The Poems of Madam Albithurst: Entryway

“Well then,” Mx. Image shuffled about, looking to and fro. “We are, indeed, in the Sibilants, yes? And yet I have heard countless tales of its nature. Indeed, entering the Sibilants is as easy as opening the door, but leaving again, well…”

“There is no escape,” Sir Juhrooz nodded. “Bound about by sinew and custom, once you have entered the Sibilants, it is here that you will die.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” I assured my companions. “Why, there are at least seven poems regarding the Sibilants in the Guild’s libraries, and how could those poems exist if their creators had not left again? I myself have met several people in the course of my life who have detailed the internals of this macabre domicile, and I am certain I didn’t meet them here. One might as well say that Gnatted Hollow truly is invisible. True, there way out may not be as obvious as the way in, but I am certain some method exists. We must simply find it.”

Inescapable, irresistible, unavoidable. Of course, it is no secret that these are lies. There is a simple exit from the Sibilants, one that we availed ourselves of at the end of our journey, but such lies are the stuff of legends. There was not a one of us who walked the bony halls who did not fear for our future. Even me, who fears the presence of dreams more than what they might suggest.

But there is no finding your way through the Sibilants, not if you haven’t lived there your entire life. So winding and scornful are the stairs and straight-ways, that even the most astute and careful explorers can find themselves in a different place than they had hoped to find.

How fortunate, then, that in the anti-chamber sat a Long Midwinter, sorting through piles and heaps of merchandise. When we approached, the ragged head turned with a snap, long teeth glinting in the dim torch-light. “Hello, hello,” the Long Midwinter spoke. “Five more for the Sibilants, I see. My condolences, my sympathies. Shall we bargain? Shall we barter? I have a great many tools and necessities for travelers of these bright and sullen hallways.”

“Is that the Eternally Lost Comb of Arboch?” Sir Juhrooz lunged forward, hand hovering over the tiny ivory comb.

“It is, it is!” Long Midwinter smiled an icy smile. “Long since found once more, and available for purchase, ready to be bought, for only two-hundred scrip.”

“If it is eternally lost, how could it have long since been found?” Mx. Image asked, cocking xer broad head like a bird.

When no answer was immediately forthcoming, dear Juhrooz’s face crumpled to disgust. “You are a fraud,” Sir Juhrooz spat, pulling away from the comb. “By the Hearth, I am a fool, and you are a criminal to feast on the hopes of customers!”

“No offense meant,” Long Midwinter held out its hands in apology. “I thought you knew, I thought you could see; I offer no truth here. Truth cannot be bought, or if it can, it cannot be sold. You buy what you want, what you desire, and all desires are lies. It is the wanting that makes value, and so it is the wanting that may be traded back and forth.”

“I do not want lies,” I said. “We travel the Sibilants, and so will need a guide.”

“Ah,” the Long Midwinter bowed low, “then you do not want me, for I am a merchant. I seek only to collect what you are willing to give, and will give anything you wish in order to take it.”

“But will it be real?” Sir Juhrooz demanded.

“Of course not! But you will believe it to be real, and you will feast until you are convinced you are not hungry anymore. Until you grow hungry again, and then you will return. Are you sure you do not want for any of my wares? Any of my products? They will make you strong, or fast. They will make you wise, or loved. They will give you joy and take away pain. They will shield you from a world you do not fit in.”

“That does sound lovely,” Mr. Porist reached out to caress a folded shirt. “Do you think this will fit me?”

“It is the perfect size,” Long Midwinter plucked the shirt off the pile. “The perfect shape. The perfect fit. Only fifty scrip, a bargain at twice the price.”

“Fifty?” Mr. Porist gaped. “For a shirt?”

“What a bargain!” the shirt was set aside, “but too much for you? No matter. Here —” The merchant picked up the same shirt again, “— is a tunic of more affordable make, for those who have less to spend. Of comparable quality and fit, and in your price range I’ll warrant.”

“It is,” Mr. Porist nodded, reaching out and caressing the shirt with thin fingers. “I can see it is just the same fabric, and still the perfect fit.” I noted however, his wistful disappointment at not having enough scrip for the first shirt.

“We are not purchasing anything,” I said. “If you cannot provide a guide, then we shall leave.”

“No guide here, alas,” the merchant sighed. “I provide only dreams, here. If you want hope, you want my sister.”

“Will you fetch her for us, then?” I asked.

“If you are certain,” and so the Long Midwinter turned around, and High Summer was there. “What do you want?” she snapped, pulling at her hair with disinterested disgust.

“We need a guide to travel the Sibilants,” I said, keeping a polite demeanor as best I could.

