The Poems of Madam Albithurst: A Poisoning

Of course, as with all journeys, the will to travel did not aid us in actually getting there. Mr. Porist said so almost immediately: “What shall we do next? We cannot go anywhere for some time, as Lord Pulkwark’s Galaship will not stop until it has reached its berth, as I doubt our host would be willing to lend us a lifeboat. And even then, the coming war will surely cause chartering a new vessel to be quite difficult, if not impossible.”

I had quite forgotten, until he spoke, that Mr. Porist was not a regular traveler through the Velvet. “My dear Mr. Porist,” I smiled at my friend, “there are a multitude of methods to travel the velvet which do not involve Golden Howdahs, Sloops, Chariots, or other such conveyances.” I thought for only a few seconds before suggesting; “Perhaps we might speak with our fellow guests, and ask if any of them are willing to give us aid. Perhaps a Wizard of Doors or a Keymin of the Hidden Ways is on board?”

“I have not seen one,” Mx. Image admitted, xer head rocking back and forth in thought. “It is possible, however, as I have not spoken to everyone.”

“Well,” Mr. Porist brushed his needle nose with the back of his hand, “if we can travel, where would be travel to? As eager as I am to reach the Tides of Three Shades, I recognize that it is likely not of immediate concern. If we are to use the information in this Polyamtrix to its fullest potential, where should we go?

“To the Sibilants, of course,” I clapped my hands. “Mrs. There-and-Back gave me an answer, bought and paid for, and I will not see it squandered.”

At the mention of Mrs. There-and-Back, I felt the weight of the multi-colored cube in my pocket, forgotten until now. Naturally, I could have used it to procure reliable, if awkward passage off of Lord Pulkwark’s Galaship, but I had resolved not to cash in Mrs. There-and-Back’s concession until I absolutely had to. The poor thing was usually so skittish, I didn’t want to make more trouble for her and risk her ire.

We eventually decided, the three of us, to return to the main ballroom and mingle further with the guests, this time with an eye towards finding someone who could get us off our current conveyance, if not provide us with one themselves.

I myself had very little luck. For the better part of three hours I walked the mezzanines and danced with many different prominent peers and notable nobles, only to find not a single guest who could provide us with a suitable exit.

I had all but given up, when the Dworg I was dancing with said something most peculiar. I almost didn’t recognize its oddity at first, as I had long since considered their conversation satisfactory at best, plodding at worst. I tore my attention from the rest of the room and refocused myself on my dancing partner. “I do beg your pardon, would you mind repeating what you just said?”

“I said,” the Dworg clopped to the left, “that they didn’t pay me very well.”

“Yes,” I nodded as I spun in place. “I heard that. Who didn’t pay you? You said their name?”

“Their nom de plume, you mean,” the Dworg gave a gravely sigh. “They just called themselves the Constructors. Hardly a suitable name for a company, I thought. But, when you are a master carpenter and stoneworker, they don’t pay you to come up with names.”

On hearing the name, I knew beyond a frankly reasonable amount of doubt that this Dworg had been hired by the Archonarchy. “You know,” I said as I hopped to my right, “I have always been most fascinated with the art of stonecutting. Please, could you tell me more about that particular commission?”

While it was possible that this craftsmin Dworg might have told me something that could have made our journey much easier, but in truth I merely wanted the Dworg to tell me more about what this strange construction was. I am not particularly adept with blueprints, you understand, and if Mr. Porist and Mx. Image couldn’t figure out what the blasted thing was, surely the people who were building it had some idea.

The Dworg craned their neck upward, quite uncomfortably, I’d have thought, and shook their twiggy beard at me. “Well, professional courtesy, you understand. I couldn’t just tell you everything…” but I could see in the poor thing’s eyes that it desperately wanted to tell me everything. If not everything, at least the weighty part that rested on their soul.

When our dance was at last complete, I gave a deep curtsy and ushered my stout companion over to one of the seven curved refreshment tables in the room. “Please,” I said as I received a small glass of wine for myself and a large mug of of fresh fermantine for my partner from the nearby servant. “have a drink, and tell me everything you can.”

