[Closed] Non M'Impugnare Senza Valore
Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2020 3:41 pm
Nighttime Streets • Uptown
Late Evening on the 28th of Dentis, 2719
T
he sky is velvet black.
All the phosphor in Vienda has sucked the stars out of it. The snow that’s settled in the streets glows the white of ghosts in stories; it’s piled up on the fences, limns the bare twisting branches. More falls down through the dark, swirling through the ghoul-glow of the street lamps, settling on their shoulders, coats, hats. The wind picks up; it carries distant voices.
But Tom, half-drunk, swimming-headed, can only look up at the empty sky.
If there is a moon, She does not show Her face. Perhaps without Her there’s no time; perhaps this is a place without time. A breath between the finishing and the applause. Endless tension, endless silence.
They’ve left the Opera just moments ago; Tom can barely remember throwing his coat round his shoulders, pulling on his thick leather gloves, putting on his hat.
What he can remember is muffled applause. What he can remember is Shrikeweed’s hand on his elbow, firm – pulling him to his feet. Firm, if hesitant, for a moment, as if he might’ve considered letting him topple. To faint at the opera twice would’ve been comedy, but this isn’t a comedy, not anymore.
The cycle is broken; the Cycle was already broken. The wind stings his cheeks, bracing and biting. He is not fainting. He is alive, and more alert than he has been all night.
The streets here are quiet, except for the distant burble of the bars and two pairs of quiet footsteps through the dusting snow. Most folk Uptown are inside, on a night like this. It’s not seemly, leastways, to grab one’s coat and leave before the comedy’s done, to skitter off through the streets in search of strong drink and – what?
What are they looking for? Not the Pendulum, Tom knows that much; leastways, Tom thinks that’s not where he’s being taken.
It seems, Shrikeweed said, we need to swing in quite another direction, you and I.
He knows what Shrikeweed thinks of the Mugrobi devotion to truth. And perhaps the bureaucrat isn’t wrong; Tom thinks he’ll believe in truth – undistilled – the day he meets it. The rest is just a matter of taxonomy: maybe you call a well-worn, well-believed lie the truth, or maybe nothing counts.
He knows they’re both liars, at least, but liars who are flying from the warm safety of the opera and into the cold dark. They’re still wearing masks, Tom thinks; he can feel his own, numbed as it is by the cold, with snowflakes settling in his eyebrows and his living breath smoking white. He doesn’t recognize this new mask of Shrikeweed’s, but he thinks he’s seen echoes of it in Stainthorpe Hall, in the dark smiles, in the cup turned three times.
The streets are familiar, though the landscape is changed by the snow.
For all it aches in his joints, the cold has put some new life into Tom; he’s shucked Anatole like a snake’s skin, and suddenly he’s no longer so faint, suddenly he balances himself, walks beside Shrikeweed at a clip. He is not being dragged – he goes of his will.
“And in which direction are we swinging?” That harsh edge. A bitter-dark laugh.
His lips are twisted in a frown, though he can’t feel them.
He turns his head a little; he dares to look at the profile of the man beside him. Snow settling in his side-whiskers. Shadows deep. Hard to read anything in his expression. “Mr. Shrikeweed,” he rasps, breath aching, “if you’re not working for his ilk, then who’re you working for? What do you want?”
Not that you’d tell me, he thinks. But I want you to know I know, even if it gets me killed before I feel the warmth of another hearth. I want this ground between us level, before my sap's spilt on it.
he sky is velvet black.
All the phosphor in Vienda has sucked the stars out of it. The snow that’s settled in the streets glows the white of ghosts in stories; it’s piled up on the fences, limns the bare twisting branches. More falls down through the dark, swirling through the ghoul-glow of the street lamps, settling on their shoulders, coats, hats. The wind picks up; it carries distant voices.
But Tom, half-drunk, swimming-headed, can only look up at the empty sky.
If there is a moon, She does not show Her face. Perhaps without Her there’s no time; perhaps this is a place without time. A breath between the finishing and the applause. Endless tension, endless silence.
They’ve left the Opera just moments ago; Tom can barely remember throwing his coat round his shoulders, pulling on his thick leather gloves, putting on his hat.
What he can remember is muffled applause. What he can remember is Shrikeweed’s hand on his elbow, firm – pulling him to his feet. Firm, if hesitant, for a moment, as if he might’ve considered letting him topple. To faint at the opera twice would’ve been comedy, but this isn’t a comedy, not anymore.
The cycle is broken; the Cycle was already broken. The wind stings his cheeks, bracing and biting. He is not fainting. He is alive, and more alert than he has been all night.
The streets here are quiet, except for the distant burble of the bars and two pairs of quiet footsteps through the dusting snow. Most folk Uptown are inside, on a night like this. It’s not seemly, leastways, to grab one’s coat and leave before the comedy’s done, to skitter off through the streets in search of strong drink and – what?
What are they looking for? Not the Pendulum, Tom knows that much; leastways, Tom thinks that’s not where he’s being taken.
It seems, Shrikeweed said, we need to swing in quite another direction, you and I.
He knows what Shrikeweed thinks of the Mugrobi devotion to truth. And perhaps the bureaucrat isn’t wrong; Tom thinks he’ll believe in truth – undistilled – the day he meets it. The rest is just a matter of taxonomy: maybe you call a well-worn, well-believed lie the truth, or maybe nothing counts.
He knows they’re both liars, at least, but liars who are flying from the warm safety of the opera and into the cold dark. They’re still wearing masks, Tom thinks; he can feel his own, numbed as it is by the cold, with snowflakes settling in his eyebrows and his living breath smoking white. He doesn’t recognize this new mask of Shrikeweed’s, but he thinks he’s seen echoes of it in Stainthorpe Hall, in the dark smiles, in the cup turned three times.
The streets are familiar, though the landscape is changed by the snow.
For all it aches in his joints, the cold has put some new life into Tom; he’s shucked Anatole like a snake’s skin, and suddenly he’s no longer so faint, suddenly he balances himself, walks beside Shrikeweed at a clip. He is not being dragged – he goes of his will.
“And in which direction are we swinging?” That harsh edge. A bitter-dark laugh.
His lips are twisted in a frown, though he can’t feel them.
He turns his head a little; he dares to look at the profile of the man beside him. Snow settling in his side-whiskers. Shadows deep. Hard to read anything in his expression. “Mr. Shrikeweed,” he rasps, breath aching, “if you’re not working for his ilk, then who’re you working for? What do you want?”
Not that you’d tell me, he thinks. But I want you to know I know, even if it gets me killed before I feel the warmth of another hearth. I want this ground between us level, before my sap's spilt on it.