain, Epic Fighting
Knowledge: Basic Lore, Basic Skulduggery
Powers: Epic Dominance, Advanced Mutation

Chapter nineteen

"So have you figured it out yet?" He Who Comes said. "What I am? How this all works?"

Dara dared a small shrug without offending her mangled ribs too much.

"Some of it," she said. "Jalon descends from every single Unhallowed Sixty-Six family, doesn't he? And that makes him a focal point. That's why he started being able to sense the Demesne's future. Because he's the throat of the funnel. Four hundred years of history, all leading up to him..."

"Well, after a fashion," He Who Comes said. He grinned - Jalon's easy, cheery grin. "He would never have hit critical mass on his own. It took the lifeforce of all the bloodlines... or at least a decent number of them. And of course the energy itself had to be brought to a boil before it could be channeled, through the blood and into Jalon. That was Mansuur's job." He put a finger to his lips, looking amused. "He doesn't seem to be part of me, I notice."

"I killed him," Dara said flatly.

"Mmm." He Who Comes nodded philosophically. "Probably for the best. He was quite a sour and unpleasant fellow. Having him be part of me for all eternity would have made everything a great deal less fun."

"Are you a demon?" Dara said.

"Something like that," He Who Comes said. "Your definition of 'demon' is a little too vague to give a definite yes or no to that one. Am I a human being marinated in the substance of the Nowhere, empowered and maintained through a sympathetic bond with a mortal bloodline? Yes, as far as that goes. I'm just... a slightly more sophisticated variant on the same general concept." He smiled, amiably enough. "To be honest, I don't think I understand enough of it myself to really give you a straight answer. The people I am formed from took most of it on faith."

"So how does this work?" Dara said. "Are you sustained by the mortal bloodline of each of the people who went into you? Is that what makes you so damn special?"

"Oh, sorry, I thought you had understood that," He Who Comes said. "For all metaphysical intents and purposes, I am simultaneously a demon and the mortal bloodline of that demon. I sustain myself. I am a closed system, perfect and unbreakable."

Dara's eye twitched. There had been just the tiniest hint of unease there. For the first time, there was something he didn't want her to know. Hopefully something along the lines of, 'except for the fact that you, being the destined saviour and all, have the power to destroy me.'

"Well, woop-di-do for you," she said. "So now that you're here and being all perfect and unbreakable, what's next?"

"Oh, I'll lead a demon army across Shadowed Citadel Demesne and wipe out all life," He Who Comes said helpfully. "And then I'll move on to the next Demesne, and the next, until all life is extinguished from the Earth. And then I will sail through the stars for eternity with this cold, dead world as my vessel. Alone. Perfect. The last scion of the human race, brooding among the ruins until the stars themselves go cold." He sighed happily.

"Yeah," Dara said. She sighed. "I figured it was something like that. It always is, with demons. Except you seem to be weirdly chirpy for a demon."

"Like I said, I'm a little more... sophisticated," He Who Comes said with a smile. "A normal demon is a human soul caught at the moment of inner self-destruction. I am the soul of the Unhallowed Sixty-Six, caught at the moment of their self-destruction. And the Unhallowed Sixty-Six are, in a very immediate sense, the self-destruction within the soul of Shadowed Citadel Demesne."

He spread his hands.

"All that misery that you people like to wallow in? That's me. I am the part of you that wants to hear about bad things happening, because it gives you a ghoulish delight. I am the part of you that feels cheated at every 'and then they lived happily ever after,' who think that it would be so much more satisfying if it ended with everyone dying horribly instead. I am what everyone has wanted for four hundred years. I am not despair. No, nothing as boring as despair. I'm the joy taken in turning your back on joy."

"That's nonsense," Dara snarled. "We're not like that."

"This from you?" He Who Comes raised an eyebrow. "Your whole life has been one long love letter to your own tragic alienation. Brooding away in your big empty mansion, surrounded solely by gargoyles, going out only to solve mysteries and punish the evil-doers - can you honestly deny that you have spent considerable effort in pursuing romantic misery to the exclusion of any kind of happiness you might have had?"

Dara opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

"You see?" He Who Comes said. "I'm what you wanted. I'm what you asked for. Mansuur completed the process, but you have been gradually summoning me for four hundred years. No one forced you to do it, either. Oh, you were encouraged. Once the energy started gathering, it whispered in ears and touched hearts all over the Demesne. But it wouldn't have accomplished a thing if there hadn't been something in you that wanted to listen."

He shrugged.

"You wanted to be doomed," he said. "Well, here I am."

"And here I am," Dara said. "The big fat spoilsport who turns up to try to stop the epic tragedy that everyone secretly longs for."

"Yes," He Who Comes said. "And do you think that you will succeed?"

Dara sighed.

"Not really," she said. "But if you want to take a step out of this chamber, you have to go through me first."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," He Who Comes said. He bowed. "Bring it, as they say, on."

Dara raised her hands, and gargoyles came pouring through the door behind her, charging the creature on the dais. He watched them come with a look of unholy glee on his face.

***

Rinabaar had only five men left, in addition to his worthy self. Of the others, two had been assigning to guarding prisoners, one had been sent to escort more prisoners back to them, one had been injured badly enough that he couldn't continue, one had been left to watch over him, and one was dead - the unfortunate victim of a lucky blow from one of their enemies. However, there didn't seem to be all too many left of the enemy, either. When the mansion had started ringing with the crash of stone against stone, most of them had fled.

The noise of that battle had stopped now. That meant that someone had won. Rinabaar wished he could be sure it had been the right person.

There were a couple of guards outside of this particular door, though. They looked sort of pale and shaky, and they were holding their cudgels like they were clinging desperately to them in the face of an uncertain universe, but they were holding firm.

"Gentlemen," Rinabaar boomed, "you are under arrest on suspicion of conspiracy, assault and unlawful incarceration. Lay down your arms and surrender yourselves."

The men took a look at Rinabaar and his Soldiers, all of whom were holding blood-stained sabres. Then they ran away as fast as their legs could carry them.

"Or you could do that, by all means," Rinabaar muttered. He held up his hand. "Don't pursue. They might be leading us into some sort of trap. Let us see what they were guarding."

He removed the bar and opened the door into a nondescript bedroom. Aseena was pacing back and forth on the floor, turning to the door when it opened.

"Hello, Major," she said with a pale smile. "Are you here to be my knight in shining armour?"

"Merely a Soldier in a somewhat disheveled uniform, Servant Aseena, but I hope I will suffice," Rinabaar said. "Do you know where they took Artist Jalon?"

Aseena shook her head.

"Mansuur said something about the sanctum," she said. "That's all I know. We need to find him fast, though - I think Mansuur has something horrible planned. Where is Dara?"

"The last time I saw Mystic Dara, she was engaging Mansuur in battle," Rinabaar said.

Aseena gave him a disbelieving look.

"Then why aren't you there helping her?" she said.

"She told us not to," Rinabaar said, taking great care not to show how that question poked a very sore spot. "She sent us away - for our safety, she said."

Aseena facepalmed.

"Oh, of course she did," she groaned. "Dara of Sablecrest Manor fights her battles alone. Damn it. Damn it!"

"Servant?" Rinabaar said.

"Look, it's hard to explain," Aseena said. "But the lives of every single man, woman and child in this Demesne depends on Dara not behaving like you've just told me she's still behaving like."

"I am confident that Mystic Dara knows what she's doing," Rinabaar said firmly.

"Yeah, well, I'm skeptical!" Aseena said. "Come on. We need to get to her right away!"

Technically, Rinabaar was a Major of the caste of Soldiers. He should absolutely not be taking orders from a civilian. But it had been a strange couple of days all around. He gave a few orders to his men, and they all headed off in a run back to where they had left Dara.

***

Dara had never known she could do half the things she was doing right now. She split the ground, raised up rocks to slam against He Who Comes. She sent wave after wave of gargoyles at him, each one charging into battle driven by her desperate need. She shattered huge blocks of Witch Stone and sent the shards against He Who Comes like rains of shrapnel. She did all of it at once, calling up several new attacks every second. He Who Comes was standing inside a cloud of violence and Witch Stone, where every single fragment was dedicated to his death.

And it wasn't enough.

He Who Comes struck out with his bare hands, and every punch smashed one of her gargoyles into a million pieces. He effortlessly sidestepped the pits that she opened up beneath him, somersaulted out of the way of her traps. He swatted aside her shards like flies, and even the ones that struck his skin did nothing but tear up wounds that healed in seconds. He advanced through Dara's assaults, one step closer at the time, and he was smiling.

It all lasted for a manner of seconds. Then he had reached her, and his hand snapped out and closed around her throat. Effortlessly, he lifted her off the floor. Dara struggled, trying to overcome the pain and the panic at not being able to breathe, trying to muster some kind of final defense.

"So much for the Philistine," He Who Comes said.

A group of Soldiers, with Rinabaar ad the lead, burst into the sanctum, swords drawn.

"In the name of the law, stand down!" Rinabaar bellowed.

He Who Comes unceremoniously dropped Dara to the floor and turned towards the new arrivals. Dara fought to get air through her maltreated windpipe and into her aching lungs. The sound of her trying to inhale was a ghastly rasp that was frightening to hear coming from anyone, especially yourself.

"Well, well," He Who Comes said. "More people to welcome me into the world. How nice."

"Jalon?" Aseena said. She pushed to the front of the group, taking a first wary step towards He Who Comes. Then she saw his face, and stopped. "Oh," she said hoarsely. "Not Jalon."

"He Who Comes," Dara rasped.

"Spread out!" Rinabaar ordered his men. "Flank him!"

The Soldiers fanned out, beginning to surround He Who Comes. The arch-demon watched them impassively, looking amused. And why not? The moment they attacked, he would rip them to shreds.

Aseena ran up to Dara and knelt down next to her.

"What are you doing?" she hissed. "Jalon..." She swallowed, the fact of what had happened to Jalon trying to break her composture. "Jalon told you that you couldn't defeat this by brute force! Did you have any sort of plan beyond hitting that thing with every scrap of Witch Stone you could get hold of?"

Dara bit her lip. She hadn't, no. She hadn't really had a plan at all, except to put her full effort into it and hope for the best. That hadn't worked against Mansuur, so she wasn't sure why she had thought it had had any chance of working here.

"What am I supposed to do, then?" she said.

"I don't know!" Aseena said. "Something brilliant!"

"Oh, right," Dara snapped. "Why didn't I think of that? I mean, apparently I'm supposed to ask the question that everyone should have..."

She paused.

"Dara?" Aseena said.

"Son of a bitch," Dara said. Her voice sounded oddly calm to her own ears. "It can't be that simple, can it?" She gave Aseena a wild look. "I mean... can it?"

Aseena just blinked.

Dara got to her feet. It hurt terribly to move, but she was beyond that now. She felt the old glee fill her again. She knew this moment. There always came one, at the end of every case. The moment when she stood up and explained everything, and everyone marveled at her genius. For years, she had lived for those moments.

She clapped her hands.

"May I have everyone's attention, please?" she said. She felt a wild grin on her face. "It will just take a moment. I'm going to explain how I'm going to destroy He Who Comes and save the Demesne."

"She's snapped," He Who Comes said sagely. "All the pressure has gotten to her, poor thing." He folded his arms. "Go ahead, by all means."

The Soldiers didn't relax their vigilance, but kept He Who Comes imprisoned in a circle of sharp steel. Nor did they attack, though. Rinabaar trusted her enough to give her the chance.

"I suppose I got carried away for a while there," Dara said. "I mean, it's got all sorts of machismo, coming in here to fight a battle I couldn't possibly win. It's exactly the kind of thing that would make a fine tragedy, in fact. So of course I shouldn't have done that. I should have stopped, taking a breath, and asked the question that everyone should have been asking all along."

She raised a finger.

"Why us?" she said. "Why do we get four hundred years of darkness? Why do we get macabre prophesies? Why do we get He Who Comes? There are many Demesnes. Why us? Why here?"

She looked around the room, on the corpses and the broken gargoyles and the Soldiers and the demon.

"Or to put it another way," she said, "what do we have that all those other Demesnes don't have?"

She raised her hands, and all around the room, pebbles of Witch Stone rattled across the floor, spelling out two words in letters six feet long.

WITCH STONE.

***

Aseena felt dead inside, as insensate as the bodies of the Unhallowed Sixty-Six cultists on the floor. Jalon was gone. Everyone always feared possession happening to a loved one, but no one genuinely expected it to actually happen. She was looking at the thing that had Jalon's face, that spoke with Jalon's voice, and tried to push through her brain the fact that it wasn't him anymore. He was gone. The fact that the demon might just kill her and everyone she had ever known felt almost trivial - the possession had just gotten into her head first and was now taking up all the room there.

In the distance, she heard a rumbling, like stone collapsing. She wondered, vaguely, what it was. Had the demons broken through the walls? Was there fighting on the streets now, with the witches of Shadowed Citadel Demesne turning the city itself against them in desperation?

"It's obvious when you think about it," Dara said. She seemed to feel no particular grief at the moment, and not any of the fear and self-doubt she had felt a moment ago either. She was deep in the throes of gloating intellectual superiority, enjoying every moment. Distantly, Aseena hated her a little for that. "Our ancestors settle down here, and open up quarries in the hills to build a few stone houses. Can't let the conjurers do all the work, there's only so many of them. And then it turns out that this stone that we dig up has special properties. Certain people have a gift that no one ever knew of before - they can make it move. And so, since it's awfully convenient to have people who can not only make the stone come loose from the hillside with a gesture, but can make it roll all the way into the valley and place itself at exactly the right part of the wall you're building, we start making all our buildings out of Witch Stone. We walk on it. We shelter under it. We raise city walls out of it. We live our entire lives surrounded by it. And then, after a few hundred years of that..." She snapped her fingers. "Boom! The lights go out. And we start getting prophesies. But by then, everyone are so used to Witch Stone that they don't even think to blame it. And so we adapt to the darkness, and life goes on."

"An interesting theory," He Who Comes said. "But what of it?"

The rumbling had grown louder now, and Aseena could feel the mansion trembling. She glanced at Rinabaar, but he seemed as nonplussed as she was.

"Wait, I'm not finished," Dara said. "Then, after the prophesies have simmered on for a few centuries, Mansuur kick-starts the final phase. Demons attacking. Rains of blood. And along come you. Born out of a Witch Stone cauldron, in the middle of a Witch Stone mansion, in the middle of a Witch Stone city."

"Yes," He Who Comes said. "Again I say, what of..."

He broke off and looked at his hand. Thick, red fumes were pouring off of it. The same kind of mist was starting to appear all over his body.

The whole floor was shaking now, and beginning to list dangerously to one side. Aseena fell to her knees, trying to hold on. The rumbling was deafening - it sounded like the earth itself was being gradually split apart.

"Witch Stone is what allows the power to gather," Dara said. "It concentrates it, keeps it from disbursing. Maybe if you got a few days, or hours, you'd stabilise enough that you didn't need it anymore. But right now, you're fresh out of the oven, aren't you?"

"Dara, what have you done?" Aseena gasped.

Dara gave her a wide, mad grin.

"I'm disintegrating every grain of Witch Stone I can reach," she said. "Starting at the edge of my range and working my way inwards. Remember that bit of nonsense we all kept repeating? The sky weeps blood, when he comes. The stone is dust, when he comes. The dark grows cold, when he comes. The city falls, when he comes. Two of those things are signs of his coming. One is what it will lead to if it isn't stopped. But the last... the last is the nagging little doubt, the one that always crept into all the prophesies. It's what might happen to stop it."

The walls collapsed. The ceiling came crashing down, but before it could crush anyone, it crumbled to dust, and then the dust itself became a fine mist that blew away in the wind that was suddenly blowing uninhibited through the room.

Aseena looked out over a scene of devestation. Here and there, there were still streets and houses - the ones that had been built from something other than Witch Stone. But entire mansion had been reduced, not to rubble, but to piles of furniture lying in heaps in what had previously been the basement, and some very surprised people struggling to their feet in the middle of it. Most of Ravenscar Hold was gone, too - all that was left was a crater filled with broken furniture and debris, and in the middle of it, a single thick pillar on which the sanctum floor rested.

He Who Comes sank to his knees. The red smoke was coming off of him so thick that Jalon's features were blurred.

"You can't do this!" he wailed. "We were promised - for four hundred years..."

"Yeah, well, tough!" Dara yelled. "I'm She Who Turns Up And Makes You Go Away Again! I know, I know, it's a horrible anticlimax, but sometimes that's what life is like!"

Great cracks were forming in the pillar. Each sound of stone breaking sounded like an insane laughter. Dara raised her hands to the sky.

"DAMN! I'M! GOOOOOOOOOOOD!" she bellowed.

And then the pillar crumbled to dust, and there was nothing but wind and tumbling and somewhere, close by, the death wail of a god.

Chapter eighteen: Showdown

baeraad — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:14:20 GMT

Name: Mansuur
Home: Ravenscar Hold
Caste: Mystic
Lifestyle: Ascetic
Character: Visionary
Tragic Flaw: Egotistical
Talents: Advanced Charm, Basic Discipline
Skills: Basic Fighting
Knowledge: Basic Administration, Basic Lore
Powers: Advanced Witchcraft

Chapter eighteen

Aseena had a burly man holding on to each of her arms. She doubted that she could do much about it - they were ready for her to try, and while they might be thick, they weren't complete idiots. She tried to fight back as best she could, kicking and squirming and tearing at her captors' grips, but it hadn't gotten her anywhere so far and she doubted that it would.

Jalon, by contrast, was trying diplomacy. He wasn't having any more luck.

"Just let her go," he told Mansuur. "What harm can it do? It will all be over soon, isn't that right? He Who Comes will, well, come, the whole city will fall, all will be death and damnation. You can let her have a few more hours of freedom before it all ends. It would be a tiny kindness that cost you nothing. Come now, what do you say?"

Mansuur just scowled. He didn't seem to be having a good day. He wasn't so much limping as staggering, as if every motion caused him considerable pain. His face was a little too tight, as well; he wore the expression of a man who was very carefully not moaning and whimpering for every step.

"Kindness is not one of my virtues," he snarled. "I would have thought you would have noticed by now. No, I am keeping her right here, and the only reason why I don't kill her outright is that it will be so much more well-deserved for her to die at the hands of He Who Comes. Now shut your mouth."

They were in Ravenscar Hold, that much Aseena had been able to make out while she was dragged from the wagon that had brought them here. The great mansion was brimming with activity - everywhere there were ecstatic-looking Nobles and harried-looking Servants bustling around, preparing for... whatever it was that that was going to happen.

"You two, lock her in a room," Mansuur said. "He Who Comes will know where to find her. Bring him to the sanctum."

"What? No!" Aseena renewed her struggles, managing to shove a knee into the back of one of her captors, making him stumble and let go of her. Before she could use her newly free hand, though, three other cultists threw themselves at her, wrestling her to the ground and pinning her arms behind her back. Aseena gave off a wordless scream of helpless anger and fear. She had thought that whatever was in store for them, they would face it together, but it seemed even that small comfort was denied her.

"UniGod damn you, Mansuur!" she growled. "You're not going to get away with this! Once Dara find out that we're gone, this is the first place she'll look! She'll pull the mansion down over your head!"

"I invite her to try!" Mansuur said. "Her I don't want to leave to He Who Comes - I want to take my revenge on her personally! And this time, she won't have you as a trick up her sleeve."

"No." Aseena raised her head, smirking savagely at him. "Won't it be interesting to see what trick she'll have up her sleeve this time, that she'll use to kick your ass all over again?"

For a moment, she thought that Mansuur would change his mind and just kill her on the spot - the look on his brutish face was pure murder. But then he snarled and turned away.

"Get on with it," he said and walked off, the people dragging Jalon trailing after him.

"Jalon, I love you!" she shouted desperately after them, and she thought she heard him answer. But Mansuur's goons dragged her off with growls and curses, and she couldn't hear the words.

***

Jalon found himself dragged into a large chamber deep within the mansion. It was full of people - dozens of them, most of them in fancy clothes and with important airs to them. Jalon guessed that they were Mansuur's inner circle - the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Unhallowed Sixty-Six. The walls were covered in frescoes of death and destruction, and in the middle of the floor, on a broad dais, a cauldron bubbled, filled with what Jalon's nose told him was almost definitely blood. Mansuur's followers dragged him towards it.

Once at the cauldron, they stopped. While the fumes were threatening to make Jalon gag, they tore off his clothes until he stood naked, shivering in the cold. He couldn't think - his mind was full of a million horrible thoughts about what they might be planning to do with him.

"Oh, don't look like you're about to start crying," Mansuur growled. "This is what you were born for. This is the destiny of your family - and mine."

"What?" Jalon said hoarsely. "To get myself killed so that you can summon your stupid demon prince?"

"Who said anything about killing you?" Mansuur said. "On the contrary, you will live forever. And the rest of us will live on in you." He raised his hands with a grimace of pain. "All hail the sacred vessel! All hail the flesh that will house the undying spirit of He Who Comes!"

"HE WHO COMES! HE WHO COMES! HE WHO COMES!" the people throughout the chamber chanted, their voices echoing between the Witch Stone walls. The brutes who had dragged him here forced Jalon towards the cauldron.

Jalon struggled uselessly. He wanted very much to wake up in his bed at Tenchurch Abbey, with Aseena sleeping peacefully next to him, and find that all of this had just been a horrible dream.

But strong hands were holding him, and forcing him over the edge of the cauldron. Scorching hot liquid turned his skin into living agony. He opened his mouth to scream, and boiling blood poured in. After that, there was only darkness and agony and somewhere, deep in the hellish black, something opened its eyes for the first time.

***

"HE WHO COMES! HE WHO COMES! HE WHO COMES!" the Chosen chanted. The cauldron was boiling, the body within it only a dark lump somewhere in its depths.

In the distance, the warning bells were sounding again. The demons were coming. This time they would keep coming until they overran the Demesne's defenses - the mental emissions of He Who Comes would drive them into a frenzy, forcing them to run straight into the swords of the Soldiers and the Demesne's own repellent aura, tearing themselves to pieces trying to get to him.

Mansuur allowed himself to relax a little. His body was still wracked with pain. The healer had closed his wounds for him, but it would have taken hours to dig the Witch Stone pebbles out without killing him - hours he hadn't had. Every time he moved, they sent bolts of agony through his flesh.

No matter. Soon, it would be time to abandon this feeble mortal form. He would ascend and live forever as part of He Who Comes.

"Friends!" he called. "My fellow Chosen! The time has come!"

There were cries of excitement and whimpers of fear alike from the crowd. Mansuur's hand-picked assistants - the ones he had found among the Chosen who had some kind of competence - began gathering up groups of the others, taking them to the cauldron one by one. There, they slit open the captive's throat, spilling some of his or her blood into the cauldron before throwing the dying body to the side and moving the next one into position.

Most of the Chosen waited their turn, fearfully or with passionate glee. Some had their courage desert them, and ran for the doors. Mansuur had anticipated that, though - the doors opened, and a flood of gargoyles poured in, snatching up the fleeing Chosen and dragging them to the cauldron as their turn came.

The ritual took a long while. There were not many of the true Chosen, all things considered, of the descendents of the Unhallowed Sixty-Six whose parents had taught them about their heritage and who had had the will to grasp it - perhaps a hundred, all in all. Still, each sacrifice had to be done just right, so that the Chosen's soul would pour out with the blood and become one with He Who Comes. It seemed like a long while that Mansuur had to keep standing, controlling the gargoyles and waiting for it to be done, for his own turn to come.

Finally, there was no one left but his own assistants. They were waiting proudly by the cauldron for him, as if expecting some sort of special ritual, but Mansuur had no patience for that. They were nothing special, after all, just slightly less worthless than the others - useful mainly as a sort of metaphysical filler, as something that would dilute his own essence until it could fill all of He Who Comes. He had his gargoyles kill them quickly and unceremoniously, and spilled some of their blood into the cauldron.

He walked through the carnage with weary steps, heading for the dais where his gargoyles were waiting with their sharp blades. It was time, now. Time to abandon humanity for something more. Time to achieve his destiny.

The mansion began to tremble. Cracks appeared in the walls and floor, and small parts of the wall shattered in miniature explosions, sending dust and rocks across the floor. Mansuur could feel the upset of Witch Stone all throughout Ravenscar Hold.

He could think of only one person who had the power to shake the whole mansion, and reason to come here tonight. Dara was here.

"Not yet..." Mansuur hissed. Too soon, too soon! It would take time for He Who Comes to arise - not much time, maybe half an hour, but if Dara made it to this room before then, she could shatter the cauldron and kill the thing in there before it had a chance to be born.

He wouldn't let that happen, of course. He would go out and kill her, and with great pleasure. But if He Who Comes arose while he was gone...

Then he would have missed his chance. The composite soul of He Who Comes would not include Masuur of Ravenscar Hold, caste of Mystics. Masuur of Ravenscar Hold, caste of Mystics, would just be one more human casualty as He Who Comes destroyed the Demesne.

He looked helplessly at the bubbling surface of the cauldron. His destiny. His birthright. He could enter it right now, but if he did, there would be no one to keep Dara back except for his guards, those hapless fools who believed that they would have part in the ascension even though any Unhallowed Sixty-Six blood in their veins was so polluted with unworthier strains as to be all but worthless. He didn't trust them to do so much as slow Dara down. She would come here, and find him helpless as an unhatched chick in its egg...

He had always known that the rise of the conquering demon King was inevitable. It was written into the very fabric of the Demesne - four hundred years of history led to this moment, and it would not be denied. But now, for the first time, a horrible thought occurred to Mansuur - the prophesies said that the ascension would happen. Nowhere did it say that Mansuur of Ravenscar Hold, caste of Mystics, would be part of it.

He growled. No! He had not come this far to let that bunch of worthless fools that he had used as his pawns get the reward while he was denied his part in it! He would go out, kill Dara, and be back in time to add his blood to the cauldron.

"You! Stay there!" he snarled at the cauldron before running off as quickly as his tortured body would carry him.

***

There was a throng of people at the gates of Ravenscar Hold. They were a more varied lot than Mansuur's usual crowd - there was a lot of finely dressed Nobles, but there were also a large number of liveried Servants and extravagantly garbed Artists. Hangers-on, Dara immediately guessed. Not part of the inner circle. The inner circle was off doing... whatever it was that Mansuur was doing that was supposed to bring all this to a climax.

"Soldiers of the Demesne!" Rinabaar bellowed. "Let us through, or we will use whatever force is necessary to force our way in!"

The crowd shouted their defiance, waving cudgels and knives.

"Non-lethal force if possible," Rinabaar told his troops. There were about a dozen of them, his usual lawkeepers as well as some people from the western wall who he had apparently bonded with during the battles there. Dara supposed that fighting desperate battles against demonic hordes made for some very quickly-forming camaraderie. "Lethal force if necessary. Forward!"

The Soldiers charged, while Dara hung back. She had her own fight to deal with. She muttered words beneath her breath, bending the Witch Stone of Ravenscar Hold to her will. Mansuur had turned her home against her. She would take great pleasure in doing the same to him.

She could feel the resistance to her witchcraft - feel a powerful will that could only be Mansuur opposing her, marshaling as many gargoyles as he could reach and gathering them to be his army. Dara didn't mind. She already had a firm grip of half a hundred gargoyles of her own, and she would take considerable satisfaction in making them wring Mansuur's neck. He thought he was stronger than her, did he? Let's see how much stronger he was when she was the one with the element of surprise!

The battle by the gate was over quickly. The defenders might have believed that they were destined for greatness, but that belief faltered quickly in the face of the Soldiers' discipline and sharp steel. The cultists died, or fled, or dropped their weapons and begged for mercy. Rinabaar's men rounded up the prisoners and left them under the care of two mildly wounded Soldiers before continuing their advance into the mansion.

Dara walked within a protective circle of Soldiers, focused on her own efforts. She could feel Mansuur's power building, focusing around her. She had to exert constant effort to keep the walls from closing around them in a crushing, stony grip. As they moved, gargoyles turned up alongside them, guided by Dara's power. They were horrific things, shaped into the likeness of mutilated bodies and horrific mutations. They felt slimy in Dara's mental grip, unclean, but she held on to them and directed them forward.

There were pockets of more human resistance along the way. Mansuur's faithful flunkies kept laying ambushes and launching sudden attacks, appearing out of side corridors and rooms while flailing around with knives and clubs. Rinabaar and his Soldiers, with help from Dara's gargoyles, fought them back every time, but each fight slowed them down. Dara didn't need anyone to tell her that the clock was ticking. The roar of bells around the city told her that clearly enough.

Finally, they arrived in a large hall. One end of it was filled with gargoyles - all the ones that Dara hadn't been able to take control of herself. Mansuur was standing in front of them, arms crossed, a scowl on his face.

"Get over here and die," he growled. "I'm on a schedule."

Dara look at Rinabaar.

"You boys had better stay out of this," she said. "It's going to be messy, and you won't be able to help."

"Will you be all right?" Rinabaar said.

"I don't know that I won't be all right," Dara said. "I think that's about as much as I can offer right now. Go. Find Jalon. Find Aseena."

I love you, she wanted to add, but of course she didn't, not really. It took more than a long-running harmonious professional relationship followed by one really great evening together to create something as solid as love. What she had was a warm, fluttering spark in her chest - an ember that might or might not become a steadily burning fire in time. And time was something they didn't have.

"Be careful," she said instead.

"You too," Rinabaar said. He gave some quick orders to his troops, and they retreated in good order down the corridor they had come through.

Dara stepped out into the hall. Her gargoyles fanned out behind her. Their heavy steps sounded very loud in the silence.

"So here we are again," she said. "Here's the plan - I kill you really, really dead, and this all goes away. Sounds good?"

"Is that what you think?" Mansuur made a disgusted face. "Killing me won't stop a thing."

Well, that's a shame, Dara thought. She had had high hopes for that one. She supposed she'd just have to play this one by ear.

"Are you seriously trying to tell me that you're not important?" she said. "You'd gladly die for the cause, because it's much bigger than you, yadi yadi yadda?"

"What? No. Don't be an idiot." Mansuur shook his head. "I'm the most important person in the history of the Demesne. I am the only one who truly deserves the glorious destiny that was promised to the Unhallowed Sixty-Six. For me to die now, after being the one who made all of this possible, would be a monstrous, horrific injustice. I'm simply pointing out that you won't actually be able to stop He Who Comes from rising by killing me."

"Well, isn't that interesting?" Dara said. "You're not planning on dying in some grand gesture of nihilism after all, are you? This ascension of yours is something else. Mind telling me what?"

"Would it make you feel better to die with your curiosity satisfied?" Mansuur said.

"Well." Dara shrugged. "I never could stand an unanswered question."

"Then I will take great pleasure in making you die in ignorance!" Mansuur snapped. He threw his hands forward, and the gargoyle horde poured forth.

There was a thought here, Dara knew, a flash of inspiration waiting for her to grasp it. It had something to do with Jalon being the heir of all four Unhallowed Sixty-Six bloodlines that Aseena had explored, and a question flickered in her mind - All of them? All Sixty-Six? - thought she couldn't say why it seemed so important. There was no time to explore her sudden intuition, to coax reason and sense from it. Instead, she sent her own gargoyle army forward.

The gargoyle forces collided in the middle of the hall, two unstoppable avalanches of Witch Stone meeting in a cacophony of breaking rock and a cloud of sparks and stone shards. Dara chanted the strongest words she knew, forcing her army forward, slamming at Mansuur's gargoyles with heavy stone limbs that sent them reeling with cracks spreading across their bodies.

Mansuur fought back. His gargoyles weren't pouring forward - they arranged themselves into a rough rectangle, protecting each others' flanks, and meeting the onslaught of Dara's forces with a steady, measured advance of their own. The ones that fell were quickly replaced by others stepping forward from the back ranks, and the line held.

Dara fought with every scrap of power and cunning she had. Not content to simply command her gargoyles into action, she split the floor beneath Mansuur's feet, loosened great rocks from the ceiling to rain down on him. Where her gargoyles fell, broken apart by Mansuur's attacks, she brought the pieces back together and sent their resurrected forms back into the fray. She couldn't afford to lose, not this time.

But she did.

Mansuur wasn't just a witch. In his own way, he was a warrior - he knew how to fight, and how to organise a group of fighters into a cohesive force. Dara's brutish assault met with a calculated strategy that wore it down, sapped away her forces, her time, her strength, her concentration. And in the end, he had been right - he really was stronger than her. Not much, but a little. Enough for it to count.

Her army broke apart, shattering into small groups that kept fighting as they were overwhelmed by better-organised, numerically superior attackers. A crude gargoyle rose from the floor next to Dara, and before she had time to take control over it, it had slammed its fist into the side of her chest, sending her tumbling to the floor with a hot, roaring pain erupting through her abdomen. She looked up from the floor to see Mansuur striding over to her, flanked by two burly gargoyles.

"Now do you see?" he snarled. "I am your better. You could never defeat me."

Dara started to laugh, but it turned into a whimpering cough as her mistreated rib objected. She took a few quick, shallow breath and tried to steady herself. All right. Note to self. Don't do that again.

She raised her eyes to Mansuur.

