Connections
Maya returns to the courtyard sitting area after walking Trapper and Arron to the door. The stool has been removed from the silver casting circle. A bit of dust from the boy’s boots echo his presence. The residents and guests sit and mingle awaiting her return. The mood is chilly, for many of these former friends and family avoid regular interaction. Discussion of what is known and what is next are on order. Amon, never one to let empty air go unfilled,
“Clearly the boy was attacked by something mystical, a foul daemon or spirit off the path.”
“The waters will cure the boy of the ill effect of his touch with the dark.” Tamara says before placing her pipe’s amber and bone stem to her lips.
“I will see that he completes the potion’s regimen.” Ratka
“Before we get too far along; we will coordinate this through my office, neutral ground and such. Tamara, can you extend the Thread’s glamours throughout the Dumas residence? I will send word once I meet with the investigator, and of course, I will inquire about your missing wards.” Ashcrow raises his glass to Ratka.
“Ashra will be our emissary.” She nods making eye contact with Petra.
“Petra will be ours.” Tamara states as she fills the bowl of her pipe. Petra offers a jaunty salute and smile.
“So Demian, where is the victim of the attack?” Petra smiles devilishly.
“He is at Le Grande. Please take no action until we have a report on the investigation.” He requests.
“Et moi?” Petra says placing her fingertips to her chest as though embarrassed by the thought.
“Of course, we will hold our action but we will employ our own methods of investigation.” Isobel mentions, forgetting herself and that she is of the Order and no longer of the Thread, at least those that are in the Atrium’s retinue.
“It has been an age since a holy rite has brought spirits off the path and into our domain.” Amon notes arms crossed as he strokes his grayed beard.
“None deign to stay amongst us for more than a celebration.” Helena states retrieving a glass off the lacquered table.
“They hold us at a distance. Once we would cast to them so frequently that the retinue would frolic like bees along a creek’s flowing edge. Now we cast on the most holy days like an acolyte doing only the minimum to remain relevant.” She continues in exasperation.
“We dare not cast for their favors while our house is not in order.” Amon states absently.
“Our house is in order. It is your’s that is not.” Helena states with ice in her tone.
The Thread views the Order as now unserious actors who have caused damage in their engagement with the cognoscenti. Once the Order was on an enlightened academic path, now they pursue the arts accessing them in order to gain advantage. This created an environment where decisions were made to engage more dangerous forces. Greater and more malevolent forces are always on offer. The order feels it competes for power, while the retinue of the Atrium pays them little thought.
“So, if this daemon has not been summoned or conjured in a sanctioned rite could it have been within L’Olympia for a while?” Demian asks, easing the tension.
“Yes, if it had a robust host, there is enough death in the city it could feed and hide in plain sight.” Isobel states.
“More like a procession of hosts. A single host would have to be on the path themselves to sustain something from the other side. Few would know that the signs pointed to something mystical.” Tamara hands Isobel a glass of water.
“Arron shows all the markings of contact with a parasitic entity. Drained but marked only superficially by the dark. It was attempting to feed but was interrupted by Cassius and Henri. Though young, the boy is made of sterner stuff than this fell creature expected. The markings, ‘lit from within,’ indicate that the entity’s host is likely scarred or tattooed. A ghoul wearing the costume of a host.” Isobel considers.
“I, we, have seen something like this before.” Ratka injects.
“We have?” Tamara exhales her sweet-smelling pipe smoke.
“Amon, Isobel, Santé and I.”
“Santé is lost to us.” Valetta injects.
“Actually, it is a ghoul, a djinn called but unpaid, wearing the skin of the dead. Glyphs and sigils shine through. After the tragedy that scuttled the Order’s Parisian ambition, bodies had to be collected, autopsied and disposed. The hands were all burned through. Flesh burnt to cinder.” Isobel remembers.
Ratka sits stone-faced, the bile in the back of her throat closing off her ability to speak.
“They were to lead and found orders of their own. They were to continue on their paths singularly and ultimately woven into the Whispering Thread. All to be cut short.” Isobel finishes.
“Is that how you recall the event, as a tragedy? It was a betrayal.” Ratka boils over.
The fast and loose ways in which benefactors were courted and feted made almost anything in the realm of right. Trauma for all involved, especially for Ratka, as these were her friends and cohort. They lived and loved each other.
Confidences
Candles in the braziers sputter and cast a comforting light over the seating area. The elder witches select a Syrah from Chateau Rayas. Tamara places the bottle on the lacquered table.
“Come now, please carafe this.” Valetta pleads.
Tamara sighs, slowly pouring the bottle into a crystal carafe. Raising the glass to her nose she inhales, she smiles. Taking a first sip her eyes close, she is transported. She stops all thought beyond what her senses enjoy. She raises the glass contemplating the legs of the wine as they cascade.
“The vintner is channeling Dionysus; this is a singularity.”
“Oh bother, though fine, the papal crest seems a bit much. Clement V had a good nose and taste for wine, but his grubby fingers couldn’t resist all that Templar gold.”
Tamara picks up the bottle examining the seal embossed in the glass.
“Ashcrow has taken some interest in the dancer.”
“The whore from Le Bleue?”
“Tsk, tsk, she, Raquel is as she needs to be. We have all had to survive.”
“So, what of her?”
“With Emilia’s departure from the Atrium Louise feels she could be an addition here.
She has been a traveler; she is unaffected by glamours and sets all at ease.
With a guide she could be a singularity of her own.”
“Is she the only consideration?”
“Helena has put forth Ratka’s niece, Rika.”
“Oh, come now, are these the best we have to consider, a ‘courtesan’ and an opium flirt?”
“Have you any to bring forward?”
“Non, I will not offer another to this life. And my opinion matters not.”
Tamara smiles to herself inhaling the bouquet of the glass, then takes a small sip. She knows that the seeds of her intentions must be sewn well in advance of their harvest. Valetta, though prickly, is important to the matriarch. Thought Valetta looks a crone, Tamara is centuries older.
“Thoughts on today?”
“They cater to forces beyond their grasp putting action in motion that trundles until gaining enough momentum that it razes all in its path root and branch. Only to later to look upon what has been wrought with the casual wonder of an observer rather than its architect.”
“You know, we are the same, the scales are simply different.”
“No, we are not the same,” Valetta says deeply inhaling the nose of the wine in her glass.
“Ours survive and thrive with only a desire for a crowded table and a hearth to warm them.
The order’s machinations the power-seeking desire, simply cannot be turned off.
Young Arron has been touched by a force beyond our world.
This might not be their direct doing, though it would surprise me none.
The Order, tourists who dallied, a failed enterprise that holds artifacts in a mausoleum overseen by a sentinel of our choosing.
They cannot be trusted. And that one,” Valetta whispers a hiss, “Isobel offers little confidence the Order will act responsibly or can be trusted.”
Connections and confidences