No sooner had I made the offer, than the Dworg took a deep drink and looked at me with eyes as large as navy buttons. Their voice was hushed and dry. “I only saw fragments. Pieces. I have no idea what I did, but they were always there, behind us, watching as we worked and toiled and hammered and forged. They would not let us stop, they told us it was for the best, they said there would be rest at the end of our labor, but the labor never ended. They demanded our best materials, our greatest workers, my fellow workers, we worked so hard…”

“Did you escape?” I asked, “or did they let you go?”

“Without another word!” the Dworg gasped. “Opened the door and shoved us through. It was but a fraction, what we saw. What they could do…”

“Is it finished?” I spoke pointedly, pausing only to sip at my own glass. If the answer was yes, my journey was well and truly over; the Archonarchy had the Encinidine, and I had nothing left to travel for.

“I do not know if it will ever be finished,” the Dworg coughed, scratching at its sunken chest. “I cannot say. But it worries me. It worries me how many were eager to help. It worries me and my friends. There were twelve of us, you know, and we all shared our concerns.”

It was at this moment that I knew two things. The first, that this Dworg was one of the strange Twelve Hands who fought the completion of the Archonarchy’s great construction. This too was how they came together; they all worked on the great construction in some form or another, and it is through their efforts and experiences that their concerns grew. By the time their job was completed, they had become a group devoted to the dismantling of what they had helped build.

The second thing was that the drink I had given my dancing partner was poisoned.

There are multiple reasons for my certainty, which I will now do my best to explain. First of all, there is the simple fact that the only other member of the Twelve Hands I had met, I met after their death. It was clear that some person or group of persons was eagerly working towards the death of my dancing partner, and their fellows.

The second and far more cogent reason for my certainty was tactile in nature. I was noting the tiny tell-tale signs in the air; the faint whiff of acrid sweetness, the faint glisten on the tips of the Dworg’s beard, and the slight lowering of the mug, for example. While I knew very little of Dworg physiology, I noted such differences as were inescapably connected to a poisoning.

The third reason for my certainty was the fact that the servant who had handed me the drinks had vanished, carefully stepping away in what I had thought at the time was a mere pressing need for the washroom. Now, I realized they were trying to escape.

My certainty thus crafted, I swatted the mug from the Dworg’s hand, sending it scattering across the floor. A shriek of confusion was followed by mutterings of scandal and bemusement. I frankly had little time to spend in worrying about this, as the poor Dworg crumpled at my feet, their face a gnarled twist of pain and horror.

As I had said before, the two chamber orchestras at either end of the ballroom were playing in perfect synchronicity, with a skill and talent that, for me, was certainly refreshing. Once I had begun to drag my poisoned partner away from the refreshment table, however, the music from the nearer end of the room became atonal, then dissonant. A sudden shriek of a twotone brought the orchestra to a halt, while at the other end of the ballroom, the other musicians continued to play, oblivious to the sudden cessation of their fellow players.

More and more attention came in my direction as I called out for a doctor or some person of a medical inclination. There were, to my estimate, no fewer than seven people who stepped forward, ready to offer aid.

Before I explain the fate of the second member of the Twelve Hands that I had ever met, I must first discuss the intriguing concept of “background noise.”

It is an inescapable fact that during every moment of every day, there are a thousand things surrounding each and every one of us. Whether it be the droning hum of a bumblebee, the gentle flow of water in the street-gutter, or the ticking of a clock, there is deafening hum that fills our every waking moment. So deafening is it, that we deafen ourselves rather than listen to it.

It is not just sound, but every sense our bodies have. We are all subject to this same muffled cacophony of sensation. We feel our hearts beating while eddies of air bring hot and cold air in equal measure across our skin. We see a million textures of multitudinous shade. We are washed away in the deluge, and so become caged in cells of bone and flesh.

To a true Sensate, this is merely an obstacle to overcome. I flatter myself to say that I have had some success in doing so, though humility and custom demands I say that I have more to learn. However, one thing that I am certain enough in saying is that background sensations are a whole sensation in themselves.

Much like the charming painters who create entire images out of dots, or the Kit who paint full portraits with a single line, the whole is often times more than the sum of its parts. A thousand individual trees make a forest, much as a thousand individual sounds can create a soundscape.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to remain well focused on both the soundscape and the individual sounds. I instead was forced to choose — and quickly, too — whether I would listen to the surrounding people, or the room as a whole. Having made my choice, I stepped back to allow the doctors access to the poor Dworg.