"Yes," she gasped. "You're right. I can't defeat you with witchcraft this time either. So I'm just going to have to defeat you with my superior attention to detail again."

"Meaning what?" Mansuur said.

"Meaning," Dara said, "that the way you move show that you're in pain. And while it's very faint, I can feel the Witch Stone shards inside of you, right where I left them."

Mansuur reacted quickly. His gargoyles lumbered forward, intent on crushing her. At the same time, he tried to take a firm grip on the shards lodged within his flesh, to keep Dara from making them move.

It was a fool's errand, of course. No matter how tightly he held on to them, he couldn't stop her from moving them just a little, maybe half an inch - and sharp pieces of stone moving half an inch through your sensitive tissues made it very hard to concentrate. Mansuur screamed, and his grip on the gargoyles weakened, letting Dara pick up the reins.

Two huge stone fists slammed forth, striking opposite sides of Mansuur's skull. Dara felt a hot spray on her face as blood and worse things splattered her.

Then it was quiet. All the gargoyles had stopped moving.

Dara began walking, wincing at every step. She felt dizzy, like she was going into shock. But whatever Mansuur had most wanted to protect must be through here. And that was where she had to go.

She stepped into the corridor, and then her legs folded, and she fell, down onto the pale Witch Stone floor.

***

And that had been then. And now it was now.

"Dara," the thing that looked like Jalon said again.

Dara moistened her suddenly parched lips.

"He Who Comes," she said.

Chapter seventeen: Warmth

baeraad — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:37:28 GMT

80 words to go!

(oh, and I promise that this steamy love scene won't end with a nasty surprise that replaces the Sexy with Creepy in a flash. Honestly it won't. You trust me, don't you? :D )

Chapter seventeen

They left the restaurant arm in arm, much as they had entered. Something was different now, though. Different in the way she was leaning slightly against Rinabaar, just close enough to feel his solid presence there. Different in the way their hips touched together every couple of steps. Different in how her heart was pounding.

Things had, somehow, someway, gone well. They had talked throughout the meal, and she had told him things she hadn't thought about in years. About her childhood. About how her mother had had something of her gift for awareness. About school - about the joy she had felt in learning, mingled with the pain of driving people away more the older she got. About her triumphs, the cases she had solved, so many cases, until she had enough of a reputation that she was allowed to close herself away from the world. She had told him, and while telling him, she had seen her own life all over again. At some points, it had even seemed to make sense.

They had talked about simpler things, too. About food. About the opera. About which Nobles had good policies, and which ones were clearly fools. About people they had met, and stories they had heard.

She wasn't sure that she had been charming - in fact, she was pretty sure she hadn't been. She wasn't sure that she had been interesting. But somehow, she had actually gotten through it, and it hadn't been a disaster. Dara of Sablecrest Manor, caste of Mystics, could actually go on a date and not have it be a complete disaster. Now there was a surprising fact to learn.

But it did raise the question of, now what?

They got into her carriage. Dara sat down in the plush seat, regretting that it was too wide for them to have to sit very close to one another. She managed to distract herself momentarily by giving the gargoyle horses their orders, but once they started moving she had to think again.

She felt like she could feel the potion she had taken running through her blood stream, taunting her with its existence, with the reason why she had drunk it. Just to be safe, she had told herself. Just in case. No harm in being prepared for anything. Except it turned out that when you were prepared, it seemed like such a waste to not do anything.

But that was stupid. Surely. This had gone much better than she had thought. There was no sense in ruining it by overreaching. She should count her blessings, accept this as a victory, continue spending time with Rinabaar and see what that might lead to at some point in the future.

Of course, according to Jalon, they just might not have any future...

Rinabaar rubbed his arms.

"The chill is growing more fierce," he said. "It's odd, at this time of year..."

Funny that you should mention it, because I happen to have some ideas for how we might keep warm... No!

"I think it might be another effect of the whole doomsday thing," Dara said. "Apparently one thing that happens when we get closer to... whatever is going to go down is that 'the dark grows cold.' It's not as dramatic as a rain of blood, but it'll become even more of a bother if it keeps up."

Rinabaar looked out the window.

"I suppose I have always known that it could all disappear in a flash," he said. "You can't be a Soldier and not be keenly aware of what a fragile thing a Demesne is, and how terrible the forces arrayed against us are. But it is sobering to know that it might be so close."

You know, if this is actually our last night on Earth, don't you think we should... NO!

She pinched the bridge of her nose. God, what was wrong with her? Did she just love to make herself miserable? Most of this stupid fretting was probably just caused by having taken that potion and feeling like it would make her pathetic if she didn't do anything about it. Did she even actually want anything to happen?

She paused and examined her mental - and physical - state. Her mind was a red-hot thing where surprisingly intense thoughts and images kept flashing through. Her skin felt like it was on fire, every inch of it begging to be touched. Her sparse dress was a solid sheathe of agony surrounding her, her entire body demanding to be free of it and pressed up against Rinabaar. Yes. Yes, she really, really wanted something to happen.

But it's not going to, she told herself. Not tonight. So you're going to be a grownup about this. You're going to accept that when dealing with real people instead of gargoyles, you don't get everything the moment you want it. You're going to be centered and focused and at peace, just like you apparently need to be to save the Demesne.

"Well, if it is," she said, smiling wearily, "I'm glad that we had this evening. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed anything this much - definitely not anything that involved dealing with other people. Thank you."

"It was my pleasure." Rinabaar slowly leaned over to her. He moved slowly and deliberately, and kept his eyes carefully on her face, as if watching for something there. A half-formed thought shot through Dara's head - oh God oh God I think he's going to - and then he was kissing her.

It was a slow, gentle kiss, just the firm press of his lips against hers. She felt his beard tickle her face, felt the tip of his tongue lightly touching her closed lips. He put his hand on her cheek, large and warm and calloused.

After a moment, he pulled back again, still watching her intently. Dara realised that he was looking for signs of what she was feeling, of what she wanted.

"Don't stop," she said, not wanting to leave it to chance. "More. I want more."

Rinabaar smiled and moved closer on the seat, putting his arms around her. Dara felt dizzy. His arms were as stony as a gargoyle's, but they yielded softly whenever she moved against them; he was so strong, but he was touching her so gently. He kissed her again, and she kissed back, with a desperate lack of experience but with great reserves of enthusiasm. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself against his broad chest. He smelled of fine cologne, of starched uniform jackets, and with a faint, pleasantly musky scent beneath it.

It wasn't neat or comfortable. There was a tangle of arms and legs and spine-hurting contortions as they clumsily tried to adjust to each other's increasingly frantic embraces and caresses. Dara was beyond caring, though. If the door had opened and they had fallen out onto the frozen street, she didn't think that would have made her pause for a moment.

With a growl, she fumbled with the straps of her dress, managing through some miracle to pull it down to her waist without tearing it.

"You like them, huh?" she said, short on breath. "Well, here they are."

Rinabaar's warm, strong hands closed around her breasts, his calloused thumbs rubbing her stiff nipples. She felt a sting of fear mixed in with the whirlwind of lust that was filling her mind - those parts of her were so soft and sensitive, and Rinabaar could hurt her so easily with those big, powerful hands. But of course he didn't. In fact, part of her mind was screaming for him to be much, much rougher, as if pain and pleasure had lost all distinction and she was just aching for sensation.

She fumbled with the buttons of his shirt as they kept kissing, trying to resist the urge to just tear them off - some lingering sanity told her that he would probably find it very embarrassing to turn up at the garrison with his uniform in tatters.

"We will arrive at the garrison before long," he said. His voice was steady, but his breathing was as heavy as hers. "People will wonder if we do not step out."

"Shit. Yes. Wait." Dara squeezed her eyes shut and tried to concentrate. With far more effort than it should have taken, she told the gargoyle horses to circle around the block for now. "All right, now we have time. Get naked."

"Yes, ma'am!" Rinabaar said, as if she had been a superior officer. He got up - he wasn't capable of standing straight inside the carriage, and so ended up in a sort of stooped crouch - and quickly began removing his uniform, piece by piece.

Dara's already half-removed dress was much easier to be rid of - she just pulled it down from her waist and kicked it away. She was dimly aware that the air was very cold, but right now she seemed to be burning like a furnace, and no cold in the world could bother her. It was more troublesome that the pause gave her a chance to think, and therefore to second-guess herself.

Are we really doing this? she thought. Is this right? Is this smart? Will I regret this?

Then they passed a streetlight, and she got a glimpse of Rinabaar's nude form. He looked like a young god. His whole body was swelling with powerful muscles, each of them honed to merciless perfection in the Demesne's service. The vision of supreme manhood was offset by the fact that he was hairless as a child beneath the neck - it took Dara a moment to realise that he had to wax every inch of his body, that he would no more allow hair to grow wild on his skin than he would allow his uniform bottons to go unpolished.

She could also say with certainty, now, that every single part of Rinabaar was as impressively well-developed.

Hell with it, she thought. What's the point of having the end of the world as we know it if you can't do something stupid and rash just because you want to?

She lay down on on the seat. It was a little too short to really spread out on, and it would be even worse for Rinabaar, but needs must. She lifted her hand and beckoned for Rinabaar to join her in what she hoped was a seductive way.

He slowly, carefully lay down on top of her, arranging his body after hers. His skin was rough and wonderfully warm, and the muscles beneath it were... she wanted to say like living stone, but she knew all about living stone, and it was never as complex as this, as yielding and changing even when it was locked tight, as filled with potential. He propped himself up on his arms, taking most of the weight of his torso off of her - if he hadn't, she realised, the press of his body would have all but crushed her.

Rinabaar began kissing her again, and she kissed back while straining up from the seat, wanting to rub her entire naked body against his. She reached down, fumbling, and closed her hand around that strange, interesting thing between his legs. It was as hard as the rest of him, and she could feel his quickened pulse in it. She squeezed it, a bit nervously - she wasn't sure how much force you could apply on this part of a guy before you hurt him - and Rinabaar groaned with obvious pleasure. Encouraged, she began to rub and caress it. The thought crossed her mind that she had Rinabaar's full attention in her hand now, and made her want to giggle hysterically.

Before long, she found that she wanted more - had to have more, or she thought her brain might just disintegrate from pure, overheated desire. She put her hands on Rinabaar's slender hips and spread her legs as far as she could given her somewhat awkward perch on the seat. She wondered if she was supposed to say something. She wasn't any good at etiquette at the best of times, and if there was a socially acceptable way of telling your male companion that you wanted him to stick it to you right the hell now, she had never heard of it.

Rinabaar seemed to get the idea anyway. He shifted his weight to rest mostly on one of his elbows, and placed the other between her legs, She shuddered as she felt one of his fingers enter her, just up to the first digit. He gave her a careful look.

"Yes?" he mumbled.

She nodded quickly. Yes, yes, damn it, YES.

He adjusted himself down there, and then slowly pushed forward, entering her inch by inch until their hips were firmly pressed together. Dara gave off an inadvertent sound, less of pain than of shock. She was as ready as a woman could be, but he was nevertheless very large, filling her so completely that it almost hurt.

He began moving, gently, carefully, sliding back and forth through her. At first, she couldn't move, but just lay there and tried to get her mind to accept that this was happening. Two days ago, she had been talking to Rinabaar about a case, pleasantly though uncomfortably aware of how good he looked in his uniform. Now the uniform was gone, it turned out that he looked very good without it too, they were pressed up against each other and he was inside of her. Her life was really moving disturbingly quickly at the moment, though this aspect of it had the benefit of feeling good. Really good. Amazingly good.

Rinabaar grew more confident as he went along - Dara realised that he was testing his way, learning how far he could go and how much force he could use without causing her pain. Dara found it easier to relax, as well, once she began to accept that it wasn't suddenly going to start hurting, and soon she was clumsily pumping her hips against his, trying to match his thrusts. She began to feel the strain in the muscles of her stomach and thighs - the unfamiliar exertion was taking its toll - but she couldn't have stopped if she had wanted to. Her body was in the full throes of mating frenzy, and her mind was just along for the ride.

She flung her arms around Rinabaar, enjoying how hard and strong his back was, how solid his chest was. His face was close to hers, and his expression wasn't carefully neutral as it usually was - it was naked with exhaustion and desire, and his warm brown eyes were wide and vulnerable as they looked into hers. He was strong, he was good to her, and he was right here with her, and that made her feel something that was deeper than lust but far more primal than love.

Their movements grew more frantic, and a feeling like light began to grow between Dara's legs. She had time to think oh oh I'm going to before it erupted, sending thrills of pleasure throughout her whole body, all the way out into the tips of her toes. She screamed a long string of unladylike words and dug her nails into Rinabaar's back so hard that her fingers went numb.

Rinabaar wasn't far behind - mere seconds later, he shuddered and she felt... something... happen down there before he slowly relaxed. For a moment, he lay over her, panting, though still carefully supporting his weight on his elbows. Then he carefully rolled, taking her with him, so that they lay side by side on the seat, with Dara pressed against the back of it.

For a while, there was no sound but the hoof beats and the rumble of the carriage's wheels.

"May I ask something that is quite private?" Rinabaar said quietly.

"Not sure I have all that much privacy left to hold on to..." Dara mumbled.

"Was this your first time?"

Dara grimaced.

"Not exactly," she said. "But near enough." She sighed. "There was once or twice, back in school. Before I had finished driving everyone away. Before I had finished deciding that I was happier the less I had to do with other people." She shrugged with her one free shoulder. "I'm sorry I wasn't any good at it."

"It was wonderful," Rinabaar assured her. He kissed her. "You are wonderful."

Awkwardly, Dara snuggled closer to him. She felt oddly shy now that the berserker lust had passed, wondering just what she was doing with her clothes off in company. In another way, though, it felt almost natural. Why should you wear clothes together with someone who you wanted to be as close to as humanly possible, anyway?

"Much as I want to see if I might get better with lots and lots of practice," she mumbled, "I think we should get you back to the garrison." She tried to look over the formidable wall formed by Rinabaar's broad shoulders. "Also, did you happen to see where my dress went?"

***

After much rummaging around for articles of clothing and some awkward maneuvers to put it all back on within a cramped, bumpy space, they were both decent again by the time they got to the garrison. Given how things seemed to work lately, Dara was unnervingly sure that anyone who took a look at her would know exactly what she had done. Angrily, she resolved not to care. It was a free Demesne, and she could despoil handsome Majors if she wanted to!

A woman came running towards them as they walked towards the garrison entrance, her long, white garment flowing around her. Dara recognised Aseena's Priest friend, Kim.

"He took them!" the Priest gasped when she came closer. "You have to do something! I told people here, but they just said that the demons are advancing on the city and that they have their hands full!"

"What? Who?" Dara said. She felt a chill which was more than the freezing cold that was descending over the city.

"Mansuur." Kim squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her forehead, trying to steady herself. "It was Mansuur. He showed up with some other people. They took Aseena and Jalon." She gave Dara a haunted look. "I couldn't stop him! He threatened the children!"

"Oh, shit." Dara felt oddly detached from the whole thing - the full weight of it hadn't crashed down on her yet. All she could think was that this was just typical. You took a tiny break, and while your back was turned your work just piled up...

"We will get them back, ma'am," Rinabaar said. "I'll get a squad together."

"Make it two," Dara said. "Mansuur's goons aren't that good at fighting, but there are a lot of them."

Rinabaar nodded and headed into the garrison at a brisk run.

"We will get them back," Dara told Kim, helpless to think of anything else to say.

Her mind was starting to move, processing the situation. The first thing that came to mind was that this was strange. Mansuur had taken the time to go out and kidnap Jalon. He had also taken pains to keep Jalon ignorant but unharmed - collapsing a street to keep Aseena from him but leaving the part that Jalon had stood on intact, refraining from tearing down all of Sablecrest Manor over Jalon and Dara when he had the chance, even though it meant leaving the only possible threat to his plans alive.

What makes Jalon so important? Dara thought. He is part of the Unhallowed Sixty-Six, sure, but so are plenty of other people. What makes him so special to Mansuur?

"There is something else," Kim said. "Jalon whispered something in my ear before Mansuur dragged him out of Lordshaven Hall. A message for you."

"Yes?" Dara said.

"He said you have to ask the question that everyone should have been asking right from the start," Kim said.

"Meaning what?" Dara said.

Kim shrugged morosely.

"I doubt he knew himself. But he made it sound like it was the most important thing in the world."

Dara nodded silently. She felt cold. She felt numb.

Fine, then, she thought. Back to work.

Chapter sixteen: Conversation

baeraad — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:31:12 GMT

More stats! Because there's two days left, I'm behind schedule, and I need something to take the edge off! ^_^;

Name: Rinabaar
Home: Twotower Lodge
Caste: Soldier
Lifestyle: Hedonist
Character: Dutiful
Tragic Flaw: Self-Loathing
Talents: Basic Athletics, Advanced Discipline
Skills: Basic Fighting
Knowledge: Poor Administration

Name: Jalon
Home: Tenchurch Abbey
Caste: Artist
Lifestyle: Hedonist
Character: Cheerful
Tragic Flaw: Doomed
Talents: Basic Athletics, Basic Charm, Poor Perception
Skills: Advanced Entertain
Knowledge:

Also, I looked around for actors that I would cast in the roles of my main characters. Behold: Dara, Rinabaar, Mansuur, Jalon and Aseena. :D

Chapter sixteen

Dara swept her fur-clad cloak closer around herself. It was getting disturbingly cold. Rimfrost was forming on the streets and walls. They were still stained with the rain of blood from this morning, and the effect of the rusty-red beneath the thin sheet of pale crystal was unnerving.

"The dark grows cold, when he comes..." she mumbled.

"Mystic?" Rinabaar said. "Is something the matter?"

Dara looked up at him, smiling shakily. He had cleaned up, combed his hair back into its normal pristine order, and changed into a dress uniform. She felt almost shy to look at him. She had always studied his appearance and tried to extrapolate his form beneath his clothes, but now he would know that she was doing it.

An interesting though unnerving question occurred - did that mean that he was undressing her in his head, as well? Damn it, how was this supposed to work?

"If we're not here on business," she said, "you should just be calling me Dara, shouldn't you?"

"Of course. Dara. Forgive me." He smiled faintly back.

He hooked his arm with hers - apparently that was standard practice enough that he was perfectly comfortable with it - and they walked into the restaurant. It was located in a large, well-lit house, containing several levels of fancy chairs and tables, lit by candlelight to create a discreet, romantic atmosphere. The walls were decorated with suits of armour, ancient weapons, banners and paintings of famous battles. The military air was, Dara supposed, entirely intentional - this was, after all, a place for Soldiers and for people who had decided that they liked, if nothing else, one particular Soldier.

"Major Rinabaar, and companion," Rinabaar told the smartly dressed Servant at the entrance.

"Of course, of course." The man bowed. "We have prepared one of our very best tables. I hope you will enjoy your meal. We have been given two extra chefs on a temporary basis, both of them highly renowned. Nothing is too good for our brave Soldiers when they are risking their lives to keep us safe."

They were led to a table for two. Rinabaar pulled out Dara's chair for her before sitting down himself, which made her feel odd - she was used to having others do everything for her, but those others tended to be made of stone.

She tried to gather herself together while they waited for their food to arrive. Come on, she thought, you can do this. Just talk. About something other than the case, preferably. You've seen how normal people do this, just imitate them or something.

"So, er," she said. "Where did you grow up?"

"In Twotower Lodge," Rinabaar said. "I'm afraid I have never been a very... mobile sort of person. I was born there, and all else being equal, I am entirely happy to die there. And of course, most of my family lives there. Though I admit, what with work sending me all over the city, I don't visit as often as I'd like anymore."

"Do you get along with your parents?" Dara said.

"Certainly," Rinabaar said. "They are good people. My father is a Colonel in the staff of the Lord Minister of Safety, and my mother is a drill Sergeant at the Steepcliff Garrison. They raised me to understand the value of propriety and loyal service to others. I make sure to write to them every week that I am away from home."

I bet you do, Dara thought, amused. Of course Rinabaar would be close to his parents. She had long since guessed that he was a man who fully approved of how he had been brought up.

"Do you have siblings?" she said.

"I have an older brother," Rinabaar said. "He did not, much to my parents' distress, join the caste of Soldiers. He is a Servant, though a very good one - he has been in charge of the cleaning staff in Twotower Lodge for the last ten years."

Dara went through the exchange of snappy questions and brisk answers in her head and found it eerily familiar. She groaned and facepalmed.

"I am not making small talk, am I?" she said in a suffering tone of voice. "I'm interrogating you."

"There does appear to be some similarities in technique..." Rinabaar admitted.

"I'm sorry." Dara sighed. "I think it's as close to conversation as I ever come." She grimaced. "I suck at this."

"I do, too," Rinabaar said gently. "I never did manage to master any kind of social exchange that did not follow... strict rules of etiquette. I am good at rules. I thrive on rules. But where there are no rules, I am lost."

"Heh." Dara smiled weakly. "Usually, there are rules, even if you can't see them at first glance. You just have to look closer." She considered. "Maybe I started out wrong. We can't get through this by trying to be normal. We're neither one of us normal. We can't follow the normal rules. What is the Dara-and-Rinabaar rules?"

Rinabaar scratched his beard.

"Frank exchange of information?" he suggested. "That does seem to be what got us to this point..."

Dara leaned back in her chair.

"All right, how about this?" she said. "Forget about the practical details of our lives. How about we ask what we'd really like to know? And no weaseling out of each other's questions."

The corners of Rinabaar's mouth twitched.

"Daring," he said. "I like it. Ladies first."

Dara gave him a long gaze.

"You like me, it turns out," she said. "Why?"

Rinabaar blinked.

"How could I not?" he said. "You walk onto a crime scene, and within five seconds you have started unraveling a mystery that had me and all the clever people I work with scratching our heads. You know things, at a glance, that others fail to see no matter how long they stare. You speak without the slightest hesitation or fear to powerful and dangerous people. You seek out the truth without regard for your own safety. You are a power. A force for good. Who could remain unaffected?"

Dara stared. Rinabaar looked back, appearing nothing but sincere - even a little surprised that she had had to ask.

"That's what you think I'm like?" she said.

"That's what I know you are like," Rinabaar said. "I may lack your supreme perception, but I can see the facts and the testimony of my senses and put them together into a coherent whole, especially when all of them are in such complete agreement."

Dara realised that she was entirely lost for words. She tried to superimpose Rinabaar's picture of a fearless, dashing champion of right and good over her own self-image, but it just wouldn't fit. And at the same time, Rinabaar seemed so completely confident that it was hard to contradict him. She felt oddly warm inside.

"This surprises you," Rinabaar said. "Why?"

Dara bit her lip. But this had been her idea, hadn't it?

"Because that's not how I see myself at all," she said. "I'm not some valiant crusader. I just solve problems. It's all I do - it's my entire life, fitting together puzzles. The only reason why I'm useful is that it turned out that the Demesne had need of someone who was very good at solving problems. When I get called in on a case, I come, and I look, and I figure out what has happened and why, because that's... that's all I am. If I do any good, that's a side effect. A byproduct of my compulsions."

She listened to her own voice ranting away with a sinking feeling inside. She was blowing it. Rinabaar had seen something he thought he liked, and she was mercilessly telling him that it was a lie.

"I do not believe that that is true," Rinabaar said.

"Why not?" Dara said.

"Because if you honestly did not care about anything but following your... 'compulsions,'" Rinabaar said, "you would not care about not caring. And if you did not, you would not have sounded so sad just now."

Dara laughed, mostly of surprise, and looked down on her lap.

"I always... appreciated... how logical you were," she said. She glanced up, smiling weakly. "So I'm a great big hero, am I?"

"Yes," Rinabaar said simply. "If you could see the evidence from an outside perspective, you would agree with my assessment."

"Heh." Dara chuckled, in spite of herself. "I guess we'd better hope you're right. According to Jalon, I'm supposed to save the Demesne. Apparently it's my destiny."

"The Demesne does seem to need saving," Rinabaar said. "How will you go about it?"

Dara gave him a suspicious glance.

"Are you making fun of me?"

"I am entirely serious," Rinabaar said. He did look it, Dara had to admit, though of course he always looked like that. "Demon armies. Rains of blood. The government in upheaval. A rogue witch of supreme power. I must admit that I am concerned. If you have an idea for how to bring about a peaceful resolution to it all, I will be most relieved."

"Stop Mansuur, I suppose," Dara said with a shrug. "He seems to be the one who started it all. If I can shut down his stupid cult, then I think that everything else will calm down on its own." She sighed. "Assuming, of course, that there is any stopping it now. To hear Mansuur talk about it, it's all inevitable. Jalon says that maybe it isn't, but even he isn't sure..." She shook her head. "Ugh. Sorry. I'm not being a very fun date."

"But certainly an unusual and interesting one," Rinabaar said. "If you need to talk about this, I would be honoured to lend you an ear."

Dara hesitated. This was wrong. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. She might not date much, but she knew there were all sorts of rules, and she was breaking all of them.

But then, maybe every couple had their own rules. Maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to experiment a little. And anyway, she did need to talk.

"Jalon says..." she said. "He says that the only way I can pull this off is if I'm at my peak. If I'm... pure at heart, or something. Focused. At peace." She grimaced. "And the thing is, I have never in my life felt as lost as I do now."

Rinabaar nodded silently.

"I mean, it's not entirely a bad thing," Dara said. "For the first time in years, I feel like maybe I could be... I don't know. More. Not just the weird lady who lives along in a mansion and talks to her gargoyles. Like I could be someone else. Like I don't have as many limits as I always thought I had."

She looked away, ill at ease.

"But I'm used to knowing who I am, and now I don't," she said. "All right, so I'm not the eccentric who lives alone and only ventures out to look at dead bodies. But who am I then? It could be anyone. It could be a hero, or a thug. A friend, or a murderer. A saviour, or a bad joke." She shook her head. "If the fate of the Demesne rests on me being centered and secure in my identity, then we're all royally screwed."

"You still seem as yourself to me," Rinabaar said.

Dara snorted.

"I'm not sure if I take comfort in that or not," she said. "It'd mean that not only do I feel lost and confused, but I haven't even actually changed. I'm the same freak I always was, it's just that now I don't even have the courage of my convictions."

"No. You misunderstand." Rinabaar gave her a direct look. "I understand that you are re-examining your life. People do that on occasion. I believe that it is healthy. But fundamentally, we remain the same. The things that genuinely makes you who you are are unlikely to be re-examined, because they are so integral to you that you are barely even aware of them. In your case, you remain Dara of Sablecrest Manor, caste of Mystics. You remain brilliant and powerful. You remain a force for truth and justice in the world. These things have not changed, nor do I believe they can change. All the things that you perceive to be in flux were weaker constructs, built on that rock-solid foundation."

Dara stared at him for a moment. Then she laughed. She was surprised at the sound - it sounded light and happy and far younger than she felt.

"For someone who doesn't talk much," she said, "you have a way with words when you do decide to talk."

"I like to believe that I think carefully before speaking," Rinabaar said modestly.

The waiter arrived with two steaming plates. Dara gratefully dug into her lightly fried fish in its subtle white sauce. She could have eaten a horse, at this point. Rinabaar, she noticed, had ordered some kind of mix of fresh vegetables and meat so rare that you almost expected it to moo.

"I guess you have to maintain a pretty careful diet," Dara said. "You know, to maintain..." She lifted her arms, making a show of flexing her muscles. She was already starting to wonder if this remark had been a mistake. Possibly it wasn't Done to remark on your dinner companion's body before dessert, or something.

"Indeed," Rinabaar said, unruffled as always. "A Soldier must keep himself in the best shape possible." He paused. "No - that is perhaps too broad. There are men and women in the officer corps who rarely command from the battlefield anymore, but are brilliant strategists and administrators. Many of them have let themselves grow plump in their middle age, and I think no less of them for it. They serve the Demesne well. However, I fear that I am not so mentally gifted. I perform a merely adequate work of keeping my small investigative force functioning smoothly, and the few times I have been given larger commands I have proven... unremarkable, shall we say. But I do happen to have a very large and potentially powerful frame. I was born to battle on the walls, so that gentler folk can sleep easily in their beds. So that is the duty I must seek to excel at."

Dara raised an eyebrow.

"'Gentler' folk?" she said. "Oh, come on. You are one of the gentlest people I have ever met."

Rinabaar was silent for a moment.

"You have seen me covered in blood, bellowing like an ox, carving my way through a pack of demons," he said. "Please understand me. I would never doubt your sincerity. But I do not understand how you can hold the opinion of me that you apparently do."

"What?" Dara shook her head in amused disbelief. "You think because you fight, you're disqualified to be a gentleman? Oh, come on. There is an actual phrase, 'an officer and a gentleman,' which describes you."

"Well, obviously I try my best to mitigate the damage," Rinabaar said. "I am gratified that I am successful. But at last analysis, I am a great hulking monster of a man, fit only for the most brutish of tasks."

Dara laughed sadly.

"So we both hate ourselves," she said.

"I don't hate myself," Rinabaar protested mildly. "I am merely aware of my aptitudes and limitations." He was silent for a moment. "And you shouldn't," he added quietly.

Dara ignored that last part - it was too much to deal with all at once.

"Let me tell you something, Rinabaar," she said. "You say, 'a great hulking monster of a man.' I say, 'a spectacular, magnificent physique that leaves me weak in the knees.'" She plowed on, determined that if she was going to make an ass of herself, she might as well do it properly. "And then I say, 'oh God yes, cut me a slice of that!' So less of the self-depreciating, all right?"

Rinabaar smiled at her, almost shyly, clearly at a loss for words. His expression was less carefully guarded than usual, in this moment, and she caught a glimpse of what was going through his head. It gave her a strange, warm feeling inside. Knowing that her attention and interest meant something to a man was such an unfamiliar sensation.

"You... you are very beautiful, also," he finally managed.

"Oh, come on," Dara said. She leaned forward on her elbows, grinning wryly. "I just said something completely and utterly inappropriate. If you don't return the favour, I'm going to feel stupid. It would be very ungentlemanlike of you to let that happen."

Rinabaar struggled with himself for a moment.

"I have been aware of your strength and intelligence for some time..." he said.

"That's not inappropriate," Dara said. "I want inappropriate."

"Be patient," Rinabaar said. "I have been aware of your inner qualities for a long time. However, not until yesterday, when I first saw you in a dress like the one you are wearing now, did I find out that in addition to being brilliant and magnificent, you also have a pair of amazingly large and well-formed breasts."

They sat stunned for a moment. Then they both broke into helpless laughter.

And somehow, the evening... worked.

Chapter fifteen: Longing

baeraad — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:59:54 GMT

Something I knew I'd have to do when setting down to write "my usual kind of story, but with a female lead" was to write my obligatory sex scene from a woman's perspective. No idea how well I succeeded. Then again, I doubt I'm that great at writing'em from a man's perspective, either, so maybe it makes no difference... ;)

Chapter fifteen

It was a lot later, and things had calmed down a bit.

Lordshaven Hall was calming down for the evening. The pitter-patter of little feet - and the full-lunged howl of little voices - had mostly receded, as the children had burned off most of their energy during the day and were now settling into slightly more sedate games. Somewhere, Kim and her assistants were preparing the very youngest children for bed.

Jalon had been given a healing from a hastily called in Priest friend of Kim's, a room, and a bath. To Aseena's relief, he was looking more like his own self again - just tired and a bit unsettled. He was resting on the bed, while she was sitting at the side of it, holding his hand. His presence was a balm to her - just knowing that she could speak, and he would hear and answer, filled a void in her heart that had been empty for the last three months.

Dara was standing by the door, dressed to kill. She wore a long black dress with slitted sides and a plunging neckline, a pearl necklace around her neck and diamons gleaming in her ears. Her hair was combed and washed and fell over her pale shoulders like a waterfall of blackest oil. Aseena was surprised to realise it, but Dara was actually very beautiful when she wanted to be.

"I made my report," Dara said. "And then I talked to as many people as I could think of who'd listen to me. With Kroll dead and unable to contradict me, I think my version of events will carry. We probably don't have to worry about any more Soldiers chasing after Aseena."

"So why are we here, instead of somewhere better-protected?" Aseena said. "At the garrison with your gentleman friend, for instance?"

"Because 'probably' isn't good enough," Dara said. "Kroll might have had seconds-in-command or sympathisers in either one of two Ministries. I'm not putting us in the middle of a bunch of Soldiers until I can be sure that none of them will plant a knife in one of our backs. No, we're staying here, where you assured me that no one will look for you."

"Actually, that part was pretty 'probably,' too..." Aseena muttered. But she supposed she could see Dara's point. If enemies could show up in either place, better pick the one where you could at least see them coming over the one where they would blend into the crowd.

"Either way," Dara said, "that's part of the case solved. You may now marvel at my brilliance and power."

Aseena exchanged an uneasy glance with Jalon.

"I'm not seeing any marveling," Dara said. "Marvel, darn you."

"You killed Kroll, Dara," Jalon said unhappily. "I really wish you hadn't done that."

"I did it to save your ass," Dara said. "You're freaking welcome, by the way."

"Hey, I'm grateful," Aseena said. "It's just... You killed a woman." She wanted to add, in cold blood, but that if anything would make Dara pull into her shell and close the door behind her. "Don't you feel anything about that?"

