Live for the Trade, Die for the Trade IX: Luthor Stannish

[Thechosenone]

(This is a piece for my Guild Lawyer and Lucius and delves deeper into my version of Malifaux. Enjoy and leave a comment if you don't mind. Thanks.)

Within the Pinnacle there are many departments and offices, each one like an organ inside a greater beast. Each one with a purpose and each one the personal kingdom to some protective and paranoid personality. They are many things, these many little fiefdoms, but the one thing they are not is vital to the function of the beast known as the Guild. They perform a task but the Governor is wise to not allow any one of them to set the pace for his city. He is the only vital organ, the only piece of the beast that is required.

But there are departments with more use than others. One of them is the Archive. It’s a place of maddening static. There are never voices… only scribbling. Constant droning scratches of quill to parchment with no end. Always eleven pens to eleven pieces of parchment. Always at all times.

The Archive is a long hall of stone with no windows. It’s buried deep beneath the Pinnacle. A crypt beneath a crypt occupied by eleven sallow corpse like humans. Eight men, three women. Their skin pale and moist with the cold sweat of the Archive. Their features all muted, their health deeply in question. They hold thin fingers to quills that are always scribbling. Always transcribing. Some copy notes from one page of a document to massive books with legions of leafs ready to be filled. Others witness events played out in globes of glass based with brass. These globes, with all their filaments and wires, display the sights of the Watcher Flocks that leer at the city from great heights and hidden perches.

They write. And they do not speak.

But on rare occasion there is a spark of life here in the Archive. Though life is not the most accurate of term. Few things that happen within the Pinnacle could ever be called life. Intellect. At times there is a burst of intellect. Chill alien intellect.

The doors to the Archive, massive in their weight and wide in their swing. They groan, movement is something they do rarely and they protest every inch of it. They hate as keenly as anyone else within the Pinnacle.

Through the wound left by the open doors darkness bleeds into the candle lit Archives. The light of the candles whimper in the face of that oppressive shadow. The Governor’s Secretary enters, his cane tapping on the stone floor the trademark that precedes his arrival. The candles’ light reflects off his mask as do the faces of his Archivists. They pause but only briefly. Dedicated and singular as they are, the arrival of Lucius Matheson is reason enough for pause in even the most relentless and unfeeling of souls.

He walks. Each step a sickening blasphemy in the stillness of the Archive where silence is piety and recording is prayer. Each of them eyes the nightmare as he walks the aisle between them.

“And where do our numbers stand now Mr. Stannish?” Lucius asks, his whisper hiss spoken through his mask.

Luthor Stanish didn’t walk here with his master nor was he waiting here for his arrival. He is not here at all and then in next moment he is. There is no flash of magick or pulse of light to announce him. Only a hollow muffled cacophony of screams that echo half heard before drowning out into the walls of the Pinnacle.

“The Guardcorps are fat Mr. Secretary.” Stannish is a thing wearing the disguise of a man. Dressed in the long coat of Guardsmen left unbuckled and loose he walks the length of the Archive falling in step with Lord Matheson. Beneath is a dirty white blouse, its cuffs hang from the sleeves and show their filth at the edges. From those cuffs are white hands with crackled nails and veins of dark blue that linger near the surface of his skin. Hunched, Stannish is at least two heads shorter than his master and he rarely stands erect. His strut and posture is vulture like. It would not be beyond one’s imagination to think of him bending over to beck at a sun bleached corpse.

But like Lucius he too wears a mask. Dried viscera drips around the edges of the mask and through the eye slits. It covers his upper face and presses tight into the skin. Through it bloodshot eyes take in the world with an unnatural scrutiny while his fully exposed mouth grins.

Luthor Stannish’s black gums and rotting teeth are always on display. “Your Elite Division is at operation strength as well. The Pinnacle has a taste for more but its hunger is sated.”

“Good.” Lucius nods. Where Lucius is the driving force of the Pinnacle’s day to day operations Stannish is something else. He’s the Pinnacle’s urges given form. He feels its needs and speaks for it. He is a beast and Lucius could not appreciate his presence more. “These replacements that you found; they’ll do their part.”

“They have little choice in the matter. If they do well in the Elite then that is to our benefit. If they die in our service their efforts are simply shifted to new pursuits.” The Lawyer’s voice is serpentine, wicked and low.

Their destination lies on the far side of the Archive. Another set of doors part and they enter another room. It stinks of blood.

The sound of scribbling pens is replaced by a single set of gears and cogs whirring. A few clockwork clicks and sobbing.

A watcher stands still on the stone floor in its bat like pose. The red light of its eye blares bright and hot on a wooden chair fixed in place. The straps on the chair bite into the skin of Ian Capshaw. A miner. A young man. A face erased from the records of Malifaux. Sometimes the Archivists employ edits rather than ink. As stiff as they are in their loyalty and dedication they are creative writers too.

“Mr. Capshaw why do you resist? What drives this stubbornness? It can all end you know? You can go home and all this ugliness can be put behind us.” Lucius says. His voice a mixture of aggravation and sympathy.

“Find a dark hole to crawl into you soulless piece of…”

“Objection!” Stannish’s hand curls into a rictus like claw that points at Ian’s face. Rips open across the miner’s lips and face. Blood fills his throat and silences his tirade. The Pinnacle’s solicitor wields the Magick of this bastion like law.

“You know how much I hate them.” Lucius mumbles.

“Yes Mr. Secretary.” Stannish empathizes though it sounds somehow pedantic through his warped mouth.

Lucius uses the tip of his cane to lift Ian’s head. The Watcher takes it all in with a mechanical efficiency. But there is delight there as well. The Archivist that sees through his eyes smiles too.