The room was an ebb and flow of confusion, interest, and fear. In the teeming throng of the upper-class, there are fewer things more potent than uncertainty. It is alluring, enticing, and vibrant. It is the pounding of energy through your veins, like a surging river carrying you through the thickets of life. It is the wolf on the hunt, the fire snapping logs in half, the shadows flickering at the corner of your vision. It is the opposite of the boring drudgery of a safe and happy life. It is the only thing that the wealthy and elite think they lack.

Of course, I have spent enough time with people of all classes to know that the wealthy and elite are fools of a consummate nature, but that is neither here nor there.

What is far more pertinent is the sound that broke through the background noise; a single cry of “Hark!” “Hark!” the cry was answered. A third time, “Hark!” The cries came from across the giant room, and soon four more Dworgs were advancing towards their stricken kin. All four were barking and cawing through the frightened assemblage, “Hark, hark, hark de wal! Hark!”

One of the Dworgs I recognized from an earlier conversation as a local Rathlord, leader of some sixty Dworg families from an isolated province. The other three I had not had the pleasure, but two wore hats and gloves that seemed to suggest a level of social importance. All four advanced like soldiers in an army to my former dance partner.

When they arrived at their side, they pushed the other doctors away a good six feet, keeping a boundary around the poor soul while they slowly rolled themselves into a crouching position. “Will they be alright,” I asked, gesturing over the head of one of the Dworgs at their fallen companion. I received no verbal answer, but I was answered all the same as I saw the Dworg slowly begin to catch fire.

It began at the very tips of their beard, the flames flaring and dripping down like pitch. The tips of their fingers smoldered and their curled back twisted almost straight. In seconds, my former dance partner was alight, burning a sickly yellow in the middle of the ballroom.

It was hereabouts that I was forcefully entrapped by my own passions. On the one hand, I felt the urge to remain and bear witness to the unfortunate demise of someone I could perhaps call an innocent. On the other hand, the servant who had handed me the poisoned drink was missing, and needed to be hunted down.

I managed to address both desires by turning to Mx. Image, who had found xer way to my side, and asking “Good Marq, I am afraid I saw the perpetrator of this heinous act fleeing towards the rear of the vessel. Either they are as trapped as we all are, and merely have a suitable hiding place for the remainder of the journey, or they have some method of escape. Either way, I think it is important that we find this murderer before they reach their goal.”

“Do not worry, Madam Albithurst,” Mx. Image gave a frighteningly soft-skinned curtsy. “I will find the perpetrator, fast as fish.” And sure enough, the lovely noble slipped away in the blink of an eye while I turned back to conflagration.

I imagine that there are a great many harvest festivals across the Myriad Worlds that contain a bonfire of some kind. They are revels of great comfort and welcome, a means of preparing onesself for the cold seasons that are like to follow. There is something about flame, about its dichotomous essence. It is at once a terrifying harbinger of destruction, of suffocation and searing pain; and a defense against the deathly chill of night, the horrors of the dark, and the depths of isolation. We are never alone with a flame. Somehow, I have found myself on many a dark and still night lighting a single candle, and even though I have many different methods of lighting my abode, the candle-flame alone brings me some measure of companionship.

Somehow, we cannot help but see flame as alive. It burns like we do, it spreads like we do, it dances like we do. It whispers to us in a dull roar and laughs with snapping twigs and shifting logs. It gives us warmth and friendship, it prepares our food and helps us work. It shares with us, as all living things do.

In this way, as I watched the Dworg burn, I saw how little was actually changing, save the slow ebb of life from one form into another.

At last, the horrible work was done. It took five minutes for the body to become nothing but ash, while the four other Dworgs prevented all attempts to douse the poor thing with water. Another of the Twelve Hands was slain, poisoned by an agent of some unknown organization.

Now, even thought a great deal was said by a great deal of people during and following the Dworgs combustion — and quite energetically so — I will not waste my time and yours detailing the cries for help, the confused demands for the other Dworgs to get out of the way, or the befuddled guest’s requests for explanation.