Dara sighed.

"Mostly, I try not to think about it," she said. "We still have Mansuur to deal with. I'll go into therapy as soon as we have, all right? I'll work through all my emotions, whatever they are. For now, can't we just accept that it was necessary and move on?"

"That's just it." Jalon grimaced. "I said... a number of things, when Kroll had me on whatever potion she forced into me. Half of them I don't remember anymore, and the other half I barely understand, but... I think a big part of it was that you need to be at the top of your game to beat this. The more tangled up you are inside, the less chance any of us have. In fact, the whole way you went about this... you basically just slammed the problem with as much brute force as possible, didn't you?"

"Everyone's a freaking critic," Dara said. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Yes, but that's not the point," Jalon said. "The point is that when you get to the big finish, brute force isn't going to do the trick - so if you are in the state of mind when that's your go-to solution, you'll lose. And if you lose..."

"I know, I know. If I lose, we're all doomed." Dara raised her hands towards the ceiling. "God! No pressure or anything!"

"Sorry," Jalon said meekly. "I don't make the rules."

Aseena expected Dara to argue, or storm out in a huff, but instead, she just pulled her hands across her face, taking a deep breath.

"All right," she said. "All right, damn it. What do you two suggest? Should I cancel my plans for tonight and ask this Kim character for a therapy session?"

"It's your head," Aseena said. "I don't know what will be better for making sure that it's screwed on straight. Do whatever you think is best for getting into mental shape the fastest."

"What are these plans, anyway," Jalon said, "that you're dressed up to the nines for?"

Aseena grinned at him.

"She's got a hot date," she said. "With a handsome Major, no less."

"Ooooooh." Jalon beamed obnoxiously at Dara. "So you did ask that Rinabaar fellow out? I told you he would say yes."

Dara's cheeks turned faintly pink.

"She also interrogated him until he admitted to being attracted to her," Aseena said. "I have to hand it to the guy, he maintained a dignified composture the whole time."

Dara's cheeks turned a richer shade of cherry red.

Aseena snapped her fingers.

"Oh, I almost forgot!" she said. "Don't forget that you were healed earlier today, and healing flushes contraceptive potions out of your system. Better take a new dose." She winked. "You know. Just in case."

Dara's cheeks turned a rich scarlet.

"For two people who just told me that my peace of mind is essential to all of our survival," she said, "you have far too much fun teasing me."

"Peace of mind nothing," Aseena said. "It's the relaxation of your mind that's important. If we can get you embarrassed, it means that you won't have time to be angry or scared anymore."

Dara snorted.

"You are true humanitarians, both of you," she grumbled. "But yes, as a matter of fact, I am supposed to meet Rinabaar in about half an hour. That's why I took a detour to what's left of Sablecrest Manor and dug out my wardrobe by means of some witchcraft. I even shaped a few horses to pull my carriage for me - don't worry, I left it on safe distance from Lordshaven Hall. I just wanted to be able to arrive in style. But if you think I should stay here..."

"I'm a Hedonist," Jalon said. "As far as destressing and getting my act together goes, I'd take a nice dinner and pleasant company over therapy any day. If you want my advise, I think you should go. Have a few He Who Comes-free hours."

"All right," Dara said. "I will."

Aseena gave Jalon a look of exaggerated astonishment.

"She actually listens to you?" she said. "You have to teach me that!"

"It's nothing you can teach," Jalon said pompously. "She's an excellent judge of character, you see. She recognises my superior insight and intellect."

Aseena made a face and pinched his nose. Jalon laughed and tried to fend her off, and in the process of it she ended up half-lying on top of him.

Dara coughed.

"I'm going now," she said. She paused. "And not that it's any of your business, but I wasn't on any contraceptive potions before I was healed. I mean, what would the point be?"

Aseena gave her a half-apologetic smile.

"Also not that it's any of your business," Dara said gruffly. "I took one while I was out. Just in case."

She turned and swept out, closing the door behind her.

"Well, well," Jalon said. "I guess she's got big plans."

"What do you think?" Aseena said. "Complete disaster caused by two equally unsocial people trying to interact socially? Or a smashing success caused by their dysfunctions balancing each other out?"

"I, for one, have faith in our little girl," Jalon said grandly. "She fights mad cultists and overturns government conspiracies. I think she might also be able to make light conversation over dinner. It will only take a slightly more heroic effort from her than the other things."

Aseena made herself more comfortable, lying down next to Jalon, with her head against his chest. She closed her eyes and felt it rising and falling gently.

"I remember our first date," she said sleepily. "I remember we went to hear the Black Lake Strings perform, and after that we walked home through town and talked, first about the performance, then about music, then just about life. I remember skipping from one thing to the next, and whatever I talked about you had something to say about it, or at least you seemed interested."

"I mostly remember that your dress left very little to the imagination," Jalon said. "But I vaguely recall that all that other stuff was nice, too."

Aseena opened one eye to glare at him.

"All right, no," Jalon said. "I remember thinking that I had never met anyone who thought so much about so many different things. And that I wanted to stick around and keep listening for a great long while." He stroked her forehead. "That I never wanted this busy mind to go away." Then he drew his hand down her cheek, further down her throat and shoulders and chest, and gently cupped her left breast. He grinned shamelessly. "And that I wanted to see even more of these than your cleavage displayed."

Aseena snorted with laughter.

"Well, I did wear that dress to impress you," she said. "It would have been a shame if it had gone completely unnoticed."

They remained silent for a while. Aseena thought about going to sleep. She couldn't remember when she had slept last, and now, when everything was - just for the moment - exactly as it should be and there were no crises to deal with, it should be the perfect time. She could drift off, and left her body recover from its ordeals while pressed up against Jalon, reminding her of his presence in the most immediate way, by the feel of his real, solid shape against her.

But Jalon's hand was still where it was, and that gave her a pleasantly nagging reminder that there was something that she hadn't done in three months.

Making up her mind, she rolled over to her side and inched her way up so that their faces were at the same height. She began kissing him - light, caressing kisses, like she was trying to feel out once-familiar ground once more. Jalon kissed her back and put his hand behind her head, stroking her hair.

She took her time, enjoying the light brushes of lips against lips, enjoying the warm tingle that was slowly spreading through her body. Little by little, soft touches ceased to satisfy, so she put her arms around him and pulled him close. Their kisses grew longer and more intense. Aseena let out a low moan. After all this time, it was really him, and he was really here.

She pushed him over on his back and got on top of him, luxuriating in the sense of his hard, fit body beneath hers. She pulled her hands over him, wanting to caress every last inch of him she could reach. He stroked her hips, her chest, her face.

"You know something?" she mumbled, her lips inches away from his.

"What?" he whispered back.

"All my life..." she said. "You're the one thing I could never get enough of. Everything else, I want a taste, but then I grow tired of it. You, I just want more of the more I get."

He laughed and pulled her closer.

After a while, they had to part to take their clothes off. Aseena threw off her faded blacks in disgust - God, it would be so good to go back to actually changing clothes once a day, instead of as often as she could get her hands on a new outfit and a moment to change into it. Jalon took his time, folding his clothes on a chair. Aseena sat naked on the bed and watched the muscles work beneath his fine, smooth skin. There were no wounds or scars left - the healing had seen to those. But she still couldn't help remember how he had looked in that cell, hurt and degraded, battered by forces that cared nothing for who he was or for how loved he was, only for what they could wring out of his helpless flesh.

She got up and walked over to him, embracing him tightly from behind. Pressing her naked skin against his felt like the most natural and most wonderful thing in the world.

"I'm not letting anyone hurt you, ever again," she said.

He took the hand she was pressing against his chest and kissed it. He didn't answer, though. Perhaps he didn't want to state the obvious - that that was a promise she had no way of keeping.

He turned in her arms and put his arms around her, naked and beautiful and obviously aroused. They stumbled back to the bed, and she lay down with him on top of her. His breath was hot on her face, his fingers quick with eagerness as they played with her breasts. She arched her back, trying to press as close to him as possible.

"Now," she groaned.

That was all that was needed; she and Jalon had been together for long enough that he knew his cues. He lifted himself slightly, and she felt him feel his way down there - and then she felt him slide into her, stiff and swollen and eager.

They thrusted together, rocking back and forth on the bed. Jalon nustled her cheeks, and she heard him give off the throaty laugh that he always made during sex. His motions were perfect; he knew exactly, by now, how she liked him to do it. She wrapped her arms around his firm back and let herself be swept away.

It didn't take long - both of them had missed their regular lovelife, and once their bodies had been woken up, they were furiously, desperately eager. Aseena wrapped her legs around his hips, clinging to him with arms and legs like she never wanted to let go. All thoughts of prophesies and doom were gone from her mind - she just knew that she was a woman, and that her lover was with her in the most intimate of ways, and there was a primal satisfaction in that that went beyond human concerns.

She gave off a yell when she finished, a single wordless cry. It might have meant, "Jalon, I love you!" It might just as easily have meant, "take that, Mansuur!" She relaxed with a shuddering breath, continuing to thrust to help Jalon reach his own mounting climax.

Then she looked over his shoulder, bounding up and down with his exertions, and saw a face hovering there, twisted and brutish like a revenant's. She struggled to speak, but part of her mind couldn't believe this was happening. This was a dream, a waking nightmare - she had gone without sleep for so long that her fears were slipping into the waking time.

With a final, cheerful holler, Jalon finished. He collapsed on top of her, chuckling quietly.

"Jalon," Aseena said. "Jalon, it is... We have to..."

She had no idea what they had to. And the man in the room took a step closer, smirking down at them.

"I hope you both enjoyed that," Mansuur said. "It's time to go now. Destiny calls."

Chapter fourteen: Vengeance

baeraad — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 10:48:07 GMT

Chapter fourteen

The gargoyle was of a fairly normal shape, all things considered. It was lizard-like in appearance, with a long dragging tail, horned ridges down its back, clawed hands and feet and a leering mouth full of sharp teeth. A pair of small, vestigial wings adorned its back. Aseena had seen a number of ones sculptured exactly like it.

None of them, however, had been fifteen meters tall. The ground shook with every step it took along the street.

"You can do that?" she shouted over the deafening rumble of the thing's movement - stone moving against stone, the ground moaning and crackling beneath its weight. "You can control that?"

"For a while," Dara said. She had a huge, mad grin plastered on her face. "It will fall apart under its own weight eventually, and I doubt I'll have the endurance to keep it running even for that long. But that's the beauty of it. I have a giant gargoyle. I don't need very long. I could flatten the entire Building Thirty-Seven by making the gargoyle jump up and down on it!"

"Yes, but Jalon is in there, so please don't do that," Aseena said. She wasn't sure she liked this. Dara had had an upsetting couple of days. She probably enjoyed the chance to stomp around and scare the crap out of people a little too much.

"Tsk," Dara said. "Ye weak of faith."

The gargoyle knelt down by Building Thirty-Seven and reached around it with its arms, each one as thick as a carriage. Then it slammed its fists against the opposite walls, once, twice, three times. Aseena heard the stone of the walls crack and crumble. The gargoyle's great fists broke apart too, but before her eyes, they reformed, cracks closing, broken-off pieces of Witch Stone flying to retake their place in the construction.

A motion caught Aseena's eye, and she looked around just in time to see a crossbow bolt strike the wall right next to Dara, bouncing off and striking up sparks.

"Get into cover, fool!" she gasped. She grabbed Dara and dragged her with her, into the safer shadows of a nearby alley. Several other crossbow bolts struck the spot where they had just been standing.

"Shoot at me, would they?" Dara growled.

"I think they might just be taking issue with you tearing holes in their secret installation!" Aseena said. She could hear a hint of hysteria in her own voice. "I know, I know, what a bunch of whiners, but you know how these government conspiracies can be!"

Dara shouted a long string of arcane words, and the gargoyle stuck its long arms in through the holes it had made and... lifted...

There was a deafening crack, followed by several more. Aseena glanced at Dara, and saw that her face was a mask of pain and exhertion. For a moment, she thought that the witch would pass out trying to do the impossible, but then the masonry of the building gave way, and the whole structure came loose.

The gargoyle lifted Building Thirty-Seven, half-turned and deposited it smack on the street, some ten meters away from where it had been standing. It slumped a little where it stood, but held. Aseena could see horrified faces turning up in the windows, looking out to see what the hell had just happened.

The gargoyle stood up straight again, positioning itself at the edge of the ragged foundation where the house had stood a moment ago.

"Come on," Dara said, and headed out of the alley at a brisk pace. Aseena followed her, looking around warily for more crossbows pointed in their direction. Dara seemed sure of herself, though, as she went to stand next to the gargoyle.

Where the house had stood, there was now a partly exposed cellar. In some places, the floor had remained, leaving rooms of the first level of the building exposed. Aseena could see a kitchen where a cook and a couple of skullions were cowering next to a great iron stove, looking at Dara with horror. In other places, the floor had been torn away, revealing a maze of stone corridors and dank cells with straw-clad floors. Some of them were occupied, by terrified humans or... other things.

"Is that a demon?" Aseena said, staring at the inhabitant of one cell. It was lying on the floor, drooling and staring into space, clearly lost for the world. "They keep demons here?"

"I'm sure they like a chance to experiment on them to find their weaknesses," Dara said. "Now shush and let me handle this."

She went to stand by the broken remnant of the wall, legs spread, arms folded. Behind her, the gargoyle arranged itself to mimic her pose with a rumble of moving Witch Stone.

"Now that I have everyone's undivided attention!" Dara bellowed. "I'm looking for a fellow named Jalon! Blonde hair, blue eyes, slender built, last seen wearing a towel. Nice boy, lovely singing voice, has the odd habit of seeing the future, but we're none of us perfect, right? You will want to hand him over. Now. I've had a bad time of late, and it's at least partly your fault, so I strongly suggest that you don't mess with me right now!"

A figure emerged into a part of underground corridor that had gotten exposed - tall, thin, with grey hair that was now covered with stone dust.

"Mystic Dara," she said.

Dara smiled mirthlessly.

"Lord Minister Kroll. I might have known. Oh, wait. I did."

"You can't honestly expect to get away with this," Kroll said. "You vastly overestimate your importance to the Demesne if you do. I will have you jailed for malicious use of witchcraft, destruction of property, obstruction of government activity, wanting disregard for the public safety..."

"Save it," Dara said. "It's over. I'm going to expose your little pet project here. No one is going to care that I didn't do it nicely and tidily, not right now when everything is chaos anyway. Me, hero. You, villain. That's what everyone will see. Oh, and just wait until they all find out that I did it to rescue a pretty young man." She clasped her hands over her heart, and high above her, the gargoyle did the same. "It will look so romantic."

"It's your word against all of ours," Kroll said. "You can't prove a thing."

"No, it's my word, and the word of everyone who will start coming forward to testify once the cat is out of the bag, and all the evidence that will be lying around in this place, against your desperate denials," Dara said. "That's the problem with conspiracies. I've seen enough of them in my time to know. They rely on their own inertia - on no one wanting to be the first to talk, no one wanting to be the first to take a good hard look. Once someone has blown the lid off of things..." She glanced at the rest of the house, lying on the street a short distance away. "... as it were... good old entropy sets in pretty quickly."

Kroll scowled.

"You self-congratulatory little sociopath, you have no idea what this will..."

"Yes, yes, yes," Dara said. "I know how much of a splash this will make. I've figured it out, all right? It's what I do. This was your idea from the start - Building Thirty-Seven, secret interrogations, experiments on demons, whatever the hell else you have been up to in here. It's very much a Ministry of Mystery operation - all very 'insane Mystic,' all of it. Only you made sure to get the Ministry of Safety so entangled in it that they'd get hurt worse than you if it ever got out." She smirked. "It was really not nice of you to outsmart the Soldier boys like that. They can't help it that they're not very bright. But then, I suppose that you just couldn't help yourself. You turning into some kind of twisted villain was destined to happen - it's what happens to every Unhallowed Sixty-Six person who is even remotely competent, isn't it?"

"I am nothing like them!" The words tore themselves out of Kroll's throat, seemingly before she had time to think about them.

Dara shrugged.

"You've tried not to be, I'll give you that," she said. "I figured that out too - it took me a while, but I did. Not every Unhallowed Sixty-Six scion is crazy about being crazy, isn't that so? You made it your life's work to fight against it all, didn't you? The ones that have kept the faith have their endgame going on. All this..." She gestured to the ruins of Building Thirty-Seven. "This is yours. You've been trying to root them out for ages, by whatever means necessary. Except you have that one weakness, don't you..."

Kroll didn't answer.

"Mansuur is your son," Dara said. "You brought him up to believe that he had a terrible destiny and that he had to fight it, just like you. But he liked the destiny part a good deal more than the fighting part, didn't he?" She chuckled mirthlessly. "We never do turn out quite like our parents want us to. But you couldn't very well expose him, could you? If he was discovered to be plotting the destruction of the Demesne, he'd probably be executed. What mother could do that to her little boy?"

Kroll said nothing.

"Hence your half-assed measures during this investigation," Dara said, "whereby you have been trying to put a stop to Mansuur's plans and put a stop to me digging into his plans at the same time. Well, enough already. Get out of my way. I don't know if I can save the Demesne or not, but I know that you can't - your loyalties are far too divided. Let me take Jalon with me, and leave me alone to try to solve this on my own."

"Or else?" Kroll said.

"Or else my gargoyle will dig him out from there," Dara said, "and never mind how much damage I have to do along the way. Just give it a rest, Kroll. Let my friend here go in and fetch her boyfriend, and we'll leave... for now, at least."

There was a pause.

"Very well," Kroll said.

Dara took Aseena's hand and gave it a quick squeeze. Aseena felt something hard and sharp in her hand, and reflexively closed her fist around it. She took a leap down into the half-exposed basement. Kroll gave her a hateful look as she headed up to her, but pointed her to a cell some distance down the corridor. Aseena headed into it.

Jalon was lying on the floor. He was naked and filthy, writhing and gasping like he had no control over his muscles. The sound that was coming out of his throat might have been laughter.

Aseena wanted to scream. She wanted to take a sword and kill every single person who had ever set foot in Building Thirty-Seven. She wanted to cradle Jalon like a child and rock him and soothe him. She wanted to tear down the sky and bring an end to a world where this was allowed to happen.

"Jalon?" she said. "Oh God, Jalon..." She knelt down on the floor, putting her hands helplessly on his ill-used skin. Her muscles flexed and twitched spasmically beneath her fingers. She would, at that moment, have given anything for a healer's gift, for the power to cleanse Jalon's body of whatever they had inflicted on it.

"Th-th-th-the cold," Jalon gasped. "The blood freezes solid, and the dark ones walk the streets! The vengeance of the Philistine, gah, gah, gah, her hatred makes her small, gah, gah, too small and too human to defeat the undefeatable..."

"Oh honey, oh honey." Aseena felt tears on her cheeks. "It'll be all right, honey, it'll all be all right, I'll take care of you, you'll be all right again..."

She picked him up in her arms. Jalon was not a large man, and she was strong - she could carry him a short distance. Carrying him in her arms like a child, she stepped out of the cell.

She found Kroll pointing a crossbow at her.

"Mystic Dara!" the Lord Minister shouted. "I have both of your friends down here right now - their lives are in my hands! If you make a single false move, I will kill them both! Are you ready to renegotiate?"

The piece of rock Dara had pressed into Aseena's hand tore out of her grip, cutting a bloody gash in her hand as it did. With unerring, frightening speed, it flew through the air. It impacted with Kroll's forehead with a sickening, wet crunch.

Kroll remained standing for a moment, a look of astonishment on her gaunt face. Then her legs folded under her, and she dropped to the floor. Her eyes stared at the wall, glassy and blind.

"No more negotiations!" Dara shouted from somewhere up there.

Jalon gave off a grotesque giggle.

"The mother falls," he chortled. "The dark grows cold."

Aseena couldn't argue with that. She felt cold already.

Chapter thirteen: Conspiracy

baeraad — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 21:37:10 GMT

Chapter thirteen

Jalon pounded on the door. He had no particular hope that that would lead to anything, except making his fists sore, but at least it was something to do. The room where they had locked him in had some hay on the floor, an oil lamp on the wall, and a frankly disgusting privy in the corner, but other than that, it was empty. Just four square walls of solid grey stone, unforgiving and disheartening... and also, Jalon found after a few hours of captivity, painfully dull.

"Let me out! Let me out!" he yelled, with all the excellent modular control that his singing career had lent him. "I know my rights! I demand to see a lawyer! I demand to be told what the charges against me are! I demand a chance to confront my accuser! I demand proof that my Nobles have been informed of my arrest! I demand a set of those ugly-looking striped pajamas things that prisoners are supposed to wear, because right now I'm just wearing a towel, and there isn't even that much left of it, and it's cold in here!"

He pounded on the door some more.

"I demand creamed peaches for dinner!" he shouted. "I might as well! It's as likely to happen as any of that other stuff, isn't it?"

He stared at the door.

"All right, be that way!" he shouted. "But just so you know, I'm going to pass the time composing a stirring song in favour of anarchy and civil disobedience! You have turned me into one of those pretentious anti-establishment Artists who are always grumbling about how The Man is keeping them down! I hope you're pleased with yourselves!"

He sighed and sat down on the cleanest filthy spot he could find on the abominable floor. This was just depressing. What was the idea here? Was he to spend the rest of his life in this cell - possibly without even finding out why? A harsh sentence in anyone's book, that one. How long did it take you to go mad under such circumstances - until the lack of any outward events for your mind to focus on made it turn inwards and fill itself with phantoms and spectres of its own making?

He scratched his head. Would they risk that, though? Spiritual deterioration could bring possession. At a certain point, the sheer hopelessness of his fate would cause him to surrender all will to live, and then a demon would crawl into the empty space in his soul, and that would be it for him. Something would walking like him and talking like him and even singing very pretty songs like him if it was so inclined, but it wouldn't be him - it would be some sort of caricature born out of despair and the unclean substance of the Nowhere.

Of course, the first thing that Jalon the Demon would do was teleport out of this cell and go running around in the Wastelands. The thought was actually mildly cheering. He would be damned, but at least he would be free. He wondered if demons had any art. They did have feelings, didn't they, even if those feelings were just hatred and pain, and any feeling could find expression in art. Would Jalon the Demon sing heart-rending songs of utter despair in the desolate silence of the Wastelands?

He had to admit that the idea did tickle his romantic side a bit. He had always been a sucker for a good tragedy.

Of course, it might not even be possible for him to become a demon. A demon had to be sustained by its mortal bloodline - by the existence of at least one living human being who was descended from the same parents as its own human host. Jalon had a couple of ex-lovers that he had lost touch with, so anything was possible, but he thought that the balance of probability was that he had no offspring of his own. He had never known his birth parents, though - he might have a dozen siblings, all with children of their own, or he might be a bloodline of one, meaning that he would be dissolved into the Nowhere the moment he was possessed. He wasn't sure if he ought to be hoping for that or not. Life as a demon was supposed to be semi-eternal torment, but at least it was life, of a sort. Jalon was nowhwere near ready to die. Death just seemed so frightfully dull, not to mention devoid of opportunities to show off.

The door, much to his surprise, opened. Jalon realised that he was, at this point, supposed to do something. Aseena would have been standing poised at the side of the door, waiting for just this moment, ready to use the element of surprise to fight her way out and make a run for it. Dara would have received the guards, made a bunch of astute observations about who they were and what was going on, and devised a cunning plan based on them. Jalon, for his part, couldn't think of a single thing to do except either demanding or begging for release.

In other words, he thought morosely, my one actual skill is being loud and flamboyant, and I am helpless in any situation where that is of no use. Forsooth, but I'm not made for a life of adventure. I am made for a life of leisure, fun, and women fluttering their eyelashes at me and telling me how much they liked my performance, that's what I'm made for.

The woman who stepped in was old. She stood tall, but she did so with stiffness that hinted that doing so carried a cost in constant pain. She had long grey hair, a gaunt face, and dark circles under her eyes that hinted that she hadn't gotten much sleep lately. Jalon glanced past her, noticing that at least three Soldiers were waiting outside.

Jalon got to his feet.

"Good afternoon, Madame," he said, giving her his most charming smile. "Jalon of Tenchurch Abbey, caste of Artists. Pray forgive me; I would offer you my hand, but it's really quite filthy at the moment. May I ask what your name is?"

"No one has a name here," the woman said. "I don't and you don't. You are a prisoner; I am your warden. That is the extent of our identities, in this place."

Jalon raised an eyebrow.

"And what place would that be?" he said.

"This is Building Thirty-Seven," Warden said. "No doubt a man like you, who has an interest in stories and legends, have heard of it."

Jalon nodded slowly.

"I know that the Ministry of Safety released an official statement a few years ago, denying its existence..." he said.

"Yes," Warden said. "They lied. In their defense, they had little enough choice. They are so heavily implicated in what goes on here that if it was ever discovered, half the heads in the Ministry would roll."

"And what is it that goes on here?" Jalon said. "I mean, obviously the unlawful imprisonment of innocent citizens, I can't help but notice that part. But what is it for?"

"It is for the same thing that all governmental buildings," Warden said. "The preservation of the Demesne. This is where we bring all... individuals... that in some manner possess information that could be used to protect Shadowed Citadel Demesne and its people."

Jalon felt that the hidden meanings of that phrase promised things that were a bit less than awesome.

"Seriously?" he said. "Cloak and dagger stuff? Government conspiracy? You do realise that if people ever found out that this place exists, it would make them even more paranoid about the government than they already are. That would make you less efficient at ruling - which would make you less able to ensure their safety - and it would just generally make people more unhappy and the Demesne weaker."

"And that would be a problem," Warden said flatly, "if people were intended to ever find out about the existence of Building Thirty-Seven. As they are not, our work here furthers the cause of both our control and their happiness."

"That is..." Jalon began, then broke off. "I am..." He paused again. "You suck," he finally settled for. It wasn't eloquent, but it did sum up his feelings very nicely.

"Perhaps we should get down to business," Warden said smoothly. "You are, as you admit, Jalon of Tenchurch Abbey, caste of Artists. You are the man who can see the future. I want you to tell me what it holds."

"I was just wondering the same thing, actually," Jalon said with a grin. "I was wondering if it held anything more than these four stone walls for the rest of my life."

"It doesn't," Warden said. "You are intelligent enough that you must have realised that by now. You will not leave this cell alive. However, before you leave, you will tell us everything you know."

Jalon nodded slowly.

"This is a mistake, you know," he said. "I will fall into despair. I will become a demon."

"We have means of handling that," Warden said. "You will be given drugs - ones to make you docile, and ones to make you happy whether you want to be or not. And even if you should turn into a demon... well, there are drugs that work on demons, too. We can keep you from teleporting, keep you here indefinitely, all while the Demesne scorches your damned soul. Sooner or later, you will tell us what we need to know."

"No," Jalon said hoarsely. His head was spinning. "No, please, let us be civilised here. I will tell you anything you want, and I won't tell anyone about Building Thirty-Seven. I'm sure you do an absolutely smashing job at protecting the Demesne, I wouldn't dream of getting in the way of it. Just let me go." He stared at Warden's merciless face, and his voice cracked. "For mercy's sake, I have done nothing wrong!"

Warden turned towards the guards.

"Bring the drugs," she said. "We have no time to waste."

***

Dara and Aseena watched the building from across the street. It was built from big stone blocks, unpainted and undecorated - just a great lump of rock, looking close to collapsing upon itself. All the windows were smashed, and the door hung off its hinges, like the last half-attached tooth in an ancient man's mouth.

The sentries were good at hiding, Dara had to give them that. Not that it mattered. She had already spotted them, all four of them. One behind the window there, one lurking in the shadows beyond the doorway, one lying on the roof, one obscured in the alley next to the house. She could tell that they were watching her, too. Well, let them watch. She'd give them something to look at soon enough.

"So here we are," Aseena said. "What's the plan? That place isn't made of Witch Stone."

"No," Dara said. "Standard government policy - important government buildings can't be built from Witch Stone. They're worried about making it too easy for a coven of witches to attack the legal authorities."

"Is there even such a thing as a coven of witches?" Aseena said. "I mean, I suppose it goes without saying that you don't have other witches over for tea that often..."

"Smartass," Dara said. "Actually, some witches do like to hang out with other witches, if only because everyone else kind of hates us. I'm not sure if you'd call that a 'coven,' per se."

"I don't think everyone hates you," Aseena said. "I don't, at least. I used to see a lot of witches back when I was a Mystic, and they were all right, mostly. A bit stand-offish, possibly..."

"Well, we're not going to win any popularity contests, at least," Dara said. "And the government is leery of us. Not without reason, I admit - all you need is one Mansuur, and all of a sudden you have streets collapsing because he wants to keep two people from talking to each other. So wherever you have a governmental building, it'll be plain stone, and usually on a street of plain stone, too. Like this one. They want to make it hard for a witch to turn up and cause trouble."

"Like you're going to do," Aseena said.

"Like I'm going to do," Dara said, with some satisfaction. "See that house over at the end of the street? That's a good Witch Stone structure. So's its neighbour. Could you run over and check if there is anyone in them? And if so, use that silver tongue of yours to make them vacate the premises?"

Aseena gave her a curious look.

"Are you going to break them apart and make yourself a gargoyle army or something?" she said.

"Or something," Dara said. "You'll see, as soon as I know that there aren't people in there."

Aseena hurried off. Dara remained standing where she was, watching Building Thirty-Seven.

She supposed that she should feel offended that it existed. She was, in her own way, a servant of the law, even if she was technically an agent of the Ministry of Mystery who just happened to be on permanent loan to the Ministry of Safety. She had spent her life fighting crime and ferreting out secrets, and now here she stood, facing solid proof that the people she had been working for had been up to some serious crimes and secrets of their own. She should be feeling another one of those pangs of disorientation, of feeling the bedrock of her life turning to clay. She wasn't, though.

Because I was never really in it for the law, she thought. For me, it was always about the mystery, the problem - not the justice. Did I ever care? I suppose I did, a little. It was good to know that you were, at least, on the side of the angels. But I think that if I had been invited to work for Building Thirty-Seven, I would have taken it. Rinabaar hates this place, because he's a good person. I don't, because I'm not, not really.

She folded her arms.

And yet here I stand, about to go into battle against it, she thought. Is this redemption, or just hypocrisy? Damned if I know. I just know that I'm getting Jalon back from them. For Aseena's sake, because I promised. For the sake of the case, because I can still use his help. And because he was kind to me, and I will not desert him.

Aseena came running back.

"Both houses are clear," she said. "They look like they've been empty for a really long time."

"Good," Dara said.

She raised her hands.

***

Jalon was on his knees, with two Soldiers behind him, holding his arms. Liquids had been forced down his throat. He wasn't sure how many, anymore - it had felt like a long parade of tiny bottles with foul-tasting contents, each one administered after the robed Mystic attending to him had checked the changes of his pulse, eyes, body temperature and behaviour after the last dose.

He was laughing, he was barely aware. The noise sounded deranged, and he was vaguely shocked that it was coming from him.

"The great coming!" he chortled hysterically. "Oh, oh, oh, he will rise! The many-in-one, the demon that feeds on itself! The darkness made flesh and the flesh made eternal, oh, oh, it's all going to happen!"

"I think he is ready," the Mystic said. She was young and pale-eyed, with dark hair that was tied back in a bun. Her face registered no emotion except detached interest. "The drug regimen appears to have done its job. He is fully in the trance state now. His subconscious is speaking to him without hindrance, and he is unable to withhold any information he gets from it."

"Good." Warden knelt down in front of Jalon. "Listen to me, prisoner. How do we stop it?"

"Stop it?" Jalon let out a long, drawn-out whimper of glee. "You don't. Dara does. She dances in the center of the vortex, and her shadow falls over the radiant glory that is our destruction. She is the Philistine, the one who comes to deny destiny its due... but she can't win. Or so they say. They say it often. They say it loudly." He giggled, and lowered his voice to a semblance of a conspiratorial wisper. "Between you and me, I think they protest a little too much."

"Not good enough!" Warden snarled. "How do we stop it, without her help?"

"You don't," Jalon said, his eyes widening as suddenly a number of things fell into place. He could hear the song of the Demesne's history almost to its ultimate end now, and it was such a glorious, horrible joke that it made him break into insane laughter again. "You fall. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down... The mother seeks her child, but she finds only ruin and rubble. The seekers of truth clad in lies will face the Philistine and perish. The next seal is opened. The dark grows cold." He chuckled madly. "So cold."

Warden slapped him. Jalon was aware of his head back knocked to the side by the blow, but he felt no pain.

"Where is Mansuur?" she said between her teeth. "How do I find him? How do I stop him?"

"It's always been," Jalon gasped. "It always is. It always will be. You think that you bucked fate, but your fight against it was part of the pattern. Foolish foolish foolish. Fighting it is almost as good as obeying it. The only one who can kill a risen god is the one who has no faith."

"Don't give me that!" Warden snarled. "Tell me where he is!"

"You never meet him again," Jalon said. He felt tears rolling down his cheeks. "You can't save him. I'm so sorry. He was lost to you before he was old enough to spell his name. You made the best choices you knew how to make, but you never understood, and so your choices were flawed. We will all pay for that, but you will pay first of all."

