The Poems of Madam Albithurst: The Dworgs

The four Dworgs were being held, and I use the term gently, by General Tritsk. He had set them down in a small adjoining sitting room, and was pacing back in forth in front of them like a worried hen. His medals clattered and jangled as he stalked, head panning side to side as he studied each of his detainees.

For their part, the Dworgs sat calmly, quietly, and patiently. They turned to look at me as I entered the room and walked to the General’s side. “Forgive me, General,” I began most politely, “but I would like to speak with these gentlefolk alone, for a moment.”

“Alone?” The General sneered. “These are my prisoners! As General of the Scaled Legion, I have the right to charge these four perpetrators and hold an immediate trial!

“Trial? What possible charges could you levy?” I asked with only a modicum of irony; I was very aware, thanks to my relationship with my Captain de’Laisey, of the militaristic mindset towards those who have the ability to serve yet chose not to. I had little doubt that the Dworgs efforts to prevent anyone from dousing their burning kin was worse than the murder itself, in General Tristk’s eyes.

At the same time, such a charge would betray a remarkable ignorance on the General’s part of Dworg culture. While I was certainly surprised at the insistence of the other Dworgs, I was not at all shocked at their laissez-faire attitude towards the death itself.

“What possible charges?” General Tritsk’s tongue flickered out like a short red bolt of lightning. “Why, how about bystanding? What about neglectful murder? How about conspiracy? Yes, I say conspiracy, as all four of these ‘gentlefolk’ as you call them stood around and pushed away the guests who were trying to help save the victim. Yes, I’d say I have a pretty strong case that these four purposefully aided and abetted his murder!”

“Might I assist?” I asked, trying to turn the General’s presumptions into something useful. “I myself am somewhat familiar with the Dworg people, and I might be able to extract a confession. You might be able to skip a complicated and confusing trial and head straight to the sentencing.”

“Ah, yes,” the General looked pleased at the idea. “But what should I do in the meantime? Loom behind you, perhaps? It could be quite effective.”

“I am familiar with the practice,” I assured him, “and think it unnecessary. If you would leave us alone for a few minutes, I feel I might be able to get a good deal more out of them. A sort of good-general bad-general tactic.” I thought it an inspired suggestion, pulled as it was from my having heard my dear de’Laisey say something similar about their day, once.

“Well,” the General gnashed his sharp teeth for only a moment before turning about in a huff. “Very well, but only for a moment!”

When the General had finally left, I turned to the four Dworgs. They were sitting on their haunches, patiently waiting.

The Dworg people are quite good at waiting. They have been known to wait for years. Even the most romantic of the modern writers find themselves broken by the heartfelt devotion to patience that Dworgs constantly exhibit.

There is an art to emptying a space, a skill to waiting with yourself. We of the Grandiose Guild train for years to separate ourselves from the many threads of sensation. We filter our our rushing blood, our rattling lungs, our raging thoughts. We become an empty vessel, drawing the world into ourselves to sample every facet.

All of this is to say that I felt a kind of kinship to the Dworgs, though this might be due to many years traveling among the Dworg cities and societies, and therefore being more familiar with their kind than most.

“I would like to listen,” I said to the four.

One of the Dworgs stared up at me. “They were great among us. They knew more than their time. Now, they know nothing.”

If you are less familiar with Dworgish ways than me, I shall endeavor to explain: the Dworg have odd views of what it means to be alive. Since they do not grow physically, at least not in the manner that other species do, their concept of growth is tied to learning. As such, life and knowledge are perfectly intertwined. If you know nothing, you are not alive, and only those that know can live. The more you know, the older you are. It is not uncommon for a centuries old Dworg who has existed in ignorance to be treated as a child by an educated Dworg who has existed for only a decade.

Death, therefore, lies in the unknown. To die without knowing why is a deeper and crueler death, and no Dworg would ever kill without explaining, in detail, the reasons why. An old poem by a venerable Sensate detailed a battle fought against the Dworg fifth Dragoons, and the horrific chattering noises they made as they charged: their own language, spreading a war-cry made entirely of exposition.

I myself once had a charming conversation with a young Dworg about the difficulties and moral struggles involving killing others who do not understand the Dworg language. Indeed, it seemed to me an easy method of thwarting the efforts of any Dworg army — simply remain ignorant of their tongue. The Dworg corrected me, explaining that in Dworg culture, it doesn’t matter if you understand their language. Your soul will know.

“What did they know?” I asked, an unfortunately open ended question that I was certain would provide little in the way of edification.

