Iron Quill (Honesty): The Toast

[Hateful Darkblack]

The Toast

 

It wasn’t quite wine nor spirits. It tasted like something in-between, with a sudden kick to it. They served it in antique jars and rusty tin cups, in potsherds and steam engine caps and old metal hats. They passed it around with ruckus cheers and knowing smiles. I let it burn down my throat and into my stomach, enjoying the potent flavor the drink left behind on my tongue.

 

I was finding life surprisingly good, living among the Garbage Men, scavenging what others threw away, drinking away the evenings, getting used to the dense stench of forgotten things. We bartered in scrap and corpse, and built up shanty structures from the same. Garbage Town knew how to sort things to the people who knew how to repair and salvage them. Once in a while some suspicious character would slip into town asking for something “special.” More likely than not, we’d have it for them.

 

It was dangerous work, and not very profitable. Poisonous work, but simple and relaxing all the same. Some days out in the stinking sun I pined for my employer and wondered when she’d find me, hoping she was okay. Some nights I was struck by guilt for a job I wasn’t sure if I’d failed or not. The great brass artifact I was assigned to protect out in the graveyard had appeared in the center square of this low-gully shanty town. The Academic told me that I’d done that — that it was built from my unconscious dreams, a replica of a thing that was tied into my fate. He didn’t explain how that sort of thing could happen. Apparently he’s just used to a kind of world where dangerous contraptions spring forth from the skulls of drunken mercenaries. Some mornings, I told myself I was still guarding that thing for her.

 

It was the Academic who had brought the fortified wine.

 

“It’s a celebration,” he told me in confidence, his breath musky with alcohol, “I’ve figured out how to activate the thing.”

 

I looked outside and, indeed, something had begun. The wheels of the gyroscope were rotating lazily in time. There was a hum in the air. Something was beginning.

 

He looked at me, and handed me a cup. “Why don’t you make a toast?” he offered, with a false smile and serious look in his eyes. Well, why not? I stood and made my toast.

 

 

Here’s to my sinister employers, the Neverborn! I’ve been working for them since they kidnapped me from an airship. I think I’ve fallen in love with one of them, but maybe that’s just more false memories she’s put in my head. I’ve been guarding that brass contraption that’s now outside, and I have no idea what it does. Something terrible, I think. To the Neverborn! May they wipe all us humans off the face of Malifaux!

 

The crowd surprised me when they echoed the cheer back. “To the Neverborn!”

 

Another man stood up and raised up a long thin blade in one hand, and his improvised cup in the other.

 

 

Here’s to my blade! I cut potatoes with this in the Guild mine kitchens, just another worker imprisoned from false accusations. But I loved this knife. I hid her in my cell, and I spent my nights sharpening her, and whispering secrets to her. When the riot came, it was her what got me outfree. She cut my ropes, she picked those locks, and she cut through the guards at the doors. Once I was out she earned me the scrip to stay alive, mostly on hire to the Resurrectionists. She was the one what plunged into the back of a Death Marshall at the Battle of West Dead End some years ago and got that bounty on my head. I still whisper secrets to her, and sometimes I swear I hear her whispering back. Men’ll cheat you, women’ll lie to you, and coin will slip away, but she’s my true companion.

 

And I found myself toasting along “To that blade!” It was a strange, compelled feeling, like the toast was forcing its way out of me.

 

The bitter-faced woman with the pistols looked at me with an expression of surprise and concern that must have matched my own. Some folks at another table grumbled nervously. People were getting wise that something was happening. It wasn’t worth the wine. They started making excuses and making it for the exits. The hum from outside was getting louder.  The Academic tried without much luck to push out through the crowds.

 

A thin mean wisp of a woman stepped up for her own toast.

 

 

Here’s to cannibalism! The hunger started the first night I came through the Breach. I’ve been picking people off once a year ever since, to feed that hunger. Little Red, who disappeared last month? He’s cooked and salted in my shed. I don’t know why I do it, but I know I can’t stop.

 

And we all toasted along. “To cannibalism!”

 

And then we pushed harder for the tin doorways and even out the jagged windows to get out of there.

 

It was a Garbage Town disaster. People came here because they had secrets to hide from. The last thing anyone needed was the dread curse of honesty that was picking us off one by one. Out here the threat of revelation scared us more than ghosts or guns. The fear was on every darkard’s face and I felt relief that my own secrets weren’t so bad by comparison.

 

The Academic was almost at the doors when he turned around and lifted his jar, wincing with regret.

 

 

To the Brass Herald! That contraption outside, extracted from dreams. You've got a lot to learn about how things are done around here, scavengers. I’ve been salvaging your dreams for parts for a while now, all of you, but this was the biggest catch so far. I pierced one of its lesser functions this morning, a modified Obedience effect, forcing out the truth. I tried using it on that new garbage man what brought the thing. Wish he’d known more. Now I can’t get outside to turn it off!

 

“To the Brass Herald!” we all cheered along in unwilling accord.

 

The hum was growing stronger. People were starting to talk over each other in their drunken confessions. We didn’t want to hear it. My stomach felt queasy. The stampede to get out started in earnest. Fists flew. People screamed. I saw one man across the crowd taking a razor to his own tongue.

 

Eventually, Old Beatrice got outside and banged on the brass contraption with the heavy lead pipe that she’d kept behind the bar for unruly customers. Something fell off. The hum stopped.

 

“Someone had to be a responsible adult around here,” Old Beatrice said.

 

And just like that it was over. Some of us cheered. Some were still fleeing. Some of us just sat and cried. The mob turned grabbed the Academic, of course, and scattered his precious clever brains all over the packed dust of Garbage Town, but even the gunman executioner wore an expression guilty, half-hearted afterthought. We were all mostly mourning our secrets.

 

And it wasn’t an hour later that we heard the sound of distant horses, and started to see silhouettes surrounding our gully.

 

Exhausted and sad, one of the other Garbage Men stood and lifted his now-empty Mason Jar.

 

 

Here’s to the Death Marshals. When I heard it was Jack that stabbed that Marshal in the Battle of West Dead End, I sent my brother off quick to tip off the Marshals and collect on that bounty. I imagine they’re here now to collect on that bounty, and I don’t suppose they’ll be sparing any of us. Goodbye, Garbage Town.

 

I stood up and looked at the paths out. There was a Guildsman at every one, all advancing inward slowly. The little shanty town was looking smaller and smaller.

[Hateful Darkblack]

1337 words, all themes used.