A tremour went through the building, sending fine dust raining down from the ceiling. Warden looked around, scowling. The Mystic folded her arms, still showing no emotion.

"The Philistine is coming," Jalon said. "Her mind is like Sablecrest Manor now, fallen to ruin. But from ruins, new things can be built. What will she build here, in this hour? Will she take another step to be the hero we need her to be, or another step to be the hollow thing that they are counting on her to be?"

A Soldier came running into the cell, and stopped to salute Warden.

"You... you need to come with me, ma'am," he told her hoarsely. "You won't believe what's happening..."

The floor shook again.

Chapter twelve: Validation

baeraad — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:16:28 GMT

Bonus points to anyone who can guess what Aseena's joke was.

Chapter twelve

The bells were silent, and the western wall was still standing. It felt a bit shaky, to Dara's witchcraft senses, like constantly being roiled to throw off demons and bring gargoyles into being was starting to take its toll on its structural integrity. A few more attacks of this scale, and she would be seriously worried - but for now, it was still standing, and the only figures outlined in the glow of the watchfires on top of it were uniformed Soldiers. Shadowed Citadel Demesne was still holding firm.

The garrison building stood right next to the wall, a great barrack of black stone - not Witch Stone; much like the Ministry of Mystics building, garrisons were constructed specifically to make sure that rogue witches couldn't cause damage to it - with two floors and no real windows, only small holes that you could fire crossbows out of. If the wall fell, the garrison would still remain a strong point of defense against the tidal wave of demons that would come pouring in.

The bloody rain had stopped, though it had left a thin crust of dry blood over every building and every patch of street. In the streetlights, the whole city looked like a corpse.

"Well, you've got to hand it to Mansuur," Aseena said. "He really knows how to..."

"No," Dara said.

"I'm just saying, he..."

"Don't."

Aseena gave her a grumpy look.

"You don't even know what I'm going to say."

"Yes, I do," Dara said. "You're going to make a very obvious and tasteless joke. Please don't. I don't think I can stand it right now."

Aseena sighed, slumping her shoulders theatrically.

"I miss Jalon," she said. "He appreciates my sense of humour."

"Yeah, well, let's just say I'm starting to understand why you feel so blessed at having found at least one person who does," Dara said. "Come on. Let's see if Rinabaar has been horribly killed by a demon, or if he can help us."

They headed for the garrison entrance.

"I know that you're the great judge of character and all, so I shouldn't be worried," Aseena said, "but are you sure that he isn't going to report us to Kroll?"

"Not if I tell him that it's important that he doesn't," Dara said. "He trusts me."

"Yes, but the question is, do you trust him?" Aseena said.

"With my life," Dara said simply.

Aseena gave her an amused look.

"You're a bit sweet on him, aren't you?" she said.

Dara gave her a panicked look.

"What?" she said. "Oh, for the UniGod's sake, can everyone tell?"

"Pretty much," Aseena said. "When you talked about him just now, your face got this really weird expression - like it was trying to smile, but was suffering from a lifetime's lack of practice."

Dara groaned. She was used to analysing people. This new thing whereby everyone and their grandmother went around analysing her was getting really old really fast.

The guards at the door let them in - they hadn't forgotten the part Dara had played in the desperate battle not twenty-four hours ago, though Dara supposed they might wonder just where she had been in the next desperate battle, not an hour ago. Still, at least it seemed that she wasn't actively wanted by the law. She was still a champion of the Demesne, even if part of it had turned against her.

They found Rinabaar in his office, patiently listening to a lower-ranking Soldier giving him some kind of equipment report (the report was that there was no shortage of gear to be feared for quite some time yet, but apparently the lower-ranking Soldier felt that Rinabaar needed to be informed of that with as many words as possible). Rinabaar wore his usual look of dignified competence - if he was bored, or concerned, or tired, he did not show it.

That stone face shtick is more annoying than lying, Dara thought crossly. With a liar, you can try to figure out why he might want you to believe the thing he's trying to get you to believe. What can you do with someone whose entire body language constantly says "no comment?"

"Mystic Dara," Rinabaar said, rising from behind his desk as he saw her and Aseena enter. His face and hair was covered in rusty-red, showing that he had been outside - fighting on the wall, most likely - when the rain fell. However, he had apparently found time to change into a clean uniform coat. The golden stripes on his shoulders gleamed. "Please come in." He glanced at the other Soldier. "We can finish this later, Sergeant. Dismissed."

The Sergeant looked very much like he didn't appreciate being given the brushoff, but he saluted and left.

"I am very pleased to see you well," Rinabaar said. "There were reports of some kind of altercation at Sablecrest Manor - just exactly what happens remains a bit spotty, but supposedly the building is practically in ruins."

"It is," Dara said stiffly. "Mansuur paid a visit and did his best to pull down the roof on my head. Did I or did I not ask you to arrest him?"

Rinabaar hesitated.

"I see," he then said. "Please accept my most sincere apology for my error in judgment. I thought that he was a minor threat, and that we had more important things to spend manpower on. If I had believed for a moment that he would try to hurt you..." He shook his head. "All I can do is promise you that he will be under arrest within the hour. I will take a squad and see to it personally."

Dara noticed that Aseena was giving her a skeptical look. You just said you liked the guy. Why are you being so hard on him?

Dara wanted to groan. Because I don't know how to go easy on anyone! she wanted to wail. Because I'm angry and scared and my home is a pile of rubble and the world might be ending, and being me I take it out on anyone who gets within range!

She wanted to go home, right then. She wanted her gargoyles. Her gargoyles never minded when she snapped at them.

"No, I..." She grimaced. "I'm not sure a squad would be enough, and anyway, I'm not sure he'll still be anywhere he can be found. I'll need your help with him eventually, but for now, there's nothing you can do."

"As you say, Mystic," Rinabaar said.

Dara strained. Was that just the teensiest hint of emotion in his voice - just the slightest hint of tension around his mouth? Was he insulted? Ashamed? Hurt? She wanted to grab him by the ears and shout at him to start giving off some normal signals already.

"There is something you can help her with, though!" Aseena said. She stepped forward and held out her hand. "Hi - Aseena of Tenchurch Abbey, caste of Servants."

Rinabaar shook her hand politely.

"How do you do?" he said. "Major Rinabaar of Twotower Lodge, caste of Soldiers." He glanced at Dara. "I am of course entirely at your service, Mystic."

Aseena stepped back again and put her hand on Dara's back, giving her a gentle shove forward. Dara tried to find some words. She couldn't understand why this was suddenly so difficult. She must have talked to Rinabaar a hundred times by now, and while he had always made her a bit flustered, she had always managed to get her message across.

The stakes in her life had gotten higher, in all sorts of areas. And come to think of it, the stakes had been life and death before that sudden rise...

"I have uncovered, at the least, proof that a high-ranking member of the Demesne government has become corrupt," she said. "At the most, I may have found evidence of a far-ranging governmental conspiracy. I know that most of the government is unaffected; I also know that several parts of it have however been infiltrated. From this point on, if you decide to believe me and help me, you will not be able to trust your superiors. For now, this must stay between us."

"I see," Rinabaar said. "That is... most alarming. What can I do to help?"

Dara frowned.

"You're taking this awfully well," she said.

"I wouldn't say 'well,'" Rinabaar said. "This is certainly appalling news, and they couldn't come at a worse time. But that is no reason for me to waste your time with emotional outbursts."

"Oh, that part I've kind of come to expect from you," Dara said. "But... you believe me?"

"Of course," Rinabaar said. "There is no one else who has your genius for finding the truth. If you say that there is a governmental conspiracy, then there is a governmental conspiracy. And if there is a governmental conspiracy, then as a Soldier of the Demesne, I must do everything I can to extinguish this stain on our proud nation."

Dara's stomach suddenly seemed to be filled with something warm and gooey. She had known that Rinabaar trusted her, had counted on Rinabaar trusting her, but all the while there had been some stupid, panicky, irrational part of her mind that had been sure that he would arrest her on the spot - or at least send her off to a Priest to deal with her paranoid delusions. She had been right, though. When push came to shove, Rinabaar was on her side.

I have this, she realised. I might not have any real friends, and I certainly don't have someone that I belong with like Jalon and Aseena belong with each other, but I have this. I'm good at what I do, I'm valuable for what I do, and at least one person has seen enough of me to trust me to know what I'm doing. Mansuur told me that I'd lived a wasted life, but if I haven't done anything else, I've done this much - earned this much.

I don't know. Maybe that's a start.

"An important witness in my investigation was seized by Soldiers," she said. "The first thing I'd like is access to arrest records, but I don't expect to find him there. They don't want to throw him in jail, they want to disappear him. The second thing is for you to tell me where the Ministry of Safety puts prisoners when they don't want anyone to know where they are."

"Ah... it is the official position of the Ministry of Safety that Building Thirty-Seven does not exist," Rinabaar said slowly.

"Does the Ministry of Safety have an official position on why, then, there is a Building Thirty-Six and a Building Thirty-Eight?" Aseena said innocently. "Just out of curiosity."

Rinabaar blinked.

"Building Thirty-Six and Building Thirty-Eight?" he said. "I do not believe I have ever heard of..."

"Ignore her," Dara said. "She thinks she's very funny. But there is a Building Thirty-Seven, isn't there? Official position or no official position, sometimes you need to lock someone away somewhere where his cronies won't immediately stage a rescue attempt."

Rinabaar was silent for a long while.

"There is a Building Thirty-Seven," he said. She could hear pain in his voice now, though he tried to suppress it - some things were beyond even his ability to appear unruffled. "Believe me when I say that had I the power, I would burn it down and salt the earth."

Dara wanted to tell him that he did have the power. He could spread the word - alert the right people. But then, that would be failing in his duty, wouldn't it? And it was dishonourable to betray your sworn masters, even when those masters were behaving dishonourably. Dara felt a sting of compassion. Being a good person in a bad world must be hard.

Thank goodness that I'm an evil bastard, she thought. It makes things must easier.

"Where is it?" she said.

"Fifty-two Lockley Street." Rinabaar drew a little sigh. "It will appear as just another deserted building. Do not be fooled. The moment you approach, people will be watching you."

"Let them," Dara said flatly. "It won't make a difference."

Rinabaar nodded, his moment of weakness past. He was himself again, committed to his course and ready to face whatever that course brought him.

"You know where to find the arrest records," he said. "They are updated constantly by a scrier. If your witness was not taking to Building Thirty-Seven but placed in an ordinary jail, his name will be there."

"Thank you," Dara said. She took a deep breath. "Really - thank you. I know you didn't have to do any of this."

"I am sorry to disagree with you, Mystic," Rinabaar said. "But I believe a man has to do the right thing, when he recognises it."

"Yes, you do, don't you?" Dara sighed and pushed her filthy hair away from her face. "Look... if I manage to pull this off, and I'm not in jail, or dead, or the city has been overrun by demons, or any ominous prophesies foretelling our doom has been fulfilled or anything like that... then..."

She broke off.

"Mystic?" Rinabaar said.

Oh, just say it! Dara howled at herself. You just asked him to betray state secrets to you! Not only that, he says yes! You can ask him this, too!

"Wouldyouhavedinnerwithme?" she blurted out.

"I'm sorry?" Rinabaar said. Judging from the odd look he was giving her, she probably looked like she was about to die from sheer, furious embarrassment.

"She wants to have dinner with you," Aseena said helpfully. "They do let you go off and eat, right?"

"We are not allowed to stray too far from the wall during times like this," Rinabaar said. "However, for that exact reason, there are a number of pleasant restaurants near the garrison, for Soldiers to rekindle their spirits in. I would of course be honoured to escort you to one of them, Mystic."

"Oh," Dara said. "Right. Great. Tonight? At eight-ish?"

"Certainly," Rinabaar said. "Barring demon attacks, of course."

"Barring those," Dara said, feeling a bit light-headed. "Great. Thanks. Uhm... see you then."

She walked out of the office, with Aseena following her.

Five seconds later, she stormed back in.

"Oh, this is ridiculous!" she snapped. "I hate not knowing what's going on! Why do you have to be so impossible to read?"

"Mystic?" Rinabaar said.

"Do you want to go out with me?" Dara said. "I meant, want. Not just be willing to do it because it's polite. Not just to humour me. Do you want to spend time with me?"

"I would of course..." Rinabaar began.

"Are you interested in me?" Dara said. "Oh, hell with it, are you attracted to me?"

Rinabaar was silent for a moment. His look could have meant anything.

"Yes," he then said.

"To... to which question?" Dara said.

"All of them," Rinabaar said. "Yes, Mystic, I am interested in you. Yes, I find you very attractive. Yes, that is the reason why I want to have dinner with you."

They looked at each other for a long moment. The words Why? How? Are you insane? was burning in Dara's mind, but they just felt too self-hating to utter.

"I'm attracted to you too," she finally said.

"I am... very pleased to hear that," Rinabaar said. Dara was shocked to see an actual smile on his lips. A small one, but still a smile.

"I... I guess we should talk about that," Dara said. "Tonight. So, er. We will. Then."

She left the office again. Aseena was waiting outside, leaning lazily against the wall.

"You know, I can't decide," she said, grinning obnoxiously. "Was that little scene just pathetically unromantic, or was it actually so pathetically unromantic that it came right around again and became sweet?"

"Oh, shut up," Dara said.

Chapter eleven: Bloodline

baeraad — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 20:07:34 GMT

Chapter eleven

Warning bells were ringing over the city, leaving the streets deserted. Most Soldiers were already by the walls; after learning that armies of demons were congregating at Shadowed Citadel Demesne, the Ministry of Safety had stripped lawkeeping and security forces within the city down to a skeleton crew, in favour of strengthening the forces at the walls.

Even so, Dara was surprised that they had gotten into the National Archive so easily. A few people, including the Servants and Nobles who worked in the Archive, had gathered in the entry hall of the great stone building, sheltering from the rain and the bells under the protection of a mere pair of Soldiers. Dara had not thought that the Soldiers would appreciate anyone wandering around the building unsupervised, especially right now - but Aseena had talked to them for a moment, and now here she and Dara were, wandering through the long corridors of bookshelves, lit by oil lamps.

"So," Aseena said, "Jalon kept obsessing over all these bits and pieces of old songs. He filled whole notebooks with them, along with his thoughts and associations."

"I'm surprised you didn't take him to a Priest," Dara said.

"He took himself to a Priest, actually," Aseena said. "He got into therapy, got drugs to calm him down, everything. It just wouldn't stop. And then he started making predictions. Like that patrol that went out into the Wastelands four months ago, and came back as demons? The ones that got through the gates and killed a dozen people before they were driven off? Jalon knew it in advance - he said that there were all these passages about 'champions coming back as dark beings,' and that it had to be now, with this particular patrol, because..."

"... because that was the part that came next," Dara said. She winced. "Yes, he gave me the same not-very-illuminating explanation."

"Yeah, well," Aseena said. "That was when I stopped worrying that there was something wrong with him, and started worrying that there wasn't. And then he said he had found something in those notes of his - not something that was going to happen, but something that had happened... or had always been happening, perhaps. Something about bloodlines."

"I had this theory," Dara said slowly, "that some kind of metaphysical entity latched on to certain families, and grew stronger by shaping their history in their image..."

Aseena gave her a startled look.

"You know about the Unhallowed Sixty-Six?" she said.

"The what?" Dara said. "No. I just... Sometimes, when I can't deduce anything definite one way or the other in the course of an investigation, I make an assumption and see what follows naturally from it. So this morning, I made the assumption that there was not, in fact, a rational explanation for what was going on. The irrational explanation that followed naturally from that assumption was this one."

"Right. Okay." Aseena blinked. "I've spent three months running around trying to figure out what's going on, and just when I'm about to tell me, you tell me that you already know because it... 'followed naturally.'" She shook her head. "Talking to you about this is like talking to Jalon about it, that way. You both make me feel like I'm stumbling through a dark room."

"Well, I'd still rather have evidence than conjecture," Dara said gruffly. "So if you have any to provide, I'd be grateful."

"Okay." Aseena stopped in front of a bookshelf and pulled out a thick tome. Dara thought she would open it, but instead, she just dangled it by the spine over the floor. A large sheet of paper, folded many times, slipped out. Aseena replaced the book in the shelf and sat down on the floor, cross-legged, unfolding the sheet. Dara joined her. "Here are the notes I made last time I was here. I hid them before I went home."

"Impressive foresight," Dara said.

Aseena grinned.

"I think I just got off on the whole cloak-and-dagger aspect of it," she said. "That's not how I saw it at the time, of course - I thought I was taking it very seriously. But let me tell you, three months of dodging mysterious people wanting to kill you or lock you up because you know something you shouldn't teaches you to really take things seriously."

She finished unfolding the sheet. Dara surveyed it. It was a tangle of lines with scribbled-on names and notes, and it took her a few seconds to realise that she was looking at some kind of tangled family tree. She recognised a number of the names - important figures in the Demesne's history, powerful Nobles and influential Mystics and the occasional mad genius of an Artist.

"These are the... afflicted... bloodlines?" she said.

"Well, four of them, at least," Aseena said. "There are others that I suspect - they keep running in and out of each other. But see here and here and here..." She trailed her fingers over the chart. "Telroth of Stonegarden Park, caste of Nobles. He was discovered to have murdered five women in gruesome ways. They still cast him in plays and novels - he's one of our national bogeymen. Jikal of Silvertree Hall, caste of Priests. Managed to whip up a popular frenzy that led to a year of mandatory fasting. Several people died. She lost her position over that, but she's still an icon for some of the weirder Ascetic sects. Minaster of Gargoyles' Dance Abbey, caste of Mystics. Performed medical experiments on unwilling patients, trying to prove insane theories." She looked up at Dara. "There are more. All people and events that Jalon claims is part of that pattern of his. All horrific and disturbing in their own way. All part of these special family lines."

"Some families have a tendency towards... eccentric behaviour," Dara said. "Everyone knows that."

"Yes," Aseena said. "But these ones not only keep doing things that are so insane and horrific that they remain in the public consciousness for centuries. They also keep rising to positions where they can really act out those impulses. There is barely a Servant on these charts."

Dara nodded slowly.

"You mentioned the Unhallowed Sixty-Six..." she said.

"It's a superstition," Aseena said. "A dark fairytale that gets passed along these bloodlines. I managed to get that out of a few members, ones that I was reasonably sure weren't personally involved. They claimed not to believe the story themselves, but they said that when the darkness first fell over Shadowed Citadel Demesne, sixty-six men and women had a vision. Together, they prophesised that their bloodlines would shape the history of the Demesne, and that in its eventual destruction, they would ascend, elevated by desolation."

"Ascend how?" Dara said.

Aseena shook her head.

"They didn't say. I think it might even be possible that their 'ascension' is just supposed to be destroying themselves and taking the rest of the Demesne with them."

"That's their big goal?" Dara said. "They want to doom us all, just to... what? To show that they can? To feel important?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Aseena said. "But either way, it's all tied up with the appearance of some kind of pivotal figure - the one who actually destroys the Demesne, not leaving stone on stone."

"He Who Comes," Dara said.

"Exactly." Aseena tapped her finger on the chart. "Look here, in the middle - the product of all four family lines, no less."

"Jalon." Dara frowned. "I wonder what kind of bedtime stories his mother told him when he was growing up?"

"He's citadel-raised, actually," Aseena said. "But yes. And over here, we have another familiar name."

"Mansuur." Dara glared at the name. "Who is apparently Jalon's third cousin. Well, you know what they say about your nose and your relatives..." She caught another name and flinched. "Holy shit. Is this true?"

"As far as I could tell from the birth records, yes," Aseena said. "What about it?"

"Kroll is Mansuur's mother?" Dara said. "Lord Minister Kroll?" She punched her palm. "So they are in it together!" Then she paused. "No, that still doesn't make sense. Those Soldiers back at the mansion weren't cooperating with Mansuur's men. They ended up fighting, in fact. And even aside from that, there's just something off about the whole thing..."

"Your guess is, once more, as good as mine," Aseena said. "It did occur to me that those Soldiers that keep coming after me could be sent by Kroll - it would explain why there were always so relatively few of them, since she's the Lord Minister of Mystery, not Safety; she would have to borrow the Soldiers from the Ministry of Safety, all while coming up with reasons for why they should be doing what she had them doing. But she just doesn't seem like the Unhallowed Sixty-Six type. They are inclined towards mad extremity. Kroll's politics have always been extremely moderate."

"Oh, she might be sacrificing babies to the demons in secret for all we know," Dara grumbled, but that didn't feel right either. She had had some dealings with Kroll. Much as she didn't much like the woman, she had also never gotten any sense of insanity from her.

"So that's all I know," Aseena said. "I'm sorry that it's not much."

"It's plenty," Dara said gruffly. "It gives me somewhere to look. You're going to take me to some of these Unhallowed Sixty-Six people, and I'm going to shake them until answers fall out. What Mansuur is planning. What he's going to do next."

"After we've rescued Jalon," Aseena reminded her.

"Right," Dara said, looking away. "After that."

"Those Soldiers that took him," Aseena said. "Whether they're working for Kroll or not - do you have any idea where they might have taken him?"

"Not as such," Dara said. "But I know someone who might know. Let's go."

She started getting up, but Aseena put one hand on her arm.

"I have one more question first," she said.

Dara shrugged.

"Ask," she said.

"Do you have feelings for Jalon?" Aseena said.

Dara sat dumbstruck. Aseena just looked calmly at her, waiting for an answer.

"No!" Dara said once she had regained the power of speech. "Why would you even...?"

"Because every time I say his name," Aseena said flatly, "you get the same look you got when you were watching us back at Sablecrest Manor. And that's one sad look, let me tell you. It's pure heart-broken it's not me, it will never be me-ness. I ask again - do you have feelings for Jalon? I won't be upset if you do. He's nice, he's cute, he flirts shamelessly with everyone - you wouldn't be the first woman I've met who really wished I could drop dead. But I need to know. Especially if we're going to be working together."

Dara struggled for words.

"I... no," she said. "Not in the way you mean, no."

"But?" Aseena prompted.

"But..." Dara shrugged. "For a while there, it was him and me, up against this whole insane mess. Watching each other's backs. Trying to make sense of it all. And..." She moistened her lips. "And he was... kind. People are not usually kind to me." She laughed miserably. "They don't usually put up with me for as long as he did, either, and God knows I can't blame them... But, anyway, it was nice. Being... being two."

"Dara..." Aseena smiled gently. "If you want Jalon as a friend, I'm not standing in the way of that. Jalon has many friends."

"Yeah. I guess." Dara smiled faintly. "It's just, seeing the two of you together... I think it just drove home how little it meant, the two of us just randomly ending up in this situation together. You and him together - that was just such a vivid demonstration of what it really means to be two."

"I guess we just click," Aseena said. She smiled fondly. "I can be myself with him. I don't have to be this super-devoted champion of the Demesne that everyone is supposed to aspire to be. I don't have to be a meek little Servant girl either, and worship the ground the higher castes walk on. I can just be me - as crazy and scatter-brained and all over the place as I want to be." She glanced at Dara. "But you know... the first time we met, it was because it was raining cats and dogs, neither one of us had an umbrella, and there was just this one gate to seek shelter in. It took thirty minutes for the worst of the rain to pass, and by that time we were having such a nice conversation that we decided he should walk me home. And by the time we got there, we already had our first date scheduled."

"I'm not sure I see the significance..." Dara said.

"The significance?" Aseena winced. "The significance is, 'randomly ending up in the same situation together' is kind of how it works. It's how you meet the people who are going to be important in your life. People talk about making friends, but no one does that, not really. We rarely get new friends when we're actively trying to forge new friendships. We just sort of bump into them."

"I don't," Dara said.

"First off, now you have," Aseena said. She made a face. "Second, it might just have something to do with the fact that you are so anxious to avoid having to interact with any other human beings that you live alone in a great big mansion. That doesn't entirely stop you from having chance meetings, but it certainly lowers the frequency of them."

"Point..." Dara mumbled.

They got up and headed back towards the exit.

"So what did you say to the guards to let us wander off?" Dara said.

"I said that my girlfriend was afraid and I needed to take her somewhere out of the way and... give her something else to think about," Aseena said.

Dara gave her a look of shock and horror.

"You never did!"

"Hey, second rule of lying," Aseena said, unflustered. "Tell people something they want to be true. And men always want hot girl-on-girl action to be true."

Dara stared at her for a moment.

"You know those women who really wish that you would drop dead?" she then said. "I just joined their ranks. And not because of Jalon."

"See, this is another reason why you don't make that many friends," Aseena said serenely. "You're so negative."

Chapter ten: Intermission

baeraad — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:19:04 GMT

Chapter ten

Mansuur was in pain. He was surprised as to how much. It had been a long time - years, decades - since anyone or anything had last been able to hurt him. Much like Dara, he was used to his powers isolating him from the hardships of life, giving him a supreme, even god-like, power over the material world around him. He was used to being the master of the world. He had forgotten that the world could strike back.

Still, he was Mansuur. He was the First Among The Chosen. He had waited for this time, this final chapter in history, ever since he was a child and his father had sat him on his knee and told him that their family was special - that they were blessed by damnation, a part of the omnipotent force that ruled most of the world, that had reduced the domain of humanity to a few scattered islands spread throughout the Wastelands. He had spent his whole life preparing for it, and he would not falter now.

The gargoyles had to be handled first. They were going berserk, driven by his anguish to destroy each other and everything else in their path. He strained himself to speak, and managed to gasp out a few words of power. Little by little, the sounds of the stone’s rampage faded, until all that remained was the sound of the rain, the moaning of the wounded Chosen, and the pounding heartbeat in Mansuur’s own head.

He opened his eyes, blinking away a film of something red and sticky. For a moment he thought it was his own blood. Then he realised that it was not so - he was bleeding, yes, and he needed to get to a healer soon or he would probably die from his injuries - but the reason he was soaked with blood was that it was falling from the sky.

He laughed feebly. So the first sign had come! He had toiled for years to bring it about - performed a hundred strange, grisly rituals, culminating with the ritual sacrifice of three iconic victims. He had had to search deep for the lore to do it, find the arcane knowledge that had been unknowingly encoded in the Demesne’s songs and stories, but in the end he had managed to piece it together.

"Don’t just stand there, fools!" he growled, though he didn’t know if anyone was standing anywhere. "Collect what we need!"

That seemed to have no effect. Mansuur groaned. If you wanted something done, you had to do it yourself.

Gasping and choking, he spoke more words of command. Three gargoyles crumbled at his voice, and the stones that had made up them rattled along the ground, finding each other, merging together. Slowly, a Witch Stone construction took shape, a great stone cauldron, large enough that a full-grown man might be boiled in it. Mansuur spoke again, and gargoyles took positions around the cauldron, grasping it by quickly forming handles and lifting it from the ground.

Good, Mansuur thought. And now, since I seem to be the only Chosen worthy of the honour...

He sacrificed another two gargoyles to form a stone stretcher for himself. On his command, strong gargoyle arms lifted him from the ground and placed him on it - only through supreme self-control did Mansuur keep himself from screaming in pain - and then lifted the stretcher itself. Thus elevated, Mansuur looked around. All the Chosen he had brought were on the ground, either wounded or too scared to move.

He could have spat. The Chosen! There had been sixty-six unhallowed bloodlines, once upon a time, but four hundred years had extinguished many entirely and left others so diluted as to make no difference. Still, they formed the elite of Shadowed Citadel Demesne. Most of them were Nobles - Mansuur, part of the caste of Mystics, formed one of the few exceptions. It was inevitable, of course. The destiny of the Demesne turned upon the Chosen, whether individual Chosen knew it or not - fate itself conspired to place them in positions of power.

Right now, however, Mansuur strongly questioned whether any of them were worthy of the destiny they had been born into. Four hundred years of hidden history, and this was what it came to - a bunch of incompetent lickspittles who were cowering in the mud, too terrified to notice that the enemy had fled the field.

Dara was a problem. Mansuur didn’t believe there was anything she could possibly do, but the portents were infuriatingly vague on the subject - some were adamant that the Philistine was fated to try and fail, but others seemed to regard her as a genuine threat, and Mansuur couldn’t help but notice that even the ones that were the most vitriolic in their insistence of the Philistine’s impotence had a worried undertone to them. The prophesies weren’t sure. Maybe that meant that fate itself wasn’t quite sure, which was an infuriating possibility to a man who had built his life on the inevitability of his own ascension. Yes, Mansuur would have felt a lot better if Dara had died here, in the ruins of her wasted Philistine life.

But that still wasn’t the main problem. Killing Dara would have been nice, but he had had a greater purpose in coming here. He had wanted to secure Jalon, once and for all. The fact that the man was now in the wind - and aware of some twisted version of what was actually happening, after all that Mansuur had done to try to ensure that that underachiever he was sleeping with didn’t manage to tell him anything - was worrying.
Mansuur tried to console himself. Perhaps some of this was the fault of his own lack of faith. A lot of sources seemed to imply that Jalon did not join the Chosen until after the second sign - perhaps it had been foolish to try to force it to happen. He had not meant to do much more than play with Jalon at his feast, give the Artist a taste of the world that was his birth-right and at the same time make sure he understood who ruled that world, but Jalon had gotten dragged off by Dara. That had in itself seemed like a fine joke - Dara was after him for the ritual sacrifices, seeing herself as the heroic detective hunting a murderer, when in fact she had entered a world far larger and more terrifying than her petty one of crime and investigation - but soon after, his demonic allies had informed him that the woman was the Philistine. Mansuur had gotten upset.

Being upset had gotten him here - forced to be carried on a stretcher, with Witch Stone rocks still quivering within his savaged flesh. He tried to focus his will on them and pull them out, but the pain was so intense that he immediately stopped. He could have pushed through it if he had had to, but he was worried that he might actually kill himself if he tried. Let the stones lie where they were for the time being - he could get them out with the help of a healer as soon as he had gotten to one.

Speaking of which...

"It is time to leave," he proclaimed. "Anyone who can walk had better be on his feet immediately."

A few of the Chosen actually managed to get up, standing shakily in their ruined, soaked clothes. Mansuur sent gargoyles to pick up the rest and carry them along. Dead or alive, or alive but wounded enough that the rough treatment would kill them - Mansuur didn’t care, he could sort them out once he was back at Ravenscar Hold.

The diminished army of gargoyles set out through the grisly rain. The cauldron Mansuur had shaped was carried along with them. Little by little, it was becoming filled with blood.

***

"Clear the way!" Aseena shouted. Dara was lying folded over her shoulder like a bag of laundry, feeling just healthy enough to feel ridiculous. She could walk just fine, thank you, as long as she could walk slowly and preferably have someone to lean on! But Aseena had insisted that the worse her injuries appeared, the better.

They were in what was ordinarily a rather pleasant pub, the Hearty Holter. There was an open fire, all sorts of interesting bottles and barrels behind the counter, and a trace of the pleasant scent of good, simple food that probably dominated the establishment in the normal course of things. Right now, though, the dominating scent was the copper stench of blood. Dara supposed that the whole city would smell like that for weeks.

All sorts of people had taken refuge in the pub when the red rain started and the alarm bells started sounding. Even now, the proprietor - a portly Servant man with a huge walrus moustache - was barring the door behind the two women. Aseena stormed by him, further into the main room, filled with tables and chairs and drenched people clustered around them.

"Injured woman!" Aseena shouted. "We need a healer!"

"I’m healer!" a Priest said. He was wearing a flowing white robe with many golden embroideries - it had probably been quite stately five minutes ago, but now it was a red ruin - and had a round, serious, middle-aged face with only a few wisps of grey hair left around the ears. "Everyone step away from the table, please! There - put her down here, Servant, if you would be so kind."

Aseena unceremoniously dumped Dara on the table like a sack of potatoes. Dara swore feebly, but remembered that she was supposed to be near death and didn’t try to strangle Aseena for it. Not that she was sure she could have strangled Aseena if she had tried - she might not be dying, she hoped, but she certainly wasn’t doing too well.

"What happened to her?" the Priest said while he moved his hands over Dara, a few inches from touching her.

"Her horse got spooked by the rain," Aseena said. "It threw her, and she was at the top of the Frillus Stair at the time - she rolled and slid half the way down, I think hit her head any number of times..."

Dara actually felt impressed. Aseena didn’t answer immediately and without hesitation, like a mediocre liar might have done, thinking that hesitation was the only thing that was suspicious. Instead, she hesitated for just an instant, just long enough to give the impression that she had to put a memory into words. Nor did she deliver the lie clearly and firmly. No, she delivered it with just enough unevenness in tone that she sounded like she was upset at a friend’s sudden injury and had a little trouble concentrating. In fact, Dara was pretty sure that Aseena had done what any good liar did, and half-convinced herself, just for this moment, that her story was true. Her delivery was good, because she was actually feeling some semblance of what the situation she presented should have made her feel.

Certainly the Priest seemed convinced.

"She’s going to be fine," he promised, kindly and just the tiniest bit condescending - a fatherly Priest reassuring a simple Servant woman. "She had a lot of nasty bruises, and a bit of a concussion, but all in all, she’s very lucky. I know she seems dazed and confused, and that that might seem frightening to you, but I think that’s the shock more than anything - her injuries aren’t actually bad enough to cause this reaction."