At last, one of the four surviving Dworgs stepped forward, sat back on their haunches, and raised a paw in the air. No monarch has attained silence and attention faster. “Hark,” they said, a cry echoed by the other three. “Hark de wal an olli do fythren. The Encinidine is scattered, lost, out of the hands of the High on High. The Blackstone Clock has struck five, and the Cup on the Table-setting of Grace has cracked. Thrice and two the Lock of Belldora has opened, and the howling of the Windsburg Bate has been heard in the Lowtown. The signs of dissolution are nigh, and death and destruction shall soon follow.”

The muttering of the crowd was tense and heartfelt. While I knew of the Blackstone Clock and the Windsburg Bate, I was unfamiliar with the Table-setting of Grace or the Lock of Balldora. The Duke’s death had certainly been an ill omen, but the opportunity to experience even a part of the Encinidine had blinded me to the possibility that there could have been other omens.

Fortunately, the Ardent General Tritsk, Lord of the Scaled Legion, had been invited to the ball, and so gave orders to the surrounding dignitaries and servants, taking command as is the wont of the military mindset. In moments, the four Dworgs had been ushered aside, the infirm of chest pulled into adjoining sitting rooms to collect themselves, and the ashes swept into a small pan for later disposal and/or use.

As for why the four Dworgs prevented anyone from helping their kin, I am certain there are many books available at your local book store detailing the means and methods for Dworg death-throes and funeral customs.

As for myself, I was set down in a particularly comfy chair, even though I was not the slightest bit faint. All the same, I cannot say it was unwelcome.

“You have had quite a trying experience, I’m sure,” Mr. Porist patted me quite politely on the arm “I hope you don’t find me forward, but by my count, this is the second time that some attack or death was perpetrated upon a vessel we were traveling in. I am certain I have no nemesis, certainly not one willing to go to such lengths. You don’t suppose someone is attempting to target you?”

“Of course not,” I said rather quickly, before considering the thought on its merits. Of course there are many people who I would consider rivals; those of a jealous or ambitious nature, who find my poetry of a consummate quality and worthy of opposition. Nevertheless, there has never been a guild-member in good standing who has outright attacked or assaulted another in any physical manner that required forethought and planning, much less one that would have unintended casualties. “Why would they?” I asked, after careful thought. “Besides, I would never drink a glass of fermantine.” It was not for lack of desire, but the health risks were simply too great to ignore.

It was then that Lord Pulkwark, puffing and fuming, staggered to my side with a voice full of frustration. “Madam Albithurst, you simply must assist me! To have such a horrible event occur at one of my galas, why, I’ve never in the whole of my entire life ever — well, except for that one — that is a few times — Oh! I simply cannot bear the thought of word getting out! The scandal of it all!”

“I’m afraid,” I said, seeing opportunity rear its sloven head, “it may be worse than you expect.”

“It might?” The look on the poor man’s face almost made me pity him. Alas, I knew him too well to truly feel such a noble emotion.

“The victim,” I glanced at the pile of ash, “was a member of an organization that I have only recently become aware of. I’m unclear on the particulars, but they are a group heavily involved with the situation between the Tentative Alliance and the Archonarchy.”

“They’re what?” The quivering man wiped his forehead while a cluster of servants struggled to sooth him with strong massages and candied yams.

“With all due respect, Lord Pulkwark,” I said with a voice as free and open as my disgusted opinion would allow, “I believe these Dworgs are involved in a field quite outside your comfort zone; Politics.”

“No!” Lord Pulkwark recoiled.

“I should say so,” Mr. Porist sidled up beside the man, earlobes waggling. “I’m afraid if word gets out that you involved yourself…”

“No!” Lord Pulkwark threw up his hands, lace flapping against his arms. “Never in a million years will I let myself be political! The very idea! We simply have to get rid of these Dworgs!””

“Are you certain?” I asked, a twinkle in my eye. “You may be forced to engage in less than savory practices to maintain your distance.”

“Anything!” Lord Pulkwark fell to pleading, hands gripping the air in desperation. “I would commit treason, overthrow elections, suppress the underclasses, anything other than be political!”

“Well,” I gave a noncommittal shrug, “then it would probably be best if I spoke with the other Dworgs for a moment, if you don’t mind.