Iron Quill (The Message): Swimming the Seas of Blood

[Hateful Darkblack]

I live here on the other side. Somewhere cold, hard, and unfamiliar. You’ll know the place soon enough. It’s on the other side of that tombstone-bridge, a road paved with red and screams and quick jarring motions and a glint of steel.

 

You’ll know the place soon enough, I promise. I love it here. Cold. Hard. Unfamiliar. And most of all, eternal.

 

But there’s never the sound of a heartbeat here.

A hired gunman is being hunted by baying hounds. Out of breath, his heartbeat pounding like a war drum, he slips in an alley and hides in the fragrant filth that might conceal his scent. Most of the beasts pass by, but the last of the pack turns to corner him. Terrified, he lashes out with his knife to slit the hound’s throat silently.

 

Well, hello, dance partner! That’s my cue. I step forth from the carcass and give him a wink. He’s stunned for a moment before he realizes what has happened, who I am. He remembers the stories. And then it’s time for our waltz.

 

Teeth gritted with panic beyond exhaustion, he lunges with a knife. With a giggle and a whisper, I duck under his blade, slip low, and slice the tendons of his ankles. He’s surprised to find that pain can still make him cry. I don’t slow down as my other knife lodges between his vertebrae. I think I’ve managed to cut some nerves. He falls, but he’s still alive. Oh, this dancer has endurance!

 

I bring more Night and darkness to surround us. Sorry, pups, this is a private moment. I’ll leave you a treat when I’m done, though, I promise. This one’s life is mine, but his body’s all yours.

 

He rolls around in desperate fear. He pulls his gun and shoots wildly, but I leave him no room to aim and the shots hit only the ancient brick of the Malifaux alley. We dance cheek to cheek as I slice open his belly. We’re both coated with his beautiful gore now. I begin to pull his entrails free, but he dies before I can choke him with them. Too bad, I’ve always wanted to try that.

 

The neighborhood begins waking up at the sounds of violence. They’re curious, but I step away again through the shadows, back home.

 

 

 

 

Is it a Labyrinth? Perhaps. The Void of Nothingness? If you see it that way. The Greeks said there were apple trees here, or perhaps exotic tortures to punish wrongdoers. In the Three Kingdoms, they say that it’s more like a waiting parlour that you come to visit, and then leave again for your next assignment. I believe them all well enough! Why quibble? This place changes in aspect, depending on who’s looking. But I’m always here soon enough.

 

I love your world just as well though; it’s always such a swirl and dance to come visit. You make a doorway for me, a bright speck of light in the curtains, a gateway I can peek through. So nice of you to invite me.

Somewhere below the Quarantine Zone, a man has been torturing cats to death. He’s calling out to me. At midnight exactly, I finally accept his invitation.

 

He pours the blood into a teapot and offers me a delicate porcelain cup. Is this dank sewer ritual chamber decorated like a tea parlour? I like this fellow immediately, the mad old fool.

 

It’s tempting, just to sink a dagger point in each of his eyes and watch him die alongside his pets. But he performed the proper rituals, the old rituals I’d thought everyone had forgotten. I had worried those rituals were forgotten! So I owe him at least the courtesy of hearing his proposition.

 

I tilt my head in curiosity and wait for him to speak.

 

“The Guard will be chasing me soon. I’ll need you to cover my escape, love” he says, with a charming jocularity, like he’s swaggering to buy me a saloon drink. “The first one I shoot, you come out, and make havoc so I can slip away. Distract them for me. It will be in a week or so.”

 

Oh yes, let’s negotiate! This isn’t my favorite dance, of course, but I like it well enough.

 

I look down at my blood-drenched hands, coyly. They’re still wet from the gunman’s slippery innards. I return his smile and ask him quietly, “And what’s in it for me?”

 

“The knowledge that I will kill again if you help my escape? The opportunity to make a few new smiles?” he offers, and he thinks he’s being clever when he draws a finger across his throat where the new smiles will be, “And, if you must, a handful of good soulstones?”

 

He holds open a hand. It’s glowing with stolen life.

 

Why, yes sir, you’re speaking my language now.

 

 

I am grateful for the name you’ve given me. 

 

It’s French, did you know? So elegant. 