"But you’ll heal her, right?" Aseena said, her voice tight with worry.

"Of course." The Priest smiled. "The UniGod preserves, and He has gifted me with the ability to care for His people. If you would just give me a moment..."

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. After a moment, a pure, white light began emanating from the hands he was holding over her.

Dara watched with half-closed eyes. She had always had a suspicious fascination for gifts other than her own. Part of it, she supposed, was jealousy - everyone loved conjurers, and healers and scriers were the UniGod’s holy servants, but a witch was only ever a superstitious riot from being hanged from a streetlight. Most of it, though, was a constantly frustrated desire to know, to understand. No one even knew what a gift was, why one person got one and another person got another, and why most people never got any at all.

If I had been born a healer instead of a witch, she thought, not for the first time, what would have been different? Would I have been a believer? A councillor, a nurturer? Or would I have just been me, and stuck with a gift that didn’t suit me at all? Or are gifts connected to personalities, and you can only ever have a gift that is an extension of yourself?

A sense of warmth and well-being swept through her. The fugue and pain in her head eased, cleared, disappeared like smoke blowing away on the wind. The deep ache in her strained muscles and battered bones melted and flowed away. She gave off an involuntary gasp of surprise and relief - being healed always gave you such a shock, as your body seemed to remember that it wasn’t supposed to be in pain.

"How do you feel?" the Priest said. His face was a bloody nightmare mask hovering above hers, but his smile was kindly.

"Better," Dara mumbled. "Thanks."

She flung her legs off the table and stood up. She felt almost euphorically strong and fit, ready to run a race. Her mind was still a mess of betrayal and self-doubt, but at least her body was back to its usual state of pampered health.

"We have to go," she said.

"You can’t go!" the Priest protested. "The bells are still ringing - listen! The city is under attack. We all have to stay inside while the Soldiers deal with the incursion."

Dara nodded morosely. Somewhere, Rinabaar was swinging his sabre against a swarm of malformed enemies, shouting at his troops to stand firm, to hold back the infernal enemies who were threatening the lives and souls of the civilians he was sworn to protect. She hoped he would be all right. This time, it didn’t look like she would be able to turn up and help him.

"No, you don’t understand," Aseena said desperately. "My little brother is out there! I lost track of him when I had to run and pick her up - I don’t know if he made it inside or not! I have to search for him!"

The Priest shook his head unhappily.

"You can’t," he said. "Everyone stays inside while the bells are ringing, it’s the law. But I’m sure that someone made sure your brother got to safety..."

His voice trailed off. Aseena’s expression was saying, very clearly, oh, you’re sure, are you? Would you be as sure that there was nothing to worry about if it had been someone you loved who might be out there?

"He’s just a little boy!" Aseena pleaded. "Look, she and I can take care of ourselves. But if he’s wandering around somewhere, scared, lost... We have to do everything we can! If something happens to him while I sit in here, safe and warm..."

The Priest sighed.

"All right," he said quietly. "The UniGod go with you." He walked ahead of them to the front door. "Open the door, Servant!" he commanded the proprietor. "Quickly, and stand ready to close it as soon as these two are outside!"

The door closed behind them, and Dara and Aseena set off into the blood-red downpour.

"Little brother?" Dara said.

"Well, I do have one of those, as it happens," Aseena said shamelessly. "It’s always best to improvise off of something you know well, I’ve found."

Dara gruffly admitted to herself that Aseena was a handy person to have around when you were hunted by the law and the criminals all at once. Lying was one knack that she had never mastered - a side effect, she supposed, of being all about pursuing the truth.

"So where are we going?" she said.

"To where it all started," Aseena said. "For me, at least. We’re going to pay a visit to the National Archive. It’s about time that you got to see just how far back this all goes."

Chapter nine: Reunion

baeraad — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:56:20 GMT

Halfway there! To celebrate, I typed up Aseena's stats, according to my latest idea for how a Demesneverse RPG character sheet would look.

...

... what? I like stats. I find them soothing.

Name: Aseena
Home: Tenchurch Abbey
Caste: Servant
Lifestyle: Sophist
Character: Inquisitive
Tragic Flaw: Scatter-Brained
Talents: Basic Athletics, Basic Charm, Poor Perception
Skills: Poor Animal Handling, Poor Fighting, Basic Skulduggery
Knowledge: Poor Administration, Basic Lore, Basic Science

Chapter nine

"So we meet again," Dara said.

"I don't believe we have ever actually met," Mansuur said. "I saw you from the stage yesterday night, as you fled before my invincible might like a frightened rat - that's about as close as we've ever gotten to meeting."

"Right," Dara said. "Sorry, my head is a little blurry - got a bad bump, you know. So we meet for the first time, at least properly. Now what?"

"I thought I'd start by killing you slowly and painfully," Mansuur said. "Hot pokers may get involved at some point, assuming that someone had the forethought to bring a poker. No one treats me with your kind of wanton disrespect and goes unpunished."

"Oh, what are you whining about?" Dara said. She supposed that she should be terrified, but there was too much pain and confusion - Mansuur's threats didn't feel real enough to be frightening, at least not yet. "Just because I took control over a few of your gargoyles at that stupid party of yours?"

Mansuur hesitated.

What now? Dara thought. She squinted. Come on. Get yourself together. Ignore the way the whole world keeps shambling and wobbling, make some use of those superior skills of perception, and look carefully...

In the darkness, Mansuur had been a vague phantom. Now, her eyes began to adjust, and she started picking out details. His dark coat was in tatters. He stood stiffly, as if in pain. His nose was a broken, bloody ruin, and more blood stained his face, pouring out from a wound in his scalp.

Dara laughed.

"Oh, I see," she said. "You haven't been having any more fun today than I have, have you? Some of all those gargoyles I sent looking for you found you."

Mansuur grimaced.

"I dealt with them," he said.

"Is that a dawning shiner I see over your left eye?" Dara said. "I do believe it is!"

Behind them, there was a thunderous crack, followed by a deeper rumbling as most of the third floor collapsed onto the second floor. Sabrecrest Manor groaned and creaked ominously as it settled down again, in a way promising further destruction in a little while.

Dara made a discreet beckoning gesture behind her back. Any loose Witch Stone pebbles lying about, come here, come here...

"Take pride in putting up a fight if you like," Mansuur said. His voice was trembling with cold fury. "You still lost, you foolish little woman, you ridiculous overgrown child in your great big house full of toys. Your toys are mine now. Your house is in ruins. Your service to the Demesne is apparently no more valuable than that the government has decided that it's not worth your running around and making a nuisance of yourself. And now you will die, and you will not die well. What did your life come to, in the end? A waste, from start to finish."

He made a dismissive gestures, and Dara felt all the stones she had been drawing towards her scatter, thrown in every which direction by Mansuur's furious, contemptuous will.

"And stop doing that!" he snarled. "Get it through your head that it's hopeless! It took me all of five seconds to feel those stones sliding towards you. I'm the stronger witch. You can't beat me with witchcraft."

Dara looked over her shoulder, staring helplessly after the scattered remnants of what she had tried to turn into a last, desperate weapon. For a moment, she was beaten.

But just for a moment. She turned back and smirked.

"Well, maybe," she said. "I still say that it was less that you were stronger and more that you got the upper hand early on and I wasn't sufficiently stronger than you to take it back. But no, I can't beat you with witchcraft. So I'll just have to beat you with my superior attention to detail."

Mansuur scowled.

"Meaning what?" he said between his teeth.

Dara smiled.

***

So close and yet so far away.

Aseena was lurking over by the entrance to the great Witch Stone labyrinth, some twenty meters away from where Mansuur was towering menacingly over Jalon and Dara. Even at this distance, it was plain that Jalon was hurt - his soft, fine skin scratched and bruised, his handsome face dirt-streaked, his usually so meticulously-combed hair in tangles. Aseena's heart ached from the look of him.

But what could she do about it? That was Mansuur over there. She had found out a lot about him in the last few months, as she was ducking his goons and trying to find a way to Jalon. She had an idea of the kind of power he wielded - and if she had been in any doubt, the creaking, shuddering ruin of Sablecrest Manor would have told her that the wildest of the stories were true. He had an army of gargoyles at his command, and a bunch of his biggest and meanest brain-washed thugs, as well.

She tightened her fists, scowling. The same old story. Jalon was right there, and the moment she broke cover and ran to join him, the bad guys would swat her like a fly, and she would never reach him. Every fiber in her body was drawn to him, craving his presence like a woman dying in a snowstorm craved fire and shelter, but she could not afford to give in to it. She had a brain. She had to think.

The problem was, she couldn't think of anything.

The dark-haired woman, Dara, was saying something. She sounded woozy, but also cocky. Aseena hoped that she knew something that Aseena herself didn't. Dara's powers were almost as renowned and feared as Mansuur's, but from what Aseena could tell, she had lost the fight already - she wouldn't suddenly turn the tables on Mansuur through some act of defiant witchcraft.

A noise made her turned her head, fearing an attack. All she saw, however, was a lump of Witch Stone, the size of a fist, breaking out of the labyrinth wall and rolling to a stop by her foot. A shower of pebbles followed it, forming a pile just beyond the larger rock.

As Aseena watched, the pebbles began sliding over the ground as by their own will. Within seconds, they had formed two words.

THROW IT.

For a moment, Aseena stared. Then she began to grin.

***

"Well, it's like this, you see," Dara said cheerfully. "I notice things. Things other people don't. I tend to notice them pretty fast, too. For example, we can both feel Witch Stone moving, can't we? Sure we can. We're awesome like that. But most people can't, because it's a pretty subtle, hard-to-notice feeling. It's like a sound just at the edge of your hearing. Even if your witchcraft is strong enough to pick it up, it will usually take you a moment to become aware that you're aware of it, if you see what I mean. Now, me, I can usually tell immediately - if a Witch Stone pebble falls three blocks away, I'll know, believe you me."

She tilted her head, studying Mansuur's glowering visage.

"You, on the other hand," she said, "aren't any more perceptive than most people. That's why it took you 'all of five seconds' to notice that I was gathering some rocks. If I had been in shape right now, instead of being weirdly light-headed and feeling like I'll probably fall down any moment now, I could have pulled them to my hand and threw them in your face before you knew it."

"But you're not," Mansuur said.

"No, but I noticed something else when I looked around just now," Dara said. "A girl, blonde, wears a black trenchcoat and thinks she looks much cooler in it than she really does, got a bit of a hawk nose but has enough bearing to make it work for her..."

"Aseena," Jalon gasped.

"I guessed as much," Dara said. "Oh, another thing about her." She grinned dizzily. "Excellent throwing arm."

With that, she threw out her hands, palms out and directed at Mansuur, and screamed a long string of arcane words.

The Witch Stone rock that had been flying through the air towards Mansuur scattered into dozens of pebbles, each one sharp as a razor. The deadly rain took on a sudden burst of speed, and before Mansuur had even understood what was going on, the shards had struck him, tearing through his clothes and into his flesh in a dozen places throughout his body.

Mansuur fell, screaming like a wild thing. He thrashed around, clawing at the ground - and his army of gargoyles, gripped by their masters sudden mental emanations, went insane. All throughout the courtyard, they began to flail and rush about and slam into each other, sparks flying up as Witch Stone struck Witch Stone with a fury that was no less savage for being confused and undirected. Mansuur's human followers, caught in a sudden storm of stone gone mad, screamed and struggled to flee.

"KASH TAQ TOSH!" Dara screamed, commanding her stone splinters to burrow ever deeper into Mansuur's flesh. "KASH TAR MENOS JAQAL! JAQAL!" She could feel him recovering, trying to exert his will again, but she didn't care. For the way every part of her body ached, she tore through the thick tissue of his stomach muscles, searching for his soft guts. For her beautiful house, now fallen and falling, she grinded against the rough bone of his ribs, sending cracks flaring up through them like the ones that had formed in the walls of her home. For the way he had turned everything that had brought her comfort and safety into a weapon against her, she sent her stones questing through his chest cavity, searching for his black heart.

Jalon didn't share her mad urge to kill Mansuur or die trying, though. He grabbed her arm and ran, hobbling off across the yard and forcing her to come with him, if only because she did not have the strength to resist.

"Let me go!" she bellowed as she stumbled along. "I will kill him! I will kill him!"

"Survive now, kill later," Jalon said. "That was the plan, remember?"

From the mouth of the labyrinth, a figure clad in black came running towards them. For a moment, it seemed that Aseena meant to sweep Jalon into a fierce hug, but at the last moment, she stopped in front of him, as if frightened to touch him in case it made him break into pieces.

"Jalon," she breathed. She awkwardly drew her fingers over his bare arms, a feather-light touch that was clearly aching to become a mad, possessive grasp. "Oh God, look at you, what have they done to you?"

Jalon was less concerned for his cuts and bruises than Aseena was. He put his arms around her and clasped her to him like she was life itself. Their lips found each other, and they kissed again and again, each kiss more furious than the last.

"Ahem," Dara said. "If you're going to be doing this for a while, could I go back and kill Mansuur in the meantime? Only, I think that otherwise he's going to recover and start sending gargoyles after us in a moment..."

That made Jalon and Aseena part lips, though they remained in their embrace. Dara's ever-watchful eye noted how very natural the closeness was for both of them, how clearly comfortable they both were with each other's touch. She had seen it before - long-time couples always had some of it, though certain people, like Jalon and Aseena, were even more physically expressive towards each other than most - but this time, for whatever reason, it made her feel strange.

"I tried to find you," Jalon said.

"I tried to come back sooner," Aseena said.

They shared another kiss, one that had a sort of finality to it - like it marked the last part of a reunion ritual that had to, by necessity, be cut short. After that they parted, though Dara saw that they were still holding hands.

"Yes, yes, very touching," she muttered. "Let's go already!"

"I know a place not far from here," Aseena said. "If we can make it that far without being pursued, there's someone who'll hide us."

Dara grunted. She wasn't too thrilled with letting someone else take the lead, but she couldn't say that she had had too many ideas of her own that she had much faith in. If she couldn't trust the government, there were precious few places she could run to that would take her in.

Aseena led Jalon by the hand through the garden, as fast as he was able to go. Dara limped after them, feeling stupid and in pain and like her whole world had finally gone from just trembling to completely collapsing around her. If only her head would stop aching so much, maybe she would be able to make sense of it again. If only she could get to sit down for just a moment.

"Something is going to happen now," Jalon said.

Dara glanced around. No one was following them just yet. Everything was, in fact, mercifully quiet and still.

"Nothing's going to happen," she said.

"Hush," Aseena said. "What's going to happen, Jalon?"

When she felt a little better, Dara promised herself while her cheeks began to burn with dumbstruck rage, she and Aseena would have a long conversation about that 'hush.' Dara might be a little less confident than usual at the moment, and she barely liked herself even at the best of times, but one thing she had always taken great pride and comfort in was that she was not the kind of person that one went around and said 'hush' to.

"Something," Jalon said. "What just happened... something new clicked into place. The pattern is that much closer to being completed now. And that means that things are about to start to shift." He made a helpless gesture. "It's like with the house falling apart. First there were just cracks that kept getting deeper. Then they got deep enough that something big gave in, and maybe a big stretch of floor collapsed, and maybe pulled a few more levels along with it. And that caused even more cracks, that started deepening... You see what I mean."

"The demons turning up here in hordes was the end of a quiet period," Dara said. "They got beaten back, and then we had maybe ten hours of calm. Now it's time for another shock. More demons? Another attack?"

"Probably that too," Jalon said, "but mostly..." He shook his head. "I don't know."

Aseena glanced at Dara.

"Why are you helping?" she said. "Don't get me wrong, it's appreciated, but..."

"What can I say?" Dara muttered. "I go where a case takes me. Even if it's into madness."

"She's the chosen one," Jalon said with a weak smile. "The one who turns up and stops He Who Comes."

"No kidding?" Aseena smiled at Dara. Dara, to her shock, felt a lot of her resentment and self-pity lifting. It was just impossible not to react to that smile. "Then I'm glad. Always good to have a prophesised saviour in your corner, that's what I always say."

"Well, don't hand me any laurels just yet," Dara grumbled. "According to your man here, all everyone agrees on is that I turn up and try to stop the whole thing. No one has said anything about me succeeding."

She almost groaned. What the hell was she doing? Now she was talking about Jalon's vague feeling-like-the-Demesne's-culture-was-a-song thing like it was accepted fact. She just didn't have the strength to treat it like a strange piece of data that required careful examination anymore - instead, she just took it for granted. Was this was going crazy felt like? Was this what happened to crazy people - did they just wake up one morning and find that they no longer had the willpower to separate the rational from the irrational?

"I've found out a few things that might help," Aseena said. "If we can just get somwhere quiet and put our heads together..."

They reached one of the back gates and headed out onto the street. A horse stood tied there, neighing nervously as it saw them approach.

"You two get on," Aseena said. "Neither of you can walk very far, and I think he'll carry two. I'll lead him."

"Soldiers!" Dara hissed and spun around. A large group of uniformed men and women were moving out from a side street. They were advancing in loose formation, spreading out to cover the entire street from the fence to Sablecrest Manor to the house walls on the other side.

"Stop!" their leader shouted to the trio with the horse. "In the name of the Demesne, put your hands in the air and surrender!"

They continued advancing, but very slowly - Dara suspected that they weren't sure that she wouldn't suddenly unleash a dose of witchcraft on them. The moment they realised how weak she was right now, they would charge.

"Shit." Aseena bit her lip. "Mellow won't carry three, not with any kind of speed... okay, new plan. You two get on and get away. I'll have to shake them off somehow..."

"Er, there's a problem with that," Jalon said. "I can't actually ride a horse." He glanced at Dara. "I don't suppose you...?"

"When would I ever have had the need to learn?" Dara snapped. "I've always been able to make do with gargoyle horses."

Jalon hesitated.

Come on, say it, Dara thought. Someone has to. Aseena won't, not after just having found you again. I will, if I have to, but I'd be the most loathsome asshole in the world for saying it, and I don't want to be that, okay? Go on. Be noble, so I don't have to be ignoble.

"You two get away," Jalon said. He closed his eyes. "I'll stay."

"What? No!" Aseena shook her head desperately. "No, come on, there has to be another way..."

"There's no time for another way," Jalon said. He sighed. "Look, it has to be you, because you can ride, and you can only take one of us. So who do you leave behind - the Demesne's one hope of survival, or the guy who sings really pretty songs?"

"The one who isn't my boyfriend," Aseena said stubbornly.

Jalon smiled.

"I love you so much," he said simple.

Then he turned and ran, sprinting for the Soldiers.

"I surrender!" he shouted. "I really, really surrender! See how I surrender! Why, I have dreamed all my life of surrendering!"

Aseena screamed a number of unladylike things, her voice cracking with pain and loss. Then, with a sobbing noise like she was causing herself physical pain by doing it, she turned away from Jalon, facing Dara.

"Get up," she growled. "Here, like this."

She half-helped, half-lifted Dara into the saddle, and then got up behind her. With a prodding of her heels, she made the horse turn and begin trotting, then galloping, away from the Soldiers. Dara looked behind and saw the scene become more and more distant. The Soldiers were surrounding Jalon, forcing him to his knees, binding his hands behind his back.

Mellow rushed through the streets. Further into the city, people began appearing. They hurried out of the way of the oncoming horse, shouting a great many angry things after the two women on its back.

"So where to?" Dara said after a while.

"Don't talk to me," Aseena snarled. "Just don't talk to me, all right? I may not be any kind of hotshot detective, but your face is an open book. You knew what he would say, back there. What he had to say, because he's a good guy. And you let him say it. You let him sacrifice himself to save your skin."

"It was the rational thing to do," Dara said.

"Yeah," Aseean said in a thick voice. "Because you're the great big saviour of us all, isn't that so?"

Dara sighed. This was going to be a long day, wasn't it?

"No, not because I'm the great big saviour of us all, you sanctimonious jerk," she said. "Because the Soldiers were telling the truth about wanting to arrest us rather than kill us. That means that whomever was left behind would get taken away and thrown in a jail of some sort, and the ones that got away would have to rescue them. That meant that the ones to escape should be the ones who would be most capable of arranging a prison break - such as the girl who can break down walls by snapping her fingers."

Aseena was silent.

"We're getting your boyfriend back, lady," Dara snarled. "So stop sulking and tell me where we're going."

"I'm sorry," Aseena said quietly. "I shouldn't have... It's been a rough... I'm sorry."

Dara sighed.

"It's all right," she said grudgingly. "I get it. I do. After everything that you two have been through, I'm sure losing him all over again was about as much fun as getting your heart ripped out. Just... don't take it out on me, all right? I'm on your side. And since our 'side' right now seems to consist of three people, one of whom is about to be thrown in jail, we really should try to get along."

Something went landed on the back of her hand. Dara glanced at it, expecting to see a raindrop. Instead, in the glow of the streetlights, she saw a dark red spot. Quickly, it was joined by another, and another. Before long, it was pouring down, the thick, red liquid soaking both her and Aseena to the bone. Mellow neighed in protest and slowed down on the street, which was becoming more and more slippery. People on the street were screaming and crying, running for cover.

"It's blood," Aseena said, stunned. "It's raining blood."

"The sky weeps blood," Dara said grimly.

"When he comes..." Aseena finished.

All around the city, the warning bells began ringing again.

Chapter eight: Betrayal

baeraad — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:04:11 GMT

Chapter eight

Dara staggered along, clutching her head. Her face was locked in a rigor mortice mask of fury and concentration. For every step, she growled words of power beneath her breath, struggling to control as many gargoyles as she could, and sending the same order to all the ones that listened to her, over and over again.

Kill Mansuur. Kill Mansuur. Kill Mansuur. KILL MANSUUR.

She could feel him, like an echo of a mocking laughter within the stone that surrounded her, the stone that she as late as yesterday had thought of as an extension of her own being. Now it was rebelling, squirming in her grasp and trying to strike at her. Mansuur had turned her great mansion-body against her, violated her in a profound and irrevocable way.

For that, Dara had decided, he would die. She had never killed anyone before - the few times that she had been in dangerous situations, her powers had sufficed to restrain her attackers until help could arrive. However, she felt no regret for wanting to kill this man. He was a murderer and a lunatic. It would, she grimly told herself, be a kindness to put him down like the mad dog he was.

"Where are we going?" Jalon said. He was walking next to her, half-crouched as if in readiness to throw himself in any direction. Dara realised that as loathsome as it was for her to be surrounded by Witch Stone that she couldn't be sure that she was in control of, Jalon had no control whatsoever - the very floor he walked on could open up and swallow him at any second, and he had no means of resisting it.

"Housekeeper's stairway," Dara gasped. "Kash Noq Galag Nor! Back door. Jialak kash - KASH! Then the labyrinth, all the way to the street. Jarash Heliq! Get back!"

She pulled Jalon backwards, just as a large segment of wall cracked, crumbled, and collapsed in an avalanche of sparks and rune-clad stones. Pebbles rained down from the ceiling, bouncing painfully off Dara's skull.

They stood there and watched the rubble covering ten meters of corridor in front of them, and the open, jagged wound in the wall to their left that revealed a row of empty, dust-covered bedrooms. Dara could hear - as well as feel, in the part of her gut that corresponded to her abilities - how Witch Stone was creaking and rumbling all around the mansion, arcane stresses running through it as Mansuur whipped it into a frenzy of hatred towards its erstwhile mistress.

"Dear me," Jalon said. "That was close. Can Mansuur see us?"

"Not exactly," Dara said. With angry, dismissive gestures, she made the wreckage slid to the sides, clearing a path for her and Jalon. She stomped through it, followed by Jalon, who hobbled and whimpered as his bare feet stepped on sharp gravel. "Witches aren't scriers. We can feel Witch Stone in our proximity, sort of, and maybe what shape it's in, but we can't see anything through it. However, if we're really good at what we do, we can imbue the stone itself with the powers of sight and recognition." She glanced over her shoulder at Jalon. "Basically, Mansuur has given our description to the entire mansion and told it to kill us."

"Well, can't you do something?" Jalon said.

"I am," Dara said. "I'm giving the mansion his description and telling it, 'no, don't kill us, kill him instead.' Some parts of the mansion are listening to me, some parts are listening to him, and we are, right now, wrestling for control over as many as possible."

"But you are winning, of course?" Jalon said hopefully. "This is, after all, your domain. You have the so-called home field advantage - in addition to, of course, having the benefit of being at your sound faculties instead of, not to put too fine a point to it, barking mad. You are winning, yes?"

Dara gave him a look.

"Ahead on points?" Jalon suggested weakly.

"I'm losing," Dara growled. "All right? He took me by surprise, he has the initiative, and he's confident and secure in who he is and what he is doing, while the last two days have done nothing but make me doubt myself. It's all I can do to keep him at bay, and I'm slipping, do you understand? I'm losing this fight. So we need to get out of this house, quickly, so that we can live to rip Mansuur's heart out through his throat another day!"

"Well, at least we have a plan, then," Jalon said philosophically.

"Right," Dara said, "so come on already, because while Mansuur can't see us per se, he probably felt that wall collapsing, and that will tell him that the wall saw us. So before we know it..."

She felt it a split instant before it happened - the control of the floor slipping between her mental fingers, the malicious force commanding it to break asunder. Not enough time to do anything to stop it. Enough time, though, to realise that she couldn't do anything to stop it - enough time to start thinking of what to do instead.

Then, with a rumble like the sky falling, the floor disappeared from underneath her feet, and she was falling, her ears full of the roar of breaking stone. But as she fell, she screamed words, and used reserves of strength she had been saving to rip back control from Mansuur, just for a moment.

She hit a steeply leaning surface, hard. The impact turned her left arm into a solid piece of agony attached to her shoulder, sent a crack through her hip that made her legs go numb. If she had hit straight on, she would almost certainly have broken something, but the tilt of the surface sent her bouncing and spinning instead. There were three more shocks from hard contacts with the floor before she settled into a rolling, sliding motion. She couldn't see. She couldn't hear. There was just pain and stone dust and the desperate determination to keep her witchcraft together for long enough.

Finally, she came to a stop. She remained lying where she was for a long moment. Everything hurt. She wasn't sure if anything was broken, and she was afraid to test any of her limbs.

God, she wanted her gargoyles. She wanted a roaring fire and a cup of coffee and gravel rattling across the floor, spelling out her thoughts in some interesting case. She wanted her carriage waiting for her to take her off to some crime scene where she could bully the Soldiers, harass the witnesses and maybe entertain a few guilty, nervous fantasies about what Rinabaar might look like beneath that uniform. She wanted a bath. She wanted, God damn it, the promise of baked salmon for dinner, with a side of cream sauce and a nice white wine. She wanted her life back.

She didn't want this hard stone surface and pain in every muscle and Jalon groaning and whimpering next to her, but that was what she had right now, so that was what she needed to deal with.

She opened her eyes, glancing up and down. She was lying at the bottom of a great stone funnel, stretching six meters up, to where it surrounded the jagged hole that Mansuur had torn up in the floor of the corridor. The funnel was smooth, like it had been polished, and offered just enough room at the bottom for two people to come to rest.

"Where..." Jalon coughed. He was sitting up on his knees. He had managed to keep the towel he was using as a loincloth on, but his naked torso and legs were covered with scrapes and shallow bruises. "Where are we?"

"I haven't named it yet," Dara said. She tried to move her arm, and pain shot through it that made her yelp. She tried again, more carefully, and this time it moved, just a little. "I just created it, after all."

Jalon gave her a confused look.

"I couldn't stabilise the floor in time," Dara explained patiently. "So instead, I reshaped the stones into something that would turn our six-meter drop onto a stone floor into a six-meter slide - uncomfortable, but much safer."

"Uncomfortable, she says," Jalon muttered. "I think I've cracked my skull..."

"Witch Stone, Jalon," Dara said sweetly. "Witch Stoooooonnnnneeeeeeh. I can shape it into anything I like, but I can't make it any softer. Now get up. We have to get going before..."

One side of the great funnel collapsed into sand and rubble, and half a dozen men stood there. They were all wearing some form of Noble's suits, though the cudgels they were all wielding lessened the elegant impression considerably.

"Please stop saying those things," Jalon said miserably.

With an effort of will that brought a scream of actual pain from her lips, Dara shaped a gargoyle. It rose out of the wreckage, a shambling horror standing taller than a man, with thick limbs and no head, only a pair of hunched-over shoulders. It took a single thick step, placing itself between Dara and the Nobles.

"Get lost," Dara snarled. "Or I will make it rip you limb from limb."

"Careful, friends," one of the Nobles said. "Stay out of its reach. Whomever can distract it for just a few moments will gain the other two time to do what we came for."

They spread out on a broad line, advancing. Dara's gargoyle turned this way and that, trying clumsily to stay within reach of all three of them.

"Nobody move, in the name of the law!" a voice cried from further away. Dara looked over to see half a dozen men in Soldier's uniforms come jogging around a corner, sabres raised. With them came a little bald man in a white robe, who looked very unhappy about this whole thing.

The Nobles, suddenly caught between the devil and the deep blue sea - Dara wondered, with the vagueness of possible concussion, which one she was - turned and hesitated, unsure of which threat deserved more attention.

"You're all under arrest!" the Sergeant of the Soldiers, a small, stocky man with a wide mustache, said.

"Excuse me?" Dara said. With Jalon's help, she managed to get to her feet. "I haven't done anything! This is my home, and I was attacked by these men and some witch that I'm going to pretend is not very obviously Mansuur."

"If you just come with us peacefully, ma'am, I'm sure that we'll be able to work everything out," the Sergeant said. Dara had to say that she found that reassurance somewhat less than reassuring.

There was a loud noise, and cracks appeared throughout the walls and ceiling. Dara's makeshift funnel fell to pieces, its cobbled-together component rocks raining down over the scene. Dara snapped a few words and made the stones land away from her and Jalon, but the Soldiers and Nobles just had to cover themselves as best they could with their arms.

With the obstruction cleared, it became more clear to Dara that they were standing in the northern wing ballroom. She tried to remember where the closest exits were, but her head was still spinning.

"Mystic, try to keep the place stable," the Sergeant told the white-robed man.

"I'm trying," he whined. "There are so many fault lines now that it's taken on a life of its own!"

"Hey, I know you," Dara said. "Weren't you at the western wall yesterday?"

The white-robed witch gave her a look that indicated that yes, he had been, and now he was here. And he hadn't wanted to be there then, and he didn't want to be here now, but the world was a cruel and heartless place.

"Does this mean that you and Mansuur aren't fighting over the whole building anymore?" Jalon whispered in her ear.

She shook her head.

"Right now, I can barely hold this one gargoyle together," she whispered back.

"Then what's keeping Mansuur from tearing down the roof over us?" Jalon said.

"Nothing," Dara said, realising. "And yet he doesn't. And isn't that interesting..."

"Fascinating," Jalon said tightly. "Can we please get out of here?"

"Squad, advance!" the Sergeant barked. The Soldiers closed rank and marched forward, sabres menacingly lowered.

The leader of the Nobles cast a desperate look over his shoulder.

"We can beat them if we work together," he said. "Come on, we can settle our own dispute later - those people are no more your friends than ours!"

"Sorry," Dara said dryly. "I'm kind of notorious for not playing nice with others. But if you really want help, you can take brick-boy over here."

She shot the gargoyle a look. Attack whichever side has the most remaining members standing, until there is no one left on either, she told it.

The gargoyle lumbered onwards, shedding sand and pebbles for every step - it was just barely keeping together, formed in a haste as it was. The Nobles followed it, bellowing fiercely. Dara and Jalon quickly headed off in the other direction. Judging from the screams that quickly replaced the bellows, the battle was going the predictable way. It took more than one gargoyle to help a group of demented cultists to beat twice their number of trained Soldiers.

"Which way?" Jalon panted as they ran - or at least, limped as fast as each of them could manage, leaning on each other like a pair of invalids.

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking!" Dara groaned. She bit her teeth together and concentrated. "We're... we're on the bottom floor. We just need to turn right, then right again at the second corridor..."

Around them, Sablecrest Manor was dying. Cracks were spreading through the walls, the floor shook at irregular intervals, and in the distance there were constant rumbles and thuds as more floors caved in and walls collapsed. Several times, Dara had to call up reserves of strength that she couldn't spare to clear them a way through rubble and wreckage.

Finally, they staggered out through the kitchen door, onto the yard.

Dara stared. In the glow of the distant streetlights, she could see an army of gargoyles spread out across the yard. Her gargoyles - her birds and her lizards, her monsters and her men. They stood in silent rows, quivering slightly in response to the upset of Witch Stone that was afflicting Sablecrest beyond. There were men and women of flesh and blood spread thinly among them, people in fine suits, carrying cudgels, but they were outnumbered by gargoyles four to one.

Mansuur was standing in front of them, the general of an army of Witch Stone. His brutish face was haggard and waxy in the near-darkness.

"Mystic Dara," he said. "Artist Jalon. I thought it was about time that we finally met."

