Re: The Dawn Chorus
Asha expected a scolding, a firm reprimand from Jhans for being so Khallas, and ignoring his words. But instead he cornered her, bringing his muzzle close to hers, and she can smell his reek of foul, rotting meat. And Asha was swamped by the need to run, overwhelmed by the feeling of such close, violent power -- unhuman and untamed. She felt the need to run, to flex her paws and tense for landing -- an involuntary spasm of her will to escape rattled through her. And Jhans stood down.
He looked at her confusedly, trying to make sense of what had happened. But Asha felt that no one could ever make sense of this lonely girl. When Jhans did speak, his voice was fairly soft -- but still slightly brackish with irritation.
"You were foolish to ignore my warning." And he turned swiftly, on down the corridor. After a moment, Asha hurries after.
Through the dingy halls they go. Green moss grows on walls of gray stone -- the pathways going onwards and splitting like roots of some mighty tree, bustling people the blood. Asha wonders is trees have blood. There's so much she doesn't know. Her thoughts are interrupted by Jhans, who growls quietly to her.
"I was brought here before, blindfolded. I was meant never to return. If we are attacked, do not hesitate to kill. These people would have shown you no mercy."
Shaken by these words, she starts to pay more attention to those passing -- who looked quite... normal. She cast aside the bear's words of warning.
Before long, they came to a door, thick-set into a stone wall, and they stand in its alcove. Asha reaches out tentatively to knock, but Jhans brutally shoulders the door open. Asha suddenly wishes she'd thought to change back into her robes before following the bear through.
The office wasn't all that big, with a globe in the corner and clock on the wall and a desk -- behind which sat a man on a... very interesting chair. Asha noticed it had wheels. But that wasn't nearly as interesting as the man himself.
Tall and exceptionally lean, he looks her over with a pair of eyesockets. Tied tight around his shin is a ribbon of bells, hanging all around him and bunched round the waist is the garb of the morris men, and perched jauntily on his scalp is a straw hat. He sat perfectly still for just long enough to give Asha the impression of demortality, when he glanced up -- smiling as only a skeleton can. A morbid scene, bespoilt entirely by his voice -- which was not the rough growl of sullen corpses, nor the eerie screech of nails down a blackboard, but the voice of a fat man who finds a whoopee cushion the height of comedic brilliance, and it prepared to chuckle at length whenever one is used in his presence. He did not pale when Jhans walked in, but he would have done.
"Ah -- Mr. Frenn. I did not except to see you again."
Asha was on the verge of screaming, of running right back to the watchouse -- this wasn't right. For in all her short existence, she was as yet unintroduced to the finer details of death. She saw it as but a sleep -- to be woken from afterwards in agony. And yet here was a human, speaking and moving -- fleshless, hairless, skinless. Her thoughts were interrupted by Jhans.
"You owe me a favor Jacobi."
"I owe nothing, Jhans. The deal was that you never returned."
"I gave you your information, you help me now." Jhans' heckles rose. Jacobi fiddled with his fingers, bone on bone clicking stoutly..
"It depends on what you need." He shot Jhans an askew glance, something that works surprisingly well when you have no eyeballs. He laid both hands on the desk and leaned forwards. "And what I get in return." Jhans' jaw tightened. Again, Asha felt the surge of animal ferociousness -- just what she's been avoiding for all of her existence... But this time it felt different, it spread out like a wall -- shielding her, protecting her from the real predator -- who was on the other side of the desk.
"What do you mean, Jacobi?" Jacobi laughed, and recoiled back, crossing his arms.
"I hear you have fallen in with the watch, Jhans. Since last we met, you have become a person of power, of influence. I'd like the watch to back my operations." Jacobi didn't noticeably change his tone of voice, but he went on almost wistfully, staring at a point some feet to the side of the bear. "We are not far apart, Jhans. We need allies, you and me both. I need revenge. And for that I need power." And suddenly his soul was red with rage, and he turned for the first time to Asha.
"Do you know how many people starved to death in the laws inflicted by this government? Over ten thousand morris dancers, and a coconut salesmen with interesting advertising methods." He stopped. When it was obvious he wasn't going to continue, Asha steeled herself to speak -- her lips dry and cracked.
"Why the one coconut salesmen?" Jaboci raised himself triumphantly, and brought one accusing finger slicing through the air at arm's length to point at her face.
"You see? You see? Nobody cares about the morris men. One singing, dancing coconut vendor is more important than thousands of us! And it makes me so, so... angry!" Jhans gave Asha the 'You've put your foot it in, huh,' look and turned back to the skeletal figure.
"The watch is not at my beck and call, Jacobi. I will put forth your case, however."
"And how will that help? I have put it forth a thousand times before." Jacobi stands the slightly deflated stance that comes from a sudden bringing back from anger to normality, but looks on sharply. Not even death could stop some people. You needed a special kind of mind to become an undead. Not insane, more like... through sane and out the other side, where sane is as flexible as reality if it helps prove your point.
"It will carry more weight from me." As far as Asha could tell, the skeletal figure was considering. He didn't speak for some seconds after Jhans' comment -- and seems to have quite forgotten his moment of rage.
"...What do you need?"
"The human and I are searching for an elusive kind. They take the form of angels and ride the wave of dawn light over this world. We need an edge -- a weapon, a sleeping drink, anything that will help us get close enough to talk to one of them." Jhans paused to scrutinize Jacobi's expression, but he is the kind who wins at poker -- not only because he has no muscles left to twitch."You have the leading alchemists, scientists, engineers and theologians on this side of the Sondan plains. If anyone can help us, it is you and your kind."
"Jhans, science doesn't spring out of nowhere. We'll need something to work off -- charts of their biology, known chemical resiliences, we need something to exploit. Can you catch one and bring it back here?" Jhans' expression said everything. It said: Look you stupid human, you've missed a point and it's a big one and you seem very, very disposable right now and if you pretend that don't have less than three brain cells then I'll pretend that I don't have claws that can rend through steel. Jacobi's vocal chords ground back into motion nervously, weighing every word. "No? Well, I'll need records, accounts..."
"I, umm, have this..." Asha reaches into her jacket and produces the tiny phial, containing the cell of the angel -- the tiny mote of glittering light that swirls gracefully around its prison, leaving behind it a red tail, existant only within the retina. "It's a part of an Angel, it's what they're... made of, see." She remembered why she was avoiding contributing to the conversation as Jacobi returned her gaze.
"You are not the first to seek these creatures?" Asha shook her head. Jacobi continued, slowly. "Then I will see what I can do. Come back in a week -- and leave that little bottle with me. Jhans, I expect you to honor your end of the agreement -- alright? I'll give this to my best theologians and see what they can come up with."
"Thank you, sir," Asha toned, excitement at possible results only slightly marred by a week's wait. Jhans was, as ever, stolid.
"Good. Asha, come." And they left.
-----
Kandred's last thoughts were: 'All the questions, why am I...' But before he finished, he gave up his mortality and made sure the experiment was never repeated.
He so became the last. But he was, rather more importantly, not the first.
Last edited by Lady Liberty; 08-31-2007 at 03:58 PM.