by Tim Paulson
Chapter 7
"T'was off the coast of Porto Oro in the dead of night, September of ought 11. We came upon a caravel all by herself. She bore the colors of Scarosia but when we boarded her we found the entire crew was made up of Tian monks! I never seen anythin' like it in my days! An' what they had in the hold... it makes me shake just thinkin' about it."
-Former privateer Crucio Diaz, in a statement taken two days before he was found dead of strangulation.
“You hear that?” said the butcher, his head raising from the cold stone.
Celia had heard it. It had sounded like a horse. Some clopping and a whinny.
“They're here,” the old man said, rubbing his face with wizened fingers. He fell forward onto his knees, clasping his hands in prayer.
Beside him, the rotund woman who'd been quoting verses before now seemed to have lost her grip. Blank eyes stared ahead, hands hung limply in her lap. What life there had been was gone. Terror held her heart now, in cold hands, slowly crushing it.
The butcher looked like he'd swallowed a handful of ashes as he slid backward, away from the light of the one window. It was as if he expected long furry dierlijt arms would suddenly extend into their cell and snatch him up. The fool. His idea of their fate was as idiotic as it was impossible but that left Celia with no explanation at all.
This did not annoy her, however. It had never been her way to keep fretting over something unknown to her. She'd learned long ago that the world revealed its horrible truths on its own time, completely divorced from the convenience of the lives of those who lived upon it. Whether that was God, or natural law was irrelevant. The practical effect was the same and if one did not accept that they risked making it worse.
Though honestly, Celia wasn't sure how things could possibly get worse for her now.
“Hello lovely,” said a familiar voice as a lumpy head emerged into the light along with three other men.
“Ah... that's how,” Celia said aloud.
“Come again?” the young man asked as he crept toward her.
Celia realized with dismay that she was too weak to defend herself against more than one man. It had taken all of her strength to kick him before. She had so little left.
How large was this cage after all? If it was large enough for four would-be attackers to hide in their entirety there must be dozens of people in the dark, all wearing the frocks. Perhaps if she called out to them.
“Hello? Can anyone help?” She looked to the Butcher but he'd disappeared, back into the dark. Thanks for nothing.
The man grinned at her, still approaching slowly, his mates on either side keeping pace.
“No use my little fishy. They're all about out of rope as it is. Not nearly enough left to help you. No, no.”
Celia pushed her back against the wall, drawing her legs in. She'd kick at them as much as she could. Perhaps if she hurt their leader enough to make him withdraw, the rest would think twice before they touched her.
“Oooh. I like your legs up like that... You want me to come don't you? Lonely over there on the wall. That old man hasn't what you need, but I have. I have.”
“Oh my God,” Celia said. “Listen to your fucking lips flap. I'm going to make you pay for this.”
“Maybe... Maybe,” he said.
He was almost in range of a kick now. Just a foot more and she could smash a heel into his face. She didn't know how hard it would be with how weak she felt, but it would be something. However, he'd slowed. He'd learned from their previous encounter.
Celia noticed that the ones on either side were still coming. Once they'd reached the wall she'd have nowhere to retreat to. Stupid, she should have seen it before. Of course that's what they'd do, but she wasn't thinking right. Starvation had dulled her. She could see it coming. This time she would lose. She grit her teeth, readying herself for their rush.
“I'm gonna make you hurt for kicking me love. Real bad,” he said, preparing to lunge as the two on either side of her closed in, reaching.
Suddenly, from behind her, there was a wet sound, like a fish slipping down a chute. Celia didn't even have time to turn her head before a great mass of red something dropped in front of her with a wet splat. It smelled absolutely foul, like that snack of rotting fish those little furry swimming dierlijt made by hanging fish in the sun wrapped in their own guts. Instantly she cupped both hands to her face as her eyes watered, making it difficult to discern what it was that she was actually looking at.