Chapter seven: Friends

baeraad — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:35:22 GMT

Chapter seven

Six hours of sleep had restored Dara to something that resembled sanity. After a bath, a change of clothes to her usual voluminous, fur-lined Mystic's robes, a hardy breakfast and three cups of coffee, she felt ready to tackle the world again. Dara of Sablecrest Manor, caste of Mystics, scoffed at the universe's paltry attempts to confuse her by changing the rules in mid-game. She would simply figure out the new rules, and then use them to deduce exactly what was going on.

She was sitting on the kitchen table again, while the kitchen gargoyles were doing the washing up after breakfast. On the floor, the Witch Stone gravel were moving around, forming patterns and breaking them again.

"So, we are working on the theory that Mansuur is the ritual killer," she told the gargoyles. "That still seems most probable. But what else is he?"

The gravel moved across the floor - scrape scrape scrape - and lined up to spell out Mansuur's name, along with KILLER OF THREE.

"He leads some kind of insane cult," Dara said. "That gives us an angle. Anyone who attends his little get-togethers is a potential source of information."

The gravel spelled out CULT LEADER beneath KILLER OF THREE.

"What else?" Dara said. She chewed on her lip. "Okay, here's one question that I wouldn't have considered under ordinary circumstances." She took a deep breath, then forced herself to say it. "Did he make the demons come?"

Scrape scrape scrape, and the gravel spelled out DEMON SUMMONER?. Dara stared morosely at the words. The fact that they were lying there on the floor, her floor, the floor that was usually a place of such pristinely rational reasoning, made her feel oddly dirty.

"Is Mansuur He Who Comes?" she said between her teeth, forcing herself onwards. And HE WHO COMES? the gravel spelled out, forcing her deeper into the madness. She stared at them for a moment, then turned away.

"Then there's Jalon," she said. "How is he connected to this? He says he can see the future - if Mansuur is head of some wacked-out religion, is Jalon a prophet of it? An unwilling one?"

The gravel spelled out JALON and PROPHET?. For a moment, a line connected the names MANSUUR and JALON - then, with a snort of disgust, Dara scattered the stones that formed it. She had no idea what the connection was between them, except that Jalon was foretelling something bad that would happen, and Mansuur had something bad that he wanted to happen, and at the same time, by some funny coincidence, something bad was happening. In neither of the three cases was it very clear just what the bad thing was. There wasn't even any particular reason to believe that the three were one and the same, beyond the sheer coincidence of it...

Dara shook her head. A different angle, a different angle...

Jalon thought that Aseena was on the run - that she was hiding from someone. That was presumably Mansuur and his merry maniacs, but unless this Aseena was particularly dumb - which Jalon said she wasn't - she would have gone to the government for protection. However, the government had apparently not only not helped, but also not told Jalon anything about it. At the same time, one of the five highest government figures had not wanted Dara's investigation to happen.

The gravel formed the name KROLL. Dara looked at it for a moment. Was Kroll behind it all, with Mansuur just an artless puppet? Or was it Mansuur who was the one pulling the strings, and Kroll the one who was dancing at their end? Neither possibility felt right. There was something more here.

She grimaced. Never mind. Different angle, different angle...

Aseena had gone to look up some family histories at the National Archive. Family histories...

Dara raised a finger. The word BLOODLINES formed on the floor. Mansuur had used that word. The fated bloodlines, he had said.

"All right, so say that there's something in that," she told the gargoyles doing the dishes. "It's not that big a stretch. A demon can only be killed by someone within its own bloodline - a parent or descendant of a parent to its human host. Bloodlines do matter for... for magic."

She facepalmed.

"God, listen to me," she said. "Magic. We don't use that word a lot, do we? It's a scary word. It's the word you use for something that makes no sense. Why are there demons? Magic. Where does conjured goods come from? Magic. What makes the stone heel, roll around and sit pretty? Magic."

She looked morosely at the gargoyles, who ignored her and continued their toil.

"Truth is," she said, "truth is that we know nothing about it. Even I don't know why it works, and I'm doing it. I flex a synapse, and stone comes to life. But not just any stone, no, no. Just the particular kind of stone that we mine out of these hills. Saying certain words help... words, hell. They're not words. They're meaningless syllables. But for some reason, making noises with your mouth makes the witchcraft stronger, and making some noises works better than making other noises. Same with the runes - drawing shapes on the Witch Stone makes it easier to use, and some shapes make it easier than other shapes. So hundreds of years of trial and error pass, and we know how to use witchcraft really well - but we still don't know why it works."

She drummed her fingers against the table, then stopped when she realised what rhythm she was drumming out - Ta ta ta tum, tam-tam-tam. Ta ta ta tum, tam-tam-tam.

"So let's say," she said stubbornly, "let's say for the sake of the argument that there is some... some magic, some energy. Let's say it is bound to certain bloodlines, just like a demon is bound to its bloodline. Only instead of a demon, it's a... a destiny, a curse, a force that shapes the world around it into a pattern. What does that give you?"

She looked down, and bit back a curse. The words were gone from the floor. Sometime during her musing, she had unconsciously shifted around the gravel. Now it formed a rough map of Shadowed Citadel Demesne - the western wall and the northern wall, the lakes and the hills, the cathedrals and towers, the manors scattered throughout the city and the more modest neighbourhoods that surrounded them and separated them from each other...

"Okay," she said slowly. "Okay... and then let's say that that energy changes its surroundings in such a way as to allow itself to flow freer. It makes people think in a certain way, act in a certain way. It finds its way into stories and songs and poems and nursery rhymes. The more it shapes the Demesne, the stronger it gets, and the stronger it gets, the more it shapes the Demesne. So the energy just keeps reinforcing itself over the years, keeps building and building and building, until it finally comes to a head. Then what?"

Feeling a chill, she drummed out the rhythm again. Ta ta ta tum, tam-tam-tam. Ta ta ta tum, tam-tam-tam.

The sky weeps blood, when he comes. The stone is dust, when he comes. The dark grows cold, when he comes.

The city falls, when he comes.

"Well, thank the UniGod that's not too ominous or anything..." she growled.

She slipped down from the table and headed up the stairs. She needed more information. And she would get it out of Jalon, if she so had to have a gargoyle lift him by the ankles and shake him until some sense fell out!

She slammed open the door to his room.

"Jalon!" she snapped. "Just what did you mean by..."

She broke off.

Jalon stood frozen by surprise, halfway out of a copper bathtub full of steaming water. The gargoyles that had prepared it for him were standing by the window, deactivated until they were given new orders. A fluffy white towel was lying on the bed - he appeared to have been heading for it when she burst in.

Dara's mouth worked without a sound coming out. Jalon's body was fit - not bulky, but taut and compact and gracefully formed, with slender muscles subtly defined beneath smooth, pale skin. He had barely any body hair, and what he had was even paler than that on his head, making it almost invisible.

They both stood frozen for several seconds. Jalon was, naturally, the first to recover. He grinned shamelessly.

"I know!" he said. "Magnificent, isn't it? Glory be the UniGod and His divine creation!"

That broke Dara out of her paralysis. She spun around, facing the corridor with her cheeks burning.

"You're horrible!" she snapped.

"I'm horrible?" Jalon said. "Have you ever heard of knocking?"

"Well, pardon me for opening a door in my own house!" Dara groaned. Annoyingly enough, she supposed it really was her own fault. She wasn't used to there being other people in Sablecrest Manor. Gargoyles didn't really hold on their privacy. Still, Jalon could have had the decency to act like it was a little embarrassing for him too, the bastard, instead of being so damn unflappable about it.

There was a rustle of cloth behind her.

"I'm decent now," Jalon said. "What was it you wanted to ask me?"

Dara turned suspiciously. Jalon was sitting on the bed, with the towel snugly wrapped around his hips. While that did indeed satisfy decency, it still gave her a well-formed upper body and most of a pair of shapely legs to look at. She fixed her eyes stubbornly on his face.

"I forget," she muttered. "Give me a second."

Jalon smiled at her, more kindly than obnoxiously now.

"Do relax," he suggested. "We are both people of the world. I have nothing that you haven't seen before, surely."

"Well, yes, but it's been a while, and the details are a little blurry..." Dara muttered.

Jalon laughed amiably, like she had made a good joke. Dara realised that he was trying to make her feel more comfortable. She groaned inwards. Great - now he was feeling sorry for her.

There was one thing to be said for this, Dara had to admit. The feeling of oncoming doom that she had gotten from her theories down in the kitchen had completely disappeared. It was hard to concentrate on spine-chilling horror when you were too busy being embarrassed. And too busy trying to silence the parts of your mind that didn't have the decency to be embarrassed but kept using your excellent ability for image recall to go over every detail of a certain recent memory, making all sorts of inappropriate comments about it.

"You really think that Rinabaar is interested in me?" she said.

Jalon raised an eyebrow.

"Was that what you came here to ask me?"

"No. But, do you?"

Jalon smiled.

"I'm really pretty sure."

"If I ask him out and he turns me down, I may strangle you with my bare hands," Dara said. "Are you still feeling sure?"

Jalon gave her a patience look.

"You're really amazingly uncomfortable with flesh-and-blood people, aren't you?" he said.

Dara sat down on the bed next to him and hid her face in her hands.

"Oh, you have no idea," she said.

"Why?" Jalon said. "What are you so afraid that we'll do to you? We're not that bad a lot, I promise."

"It's..." Dara looked up and bit her lip. "I think that the problem is that I notice too many things, all at once."

"You mean, you see all the flaws in people?" Jalon said.

"No... Well, that too, a little," Dara said. "But mostly..." She patted the cover of the bed. "What do you see here?"

"It's a woolen blanket," Jalon said. "It was quite nice and warm to sleep under."

"And?" Dara said.

Jalon shrugged.

"I don't know. It's a sort of dark blue?"

"Royal blue," Dara corrected him. "It used to be even darker, but time and washing has made it a little paler. You can see the original colour out in the corner, there - just a shade or two darker. See here, how the fibers are just a little ragged, making it a little fuzzy? That's another age sign."

She lifted a fold of the cover and sniffed it.

"The dye is one called Temanin's Midnight," she said. "It's pretty good, so it keeps a long time, meaning this blanket is either old or used. The wear on it is less pronounced than the amount it has gone paler, so that means that it's old, and it hasn't been used much. There are a few little moth holes over by that edge, but it's mostly untouched, so it's been stored well. It's been used, but it's still got just a hint of starch down by the foot end - whomever slept under it slept like the dead, without moving very much. It smells faintly of a perfume called Jilin's Delight, that's said to imitate the scent of roses. There's a bit of sweat there too - the person who slept under it started his day washed and perfumed, but by the time he lay down here he had had exerted himself. One side is clearly more wrinkled than the others, so he instinctively sleeps on one side of the bed - probably hinting that he's used to sharing one with someone else..." She gave Jalon a look. "I could go on."

"I'm sure you could," Jalon said, a mix between awe and horror in his voice. "That's an impressive skill."

"I guess," Dara said. "To me, it always just seemed natural. Why don't anyone else see these things? The rest of you just seem to live in a different world - one where a street is just a street, not a thousand thousand details and patterns and stories and facts, all jumping out at you." She shrugged. "And how am I supposed to talk to people who live in a different world?"

They were silent for a while.

"I get it," Jalon said. "I mean... a little, I think." He grinned slightly. "I once composed an ode to Aseena's eyes. It was fifteen verses long. I didn't repeat myself once. Simple things have a lot to say to me, too."

"So how do you do it?" Dara said. "You know. Deal with people."

"I suppose... I accept that no one is exactly like me," Jalon said. "And I start looking for whatever common ground there is. There is always some, so it's just a question of how basic you have to make it. For instance, everyone has different hopes and dreams, but the experiencing of hoping and dreaming is pretty much the same for everyone. Even if you have nothing else in common, you can still bond a little over that. And usually, if you actually look, you'll find that people are more like you than you think."

Dara sighed.

"You make it sound so very simple," she said.

"Hey, look at it this way," Jalon said with a grin. "You already like analysing people. Just learn to look for stuff you like while you do it."

The gargoyles that had drawn the bath stirred and started walking towards the bed. For a moment, Dara didn't react. She was used to gargoyles walking around in Sablecrest Manor, carrying out tasks that she had set them on and then left them to it.

Except these ones had finished its task, and she hadn't given them a new one.

"Jalon," she said, rising urgency in her voice, "get..."

Then the first gargoyle threw itself at her, stony hands reaching out for her throat.

For a stupid moment, she tried to fend it off with her hands. Idiotic - her strength was as zero and nothing to a gargoyle. That cost her a split second, allowing the gargoyle to knock her backwards over the bed and lay its stone fingers on her throat. That was all it got, though - after that first moment of panicked fumbling, she remembered herself and struck out with her mind.

The gargoyle froze. Its brother, one step behind it, shifted uneasily from clawed foot to clawed foot, as if it didn't know what to do.

Arcane words spilled from Dara's lips, trying to force her servants back under her control. Part of her mind was still reeling, insisting that this couldn't be happening. Her gargoyles. Her Witch Stone companions. Her friends, her only friends. How could they turn on her like this?

She met a thick resistance, powerful and determined. Another witch, close by, contesting her control. For half a second, the fingers on her throat tightened, before loosening again. Dara wanted to scream.

Then Jalon tackled the second gargoyle, sending it tumbling into the first one. Sparks flew as the eldritch energies that animated them both interacted in unpredictable ways, and both of them stumbled, flailing around with stone limbs.

Dara screamed something long and agonised, and the gargoyles exploded. Witch Stone rubble flew throughout the room - Jalon dived to the floor with a yelp to avoid it. Dara wasn't satisfied, though. She continued chanting, and the rubble exploded into gravel, and the gravel exploded into sand, and the grains of sand exploded into the finest dust.

Only when there was nothing left of the gargoyles did Dara get up from the bed. She set her feet in the thick layer of Witch Stone dust that covered the floor, staring at it as if in horror. Then she snarled.

"Traitors," she said. She didn't recognise her own voice.

"What was that?" Jalon said, coughing helplessly from the dust getting into his lungs.

"Mansuur," Dara said between her teeth. The dust was in her throat too, but she felt too cold and dazed to notice it. She could feel her grip being contest all throughout the mansion - could feel one gargoyle after another abandoning her orders and turning to serve a different master. "He's here..."

Chapter six: Fugitive

baeraad — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 17:15:00 GMT

Chapter six

The pack of demons stalked on down the cobblestone street. They were similar in appearance, all members of the same infernal breed. They were all covered in rough, brown fur, with long, gaunt limbs and thick, razor-sharp claws on fingers and toes. Their arms were as long as their legs, and they moved in a sort of hunchbacked lop, raising their muzzled faces to sniff the air and snarl from time to time.

Aseena, lurking by the chimney of a nearby house, watched them pass by in silence. There had been fighting by both walls now. A lot of demons had slipped past the Soldiers and were running loose in the city until the patrols found them or the force of the Demesne drove them to teleport out. Was this pack just out to torture and kill any human they run into? Or were they looking for her in particular?

Admittedly, the sensible course of action was the same in either case.

Once she was sure that the pack had gone out of earshot - as sure as possible, at least; some of those demons had superhuman hearing - she slipped down off the room, fell the short distance to the ground, and bent her knees as she landed, ending up in a crouch. The impact still reverberated all the way up into her spine. She grimaced.

Ignoring the pain, she ran across the street, into an alley. Quickly now. She just needed to make it a few blocks, and she'd reach one of her safe havens - no, make that one of the places she hoped were safe havens, if only by virtue of her pursuers not having turned up at them yet.

She had had to figure out a number of things very quickly in the last few months, but one thing that she was still foggy on was just who was chasing her. It seemed to be a number of different groups - sometimes it was Soldiers, sometimes civilians, sometimes even a demon or two. She was aware that she was getting paranoid, but she couldn't see what choice she had. After the third time you were chased down an abandoned street by a group of wild-eyed people who were shouting things like "Get her!" and "Don't let her get away!", she felt, you had earned the right to be paranoid.

It had been civilians the first time, the day she had been heading back from the National Archive, her heart thumping with fear from what she had at that point only just begun to unearth. A few men in suits - Nobles, from the look of it - had approached her, asking politely for the time. When she had started fumbling for her pocket watch, one of them had tried to grab her and push a chemical-smelling rag over her mouth.

It was clumsy - they had clearly had no real experience as kidnappers - but it might have succeeded anyway, just from the element of surprise. But Aseena had been a Soldier, once upon a time, before being dishonourable discharged for failing to have even a semblance of military discipline. She had kicked and punched wildly, and then ran.

By the time she had gotten to Tenchurchy Abbey, more of them had been waiting outside. She couldn't be sure of it, of course - it was just a group of men and women that she didn't recognise, sitting on benches in the park, reading newspapers. But at that point she had been too frightened to take the risk. She had walked away before they saw her.

After that, she had tried going to the Soldiers for help. They had seemed sympathetic enough to start with, taking her down to the garrison and giving her a cup of tea while they looked into the matter. Then some kind of order had come down the line, and their tone had gotten brisker. She was to be placed in "protective custody," though it wasn't quite clear who it was that was supposed to be protected by it.

She had managed to get an especially young and impressionable-seeming Soldier on his own and convinced him that this was clearly a mistake and that he would be her hero if he could just look the other way for a moment while she made her exit. Since then she had been running.

She had tried to get in touch with Jalon any number of times. Tenchurch Abbey was apparently watched, but he moved around the city - all she had to do was find out where he was at any given time and go there, without being spotted by her pursuers. It was, it turned out, even harder than it sounded. She had only managed to get through once, and then Marble Street had happened. The opposition was playing for keeps.

She had tried sending him messages, too. Once, she had asked him to meet her in a certain square, and then hung back and observed it. Jalon hadn't showed up, but a surprisingly large number of Soldiers had. That made her suspect that her messages weren't getting through - and also that if she went back to Tenchurch Abbey, she would find more than just civilian goons waiting for her there.

Officially, of course, she was missing, presumed dead. And that was ominous in its own way.

She ran up the drive way of a small manor house on top of a hill. At least getting around unseen was easy right now - what with the demon attacks, there was a curfew. Normally, she had to stay discreet, attract no attention, stick to back alleys and rooftops whenever she could. She had taken to wearing all blacks and greys, all the easier to hide in the Shadowed Citadel darkness. Having long, blonde hair didn't work too well with that, of course - she had thought of cutting it off, but after everything these bastards had taken from her, they weren't getting her hair too. Wearing a hood had to suffice, most of the time.

She knocked frantically on the door. Come on, come on, come on, every second she was out here was a second when someone could spot her, and then all hell would break loose...

A woman opened. She had a freckled, serious face framed by short, dark hair, and was wearing a Priest's long, white, flowing coat.

"Get in, quickly," she said.

Aseena felt a mix of shame and gratitude as she slipped through the door and Kim closed it after her. It was a rare enough person who would help a fugitive from... not justice, exactly, but certainly someone who could bend the system of justice to their will. And even most of the ones that would would have allowed themselves a bit of aggravated misery - You again? Now, with demons on the streets? I have three scores of children to protect! Not Kim. With her it was always, Get in, quickly.

That was something Aseena had had to learn, from her months on the run. When you were in dire need, you learned to be pathetically grateful for those who would meet it, even though you couldn't repay them. You also learned to hate yourself for having to take advantage of their generosity - and hate, even more, the people who had forced you into a position where you had to.

"It's started, hasn't it?" Kim said. She smiled unhappily. "Whatever Mansuur's lot has been preparing for, it's started."

"There was a big event at Ravenscar Hold last night," Aseena said. "I think that those murders were preparations for something. Whatever happened last night, it triggered it. It's going to be downhill from here." She grimaced. "And Jalon is right in the thick of it, and I can't even tell him why - insofar as I even understand that myself!"

"We'll find a way," Kim said. "Come into the kitchen and sit down for a moment. How long have you been on your feet this time?"

Aseena rubbed her forehead.

"What day is it?" she said.

"Tuesday," Kim said. "The seventh."

"Oh." Aseena paused. "Of which month?"

"Oh dear." Kim led Aseena into the kitchen and gently but firmly put her on one of the chairs surrounding the big table there. She went to fill the tea pot.

"Where is everyone else?" Aseena said dimly. "All the children?"

"Down in the sanctuary in the basement, along with Varen and Edrin," Kim said. "Until the all clear is sounded, we didn't want them wandering around.

Lordshaven Hall was a creche, a place for children whose parents did not feel equal to raising them on their own. Some got regular visits from their mothers, or fathers, or both. Others were citadel-raised - no true parents but the Demesne itself. Which in practice meant that they had Kim and the other Priests and Servants who cared for them. In an imperfect world, Aseena supposed that that was not too bad.

She was silent until her tea was ready, and after that she allowed herself to do nothing but sit and sip and try to keep her eyes open for a while. Finally, she looked up.

"Jalon left Ravenscar Hold along with a dark-haired woman who drove a gargoyle-pulled carriage," she said. "I've asked around - it seems like she was probably a woman named Dara of Sablecrest Manor, caste of Mystics."

"Was he coming with her freely, or was she coercing him?" Kim said.

"I was a little too far away to see." Aseena frowned. Trying to get close to Mansuur's own home had been almost suicidally risky, but when she had found out that Jalon was going there she had decided that she simply had to do something. "But if she was with Mansuur, and Mansuur wanted to kidnap Jalon, why take him away from Ravenscar Hold?"

"I can think of a reason," Kim said. "If you found out that he was going there, the Soldiers can find out that he was going there. So if he suddenly disappears, that's the first place they'll look."

Aseena rubbed her eyes.

"Right. True. Shit, I'm too tired. Can't think straight anymore." She took a deep breath. "Can you scry Sablecrest Manor for me? See if he's there?"

"Sure." Kim closed her eyes. Her breathing grew slow and rhythmic, like she was asleep. "Right," she said, her voice more quiet now. "Here's Sablecrest Manor. No one seems to be around except gargoyles, though..."

"This Dara character is a bit weird and figures she needs a whole mansion all to herself," Aseena said. "Do a sweep, would you?"

Kim was silent for a moment.

"I see him," she said. "He's in a bedroom... I think he's just woken up. He's combing his hair... oh, now he's finished. Now he seems to be admiring himself in the mirror..."

"I bet," Aseena said. "Does he check first the left side, then the right, then grin smugly like he's thinking, 'damn, I'm pretty!'?"

"Yes, actually," Kim said, sounding amused.

Aseena chuckled.

"Yeah," she said. "That's Jalon. At least everything that's happened hasn't broken his spirit. When he stops being vain about his looks, then I'll worry."

Kim opened her eyes.

"You really miss him," she said.

"Yeah." Aseena smiled weakly. "I think it might make me a little too quick to ask you to scry for him. Sorry about that."

"Nah, it's okay." Kim smiled. "I know what it's like. My boyfriend used to live at the other end of the city, so we couldn't meet that often. I scried for him all the time, back then."

Aseena snorted with amusement.

"Just what every man wants - an all-seeing girlfriend!"

Kim wagged her finger in mock-affront.

"Bite your tongue. Some men have nothing to hide." She smiled. "Actually, your guy doesn't either, as far as I've ever seen. I mean, he flirts shamelessly with every woman he sees, but he also flirts with every man, child and small dog he sees, so I don't think that he means anything by it. In fact, one time you had me scry on him, I think I caught him flirting with a glass of sherry."

Aseena giggled.

"Jalon feels strongly about sherry," she said. "The first time he tasted the Talmar batch from '77, he immediately declared that he wanted to have its babies."

Kim smiled - and then her whole face fell.

"Oh no," she said.

"What?" Aseena leaned forward over the table. "What do you see?"

"It's Mansuur," Kim said. "He's outside of Sablecrest Manor, heading for the gate. God, if you could see the look on his face... Aseena, I think he's going to do something horrible."

Aseena got up.

"I have to go there," she said thickly.

"There's a horse in the stables," Kim said quickly. "Brown, with white front legs. His name is Mellow. Take him and go - he's the fastest horse we've got."

Aseena shook her head.

"I can't," she said. "If they catch me with one of your horses, they'll know that..."

"... that you stole it," Kim said. "What a naughty girl you are, I'll pray to the UniGod for your sinful soul, now go!"

Aseena wanted to argue, but Jalon was in danger, and she wasn't there to help him. She got up from her chair and ran.

Chapter five: Prophesy

baeraad — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 20:00:58 GMT

Chapter five

Sablecrest Manor embraced Dara like a mother. As she walked down the hallway, she thought she could feel its ancient Witch Stone walls around her, shielding her from the dark world outside. She whispered words, and in the distance there were rumblings as gargoyles began to move - as if Sablecrest was her true body, one that lived only while inhabited by her flesh-and-blood soul.

Here, she was safe. Here, she was whole. Here, she could face anything.

"So this is your place, hmm?" Jalon said, strolling along a few steps behind her. He stopped to inspect an old painting. "I like it. It's very old school. Very 'I don't have to follow trends - class never goes out of fashion.'"

Dara facepalmed. She could face anything, except talkative Artists. If Sablecrest Manor was her body, she supposed that that made Jalon a mild infection of some sort - a case of the sniffles or something.

"Could you not?" she said. "I don't do the whole small talk thing, all right? And I especially don't do it when it's..." She hesitated. "What sort of time is this, anyway?"

"I think it's about four thirty in the morning," Jalon said.

"Is it? No wonder I feel even more homicidal than usual, then," Dara muttered.

She stifled a yawn. It really had been a long night. After the battle, she had had to stay by the western wall for hours - the military commanders didn't want one of their best witches to leave before they had finished "assessing the situation." She had spent most of that time pacing, trying to figure out what Mansuur was doing, trying to make sense of Jalon's incoherent clues. She had wanted to question him properly, but he had decided to make himself useful by singing stirring songs to the Soldiers. Finally, the commanders had sent her home, giving her firm orders to remain ready for further deployment. She had made sure to drag Jalon along - crazy as this case was, he seemed like he was involved in it in some way, and that meant that she wasn't about to let him get lost in a city haunted by evil witches and besieged by demons.

"Well, I'm glad you like the place," she said roughly, "because you're going to be a guest here until I figure out just what is going on. I've set a few of the gargoyles to prepare a room for you. I'm afraid you'll have to make do with those clothes for now - we're a little low on men's clothing around here."

"Really?" Jalon said. "I mean, don't worry about it, I'll make do. I'm just surprised. Only women live here?"

Dara shrugged.

"Only one woman."

Jalon blinked.

"You live here alone?" she said. "Only you, in a whole mansion?"

"Well, my service to the Demesne has been very valuable at times," Dara said gruffly. "The Nobles are willing to indulge me. And there is a lot more living space, these days, than people - it's not like I'm taking up space that anyone else needs, so there are no major reasons for why I shouldn't be allowed to live alone."

"Yes, yes," Jalon said. "That's not what I meant." He gave her a strange look. "I meant, why do you want to? Just you, in this great big place? Isn't it lonely?"

Dara shrugged.

"I have the gargoyles for company."

"But they're not real," Jalon said. "They don't think, they don't feel..."

"... they don't talk all the freaking time?" Dara said sweetly. "I get by just fine, thank you for your concern. This way to the small parlour."

They reached the room in question and sat down on two harsh, unstuffed wooden chairs on opposite sides of an angular table.

"So," Dara said. "Tell me about this missing girlfriend of yours."

"She likes peppered pears in red wine sauce," Jalon said helpfully.

Dara gave him the look of a witch who had been up all night and had had a number of unpleasant experiences during that time and wasn't in a good mood and could, by the way, just so you know, make the ground open up and swallow you. Jalon smiled a sheepish smile of apology.

"All right, seriously, what do you want to know?" he said.

"Start with her name," Dara said.

"Aseena of Tenchurch Abbey, caste of Servants," Jalon said. "Formerly caste of Nobles, formerly caste of Soldiers, formerly caste of Mystics."

Dara raised an eyebrow.

"That's quite a history," she said. "What does she do to keep getting thrown out of the higher castes?" She paused. "Actually, never mind that - what does she do to keep getting accepted into them?"

Jalon smiled. The sudden warmth in that smile was enough to touch even Dara's knobbly heart just a little. That was the smile of a man recalling how very wonderful he thought his girlfriend was.

"Aseena can be... very convincing," he said. "And she's a quick study. She just... I think that she mostly wants to know what everything is all about, and then she moves on with something else. She wants to understand life."

"Well, she can go read a biology textbook," Dara muttered. She scratched her head and suppressed a yawn. "I do recall someone by that name disappearing a few months back. There was an investigation, but they never found her. The theory was that she was buried in someone's back yard." She glanced at Jalon. "No offense."

"None taken," Jalon said dryly. "But only because I happen to know that she's not buried in anyone's back yard. I've seen her since."

Dara nodded slowly.

"You are sure?" she said. "Because sometimes when we really want to see someone, we make mistakes, think that someone we see at a distance, in a bad light, is the person we're looking for..."

"No, it was her," Jalon said. "She called out my name and everything."

A gargoyle in the form of a slender young man walked into the parlour and placed a silver trey on the table, containing two porcelain cups, a creamer and a sugar bowl, and a pot of coffee that smelled like Heaven. Dara helped herself to a cup of thick, black coffee, drank it in one tongue-searing gulp and then filled another one. Jalon, meanwhile, was applying a generous dose of milk and sugar to his own cup. Dara almost smirked. Wuss.

"Tell me," she said, sipping her second cup more carefully. "Where you saw her. What happened."

"It was about a month ago," Jalon said. "I was stepping out of the Man in the Moon, which is my favourite pub."

"You had been drinking, then?" Dara said. Jalon gave her a dark look.

"A very moderate amount," he said. "I was in full possession of my senses, I assure you."

"All right, all right." Dara sighed. "Go on."

"Well, I was just turning down the street," Jalon said, "when I heard someone cry out my name, and there she was, running towards me down the sidewalk." He looked down into his cup. "I remember her expression very clearly - happy to see me, triumphant, but tense and scared, too. Like she had the Wastelands herself after her, even though there was no one else on the street except for innocent passer-bys, as far as I could see."

"And then what happened?" Dara said.

"The street collapsed," Jalon said.

Dara gave him a long, quiet, skeptical look.

"Well, it did!" Jalon said. "I took one step towards her, and there was this sound, this crack... I don't know how to describe it. It was loud, much louder than anything you normally hear - I bet they could hear it three neighbourhoods away. And I remember thinking - I didn't understand what was going on, not exactly, but part of me had already worked it out, and I thought - 'oh crap, I'm going to die. And just when I was about to find out where she's been all this time, too.' And then..."

He bit his lip.

"Then it all goes jumbled in my head," he said. "All of a sudden, pieces of the street just weren't there anymore - they were crumbling, falling into the ground. There were rains of those sparks everywhere, the ones you get when you strike two pieces of Witch Stone together. People were screaming and trying to get away, and falling into those cracks that kept appearing - and then it wasn't cracks anymore, and the whole street just caved in, taking fifty of sixty people with it.

"I was never in any danger, though, it turned out - the piece of street I was standing on was safe, I just fell on my face because the ground was shaking so much. When I got over the shock, I was lying at the edge of a great big chasm that covered most of what had been the street a moment before. The stones were still settling down there - I could hear them scraping against each other, gravel rattling down slopes. There were people still alive down there, and I could hear them screaming and crying in pain..." He grimaced. "There was a lot that came after that, of course - all sorts of people got organised into a rescue attempt, and I was one of them. I worked in a daze the whole time. And Aseena was gone. I didn't see her after the street collapsed, and they never found her - dead or alive."

"The Marble Street collapse?" Dara said incredulously. "You were there? And you think it happened because of you?"

Jalon shrugged.

"Yes," he said simply. "I think Aseena is out there, hiding from someone. I think that she found something, and they don't want her to get the chance to tell me. She got close to making contact that one time, and they got desperate enough to do something extreme."

"Did you tell anyone that you saw her?" Dara said.

"I told the Soldiers," Jalon said. "They said that they'd look into it. Then I never heard anything about it again."

Dara frowned.

"Were I of an uncharitable nature," she said, "I'd think that you were suffering from paranoid delusions, and that your happening to involve an actual murderer in your fantasy world was just a coincidence."

"But you don't," Jalon said.

"I don't know what to think!" Dara snapped. "This whole situation is insane! Therefore insane theories need to be given consideration, due to being the only ones that are left!"

"Please stop shouting at me," Jalon said.

"No!" Dara yelled. "I haven't slept all night, there is a killer witch on the loose who is leader of an insane doomsday cult, my superiors refuse to believe me, and nothing makes sense! I need to shout at someone!"

She went silent, panting heavily and rubbing her forehead.

"Do you feel better now?" Jalon said gently.

"A little," Dara said. She closed her eyes and pinched the ridge of her nose. "All right. Yes. It's not impossible. I could collapse a street, if I had to, and that means that Mansuur - and I damn well hope it's Mansuur, because the last thing I need is there being another witch involved who's as powerful as I - could theoretically do it too. It's incredibly clumsy compared to all sorts of other tools he'd have at his disposal, but if he really thought that there was something she could tell you that she could get out in the time it would take him to shape a few gargoyles, something that she hadn't dared to entrust to any messenger for whatever reason..."

She fell silent.

"Or if..." she said. "No, that's stupid..."

"What?" Jalon said.

Dara shook her head.

"Never mind," she said. "Let's get back to your amazing powers of prophesy for a moment. How did you know that something was going to happen at Ravenscar Hold last night?"