“You don’t,” she spat. “You walk forward, or back, you’ll get to where you’re going. Might take days, or weeks, or hours, or seconds, you’ll be where you are, and that’s where you’ll be.”

“But we have a place we want to be,” Sir Juhrooz said. “We are looking for something.”

“The Sibilants doesn’t care,” High Summer laughed. “You want to go forward, you might go back. You open a door, it may close again. Locks and walls and wills and oppositions of all kinds. You make a plan, you will be disappointed.”

“Then why travel at all?” Mr. Porist asked, sullen at the loss of the shirt.

“You have to travel,” High Summer fumed. “You can’t stay still. You stay still, you forget to breathe next. You stay still, the room stays still. Door never opens, floor never moves, ceiling never swaps places…same, same, same, all the time. Nothing but dust settling and everyone looking at you like you’re doing it wrong. Got to keep moving. Even if the next room might be awful.”

“But I have been here before, said the friend, and I know how to get out,” quoted Image. “At least, I think that’s how the story ends.”

“It ends in the same room it started in,” the thing sneered. “Oh, pretty poppets, you want a path forward? Is that why you asked for me? You want a thing of straight lines and cold heart. You want a mind of steel and eyes of bright fire. You want that which will not be misled by frozen passages, nor your misguided concepts of left or right.”

“Then that is what we shall have,” I said.

“It will cost you a pretty penny. Six scrip, no less.”

Thankfully, I had ten scrip in my pocket, and so when the transaction was made, High Summer called out: “Nock, show yourself. These fools want your help.” After barely a moment’s pause, she reached into her pocket, and pulled out a box.

It was small, this box, no larger than my own head. It was ornately gilded with curving golden edges and silvered inlay, shimmering gemstone crawled across its faces.

One corner, however, was no corner, but a nose. Long and broad, its bridge traveled up the edge of the box, bisecting two deep-set eyes that stared out from black voids: one brilliant blue, the other dark silver. The bulbous nose hung low, giving the whole shape a strangely melancholy air, a face peeking out from a geometric lattice.

Lifting out of High Summer’s hands, the box turned this way and that, its silver eye scanning the assemblage. “Far from the village lies an empty well,” it said in a deep voice tinted with suspicion.

“My name is Madam Albithurst,” I said, foregoing the extensive list of titles that hung around my neck, clacking back and forth like gemstones. “These are my companions; Mr. Porist, Mx. Image, and Sir Juhrooz the Circumspect.”

Gently waving hairs flicked back and forth as the box stared at each of us before turning back to me.

“And ever since, whene’re the wind blows, so too does she cry his name.”

“We seek,” I answered, “good sir Nock, an answer of great import. I have been told a knowledgeable source resides within these macabre bones. Perhaps in the Apex, perhaps in the Elbow, or the Charnel, or the Sixth-Wing.”

The box reared back, nostrils flaring as its multi-sided body bulged. “Found first by Lady Jackwell, she believed the widening of the river indicated the discovery of the Eoman Loch. She continued as far as present-day Kenbough before concluding she was mistaken.”

Now, I did not know where we would find the individual who knew where the Encinidine lay or what guise it was under. Therefore, I set my jaw firm and admitted; “That is why we need your guidance.”

High Summer burst out laughing at us as she shrank into the shadows behind her. “That’ll never get you anywhere. You can’t be guided anywhere without knowing where you are going! Good luck, fools, I could not have devised you a better punishment than you have placed upon yourselves!”

“What an odd creature,” Image muttered. “Do you think they gave us what we asked for, in the end?”

“Never mind that,” Sir Juhrooz tapped our floating Nock with a single knuckle. “Will this strange box, this floating prism, guide us effectively and efficiently to our journey’s terminus?”

“Perhaps we must tell it where to take us?” Mr. Porist tapped the tip of his needle-nose before addressing our purchase. “Good Nock, if you can, please take us to the closest place where we might find people of wisdom and knowledge.”

Nock spun in place, ignoring all attempts to cajole, plead, and force its acquiescence. Sir Juhrooz spat, “What magic phrase will cause this heteroclite hexahedron to take us where we want to go? By the Hatchel, I command you to take us to the Encinidine!”

But Nock didn’t move nor speak, hovering still and silent, breathing most furiously through its nostrils. “Perhaps,” Image said, “it requires more direct instruction? That strange creature did say we needed to know how to get where we were going to be guided in the first place.”

And then I knew the answer, and spoke quite clearly to the floating face: “Please, sir or madam Nock, will you take us to what comes next, after the Underheel?”

At last, our erstwhile usher drifted away, deeper into the winding halls and rooms of the Sibilants. We followed, for what else is one to do with a guide?