For all the world it looked like someone had dumped a barrel of cast-off garbage from a fishmonger down the window. There were fish heads and thick spiky white bones, all bathed in bright red bloody muck.
“What the fuck is that?” The lumpy headed idiot said, momentarily distracted from his intent.
Then it started to move. Slowly at first, but accelerating. The bones knitted together with the heads as it all formed into a single moving thing. It had a head, formed of four fish heads, arms, mostly of fish spines, and a body composed of all the rest.
A minor squeak escaped from the mouth of Celia's would-be attacker as anger at those above, transformed into terror. It wasn't the sight of the thing that bothered Celia so much as the smell, it made her stomach heave even though she knew well, it held nothing to offer up.
Slowly, now fully composed into a human-like shape, the fish flesh creature turned in a circle, scanning its surroundings. When it had turned all the way around to face her it paused.
Two red eyes glowed from the empty sockets of two different fish heads. Below that, the mouth of a third opened.
“Celia?” it said.
Her eyes widened. Could it be? “Vex?”
“Yes. I've sent this little thing to help you out of there,” the moving mouth said.
“Uh... how?” Celia replied, still holding her nose.
“Don't worry about that, just be still, be calm.”
She would. Anything.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Hey! You stay away from her!” cried her attacker from the safety of the dark. “She's mine!”
The fish-faced horror turned, pointing at the direction the voice had come. Then it turned back to face her. “Has he harmed you?”
Tears filled her eyes. “He... he was going to.”
The creature nodded slightly. Without turning, one of the fishbone arms whipped behind it, flicking several spines into the dark.
The man screamed.
Celia smiled. In the distance to her right, she could hear the woman's voice, breathlessly chanting scriptures.
“Now, be still.”
She did... even as the mass of stinking rotten fish moved toward her, enveloping her body with bones and guts and skin and scales and slime... so much slime! Then it moved, pulling her upward and she let it, holding her breath as it crawled up the wall to the window, wrenching two metal bars apart with ease before bearing her through the gap. Up and up she went until finally she was dumped to the ground like a sack of moldy turnips.
When she looked up she saw a form, standing, holding out its hand. She wiped the guts and slime from her eyes, trying to see him... But it was a dierlijt, that young male ranker from before. On his shoulder stood the doll... the same one she'd tried to awaken so many times.
“Are you alright?” the doll asked.
She couldn't help it. Celia fell to her knees and cried.
* * *
With a bright flash of light, Giselle appeared in a small dark room.
“Here we are, back in the same dismal building as before. How marvelous,” Harald said flatly.
“I no like this room,” Piotr stated from beside her, reminding Giselle of his presence.
She turned toward the weaselman, looking him directly in his beady little eyes. “Yes, well this is my home. Try not to steal too much from us, would you? We're having a difficult year,” she said.
Though, as Giselle looked around, she wasn't actually sure this was her home. The stone was familiar, but otherwise, i
t was just a tiny room with a chair, a small shelf, and no doors. How would they get out?
Harald was already trundling toward one of the walls, however. “This way.”
“Yes,” Giselle said. “Of course...” Though the room itself didn't spark her memory, there was something else, something deeper, like a twinge at the core of her heart. Perhaps she had been in here before? If so, why wouldn't she remember it?
Harald waved an arm near a wall and a door opened as if from nowhere. Giselle wasn't particularly surprised given all she'd seen but Piotr nearly jumped back two feet, pulling both knives from his belt as he did.
She raised an eyebrow in his direction. “You wanted to come.”
Piotr grimaced, swallowing deeply. “This demon is not only one in this castle. Much smells bad here.”
“I'm told the castle is full of Ganex soldiers,” Giselle said. “Maybe it's them.”
“No, Ganex smell like fermented cabbage and beer. Is not them.”
Giselle shook her head. “I saved you from here. You were in the dungeon! You didn't complain about the smell then!”
Piotr's eyes widened. “I had other problems, like insane bard!”