“The great construction is at hand,” the Dworg said, holding up its hands in proclamation. “It grows, it builds, it festers behind the door. And these movers of industry, breakers of bread, wielders of whips, they eat well and safely. We are not safe. The war is coming, and those who do not prepare will not survive.”

Now I will admit that while I pride myself on a modicum of self control, as well as the ability to manage my emotions such that they do not interfere with my ability to stay in the hereandnow, I was quite perturbed at this speech. This ‘great construction’ had been brought to my attention multiple times, and not until now did it come with such an explicit and personal threat.

“I have heard of this construction. The Archonarchy is building a super-weapon behind their door to conquer the Myriad Worlds. Armies are amassing, agents and assassins are plying their trades, and everyone is terrified of what might happen next. They were one of the Twelve Hands, a group devoted to preventing the machine’s completion, Am I correct?”

The four Dworgs nodded.

“What exactly is the great construction?” I asked.

“That’s what I said,” the Dworg nodded sadly.

“You must have some idea,” I pushed on, quite impolitely. “Or perhaps someone else? They were a contractor who worked on the great construction; surely they must have passed their knowledge on to someone.”

“Not to us,” the Dworg shuddered, their twiggy beard clattering. “Not to any of us. All we know is what we know. By the word is thought, so by thought is deed, and by deed is life given. Thus shall the word be given, so death may pass you through, and your spirits be given to another.”

I recognized this as a Dworg aphorism, and so ignored it, much to my later regret. “Can you tell me anything about the other Twelve Hands? Do you know if they are alright?”

Another Dworg spoke up. “Now they are nine, and fleeing are they from unseen claws. Death comes for them, because they seek to save the Myriad Worlds.”

“But the construction isn’t complete without the Encinidine,” I prompted.

“Isn’t it?” the Dworgs glanced at each other. “You know more than we.”

“Surely you must know more,” I pushed. “You were willing to let my dancing companion burn, rather than try to save their life. You must have had a reason, and I hope you will tell me now, before the General has you tried and convicted. I am not so much of a military person as he, and am confident of your innocence.

“No,” the Dworg said, voice suddenly cold and strong as stone. “We are guilty.”

“Of what?” I asked, unwilling to let assumptions blind my eyes and ears.

“We let them die,” the Dworg let their shaggy head hang low. “They burned so bright and now naught but ash. Though we were bid to do it through promise of stone, our hearts are dark that we let their light flicker into smoke.”

“Promise of stone?” I knew the term; a promise of great spiritual import for the Dworg.

“Promised we did,” another Dworg spoke. “Promised them that we would not interfere.”

“Promised we would let it happen,” another Dworg said.

“Promised it would happen as they wished,” the first Dworg nodded.

I continued to speak with the Dworgs for something close to half an hour, teasing bits of information out of their bearded mouths. I will not waste your limited time nor attention on such banalities. Instead, I will simply explain what happened when I had learned all that I surmounted was possible.

I left the room and recounted all that I had learned to Mr. Porist. He scratched behind his ear as he mused, “did you hear them correctly? Did they say they promised the dead Dworg that they would let them die?”

“It seems that way,” I admitted. No matter how I twisted their words back and forth in my head, trying to tease out some clearer meaning, I could not find another answer. “Somehow, and for some reason, the victim knew they were going to be assassinated and did not want to be saved.”

“By why?” Mr. Porist asked the obvious question. “What possible reason would there be to not try and avoid death?”

“I am sure there are many possible reasons,” I said, “but few that I can fathom at the moment.” There are, of course many religious and spiritual practices that either venerate or crave death, though most tend to embrace a metaphorical passing. There are several personal reasons too that one might prefer death to a lingering illness or substandard life, but these did not seem to apply. “The one that leaps to mind,” I said, “the one that worries me most terribly, is that he dreamed.”

The confusion in my partner’s face was charming. I decided not to press the point, and instead suggested we return to the ballroom. He agreed, and no sooner had we arrived than we found Mx. Image approaching us, looking for us to tell us what had happened after he left.

And this was Mx. Image’s story.

“As I have said, by the largess and grace of our most serensified Queen, I am honored as a Marq of the Circumvexing Hill. I have supped on the Jelly of Noble Blue, and sung the Aren’cta’cta. I have hunted for twelve and twenty nights and days, with nothing but my claws and eyes. I am not unused to stalking prey.”