Jalon pursed his lips.

"There is a fragment of an old poem," he said. "It dates back to before the Gnostic Interregnum. The only reason anyone knows about it is because some scholar quotes it in a dusty old book, but it's moderately famous because we have so few surviving works from before the Interregnum. It talks about how 'the dance of madness now takes flight' and that that will 'bring the demons in the night.' And... that's how I knew."

Dara shook her head, frowning in confusion.

"You mean you thought it was a... a prophesy, or something?" she said.

"No," Jalon said. "It's not a prophesy... exactly. In the poem, those lines are just a metaphor for... emotional distress, I suppose. But it's also part of Shadowed Citadel Demesne's history and culture. It's all part of the same pattern. The same song, like I told you? Because that poem was written and preserved, something bad would happen at Ravenscar Hold - nothing else would have fit."

"Why that particular one, rather than any other old poem?"

"Because that was the right description for the next part," Jalon said.

"How did you know it was last night?" Dara said.

"Because that was the right time for the next part to come," Jalon said.

"Are you aware of how little sense this makes?" Dara said flatly.

"Painfully so," Jalon said miserably. He pulled his hands through his hair. "Look, I didn't ask for this, and I certainly can't explain it. I just keep feeling that we, as a city, as a Demesne, are heading for something. And everything that has helped shape us in the past makes it inevitable that it will happen, and that it will happen a single specific way."

"And what is it that will happen?" Dara said.

Jalon drummed his fingers against the table. Ta ta ta tum, tam-tam-tam. Ta ta ta tum, tam-tam-tam.

"What is that?" Dara said. "I mean, where's it from?"

"Children over by Northgate use it as a rope-jumping chant," Jalon said. "I don't know where they got it from. But it's the center of it. I can't get it out of my head."

"'The sky weeps blood, when he comes. The stone is dust, when he comes. The dark grows cold, when he comes. The city falls, when he comes.'" Dara rolled her eyes. "Cheerful stuff for children to use."

"I doubt they pay much thought to what they're actually saying," Jalon said. "But yes, we're certainly a cheerful people, aren't we? That's part of it too."

"When we met at Ravenscar, you said that I was the one who could stop it," Dara said. "What did you mean?"

"In all those old songs and rhymes and poems and stories," Jalon said, "there is usually... a sour note. All of them are, in some way, all about reveling in the coming end. But many of them have some kind of oblique reference to..." He smiled crookedly. "... to a big fat spoilsport who turns up and saves the day, making sure that banal old life goes on and that the romantic doom gets averted. Some of them smirk about how she can't possibly succeed, some of them are angry that she'd even try, and some of them seem to be almost on her side. But the moment I saw you, I knew that you were who they were talking about. Nothing else..."

"I know, I know, nothing else would fit," Dara said. She sighed. "I don't suppose you know what happens next?"

"Not yet," Jalon said. "I need to think."

"All right, then." Dara got up. "I've prepared a room for you to sleep. If you want a bath in the morning, clap your hands twice in front of a gargoyle - I've given them an imperative to fetch a tub of warm water when you do. And now I'm going to retire to my room, and hope that the world makes more sense tomorrow." She glanced at Jalon. "Unless there is something else you haven't told me?"

"Nothing about your role as the destined saviour, no," Jalon said. He grinned. "Though I do know something else that you don't."

"Yes?" Dara said.

"That large, bearded fellow you talked to over by the wall?" Jalon said.

"Major Rinabaar," Dara said. "What about him?"

"He likes you," Jalon said matter-of-factly. "I just thought you might like to know that."

For a moment, Dara stood dumbstruck.

"That's ridiculous," she said. "We have a strictly professional relationship."

"Yes," Jalon said. "And he hates that."

Dara crossed her arms.

"I am literally famous for being good at reading people," she said. "I would have known."

"Yes, but one, you're a little too close to this one to be objective," Jalon said. "And two, Rinabaar is hard for you to read, isn't he? He is so strict and Soldier-like all the time. The only time he shows anything is when he knows you're not looking."

Dara opened her mouth and then closed it again. The infuriating thing was, he was right about that part. Rinabaar was hard to read. If anyone could hide anything from her, it would be him.

"Like when?" she said. "Just what is it you think you've noticed that has escaped me?"

"Like when he came back to talk to you just after the main battle ended," Jalon said. "You didn't see the look he gave me. 'Curses and damnation, she's got a new boyfriend,' it said. 'And he has the nerve to be more handsome than I am, the bastard!'"

"Nonsense," Dara said. She shook her head. "And get over yourself, you're in no way more handsome than..."

She bit her tongue so hard that she tasted blood. Damndamndamndamn. That had only slipped out because she was so tired and upset! And now Jalon was had a big grin of delighted smugness on his face.

"Ohoho!" he said. "What's this? You like him too, do you?"

"That's none of your business!" Dara protested feebly.

"Madame, I'm an Artist," Jalon said. "I consider it my duty to further the cause of luuuuuuuv wherever I might find it. And I suggest that you ask him to dinner sometime. He won't actually dance with joy, because that would be un-Soldier-like, but I guarantee you that he will want to."

"You are extremely annoying and I'll see you tomorrow," Dara said and left the room.

"Think about it!" Jalon shouted cheerfully after her. "I know you like your gargoyles, but he seems to be almost as taciturn as they are, and I can almost guarantee that he'd be nicer to snuggle up to on a cold night..."

Chapter four: At the barricades

baeraad — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 19:44:55 GMT

Okay, so my old plot wasn't working for me. There's no way I could make it to 50,000 words if I stuck to it.

Which means I need to take things off in another direction.

And somehow still have it add up to the situation Dara is in in the prologue.

This is the kind of challenge that makes NaNo so interesting. :D

Chapter four

The carriage rumbled down the cobbled streets of Shadowed Citadel Demesne, the hoof-beats of the gargoyle horses echoing like thunder through the quiet city. It moved quickly, almost going up on two wheels every time it turned a corner.

"For the UniGod's sake, slow down!" Jalon pleaded. He was clinging to one of the stuffed seats, his eyes wide.

Dara was sitting opposite him, pressing her fingers together to keep them from trembling. Her jaw was clenched so hard that it ached.

"Not until we're safe in my home," she said between her teeth. "Mansuur can send literally anything he can imagine after us, and I want to be snug back in my own center of power before I face it."

Jalon looked out the window with trepidation.

"How can you even see where you're going?" he said. "Please tell me you're not just playing it by ear!"

Dara smiled grimly.

"I don't have to see where we're going," she said. "I'm good at this. My gargoyles aren't just puppets on invisible strings - when I animate them, they get a little bit of a brain to go with all that muscle. The horses know the landmarks along the way to my home, and they know how to turn at each one. They'll even weer out of the way of any unexpected obstacles." She paused. "Probably, at least."

Jalon hid his face in his hands.

"Can you guess which part of that I really wish you hadn't said?" he moaned.

"Be a little less afraid of carriage wrecks and a little more afraid of Mansuur!" Dara said. "How do you know him, anyway? What were you doing at his party?"

Jalon looked up and smiled weakly.

"Singing," he said. "It's what I do."

"He invited you, then?" Dara said. She scratched her chin. "That might be important. It seemed like it was your first time there, so if he wanted you there that particular night, then..."

"No... I sort of invited myself," Jalon said. He managed a feeble version of a cocky grin. "I have a certain notoriety, among people who care about music. When I show up at a party and offer to perform, people are usually glad to let me do it."

Dara supposed she could see why. Jalon might have talked like a loon later on, but on the stage he had sung like an angel.

"All right," she said. She raised an eyebrow. "So what was a nice boy like you doing at a place like that?"

"That's... complicated," Jalon said. "I knew something was going to happen, something important and bad. No... that's not right." He grimaced. "I didn't know, but..."

"You suspected?" Dara said. "Made an educated guess? Had reason to believe?"

"No... no..." Jalon laughed, looking a mix between sad and embarrassed. "You know how sometimes you hear a melody, and you know what note comes next, because that's the only one that properly fits?"

"Nope," Dara said.

Jalon shrugged helplessly, and Dara took pity on him.

"But all right, I see what you mean," she said. "If a man was in the garden a moment ago, and now he is warming his hands by the fire, then you don't need to have been watching him to know that he spent the intervening time walking from there to here. There are no other possibilities that don't require making some huge unnecessary assumptions, and therefore that possibility is almost certainly the truth. Yes?"

Jalon shook his head.

"No," he said. "That's just 'made an educated guess' again. It's nothing as... cerebral as that."

Dara winced.

"Fine, a better example, then," she said. "Who stole a tray of biscuits from the pantry, the venal Hedonist or the Ascetic who had just finished fasting for a month?"

"Both seem likely..." Jalon said.

"Exactly," Dara said. "Only if you have a good, long talk with each of them, and you ask around among the people who knew them, then eventually you know both of them well enough to know that in this particular case, one of them was vastly more capable, on this particular day, of this particular crime. It's not because of any one fact you get to know about them. It's because of the pattern that all the facts put together forms."

Jalon smiled.

"That sounds a bit more like it," he said.

Dara grinned smugly.

"Artists tend to think that Mystics have no appreciation for intuition," she said. "As a matter of fact, we use it constantly. We just don't romanticise it. Intuition is nothing more than the part of your mind at work that sees wholes instead of parts."

"I think I might be dealing with a little more than that," Jalon said. "A couple of months ago, I started hearing a song - not literally a song, you understand, and not literally hearing it, but that's the figure of speech that makes the most sense to me - in things that were going in the city. And then I started becoming able to fill in the missing notes. I can tell what is going to happen - not the details, only the general feel of it, and maybe a few fragments of fact."

Dara shook her head.

"That's called 'confirmation fallacy,'" she said. "If those feelings are so vague, then all sorts of possible situations would fit them - so whatever happens, you feel like your foretelling has come true. Add to that a bit of genuine brains and intuition - Mansuur has a bad reputation, so predicting that something nasty is going to happen at one of his parties isn't really a stretch."

"I thought that was all too, at first," Jalon said. He made a face at her. "Mystics tend to think that Artists are always swooning over their feelings, but we do actually use our heads, and we do know that not every thought that goes through them is divine inspiration. But then my girlfriend went to the National Archives and checked a few of my inexplicable insights against the family records there."

"What did she find?" Dara said.

"I wouldn't know," Jalon said flatly. "As far as anyone can tell, she disappeared off the face of the earth on her way back home from there."

"Well, maybe she was just looking for a way to get out of a relationship with a nut who thinks he has psychic powers - did you ever think of that?" Dara said, but she couldn't put much conviction in her voice. All of a sudden, she was stuck with a bunch of improbable possibilities - either Jalon was lying so well that her well-honed eye for such things could not detect it, or else he really had some kind of gift that no one had ever heard of before and some kind of dangerous people were interested in it, or else a number of extremely odd coincidences had actually, well, coincided, including at least one person going inexplicably missing at the exact time when she was looking into an apparent mystery. By Dara's own admission, finding yourself with a number of improbable possibilities meant that you had missed something along the way, and that annoyed her.

Ritual murders and government conspiracies aren't enough, oh no, she thought. Now we have to have psychics, too. I don't know what bothers me most - that this case is so dangerous and out of my league, or that it's so damn cheesy. What's next? Will someone turn out to be my long-lost father?

In the distance, a bell started to ring. Another quickly followed, and another, until there were so many of them crying out that the very air seemed alive with the sound.

"Did you foresee that?" she growled to Jalon, straining to be heard over the din.

"Don't we all foresee it?" Jalon said hoarsely. "Every day of our lives, don't we wake up wondering if it will happen today?"

DANGER! the bells of Shadowed Citadel Demesne sang. DANGER! ENEMIES AT THE GATES! DAMNATION COME TO TAKE US ALL! HIDE YOUR CHILDREN, HIDE YOURSELVES! DEMONS! DEMONS! DEMONS! DEMONS!

***

DEMONS! DEMONS! sang the bells, waking the city to defense. Rinabaar didn't need to be told, though. He knew perfectly well that the demons were here. One of them was chewing on his leg.

"Unhand me, ruffian!" he growled, and slashed down with his saber. Driven by his powerful muscles, the steel bit deep, almost ripping the creature's head - goat-like, but with a mouth filled with sharp carnivorous teeth - off of its naked, disturbingly human-appearing body. Black blood stained the Witch Stone of the battlements, but before it had come to rest, it evaporated into foul smoke, along with the rest of the demon.

Rinabaar stepped away from the wisp of stinking vapour that was all that was left of the demon, wincing at the pain in his leg. He didn't think the wound was deep, but he hoped that it wasn't poisoned - some demons carried venoms in their fangs that could kill you before a healer could get to you.

The demon wasn't dead, of course - such creatures could only be killed under a few specific conditions, all of which were very hard to create on purpose. It had simply gathered its savaged form and retreated back into the Nowhere, the dark place that demons came from. There, it would stitch itself back together again, and eventually be back. It might take minutes or decades, depending on how powerful the demon had been.

Sending a quick prayer to whatever version of the UniGod cared to listen, to the effect that it be decades rather than minutes, Rinabaar looked around to survey the battlefield.

They were fighting atop the western wall, the great Witch Stone structure that protected the city at one mouth of the valley it inhabited. It was several hundred meters long, and the battlements were large enough for two carriages to pass each other on it, if you could have somehow lifted them the thirty meters up to the walkway. It was lit by great bonfires at regular intervals, and all down its length, Soldiers and demons were dancing a deadly dance. Rinabaar saw steel flashing in the firelight, saw distorted heads raised to howl in victory over a kill.

The demons were a varied lot. Some were almost human, until you saw the eyes glowing yellow, and until they parted their lips to flash their fangs. Others had lost all human features, appearing as fat worms the size of cows, as many-limbed, skittering things that struck and disappeared between one hardbeat and the next, or as horrors of scales and claws and leathery wings. And they were many - as Rinabaar looked down from the battlements, he saw hordes of them climbing up the walls or milling about on the barren ground beneath. A lot of them seemed to be fighting each other over who would get the honour of attacking the humans first. Demons were creatures of madness and endless spite, not inclined to the orderly tactics and cooperation that humans employed. That was one of the few advantages the humans had over them.

Speaking of which...

"Sixth Squad, return to your post!" Rinabaar bellowed at a handful of soldiers who had gotten overly enthusiastic in pressing an advantage and was leaving their assigned spot behind. "Protect the witch as assigned!"

The witch was a little bald man in a white robe. His hands were clasped and his eyes closed as if he was praying, which only added to his monkish appearance - some witches, apparently in some reaction to always being feared and avoided, liked to make a point of appearing as pious and saintly as possible. Fearful as he looked, though, he was carrying his weight in the fight; every so often, a part of the wall that an especially large group of demons were scurrying up would collapse, dropping the wicked creatures in a heap on the ground outside. Rinabaar meant to make sure that that kept happening.

The witch did have three fearsome-looking gargoyles standing around him, but they were still as the statues they were - he wasn't powerful enough to animate them and turn the wall against the demons at the same time. In fact, there were hundreds of gargoyles along the wall, built into the battlements or even sticking out of the wall itself in relief, but most of them were similarly unused; witches were expected to come to the wall in response to the bells along with the Soldiers, but so far, only a few had appeared.

Ninth Squad was fighting an especially large throng of demons over by his right, and Rinabaar ran to join them, tearing into the demons with powerful strokes of his saber. He wasn't sure where his staff had gone - for the last ten minutes, he had been trying to exercise some control over this part of the battle by no more information than sharp eyes could give him, and no more signaling ability than a loud, booming voice could buy him. Things had become dangerously disordered.

"Where! Are! Those! Reinforcements!" he growled beneath his breath, punctuating every word with a swordstroke, as if demanding an answer from the demons he dispatched. The bells should be bringing all available troops running for the western wall, but if it took much longer, the defenders would be pushed back. Then there would be fighting in the streets, civilian blood on the ground...

Things could have been much worse, he told himself as the Ninth Squad surged forward, scattering the demon pack and sending many of the creatures back into the Nowhere. When he had gotten here with the small group of Soldiers that he had been assigned for the lawkeeping mission he was on - he thought it was perhaps half an hour ago - the human lines had already been threatening to collapse. Rinabaar had managed to shore them up in this spot, more by bellowing a lot and killing demons very effectively than by any kind of strategic masterstrokes, and it seemed that the lines had held everywhere else, too. Still, much more of this, and he thought that they were done for. They hadn't been nearly ready to face an attack of this magnitude.

Ninth Squad dispatched the last demon, and Rinabaar ordered a brief rest - "Two minutes, no more!" - while trying to get his bearings. He looked out over the milling throng of the attackers far below, searching for any sign that they were giving up. They were well within the repelling field generated by the Demesne - they must be in pain, some of the weaker ones even risking true death from what amounted to happiness-poisoning.

Rinabaar looked over his shoulder at the houses of Shadowed Citadel Demesne, willing the civilians hiding in those houses to be happier and force the demons away. Of course, he had to admit in the spirit of fairness, it was probably hard to be especially happy when the bells were roaring all around you, shouting DEMONS! DEMONS! DEMONS! until you wanted to scream in helpless fear. But still easier than when standing here covered in demonic blood and with a leg wound that was not, he could not help but notice, becoming any less painful.

There was a tremble beneath his feet. For a moment, Rinabaar thought that the witch had collapsed the wrong piece of wall, and that it would not collapse beneath him. Then, across at least fifty meters of wall, the gargoyles came to life as one.

Lizards and birds, monkeys and men, medusas and baroque horrors that looked like nothing natural - suddenly, they were no longer statues, but creatures of living stone. Driven by a single will, they lumbered towards the demons, swatting at them with arms and tails and wings of clumsy stone.

Rinabaar blinked and looked at the white-robed witch, wondering dumbly if the man had suddenly gotten a whole lot better. The witch just shrugged helplessly and gave him a shaky smile.

Then Rinabaar heard a familiar voice, snarling and out of breath, chanting arcane words. He turned to see Dara coming up the stairs leading down to the ground on the city side. She was flanked by a few Soldiers, and supported in her stumbling, distracted steps by a handsome young man wearing the tattered ruins of an elegant, pale-blue outfit.

"... eshta ma'raran kosh - kosh - kosh!" Dara snarled, and in several places, Witch Stone bricks flew up into the air and formed clumsy, vaguely humanoid figures that also attacked the demons. Her gargoyles, Rinabaar noted with distracted professionalism, weren't actually very good fighters - Dara could animate more of them at once than any witch he had ever seen, but she had never studied warcraft and so could imbue no fighting skills on her creations. It didn't matter terribly much, though. Even demons had trouble with an enemy that knew no fear, knew no pain, and kept coming at you even after you tore off its head or crushed its chest.

"Enough rest!" Rinabaar ordered his squad. "Onwards! Time to sweep the wall clean!"

***

About half an hour later, he returned to find Dara enjoying a cup of tea that some Soldiers had helpfully produced for her.

It had taken some doing, sweeping the wall clean. A single witch couldn't turn the tide of the whole battle, though she had certainly beaten back the enemy very efficiently along a short stretch of the wall. Still, the troops that had been freed by the securing of that short stretch had formed much-needed reinforcements for other parts of the wall, and slowly the whole thing had snowballed. The arrival of another regiment brought by the alarm bells had settled the matter entirely.

Rinabaar was tired and his leg hurt. His uniform was torn, he was covered in blood and gore, and of all the things he stank of, sweat was probably the most pleasant. He would have very much liked to avoid facing Dara like this. She was bound to see him, now, as an uncultured brute, a man of low nature who was not worth the attention of a brilliant, magnificent woman like her. Truth be told, there had probably never been much hope to the contrary, but he had enjoyed fooling himself that one day, he might be able to make himself so bold as to approach her for a social engagement. Alas.

The man she had arrived with was hovering around her, looking uneasy with the carnage he had witnessed. He, Rinabaar could not help but notice, did not look uncultured or brutish - his features were very elegant, in fact, and while his clothes were torn, they only gave him a look of a gentleman stoically enduring hardships with dignity.

"You asked to see me, Mystic Dara?" he said.

"Yes," Dara said. She got to her feet with a groan hinting at sore muscles and went to stand before him.

Rinabaar carefully fixed his eyes on her face. He had only ever seen Dara in those bulky Mystic's robes before, never in form-fitting silk like the dress she was wearing now. She was, it transpired, magnificently curvy - a fact that only made him more painfully aware of the blood-soaked nightmare vision that he presented.

"I want," she said, "to formally press charges against Mansuur of Ravenscar Hold, caste of Mystics. I accuse him of reckless endangerment, attempted assault, lewd conduct in a public setting, attempt to incite a riot, irresponsible use of witchcraft, and being too fucking creepy."

"I am not certain that that last one is a crime..." Rinabaar said.

"Well, it should be!" Dara said heatedly.

"What about those murders you mentioned?" the blonde man said.

Dara sighed.

"Oh, he's definitely guilty of those too," she said. "I just can't prove it yet. But there are something like a hundred witnesses to those other things. Me and Jalon here, for starters - and while the others seemed very chummy with Mansuur, once you have that many witnesses, some of them will always talk, and that will get the others talking."

"Very good, Mystic," Rinabaar said. "I will handle the matter as soon as I get a moment to spare. I'm afraid that things are looking a little hectic for the near future, though..."

"Look, it's important," Dara said. "I don't know what Mansuur is up to, but it looks like he's leading a deranged cult or something, even aside from the fact that he's killing people. You can leave the mopping-up to other people while you go and slap him in irons."

"I'm afraid that there is more to it than 'mopping up,'" Rinabaar said. "Before I came to see you, I heard back from the force that was sent to harry the fleeing demons. It appears that the demons may be fleeing, but not very far. They are setting camp some miles away from our walls - thousands of demons."

"A demon army?" Jalon said. "Are you telling me that it's a single pack, thousands strong?"

"No," Rinabaar said. "It is many different packs. They fought each other for supremacy even while storming the walls. They were fighting within the camp as our Soldiers surveyed it. But they are nonetheless here, all at once. It is as if they all spontaneously decided to come here at the same time."

"You're not going to press that as one of those theories that is improbable but must be accepted because it's the only possible one, are you?" Dara said wryly.

"No," Jalon said. His face was haunted, his eyes staring into space. "No, they were all called here. He is coming. And each and every demon wants to be here when he comes."

"For the UniGod's sake, who?" Dara shouted.

Jalon just shrugged.

Chapter three: Ravenscar

baeraad — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:46:15 GMT

Hmm, this isn't going so well. I'm behind on words, and I seem to have some trouble really "feeling" the plot. Still, nothing to it - on we go...

Chapter three

All right. So she couldn't count on help from the government on this one.

So she was in fact likely to run into trouble very soon, because if Kroll wanted to stop this line of inquiry, she had far more methods at her disposal than simply refusing to help.

So this was bigger than anything she had ever encountered before, and likely to be insanely dangerous and quite possibly hopeless.

She hadn't become the go-to gal for unexplainable mysteries and unsolvable crimes by being easily discouraged, had she? Besides, it wasn't like she had any plans for tonight. Or indeed any night. The benefit of having no life outside of your work was that you could give it your undivided attention.

Ravenscar Hold was a fairly small mansion on the shores of Ebonsoul Lake. It was mainly Witch Stone, but supported by pillars of basalt that rose like the blackened bones of a giant all around the structure. The windows were small and dimly lit from inside, resembling narrow, peering eyes. The wrought iron fence was crowned by vicious thorns, and the yard inside it was small - just a graveled court where carriages could be parked, along with the stables and a few outhouses. It didn't look like the kind of place that welcomed visitors.

Yet, for a certain crowd, this was very much the place to go for a party. Ravenscar Hold hosted some kind of get-together at least once a week, and rebellious youths and rakish old people alike flocked there. There were rumours of Ravenscar Hold's parties. Priests had been to investigate several times, but nothing definite had ever been uncovered.

There was a party tonight. Dara's gargoyle-drawn carriage stopped alongside a number of other carriages in the courtyard, and Dara stepped out. She had dressed for the occasion - a black silken dress with long sleeves, beneath a white mink coat to keep the chill off of her on the journey. The dress was a little more daring than the current fashion dictated - the trend right now seemed to be towards somber, conservative cuts that gave a sense of tragic dignity - but Dara wasn't about to go to a Conjurer for a new dress just because some random Brownian motion of taste and opinion had cared to raise the cleavage a few inches since she had gotten this one.

She walked through the entrance. A couple of Servants in livery bowed to her as she passed. She felt a slight relief that they hadn't insisted that she wasn't on the guest list. Guest lists were illegal, technically - any gathering of more than fifty people was considered open to the general public, by a law that had been written to ensure that everyone who was so inclined had a party to go to, to keep some warmth and happiness alive in a cold, dark world. But it was the kind of law that got ignored whenever it was convenient, and the authorities usually overlooked it.

Of course, the master of Ravenscar Hold would want as many people as possible to embrace his scandalous lifestyle, wouldn't he?

Ravenscar Hold had Nobles, like any other mansion, but everyone knew they were just bureaucrats doing the bidding of the mansion's true ruler. Mansuur of Ravenscar Hold, caste of Mystics, master of his home by virtue of his almost legendary charisma and master of Witch Stone by virtue of an unparalleled talent for witchcraft. That was the man Dara had come to see tonight.

He was one of a handful of witches in the city who had the power to shape a gargoyle beyond his own eyesight and successfully use it to kill. And all of the others had alibis of one sort or another - Dara had spent the day checking, since being thrown out of Kroll's office. Barring the existence of unknown witches, that meant that Mansuur was almost certainly the culprit. All Dara needed to do was find out how and why - and, of course, build a strong enough case that it would stand up to a Lord Minister's attempts to shoot it down.

And then I'll lift the darkness and make the Wastelands bloom, while I'm at it, she thought sourly.

Following the music from ahead, she entered a huge ball room, where scores of people were turning slowly on the dance floor. The scene was lit by glittering candelabras in the ceiling, and the guests were decked out in their finest clothes. The more fashionable ones were in somber black or grey - Dara's dress was, by a happy coincidence, just right in that way - while a few, either out of touch with fashion or nonconformist enough to make their own rules, stood out like splashes of colour in the monochrome.

From a dais at the far side, a string orchestra was playing, and a young man was singing. He was one of the ones in colourful clothes - he wore an old-fashioned waistcoat over a puffed shirt, both of them a pale blue that set off his silver-golden hair beautifully. He had a slender, fit physique, and a thin, fresh-looking face. He sang an old ballad with a voice that was so well-schooled and honey-sweet that Dara actually stopped in her tracks for a moment to listen.

She shook her head. She wasn't here to listen to pretty music. She needed to find Mansuur and take his measure. And after that, she needed to either find someone who knew more about him than he would want Dara to find out, or else sneak off and see if she could snoop through his office or something. She set off between the dancing couples, looking around for someone who matched Mansuur's description - a thin man of medium height, middle-aged, with close-cropped grey hair and rough features.

She looked while the song ended and a new melody, without song this time, began, but she couldn't find anyone matching the description. Maybe Mansuur planned on making his entrance later in the evening.

"May I have this dance?" a voice said. Dara turned to see the singer holding out his hand to her. He was grinning, looking friendly and cheerful - though Dara's trained eye noticed a tension about him that he was trying to hide, a hint that even while he was waiting for her answer his mind was rushing ahead to something else. She had an idea what it was - some mysteries were not very mysterious at all - and it irritated her.

She wasn't sure why she didn't tell him to get lost. Maybe it was the way his voice had affected her, or maybe it was the more rational reason that she would have to wait for Mansuur to turn up, and she would look less conspicuous if she looked like she was enjoying herself. She was no good at looking like she was enjoying herself - was no good at enjoying herself, come to think of it - but chatting with a handsome man was a start.

"What's your name?" she said.

He bowed.

"Jalon of Tenchurch Abbey, caste of Artists," he said. "I noticed you coming in. Did you stop because you liked the music, or was that pause a shudder of horror?"

Dara raised an eyebrow.

"Quit fishing for compliments, would you?" she said gruffly. "You know that your voice is spectacular."

"Yes," Jalon said modestly, "but my artistic ego enjoys hearing attractive women saying so. Dance?"

Dara winced.

"Oh, why not?" she said.

Jalon led her out onto the dance floor. She was very aware of his hand on her waist. The silk of her dress was thin enough that she could feel the warmth of his skin. She had her own right hand on his shoulder, and being the master of observation that she was, she couldn't help but notice that it was a very broad and well-defined shoulder.

"That's a lovely dress you're wearing," Jalon said conversationally as they moved to the music. She stumbled a little, uncertain of the steps, but he gently led her through it, and she soon picked up the rhythm.

"Remind me how this works," Dara said. "Is this where I'm supposed to say something self-deprecating, like 'oh, this old thing?'"

"You could," Jalon said amiably. "Either you could affect sincerity, in which case you should try to pick a less cliched choice of words. Or you could make a joke out of it by affecting a silly voice and saying it just like that, and we could both smile at how stereotypical we were being. Alternatively, you could subvert expectations and shamelessly accept the praise as your rightful due - 'why yes it is, thank you for noticing - and don't I look especially dashing in it?' Or you could return the compliment and tell me that I look very handsome in this outfit. Or you could tut-tut at me for making such meaningless small talk and bring up a weightier topic."

Dara looked at him with equal parts amusement and disbelief as he led them in rhythmic circles through the hall, navigating deftly through the other dancing couples.

"Conversation is just like any other art," Jalon said. "There isn't any right way to do things. The trick is finding the right way to do the thing you have chosen to do."

"Well, I see that you honed that one to perfection, also," Dara said dryly. "So what is this, to you? Another performance?"

"All the world is a stage, or so they say," Jalon said.

He had a very nice smile, Dara had to admit - brilliant and boyish and just a bit sheepish. That just made her all the more annoyed that she had reason to believe it was an affectation.

"Uh-huh," she said. "Does that mean that you have a script? Do we end up in bed before the third act?"

"Ooooh." Jalon laughed. "So forward! And a bit cynical, I can't help it feel. Can't I just want to dance with a very beautiful woman, without having anything definite planned beyond what, if anything, might naturally develop from it?"

"You could," Dara said. "But you don't. You're good at pretending to be relaxed and spontaneous, I'll give you that, but you were just a little too rushed back there, and you let some eagerness slip. You have an agenda."

Jalon's smile remained, but his voice turned serious.

"I do, yes," he said. "I only wish that it was the one you think." He glanced discreetly to the side. "I think you should go, right now. We'll pass the door in a moment. Go through it, get to your carriage, and leave." He paused. "To make it more believable, I could leer at you like I just said something ungentlemanlike, and you could look angry, push me away, and storm out." He nodded to himself. "Yes - they might believe that. Everyone knows what Artists are like."

"Now, why would I want to do that?" Dara said.

"Because something bad is going to happen," Jalon said.

"What is?" Dara said.

"Just... something bad," Jalon said. "And I'm afraid that if you're here, you'll be right in the thick of it. They don't like you."

"They?" Dara said.

"They. Them." Jalon smiled unhappily. "I'm sorry, I don't get an instruction manual."

"Make sense!" Dara snapped.

"I wish I could." Jalon glanced at the exit. "We're here. Please leave?"

"Forget it," Dara said. "I want to know just what it is you think you know about me."

"Only that you're at the center of it all," Jalon said. "I think you're the only one who can do something about it."

"About what?" Dara said, as they spun away from the entrance again.

Jalon hesitated.

"About He Who Comes," he said. He grimaced and started singing tonelessly, at odds with the music that was playing. "The sky weeps blood, when he comes. The stone is dust, when he comes. The dark grows cold, when he comes. The city falls, when he comes."

He drummed out the rhythm with his fingers against her hand for every line - ta ta ta tum, tam-tam-tam. Ta ta ta tum, tam-tam-tam.

"You're insane." Dara pulled her fingers out of his grip and pushed him away. Her untrained muscles shouldn't have been able to budge him, but he took a few steps back anyway - out of some strange sort of politeness, she thought. "Or else making fun of me. Either way, go do it somewhere else."

The music stopped. It didn't trail out naturally, or even end in a screech of fumbled notes, like it would have if the musicians had been startled into stopping. Instead, it ended cleanly in between two notes, as if cut with a knife.

Dara turned slowly. All around the room, people were turning towards the dais. The looks on their faces were expectant, hungry.

"Here it comes," Jalon whispered.

"Here what comes?" Dara whispered furiously back. "Just what is it you think you know?"

Jalon looked unhappy.

"Not enough to make a difference, at this point," he said. "I'm really sorry. You should have left when you had the chance."

A man stepped out onto the dais. Dara recognised Mansuur from his description right away, but nothing about it had prepared her for the sheer presence of him; he looked around the room like everyone in it was his slave, and from the looks of people around her, no one felt like disagreeing. He walked with a certain stiffness that hinted of age, but he stood tall like a King, and his face was alive with passion and hunger.

"My friends!" he said. He had a powerful voice, deep and resounding and free of any doubts. "Thank you for joining me on this night! We live in special times, you and I. Worlds are being born and destroyed all around us - the very air is alive with birth wails and death rattles! I say to you, each and every one of us will live to see a glorious transformation! Are you ready for it?"