“I do not understand your sort at all. You struggle everyday against in a world that has no use for you. It detests you. You and those like you fight with no end in sight to disrupt the flow of the Soul Stones in a world that cries out for them. You lie to yourself. You believe the narrative of ignorant men who tell you that the Trade is corrupt. They deafen you with deception and blind you with only what they want you to see. The reality of our two worlds is very different Mr. Capshaw.” Ian’s head falls again as Lucius pulls his cane away.

“No it ain’t! You and everyone else in the Pinnacle from the lowest Guardsmen to the Governor himself are…”

“Are what hmm?” Stannish points a finger, crooked and stiff, at Ian. His head lifts to match the arc of the finger like a fish caught on a hook. “What exactly do you think we are? Do tell. Do. Tell.”

“Twisted men who feed off the hard work of the lower class. You’re like mosquitoes drinking our pockets dry and barely turning and eye to our suffering. That’s what you are and you’ll get nothing from me ya hear! Nothing!” Ian’s voice is filled with such defiance. His words echo everything he’s seen in his two years here. It’s the truth as he knows it.

Stannish snickers at first but his laughter builds till he begins coughing on some blackish bile that spills out his mouth and over his clothes. He drinks up the look of disgust on Capshaw’s face. “Twisted, parasites upon you… Your ignorance steers you wildly off course though your choice of vernacular is prophetic.”

Ian watches as the Secretary recedes into the darkness outside his vision. There are other things there too that worm and penetrate the shadows. Slithering things that can’t fully be seen because they defy reality and its claustrophobic constraints on order. They live on the currents of madness that ebb against the shores of all sane minds waiting spill in.

The Watcher’s eye light starts to dim. Capshaw panics. The last thing he sees before blackness claims the room is the Secretary’s mask skid across the floor and stop at his feet.

Voices fill the room. Monstrous echoes, whispers, things that speak with words that Capshaw’s never knew existed. And among them is Lucius’ voice as well. They all speak in unison and somehow Capshaw knows they all speak the same thing despite the lexicon of words that vibrate both through the air and slither through his thoughts.

“The world has no need for you. You are so small. So insignificant. Less than a grain of sand on the barren flesh of a dead world. If you had even the smallest notion of your place in the scheme of things it would at least denote some true intelligence. As for your thoughts on our nature, you are wrong about one thing. We do notice your suffering.”

The voices all drink in Ian’s dwindling sanity. “And as for us Mr. Capshaw. What are we… simply put… we live for the Trade.”

Stannish’s voice whispers into Ian’s ear while the man scans the darkness with eyes desperate and terrified to see anything. “And you will die for the Trade.”

Ian Capshaw never came to Malifaux. He never worked for the Mines and he was never taken in the dead of night to the Pinnacle.

Ian Capshaw never came to Malifaux.

Edited October 17, 2011 by Thechosenone

[the_madhatter1]

Wow, amazing piece, really liked the descriptive pieces on the lawyer, definitely my favorite so far.

[Cambrius]

I'm really enjoying the development of Lucius and his ilk as preternatural extensions of the Guild. Very well written. These are getting more and more easy to read, like you're finding your rhythm.

[Thechosenone]

Thanks gentlemen. And i guess in the earlier pieces i was forced to introduce not hiddeous unspeakable monsters wearing the guises of mortal men... how blah.

But I do like writing for Lucius and Mr. Stannish.

[Chucklemonkey]

This is my favourite 'Live for the trade' so far (although I have a good few early ones still to work through).

I love your use of Metaphor and you have a very unique way of describing the surroundings and creating the atmosphere of the piece that I have never seen before in fan fiction. An example being:

'"The doors to the Archive, massive in their weight and wide in their swing"

Such a wonderful way of saying big, heavy doors.

I agree with Cambrius, it really feels like you have found a rhythm that is making it very easy to enjoy these.

Edited October 15, 2011 by Chucklemonkey

[Thechosenone]

Thanks much mr monkey. My influences are HP Lovecraft, Ashton Smith, Poe, Mieville, Gaimen and Kafka. These guys knew how to describe a thing so that it fit the tone. Nothing's ever going to be a "heavy big door" with me. Sometimes i worry that i get wordy but i gotta stay true to me you know?

[Thechosenone]

just reread this one. I do think this is my favorite malifaux thing i've written. Thought i'd share. All you writers should take a minute and think about your best stuff

[ThePandaDirector]

just reread this one. I do think this is my favorite malifaux thing i've written. Thought i'd share. All you writers should take a minute and think about your best stuff

OBJECTION!

=]

The Guild Lawyer is one of my favourite models in Malifaux, or at least for the Guild.

I can safely say this story does not suffer from the flaws of the others I've read. This is because it looks like you took your time, you go from the Archivers to Lucius without jumping, the description of the "big heavy door" actually helps to add to the pace as opposed to being descriptive for the sake of it (which is something we've all been guilty of). The Lawyer's description is a little factual (describing his individual items of clothing) where some more imaginative metaphor could have established him more effectively (I did like his unexplained ability to appear instantly). Lucius' dialogue with the Miner was good, but

"The voices all drink in Ian’s dwindling sanity. “And as for us Mr. Capshaw. What are we… simply put… we live for the Trade.”"

That last part seemed like a slightly forced inclusion of what has otherwise been a rather rewarding recurring phrase.

Definitely the best I've read so far. You tend to do better with the slower pace, but combine the solid pace of this with the cinematic feel at the end of the Hoffman one with the character interaction of the Sonnia/Colette report and I'd say you're onto a winner.