 

It means “The Black Beast,” but people use it for so much more than that. It’s the thing that annoys you for life, the big enemy that you’ve set yourself to oppose forever, no matter how many times you fail. A pet peeve magnified to obsession. Like King Pellinore’s Questing Beast, if Pellinore was in a constant furious rage about it, beyond all memory of nobility. 

 

Come to me with your anger and your blades, good people. Keep swinging. I’m your Black Beast.

The vanguard of zombies shamble toward the village. The townsfolk are ready for them, with pitchforks and old rifles clutched tightly. They’re afraid but united in courage, eyes straining in the darkness.

 

The zombies reach the sandbag barricade like a slow-moving wall, the inevitable plow blade pushing through hard clay. They crawl over the barrier, not caring when they die. The people let loose with their shotguns and farmer’s tools. They light the walking dead with torches. The army pushes forward, winning by numbers and the certainty of mindless machinery.

 

I see the portals open up every time a zombie falls, and every time a villager is surrounded and dies screaming. I could slip through there, or there, or there. Not yet, not yet. Timing is everything here.

 

And there she is! The town’s savior comes forward, finally, guns blazing as bright as her eyes. She’s glorious in her beauty and even more so in her violence. Those pistols are part of her body as much as these knives are part of my spirit. She cuts a path, to protect the children of the orphanage. I like her even more with every noble shot. She creates more carnage than anyone here.

 

Closer, closer, and then it’s my cue. She shoots one of the walking dead through its rotten skull, and I step through. I stand eye to eye with the glorious butcher and all her grandiose illusions. 

 

I realize, with embarrassment, that I’m still holding the teacup that murderer gave me. She notices it and furrows her brow in confusion. I shrug in embarrassment and toss it carelessly over my shoulder, where it splashes on the head of a terrified villager in the middle of the fray. Momentarily blinded, he loses his tempo and finds himself surrounded. Well, that was a nice coincidence.

 

I could slice her face now, probably cut off an ear or even her cute girlish nose, even as fast as she is.  What a lovely little trophy that would be!

 

But no, I have a higher purpose here. I take six steps forward, quick as wind, and whisper in her ear, “This village is nothing to us. Even now, your family home is on fire. The Doctor sends his regards.” 

 

Beware the honeyed words of a silver tongue, my lovely slaughterhouse of a girl! Whether the house is truly on fire or not, and whether this farmer’s village survives, you’ve already lost this battle. Just from that whisper. Your courageous heart can be broken, child! You cannot keep the whole world safe at once!

 

I see her face go pale with anguish, and it’s like a candy treat to me. A better trophy than an ear.

 

It’s a tenth of a moment before her despair turns to wrath. She lets forth a storm of hot metal, destroying my borrowed body! But it’s no matter -- I’m already stepping away from my shattered flesh, back into the Night.

 

 

 

I’m told that I’ve become a little legend to you. That you whisper about what an enigma I am. Why do I do these things? What drives me to kill as I do?

 

Oh, you lovely flatterers. Isn’t it obvious?

 

Recall your tale of the behemoth, Leviathan. The beast of the sea; she was sent to keep you humble. Even while you build your cities and ships, and explore the world, you must know that the world is greater than you, that your cities will crumble. Tremble at your own mortality. Whatever great things you may achieve, an even greater beast waits!

 

Here in Malifaux, I am that behemoth, a great hungry thing swimming in seas of spilled blood. I am a message and a reminder: whatever you achieve, you will still come to this cold, hard, unfamiliar place. However brightly you live, you will die. No matter how many times you survive, you only need to die once. The blackness yawns before you.

 

And you’d like to forget that, wouldn’t you? It’s more comforting to cover that up with a tablecloth and decorative lace curtains and remember these precious moments of life you’ve borrowed.

 

But you do disrespect to the inevitable by ignoring it! And so here I am, your Black Beast, your message of reminder.

 

I will come for you in your moment of pride!

 

[Hateful Darkblack]

Word Count: 1627

 

All elements used.

 

(The narrator is Bête Noire, of course.)

[The Grue]

Quality work as usual Hateful, I was curious if you would make it to this one. There isn't much to say, and if I had to say anything it would be that the "Honeyed words" part seems forced, but it is a phrase that is hard to work in without it sounding as such. All in all, a good read and a good perspective from a model we don't know too much about yet. (Unless something is written in "Crossroads" about her. I have not had a chance to read that yet.

 

As always,

The Grue

[Hateful Darkblack]

Thanks Grue! Glad you liked it!