Giselle held up a finger. “Don't you bring him up. I had no way of knowing!”
There was a flash of light from the hall. Giselle turned toward it only to have a second one go off right in her eyes, leaving an after image shaped like written symbols floating in front of her eyes.
“Harald! What are you doing?” she asked. “Trying to blind me?”
“Come here, both of you. Take these stones.”
Giselle bent down and accepted them. “What are they for?” she asked. They appeared to be made of shards of rock from the walls that had cracked off and fallen.
“No. Rocks smell bad. Whole place smells bad, demon doll,” Piotr snapped.
“Just take it... they'll help you move unseen. Anyone who doesn't know you will ignore you. It's like being invisible, but far cheaper to do,” Harald said.
“I will not take,” Piotr said, crossing his arms.
“You will!” Giselle said through her teeth. “Or I'll shove it somewhere you won't like!”
Both Harald and Piotr paused, staring at her.
Giselle frowned. “I'm frustrated! Just take the stupid rock! I want to get out of this room and find my husband!”
Reluctantly, Piotr took the rock. “I can put in pocket?”
Harald nodded. “Yes, that's fine, as long as it's close to you. That one doesn't need constant physical contact. It's more of an aura. I made two in case you separate.”
Giselle hoped that happened. It couldn't come too soon.
Piotr grumbled, his whiskers twitching. “Demon rock.”
“I have an idea where your mother might be,” Harald said. “We should go to the garden.”
“The garden? Why? I mean my mother did love her roses but it's difficult to hide in the center of an occupied castle if you're out in the open in a garden!” Giselle replied.
“I cannot explain, it's forbidden,” Harald said.
“But you were able to tell us to go to garden?” Piotr asked.
Harald shrugs. “The rules are... open to interpretation.”
“I see, well first I want to go to my room,” Giselle said, peering through the door. Outside there were two stairs, one going up and the other going down. “I'd guess that means going up?”
Harald nodded. “Correct.”
She snatched the doll from the floor. “Alright, let's go.”
“Hey! I'm not sure that's best... I ought to be going straight back to find the baroness.”
“Yes well we don't always get to do precisely what we want, do we?” Giselle replied, heading up the stairs. It was dark, but small amounts of light issued from what appeared to be strategic cracks in the walls. She should quiet down lest someone in any of the rooms this passage connected with heard her.
“Tell me when we get to the living quarters,” she whispered.
“Just keep going up, then turn the corner at the next stair,” Harald replied from her hands.
“Wow... how do you remember all this?” Giselle whispered.
“I'm a brilliant man of course. Plus, it's written on the walls. You just can't see it because you're a sala- eh, a regular person.”
“As long as we get there, I don't care.”
As they approached the corner of the stairwell there was a thin slit in the rocks. From the outside, it wouldn't look like any more than a slightly large gap between two stones but it gave whoever was climbing the hidden stair the option to view goings on in the eastern courtyard below.
Things were a bit different from how she remembered it. There were two goliaths there for one, that was hard to miss. They wore the red colors of the empire and each was seated on a different side of the courtyard, their eyes darkened. One was having its left hand replaced by a large group of men, while the other was missing half of its right foot. A new foot was next to it and waiting, but presumably was in line for the attention of the men with their heavy metal crane and pulleys. Behind the goliaths were a line of twisted iron cannons. They were meant to be mounted in goliaths, Giselle had seen their like before, but they'd been smashed like so much tin.
“What going on out there?” Piotr asked, poking her shoulder with one of his thin claws.
“There are Ganex soldiers repairing goliaths out there. There must be a lot to fix if they're backed all the way up to the inner courtyards,” she said. Outside the window, a distant rumbling could be heard. She'd assumed it was thunder before, but given the goliaths below. “I think the Republican Army is almost here.”
“We ought to be on our way then,” Harald said. “No sense gawking out window slits.”
Giselle nodded and pulled away from the window, turning up the stairs.