“I have spent much time among you soft-skins, and so while I have no practical experience with the sense you call smell, I was able to feel — a poor translation of our word, to rees — the path our wayward assassin took. It was an odd mix of sensations, both the lingering fragrance of fermented fruits and grains along with the errant drips of acrid poison. Their footfalls from further away rippled through my carapace, setting my chak aquiver. The chak is, of course, the organ my people use to feel vibrations in the world around us. It is like your ears and your soft-skin, all in one, and in the lower thorax.”

“I moved swiftly as I could, hopping from floor to wall and back again. I am still somewhat unfamiliar with the layout of this mighty Galaship, but my eyes could clearly see the walls and doorways that kept me from my pray, and I could feel where and when they turned. I was forced to pause only once, when I found myself met by an open vent, which my quarry had obviously crawled through. A quick tap on the metal with my foreclaw, however, and I felt its shape. I knew where they were heading, and so turned about to run down a different path. I daresay, this allowed me to catch up to the assassin.”

“Sure enough, when I rounded the sixth corner, I saw the cad up ahead. He looked at me, saw me approaching, and brought to bear a thin sword of indeterminate make. I presumed he wished to do me harm, as most soft-skins do when presenting weapons, so I adopted the Fourth Weave Standing posture of Khai-Chich martial arts. I will not bore you with a dramatic play-by-play of the action. Instead, I shall merely describe how my hard-skin limbs were able to weather the whipping blows the cad rained on my backside. He slashed and chopped but my skin is well curved; no matter how hard he thrust, never once did the sharp needle-tip of his sword find purchase. Instead his blade scraped and slid off my shell, for a thrusting sword is a poor weapon against folk like me.”

“Thankfully, he held far less speed in his limbs than the deadly beasts that thrive in the surroundings of the Circumvexing Hill, so I was easily able to delay, discourage, and finally disarm the poor fellow. A quick two-four later, and the cad was flat on his back, gasping for air. I must say, while I do worry for any diplomatic incidents it might later incur, I found the fight quite exhilarating.”

“And so I returned, dragging my prisoner behind me, his sword in my foreclaws. He said little, save a single phrase that I found quite arresting; ’the future will come.’”

To hear this phrase brought about at once a moment of befuddlement due to its banal truth, as well as an awkward discomfort due to its unfamiliar use. “The future will come?” I said, the repetition bringing no comfort. “A strange ideological declaration from a captured assassin. Do you think he intended it as a threat or warning?”

Mx. Image’s wing-case clapped open and closed in xer natural shrug. “I am unfamiliar with the behavior of soft-skin assassins once they have been apprehended. I cannot say what is proper or expected to say once caught. I can say only that there was no fear in his voice when he said it.”

“Mrs. Albithurst, you must do something!” Lord Pulkwark floated past, carried on a reclining chair by his panting servants. “General Tritsk has just informed me that one of our guests has captured an assassin! Lord Pulkwark gasped, waving his cloth handkerchief about with furious abandon. “In my misfortune, I invited the High Bench-Warden of Montiflex! The General wants to hold a trial here! Now! Your warning has proven most oracular! Politics, my dear friend, politics! Something simply must be done at once!”

“If I may,” Image said, glancing with one eye in my direction, “while I know very little of you soft-skin’s ideas of community and governance, I have paid very close attention to your social interactions and have come to the understanding that the issue of politics is always easily circumvented if one simply follows the rules. If I am correct, intervention and mitigation of politics in the public is solely the purview of the police forces? I believe the Anointed Bulwark had a squad stationed on the Grand Junction.”

“Turn back?” Lord Pulkwark clapped a hand to his chest. “We’re almost halfway home already!”

“Perhaps,” I interjected, “but surely that is all the more reason to turn back now. The assassin’s destination must surely be yours as well. You wouldn’t want people to think you consciously aided an assassin’s relocation, or even escape, do you?”

Lord Pulkwark’s mouth opened, and not a single sound came out.

“On the other hand,” Mx. Image chittered, “If we were to return and deposit these unfortunate politicals into the hands of the Anointed Bulwark, you would be cleansed of all implications. No trial, no politics; indeed, your scandal might even turn into a commendation?”

Image rubbed an antennae in my direction, and it was at this moment that I understood that the dear thing was trying to wink at me.

“Turn the ship around!” Lord Pulkwark shouted to his Galaship at large. “We’re returning to the Grand Junction! Yes, I know they forbade us to return, but this is a situation beyond our power to handle. We are not soldiers, nor insurrectionists, we are nobility. We must — we simply must — behave properly and defer to the able authorities in potentially political matters such as these. Yes, I say political. Come now, I insist! Strike up the bands once more! Let us dance and eat and drink and be merry, for within the day we shall do the Arcwhite Kingdoms a great service!”