Four servants on a Moldavan estate fled an oncoming horde of soldiers (Polish? Hungarian? They do not know). The manor was burning, and so they ran through basement and back rooms until they found themselves in an ever diminishing tunnel, soon crawling around bend turn and angle.
And then suddenly each of them found themselves crawling out into a velvet curtained room, circular. Up above a gathering of officious voices. "Ah yes! The trial can begin! The accused have arrived!". And what was their crime? Trespassing, of course.
After each suffered a Trial By Biography they were ushered into a small chamber to await punishment (flensing, likely, they were told), they sipped on tea that tasted vaguely or iron or copper, and discovered a smallish tunnel of sorts of beneath the samovar, in the cabinet. Into it, they crawled.
This tunnel lead them into what seemed to be the bottom of a thorny well of roses, and it continued. on still. It came to stairs, stone ones, leading up into the moonlight. A cemetery? In the woods? It was hardly morning when this all began. A mumbled voice in the distance they heard. Sad, forlorn. "Oh no" it said. It seemed to cry.
The Juggler cried out: "Hello! Where are we?", and the voice bounds after a sound of scraping metal, standing up on long needle legs.
It greets them, the pale figure up above them. "Ah! You are persons!" it says, before impaling a rat on the tip of its' left leg, and setting it upon a gravestone edge. "I am a non-person, you see. And you can help me! Oh yes!"
And it explained that he held now his friends will, which forecluded that his dear friend (currently "indisposed" from battle, whatever that meant) would be killed by his own misericorde. The will, you see, demanded that the bearer of it avenge his killer, who shamed him so.
Such is the way things go, in the place they are. But could they go and get it, the misericorde, and destroy it perhaps? He would be most grateful! It was just there, at Tiger-Lilly Keep. Just over the little river. Why can't he go get it? A non-person can not cross any river, even one so small. And besides that, there are the Footmen. You can recognize them from their livery. Who are they? They are with the Colorless you see, the ones who they are skirmishing with over yonder. Over what? The Bridge! To where? None are sure, not yet, as they are fighting over it first. We are hoping, though, that it leads out and away to the gardens! But who are the Colorless? Not friends or foes, not yet, but we skirmish with them anyway. But we shall win, if you destroy that misericorde that is!
Conversation was voluminous and dizzying, but in the end they agreed to find this misericorde, and destroy it, despite understanding precious little about the Heart, and the Colorless, and having not yet even heard of the Pale. But then they met the Colorless along the way, and soon things became even more complicated than one minute before.
Such is the way things go, in the place they are. But could they go and get it, the misericorde, and destroy it perhaps? He would be most grateful! It was just there, at Tiger-Lilly Keep. Just over the little river. Why can't he go get it? A non-person can not cross any river, even one so small. And besides that, there are the Footmen. You can recognize them from their livery. Who are they? They are with the Colorless you see, the ones who they are skirmishing with over yonder. Over what? The Bridge! To where? None are sure, not yet, as they are fighting over it first. We are hoping, though, that it leads out and away to the gardens! But who are the Colorless? Not friends or foes, not yet, but we skirmish with them anyway. But we shall win, if you destroy that misericorde that is!
Conversation was voluminous and dizzying, but in the end they agreed to find this misericorde, and destroy it, despite understanding precious little about the Heart, and the Colorless, and having not yet even heard of the Pale. But then they met the Colorless along the way, and soon things became even more complicated than one minute before.
The Colorless representative was a hairless woman (fully bald), quite white, in large neck ruff and lengthy gown. She glided along the forest floor, near a pond of milk and honey, and in a syrupy tone insisted "please, do not destroy it! bring it back here, to me. We can help you, we know a way out of the forest, one that evades the toads!". And the toads were explained to them, giant and gruesome and attracted to a field of heads of sticks.
And so in a moment of sudden betrayal and oppotunism, they agreed to assist this emissary of the Colorless, and would do not as the Red one with the legs had said.
Besides, the Footmen would obey them if presented with this letter from their new Colorless friend.
And so they were welcomed into a Red & Pleasant Land.
And so in a moment of sudden betrayal and oppotunism, they agreed to assist this emissary of the Colorless, and would do not as the Red one with the legs had said.
Besides, the Footmen would obey them if presented with this letter from their new Colorless friend.
And so they were welcomed into a Red & Pleasant Land.
No comments:
Post a Comment