“Purple Republic,” Piotr grumbled. “Name is stupid.”
Giselle ignored him.
“Purple with what? Hatred for dierlijt? Anger at being idiot?” Piotr continued.
Giselle couldn't help but smile. “Maybe Chester Buckley told his people he wanted maximum violence and they thought he said violets.”
Piotr laughed. “Good one. I give you that.”
Sure Chester Buckley wasn't officially the leader of the republic. There was an elected assembly with three separate houses that chose a chairman who ran the government for a set time frame. All the printmen and printesses agreed it was the most equitable form of government ever devised by the women and men of the world. Yet all those in the key appointed positions that actually made decisions, were former Veil Company employees under Buckley. Ina's mother had been railing about it for months. No surprise she'd become ill, it was a wonder she hadn't had a stroke with all the choice words she had for Veil. The company ran everything in Faustland now. Everything and everyone.
At the top of the stairs, Giselle traveled down a dark hall as ordered by Harald until he jerked her arm. Then a door opened in front of them, letting light into the passage from a small room. She recognized it immediately.
“This is mother's sewing room,” Giselle said. She'd always thought it odd that her mother would have a sewing room given Giselle had never seen her do a single stitch in her entire life. Yet, all the same, it had been well-stocked with sewing supplies that Giselle had raided several times for various ill-fated projects. Now the room looked like a hurricane had hit it. Three cots had been jammed as close as possible in the room, with drying laundry hanging above them on wires.
“Is now barracks for three Ganex,” Piotr said. “You really need see your old room?”
“The talking weasel creature has a point. Aren't we wasting time and taking an unnecessary risk?” Harald asked.
Giselle wasn't about to stop now, not when she was so close.
“It will be fine, let's go.”
She peeked into the hall before she exited the sewing room. No one was around. The sound of explosions was getting louder, Giselle could hear the
m without being near to a window, and that was likely why.
Finally, she arrived at her own door and paused, putting her hand on it.
“What?” Piotr asked.
So many memories. Walking the halls of the castle at night on her own, playing hide and seek and chase with Liam and later Aaron, reading late into the night by veil lantern. She sighed and opened the door.
Unlike the sewing room which had been ransacked by its new Ganex occupants, this room, her room, was far better ordered. Whoever had taken up residence, and it was only one person, Giselle guessed from the ordering of the singular items on the bureau, had basically kept everything the same.
“Ganex officer live here,” Piotr said. “Be fast.”
“I just want to check on... a few things,” she said as she rushed over to the bed, slipping her hands under the side of the cushion. That was a place where she'd put a favorite bookmark, one covered in gold leaf and signed by the author of “The Scepter of Ganum.” It was a fascinating account of a Tian artifact that the church claimed had been lost a thousand years ago but the author was sure could be located if a person correctly interpreted a series of clues that had been printed on statues from the sixth century. Unfortunately, the bookmark was gone.
She hissed.
“What?” Harald asked.
“I lost my gold bookmark,” Giselle said.
Piotr's eyes widened. “What! That is why you came here?”
She held up both hands. “It's not the only reason!”
“Had better not be!” Piotr snapped, baring his tiny pointy teeth.
Giselle narrowed her eyes. “Don't threaten me fleabag! I didn't ask you to come, remember that!”
Harald and Piotr blinked, looking at each other.
“Well... I suppose that's that then,” Harald said.
Piotr shook his head. “Hurry, please. Many Ganex here. My ears look small but trust me, they are hearing just fine.”
“Alright! I'm going!” Giselle said.
What had she wanted her after all? Was it the bookmark? Not really. The armoire had been taken over by Ganex uniforms, she could already see that, so there was no point searching for her favorite dress. The dresses Ina's mother had provided were adequate, certainly far more comfortable than what she'd worn in the past, but they lacked style. It was something Ina never shut up about actually. As she looked around the room, she realized what she'd been wanting, why she'd come.