There were cries of agreement all throughout the hall. Fists were shaken in the air. Several people fell to their knees, tearing at their hair - in some form of ecstasy, as near as Dara could tell.

She whispered a few words beneath her breath, and felt the floor beneath her feet quiver. Witch Stone. Whatever happened, she was in her element, surrounded by her power.

Of course, Mansuur had comparable powers to hers, and he was the one who was familiar with the surroundings...

"Throughout the endless years," Mansuur cried out, "we have been promised!"

"PROMISED!" the crowd echoed as one.

"Down the fated bloodlines," Mansuur said, "the faith has been kept!"

"KEPT!" the crowd roared.

"In our undoing, we will be remade!" Mansuur shouted.

"WHEN HE COMES!" the crowd bellowed, dozens of voices raised as one. "WHEN HE COMES! WHEN HE COMES! WHEN HE COMES! WHEN HE COMES!"

All along the walls of the room, Servants took up drums and began hammering out a deafening beat, quick and furious.

"The rapture will be ours!" Mansuur bellowed, and raised his hands.

Throughout the hall, between the groups of frenzied guests, the stones of the floor parted, and gargoyles arose. They were human in shape, the runes across their bodies burning as they scraped against the floor stones on the way up, and each one bore an expression of mad elation that perfectly matched that of the revelers.

Dara spun around, hands raised, shouting words that were drowned out by the chanting. All around her, the gargoyles that had been finding their feet on the floor shuddered and staggered, torn between her control and Mansuur's. Her head was spinning, her senses overloaded. All around her were struggling gargoyles and roaring people, and the air was thick with voices and drumbeats. Were had Jalon gone? What was Mansuur doing?

The gargoyles close to her, the ones she was trying to control, numbered no more than half a dozen. There were scores of them in the hall, and as she watched, they went to work. Each one took a guest in its stony arms, spinning him or her around in violent circles. Dara thought she saw clothes being ripped off, thought she heard screams.

"Jalon!" she shouted, but of course her voice was drowned by the din. She tried again and again, straining her voice until her throat burned. "Jalon! Jalon!"

She couldn't see him - most of her attention was taken up by controlling the gargoyles, and the rest was a whirlwind of stone and flesh and expensive clothes. She told herself that she should go, right now, run out into the night and away from this madness. Why stay behind for a stranger?

Because he tried to warn me, she thought. Confused as he was, he knew something, and he tried to get me out of the way. He's not one of these people.

That thought was immediately followed by another one.

So what was he even doing here tonight?

Having a question to focus on helped - she had spent her life answering questions. With a final string of arcane words, she brought the gargoyles under her control, pushing Mansuur away. As one, driven by a single will, they turned and started marching through the crowd, pushing aside humans and other gargoyles as they went. Dara hurried along in their midst, protected from the turmoil around her by their thick, stony bodies.

With her own band of gargoyles keeping her unmolested, focusing her attention was easier. She caught a glimpse of a head of silver-golden hair and hastened after it. She found Jalon, struggling to free himself from a group of laughing people who were dragging him back, laughing like lunatics all the while. Their faces seemed twisted and distorted to Dara, like demonic masks emerging from the collars of their pricey clothes. Their skin was flushed, with heat and exertion and excitement. Jalon was fighting them without success - he was young and strong, but he was flailing about wildly, clearly without a clue how to employ his powerful limbs to advantage.

Dara's gargoyles crashed into the group molesting the Artist like a ton of bricks, scattering them across the floor. Dara took Jalon's hand and pulled him towards the exit, sending the gargoyles out around her to clear the way. Several of them ran into other gargoyles who fought back, and there were crashes and sparks as Witch Stone collided with Witch Stone, breaking to pieces before the violence of the impacts.

She looked back a single time before walking out the door. Mansuur was still standing on the dais, and he was looking straight at her, amusement on his face.

Dara shot him a defiant look. I know what you are doing. I will stop you. I'm not afraid of you.

Mansuur's thick lips were parted by a smirk. I don't care. No, you won't. Yes, you are.

She fled out the door with that mocking face etched into her mind, merciless and haunting.

Chapter two: ... and claim that Government has happened

baeraad — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:50:24 GMT

Just for fun:

Name: Dara
Home: Sablecrest Manor
Caste: Mystic
Lifestyle: Sophist
Abilities: Poor Administration, Basic Discipline, Poor Lore, Advanced Perception, Basic Psychology, Basic Science
Powers: Advanced Witchcraft

Chapter two

Shadowed Citadel Demesne spread out over the floor of a deep, vast valley. Three deep, black lakes were watered by streams running down from the surrounding mountains, and emptied into a great river that flowed onwards out into the Wastelands that lay beyond the high walls protecting the city from the north-north-east and west-south-west. The streets were lined with leering Witch Stone gargoyles, and high spires rose from cathedrals and palaces and prison keeps, their walls bedecked with carvings and ornaments. From clock towers, weighty bronze bells rang out the hours. In the well-lit salons and fashionable coffeehouses, people wore mink and satin, gold and diamonds in elegant designs intended to awe and impress.

If someone had pointed out to the people of Shadowed Citadel Demesne that the beauty they surrounded themselves with was intended to replace something, they would have been confused. What could they possibly miss? Did they not have food and drink, music and fire, wise rulership and spiritual guidance? Did they not have the grace of the UniGod - and was not the fact that they always repelled the demons at their gates proof of that? What, then, could they possibly miss?

But one could miss even that which one had never seen. Each and every one of the citizens carried an ache, deep in their hearts, a longing that hummed within their very genes, demanding something that they knew the name for but did not know the meaning of. Because for four hundred years, no citizen of Shadowed Citadel Demesne had seen a living plant.

Animals did exist, the bidden and the unbidden. Crows and magpies nested in the high towers. Horses pulled carriages along the streets. Dogs strutted by their owners' sides. All of them were fed, by gift or by theft, from the Conjured stores of food that every day spread across the city, brought into being by that select few who had been born with what some called a gift from the UniGod and some called an accident of nature, but who all depended upon for their very survival.

In Shadowed Citadel Demesne, magic brought life... even where no life should be able to possibly exist.

***

Sablecrest Manor was one of many fine mansions in Shadowed Citadel Demesne. It rose ten stories high, all wrought iron ornaments and polished Witch Stone facades, and was surrounded by a great park of labyrinths and statues, paths and benches, gaming courts and gazebos. Most such mansions were bustling with life - Servants to keep them clean and repaired, Artists to fill them with song, Nobles to overlook their finances, Priests to comfort and council, Soldiers to watch over them all. There should have been laughing children, lovers taking walks in the park, old people reminiscing around the fireplaces.

There was none of those things in Sablecrest Manor. The mansion had only a single inhabitant, and whatever she needed - of service and protection, assistance and companionship - she provided for herself by her witchcraft. She padded silently through the long, empty halls, and aside from her quiet steps, the only ones that echoed through them were the heavy thuds of gargoyle feet.

Dara was sitting in the kitchen, cross-legged on a table, its wood so old that it had gone almost black. A small gargoyle stoked the fire in the fireplace, while another kneaded some dough over by the counter. Dara didn't need more than a flicker of attention to keep them animated, just as she didn't need much to make the other gargoyles active throughout the mansion continue with their routine tasks. If anything, the exercise steadied her - a faint distraction, to make her concentration all the more complete.

There were tiny pebbles of Witch Stone spread across the kitchen floor. Dara looked at them intently.

Let's see now...

Three murders, each one the same - blunt force, applied to a victim while he or she was alone, in a room that the culprit had appeared to break out of rather than into.

The Witch Stone gravel scraped across the floor, joining together or drawing back to form a cluster of words - BLUNT TRAUMA, NO WITNESSES, FORCED EXIT, and the words NO FORCED ENTRY with a line drawn across them. After a moment, Dara gestured, and the words ELEVEN BELLS formed at the side of the cluster. They couldn't be exactly sure when the victims had died, but for now she would work on the theory that the timing was part of the pattern.

The first victim had been named Ygall, a Priest, working in the Hillside Monastery library. He had been withdrawn, scholarly, and vaguely well-liked in the way of someone who gave people neither reason to like nor to dislike him.

The Witch Stone moved - scrape scrape scrape - to form a second cluster of words, joined to the first with a line. PRIEST. HILLSIDE MONASTERY. LIBRARIAN. BOOKISH.

The second victim had been Hakana of Lonebridge Manor, caste of Nobles. She had been regional liaison of the Ministry of Tranquility - a pious woman, from all accounts, and greatly dedicated to her work. All sorts of political rivals, but no real enemies.

Scrape scrape scrape - a third cluster. NOBLE. LONEBRIDGE MANOR. REPRESENTATIVE. RELIGIOUS.

And now Marias. Dara formed a fourth cluster. NOBLE. STONEGARDEN PARK. BUREAUCRAT. RAKISH.

She made a slight effort of will, and the two small gargoyles in the kitchen turned towards her. They were lizard-like in form, bipedal with trailing tails, short, stubby wings, and ridges running down their backs. They watched her in silence.

"Two Nobles and a Priest," Dara said. "All members of the higher castes, even though the Servants outnumber them three to one and most of the rest are Soldiers. Whomever it is wants people who matter." She scratched her chin. "But it's apparently okay if they don't matter that much - a pencil-pusher and a librarian were apparently acceptable."

The gargoyles made no comment to that.

"You can tell that I'm thinking 'ritual murder,' can't you?" Dara said with a faint smile.

The gargoyles nodded sagely.

"Of course," Dara admitted, "'ritual' is just what you call something that clearly follows very specific rules, yet makes no outward sense. Am I right?"

The gargoyles indicated that she was.

"In that case," Dara said, "these victims represent something. And that means that what they have in common is less important than what sets them apart. Like..."

She peered at the arrangement of Witch Stone pebbles, looking from one to the other.

BOOKISH.

RELIGIOUS.

RAKISH.

Dara snapped her fingers, and the pebbles whirled around, reshaping the words.

SOPHIST.

ASCETIC.

HEDONIST.

"Maybe?" Dara offered, glancing at the gargoyles. They looked doubtfully at the new arrangement. She shrugged. "It's a possibility. I'll have to ask the next of kin for each of them to see which lifestyle they identified most with."

She thought for a moment.

"Of course," she said, "if that was it, if the killer wanted one representative for each major lifestyle, what happens next? Is he done? Or does the cycle start over? Or does he go on to something else entirely?"

She bit her lip.

"Damn, this is a dead end," she said. "No, I'm thinking about it wrong. Never mind where they differ. What else was true for each of the murders?"

She stared at the central cluster for a while.

"What," she rephrased the question, chasing a haunting piece of inspiration, "was there at the scene of each murder?"

The gargoyles looked helplessly at her. For a while, Dara looked back. Then she laughed.

"Son of a bitch," she said quietly. "Staring me right in the face, wasn't it?"

She gestured, and another phrase appeared in the central cluster.

WITCH STONE.

***

The Ministry of Mystery was housed in an impressive marble office building, the columns and frescoes along its walls made of marble and pristine white in the glow of the street lights. There was constant activity there - messengers coming and going, dignitaries arriving, citizens standing in line to make complaints or requests to the masters of at least one fifth of Shadowed Citadel Demesne.

Dara's gargoyle-drawn carriage had arrived there at what passed, in this Demesne, for the early morning. Whether it was actually so was a question for academics.

There was still a sun beyond the magical darkness that had been cast over the city - far-ranging expeditions had come back reporting that if you traveled straight ahead for a month or more, the black fugue above gradually thinned out and disappeared, until you were standing below an open sky. However, such expeditions served no major purpose beyond satisfying the curiosity of a few Sophists, and as such they were few and far between - certainly no one had any intention of launching one for the trivial purpose of determining what time of day it was.

Lacking an exterior source of time, the citizens of Shadowed Citadel Demesne made do with clockwork timepieces that represented a 26-hour day - it having been decided, centuries before, that it no longer made sense to try to keep the rhythm of the planet, and that the citizens would be happier keeping the rhythm of the human body, taking ten hours of sleep for every sixteen hours of waking. Right now, Dara's pocket watch made the time out to be half past eight.

The fact that that made it an hour since she had come here was not lost on her.

She was sitting in what was, all things considered, a quite opulently furnished waiting room. The couches were deep, the stoves were hot, and the walls were decorated with tasteful, expensive paintings - though Dara's pleasure in the last part was limited to spending a few minutes playing spot-the-forgeries, which revealed that a supposed Lintwel of Lakeview Manor original had clearly been painted by a right-handed artist, whereas Lintwel was well known to have been left-handed. Honestly, did other people never bother to look closely at anything?

There was a motley lot waiting along with her - white-garbed Priests, robed Mystics, livery-clad Servants, uniformed Soldiers. Every once in a while, a Noble stepped in and called a name, leading the patient supplicant off to talk to whatever official he or she had come to see. Dara had a sense of foreboding about her own chances to be let in before the Ministry closed for the day in thirteen hours. She had, after all, asked to see the Minister of Mystery herself. The Noble taking her request had looked faintly dizzy at hearing it, and mumbled something about seeing whether the great woman had an opening at some point.

Dara leaned back in the couch and yawned. This wasn't working. She needed to tell someone about her suspicions, and they weren't of the kind that could be shared with just anyone. Lord Minister Kroll would see that, if Dara ever actually got close to her - she wouldn't thank Dara if she went around spreading panic. And yet, without telling one of the lesser Nobles what she thought was going on, how to convince them to let her see Kroll at all?

She smiled to herself. An interesting problem.

She had watched the low-level Nobles who came to fetch supplicants from time to time, noting all the tell-tale signs that people weren't aware that they were giving off, extrapolating their moods, dispositions and temperaments from their tones, facial expressions, word choices and body language. Carefully, she selected one of them, then sat back and waited for her to make a reappearance.

She was a quite young woman, fine-skinned and golden-haired, with a soft voice and a nervous smile. New at the job, Dara judged. Ill at ease. Feeling unequal to much in the way of authority. Dara stepped up to her as she was about to call a name.

"Madame," she said before the Noble could speak. "If you do not take me to the Lord Minister this moment, I shall be forced to tell you what I want to speak to her about."

The Noble hesitated.

"Please just sit down and wait, Mystic," she said, probably unaware of the imploring undertone. "If the Lord Minister gets a moment to spare..."

"The Lord Minister wants to talk to me right now," Dara said. "She just doesn't know it yet, and nor will she until she actually does talk to me. This is what was in the World Before known as a 'Catch 22.' In order to break it, I will have to tell you the extremely sensitive information that I am here to tell her."

"Just sit down, Mystic," the Noble repeated.

"I will not," Dara said. "Instead, I will share with you a piece of information that is far, far above your clearance level. Then you will take me to the Lord Minister. However, the Lord Minister will be displeased. Displeased with me for talking, and displeased with you for hearing. That neither one of us had any choice will not matter to her. One of the benefits of power is that you do not have to be reasonable. I am very sorry to do this to you, but this really is very important. The matter is this..."

She leaned forward as if to whisper in the Noble's ear. The Noble shied back as if approached by a dangerous animal.

"I'm... I'm not..." she stammered.

"You're not authorised to make these kinds of decisions?" Dara said.

"I'll... I have to..." the Noble said, glancing nervously over her shoulder.

"You'll have to check with the Lord Minister?" Dara said. "Excellent idea. Let her make the decision - that's her job, after all. And just to save time, I'll tag along with you."

The Noble fled. Dara followed her, feeling very pleased with herself. Knowing what made people tick wasn't the same as having actual people skills, but sometimes it could be made to serve the same purpose.

***

Kroll of Silvertree Hall, caste of Nobles, Lord Minister of Mystery, was a tall and stately woman with a thick, well-tended mane of white hair and large, pale-blue eyes that surveyed Dara across the desk. Dara stared back stubbornly. She and Kroll had been at odds before, and it was always upsetting - for all that Dara told herself that she didn't care what anyone thought, Kroll's steely gaze and force of personality could pile leaden disapproval over you without her needing to say a word.

"I expect that you think yourself very clever," she now said.

"Well, I do consistently score 'too high to measure' on IQ tests," Dara said modestly. "But I'm guessing you mean my... somewhat unorthodox way of getting an appointment with you?"

Kroll gave her a look that made her feel that perhaps the cleverest thing she could be doing right now would be to cut way back on the sass.

"You can't do this," she said flatly. "We have certain rules in this Demesne, and you are not above them. Your skills are of great value, and that makes people willing to cut you some slack when you fail to dot an I or cross a T, but you are not above the rules. That's a lesson I'm willing to impart by means of two weeks menial labour if I have to. I have far better uses for you than to have you picking litter off the sidewalk, but if that's what it takes to teach you your place, then so be it. Will that be what it takes?"

"No," Dara said. "Look, I'm sorry. I wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been so important that I speak to you as soon as possible, and if I hadn't thought that I should let as few people as possible know what we are speaking of."

Kroll hesitated, then leaned back in her stuffed leather chair. She put her fingertips together in front of her, forming a tent.

"I'm listening," she said.

"Those murders I've been brought in to investigate were committed by a witch," Dara said.

"Nonsense," Kroll said.

Dara had to admit that she had expected a bit of shock and disbelief at that one - maybe even furious denial. No one wanted to think about the possibility of an insane witch - of a lunatic who could shape his twisted delusions in stone and make them come to life. There had been a few such cases in the history of Shadowed Citadel Demesne, and they made for sobering reading for a historian.

She had expected shock and disbelief. She hadn't expected disgusted dismissal.

"No, listen to me," she said. "It's the only thing that fits. To look at the murders, it seems like each time the killer appeared out of thin air, did the deed, and then broke out. And that makes no sense. But it assumes that the killer needed to be in the same room as the victims in the first place. What if he didn't? What if he could stand outside and shape a piece of crumbling Witch Stone wall into whatever murder weapon he liked, make it kill the victim, and then summon it to him before leaving? Then it makes sense."

"That is ridiculously far-fetched," Kroll said. "Why would your hypothetical witch need to summon his gargoyle to him once he was done with it?"

Dara blinked.

"Because he didn't just control it, he shaped it," she said. "He had to - there were no gargoyles on any of the crime scenes. But if a witch constructs a gargoyle, it will show signs of his technique - it's like hand-writing. He could shatter it, but without entering the room he couldn't be sure that he had destroyed it thoroughly enough. No, he had to take it with him. No one notices if a wall has a few more holes in it, not when most of them are holier than the Lord Bishop anyway."

She was a second away from adding, surely you know that? but then clamped her mouth firmly shut. Because yes - Kroll would know all about gargoyle-creating techniques. She was, after all, Lord Ministery of Mystery - the person in charge of administrating all things arcane and esoteric. If she was pretending not to know, then there was a reason for it.

"It's barely even possible to do that kind of shaping from a distance," Kroll said. "Most witches need to be close enough to see what they're doing."

"True," Dara said. "Which means that the list of suspects is pleasantly short. Look, we need to find whomever it is quickly and discreetly, or not only is there likely to be more murders, but sooner or later the average citizen is going to figure out what's going on. And you know what happens whenever someone thinks that a witch has gone bad. Most people barely tolerate us as it is - if they heard so much as a whisper to the effect that a witch might be out there killing people, they'll panic. Witches will get attacked. And then the witches will panic, and when witches panic, things break."

Kroll massaged her forehead.

"Get out of my sight," she said, "and take your crackpot theories with you. And you may rest assured that once I have discussed the matter with your more immediate superiors - who are the ones you should have bothered with this nonsense, insofar as you should have bothered anyone - you will be submitted to some suitable disciplinary action for harassing my staff and taking up my time."

Dara didn't argue, but instead mumbled some incoherent excuses and headed out the door. This was for two reasons. The first was that she was very bad at lying, and she was afraid that Kroll would be able to see what she was thinking if she stayed for a moment longer. The second one was that she was very good at telling when other people were lying, and Kroll was lying. Dara didn't know why or what about, but she knew a well-executed act when she saw one, and Kroll's refusal to believe her had been one.

She stopped on the other side of the door, leaning against the wall and trying to make her heart stop pounding. Up until now, this had been fun. She had been so proud of solving a mystery that had stumped everyone else, and she had been proud of getting to Kroll without having to go through any lower functionaries too. She had been enjoying the feeling of supreme cleverness that was her foremost pleasure in life.

Now she wasn't feeling so clever anymore. She was feeling confused. She was feeling scared.

The Lord Minister of Mystery doesn't want me to solve the case, she thought. What the hell is going on?

Chapter one: A Most Unusual Demon

baeraad — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:13:26 GMT

Here we go. We have magical gifts, pretty uniforms, tons of angst, unresolved sexual tension, Random Capitalisation of Words, violent murder, and an over-powered yet tragically flawed protagonist. It's the Demesneverse, all right.

Chapter one

The floor she was lying on was pale stone, almost a dirty white, made from many uneven bricks that had been pieced together without masonry like the pieces of an endless puzzle. Each brick had a rune engraved on it. To her blurry gaze, they seemed to flicker and dance.

Witch Stone. Her destiny and birthright, her servant and only friend. She chuckled, almost hysterically, and drew her hand over the uneven floor, dazedly caressing it. Her fingers left lines of blood behind them.

With a long, drawn-out whimper of effort, she forced herself to her feet. Every muscle ached, her lungs were heavy with dust, and there was a deep, hot ache in her chest that she thought might be a cracked rib.

Never mind. Never mind. She began to stagger onwards, down through the corridor. As she walked, she gasped words of power beneath her breath, and the Witch Stone walls heeded - bulging out where she passed and receding back to their original form when she moved on, like she as a magnet pulling iron fillings towards her. It comforted her. She had a little bit of power, even here, even now.

She was Dara of Sablecrest Manor in Shadowed Citadel Demesne, caste of Mystics, and she was going to her well-deserved doom. She had figured it out in the end - learned just what menace was towering over her city, what ancient curse was finally going to be fulfilled - but it had been too late, too late. If she had been smarter... if she had been quicker...

No sense worrying about that now.

Faces danced before her eyes, accompanied by the echoes of names. Kroll. Mansuur. Kim. Rinabaar. Jalon.

Jalon.

She didn't think that she could survive what was to come, but she hoped that she might strike a final blow against the evil, make her death mean something. It didn't seem too much to ask.

It probably was, though.

There was a door at the end of the corridor. Dara didn't stop to open it - instead, she snarled a command and made the Witch Stone of its frame stretch and distend. With a crack, the door was ripped off its hinges, and Dara stepped into the sanctum.

It was a nightmare. Fallen, bloody bodies lay around an dais, where a stone cauldron boiled, filled with blood and more arcane things. The walls were engraved with scenes of carnage that made the real one before her look innocent.

As she watched, a figure rose out of the cauldron, emerging from its unclean depths, its form dripping and running with that heretical elixir. With a slow, graceful motion, it stepped over the edge. Its form was male, naked and beautiful.

It smiled when it saw her, a smile that had once made her heart race.

"Dara..." the demon whispered.

Two days earlier

The carriage was large and black and opulent - a little too much so to be in keeping with the current fashion. Bronzen filigree trailed its sides, and on the roof a small but genuine Witch Stone gargoyle was frozen in an eternal snarl. The horses were gargoyles too, big, clumsy things whose every step struck sparks against the street, Witch Stone against Witch Stone. There was no driver. The owner of the carriage didn't need one.

The carriage stopped outside of a tall office building, and its owner stepped out. She was short - not conspicuously so, just shorter enough than average that she had gotten used to the idea of other people always being somewhere above her. Her hair, when it fell out of the white-fur-lined hood, was long and dark, and her face was round and would, to an outside observer, be pale. No one who had ever seen her thought of her as pale, though. No one who had ever seen her was aware that anyone could be anything but pale.

Dara of Sablecrest Manor, caste of Mystics, hurried into the building, the fur-lined cloak billowing around her. She felt a thrill in the pit of her stomach, a spark that wasn't quite happiness but was, at least, a pleasure in being alive. She only felt alive, only felt real, when there was a mystery to solve - and this one was a good one.

Up above, beyond the reach of the street lights and watch fires, the sky was pitch black, devoid of sun, moon and stars. It had been that way for four hundred years.

There were a couple of Soldiers in the stairway, dressed in the blue and purple greatcoats that served as uniforms for the military caste of Shadowed Citadel Demesne. Both of them looked grim, grasping the hilts of their sheathed sabers. Soldiers never liked it when things didn't make sense - they wanted something concrete in front of them that they could chop to pieces and be done with it. It was an understandable, if sometimes unfortunate, attitude among the people who formed the first line of defense against the Wastelands, but it was also why they needed people like Dara. The Wastelands didn't always oblige you by making immediate sense - and for that matter, human beings could sometimes do things that made you wish you could believe that they were possessed.

"Mystic Dara." One of the Soldiers bowed. "We were told to expect you. The crime scene is..."

"... fifth floor, the door to the right, about halfway down the office," Dara said. "Yes, thank you, I saw the broken window. Just get out of my way and let me do my job, would you? Rinabaar will tell me all I need to know."

She swept by them, up the stairs. She felt secretly disappointed that neither of them asked how she knew that it was Major Rinabaar who was in charge of the crime scene (she had spotted a footprint in the mud outside the door that was big, heavy and came from a distinctive brand of fine military boots, an observation that she felt quite pleased with. Not that it was a big leap, she ahd to admit; the case was, technically, his). As far as interacting with other people went, patiently explaining her deductions to the average fool was about as close as she usually came.

There were more Soldiers, but they let her through without comment - most of the Shadowed Citadel military knew by now that Dara, caste of Mystics, was notoriously waspish and should be addressed only when you had something important to say.

The office was a long, hall-like room, warmed by a fireplace at each end and filled with desks. There was nothing very special about it - as a cursory glance in her reference books had told Dara before leaving her house, the Nobles who worked here were responsible for maintaining the food supply to the neghbourhoods along the shores of Cold Lake. It seemed strange that anything had happened here that was worth taking a life over.

Still, someone had. As she walked down the length of the office, she could see the body on the floor. A short, fat man, though dressed in silken clothes that flattered his figure as well as was possible. His head, with its carefully maintained locks of black hair, lay bent at an impossible angle. His eyes stared at the ceiling in something that resembled horror.

There were Soldiers all around, searching through the office meticulously though - to Dara's eye - clumsily. One of them came to meet her when he noticed her approach.

"Mystic Dara," he said formally and snapped off a strict salute. "Thank you for joining us so promptly."

Major Rinabaar was a very large man - Dara thought he might be nearly two meters tall, and broad across the shoulders like a bull. It made him look impressive, but Dara knew - not from being told, but from the kind of extrapolation that led to her being called in at situations such as this - that he was actually embarrassed about his bulk, thinking that it made him appear brutish. He made every effort to offset such an impression. His gold-buttoned officer's uniform was of impeccable fit, and so clean and neat that it looked like it had never been worn before. His hair, black as oil, was just long enough to curl and set into a fashionable style, and every hair in his full, short beard was trimmed to perfection. He smelled, faintly, if a discreet, flowery cologne.

Dara had to admit that she always felt a bit flustered around Rinabaar. Partly it was because she find him hard to read - a disconcerting feeling for someone who was used to finding almost everyone an open book, but Rinabaar was so formal and militaristic that he didn't give off most clues that she normally relied on. Mostly, though, the reason was a lot more embarrassingly simple - he was very handsome, and Dara was no better at dealing with men as men than she was at dealing with people as people.

"What do we know about the victim?" she said. Keeping things formal was what always worked best for her, when she couldn't bully her way through.

"Marias of Stonegarden Park, caste of Nobles," Rinabaar answered promptly. "Age thirty-eight, no current partner, a number of acknowledged children by different mothers. Working as one of Noble Talmat's clerks, and apparently without further ambitions. As lifestyles go, a dedicated Hedonist."

"Sounds harmless enough," Dara said, though she couldn't hide a slight look of disgust. She could map out all the possible psychological reasons for and implications of the Hedonistic lifestyle, but she could not, personally, understand the Hedonist any more than she could understand their polar opposites, the Ascetics. If she was anything, she was a Sophist - to her, life was about elevating the mind, not about indulging or depriving the flesh.

"We will, of course, question everyone who knew him," Rinabaar said. "But we woke up Noble Talmat and interviewed him already, and he denies that Marias had any enemies to speak of. And, of course..."

"... it's the same kind of killing as the first two," Dara said. "Any connection at all with the other two victims?"

"None," Rinabaar said. "They all grew up in different places, lived in different places, worked in different places, associated with different social circles. It seems completely random. The only rational theory is that this is the work of a demon."

"Is it?" Dara said. She drew her hands over one of the outer walls. Several bricks of Witch Stone were crumbled and broken - the building was ancient, and Witch Stone was fragile, though it annoyed her that no one had bothered to repair it. There were never enough witches for all the Witch Stone houses, but surely an official governmental building...

"I believe so," Rinabaar said. If he took umbrage, he hid it well. "Especially since the office was securely locked, with no signs of forced entry, just like the cathedral and the private office in Gargoyles' Dance Abbey. This time, there are more people who would have had the key, I admit, but then there is that..."

He gestured to the shattered window.

"All the shattered glass is on the outside," he said. "Like before. Someone entered without breaking any doors or windows, and then forced their way out. Clearly, a demon teleported in, killed Marias, and then left violently."

Dara shook her head.

"No, that doesn't make sense," she said. "If it teleported in, why not teleport back out? Conversely, if it broke its way out, why not break its way in?"

Rinabaar shrugged, bulging muscles moving beneath the splendidly tailored uniform. Dara felt a flutter in her stomach and had to work to keep her trail of thought. It was impossible not to be affected by the sheer weight of physical power that was embodied in Rinabaar.

"Demons are prone to theatrics," he said. "It might enjoy the idea of appearing out of nowhere, taking a life, and then disappearing amidst an orgy of destruction."

"It's not impossible..." Dara admitted grudgingly. It wasn't, either - in fact, it was the possibility that suited the facts best. It was just that that didn't mean that it suited them well - it was a clumsy theory, cobbled together from assumptions to fit a situation that made no particular sense, and Dara distrusted such theories. The correct theory, once you had it, was usually surprisingly simple. The more you had to postulate to make a theory work, the worse the chances of it being right were.

She shook her head.

"There are precious few demons that could teleport into a Demesne," she said. "A fairly powerful one could materialise, I'll grant you, and maybe keep itself together for long enough to snap someone's neck. But after that, it would fall to pieces - just dissolve back into the Nowhere. Demons have trouble enough walking into a Demesne, and that lets them be solid to start with. A demon teleporting has to assemble its body in reality, and if it did it inside a Demesne it would be fatally poisoned right from the start."

"We are not a very stable Demesne, though," Rinabaar pointed out. "A Demesne works because the focused spirit and will to live by large numbers of people in one place hurts and repels demons. Our spirit and will to live is a little... below that of other Demesnes."

"Well, other Demesnes don't have eternal night and winter to bring them down," Dara said, feeling oddly defensive of her motherland. "Anyway, look at the facts. Most demons don't teleport inside the Citadel's walls. They climb over, when and where they can, and then lurk arond the streets causing trouble until they can't stand to remain anymore, and then they teleport out. It looks to me like that much is true here too, just like everywhere else."

"There is such a thing as especially powerful demons, though," Rinabaar said. "Once you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"Rubbish," Dara said. "If you eliminate the impossible and find yourself left with the improbable, then it's a hundred to one that somewhere along the way you missed something. The improbable almost never happens. That's what 'improbable' means."

Irritable, she taped the damaged wall with her finger, growling a few words beneath her breath. With a scraping noise, the Witch Stone bricks began to bend and flex, tiny fragments rubbing against each other to assume a more symmetrical shape. Dara spoke more words, and entire bricks clattered across the surface of the wall, assuming new positions. After a moment, she stepped back to look at the new design.

"Still not perfect," she said. "But it looks less obviously crumbling and broken now."

She paused, looking thoughtfully at the wall. Half of Shadowed Citadel Demesne was built from Witch Stone, and these days most of it was in disrepair. Instead of doing much about it, people seemed to have decided that it was romantic to live in a city of decaying splendour. In fact, some of the holes and cracks you saw in walls and floors weren't natural - they had been intentionally created to fit the fashionable aesthetic. Dara, never one for romance, just saw a lot of flaws in otherwise solid constructions.

There was a thought there, and she made a mental note to chase it down later. There was no hurrying inspiration, even when it was important.

She glanced back at Rinabaar. He looked at her with his usual expression of efficient neutrality.

"Did that make you uncomfortable?" she said.

"No, Mystic," he said.

"It does, for some people," Dara said. "Conjuration, and Conjurers, is one thing. It's hard to disapprove of the people who keep feeding you, clothing you and giving you pretty things. Witchcraft, though... people don't always appreciate the reminder that there are people who could turn the walls of your house against you."

"I'm sure," Rinabaar said. The look on his face was unreadable. She half-wished that he would ask her what she was prattling on about, even though truth be told, she couldn't rightly say herself. There was something... just something...

She shook her head.

"I'll have a look around," she said. "See if I can find anything new. But if it is like the other places, there will be almost suspiciously little. Your demon doesn't leave footprints either, does it?"

"I admit that it is, indeed, a very unusual demon..." Rinabaar said.

Dara snorted and got to work, all the while wondering what it was that was nagging at her in the back of her head.