The Poems of Madam Albithurst: Paths

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.

It is at this point, the moment that my merry band plunged deeper into this ominous and portentous domain — a place laden with tales of ominous forbearance and caustic airs — that I must pause to talk of time.

Time is a many-layered thing. I am reminded of a particular layered cake, one of the more impressive pastries I have ever seen, which dominated the central place-of-honor on the table of a host most generous; it was made by twelve of the greatest bakers of the Eastern Regions, with a soft skin as thin and soft as silk, and flesh as tender and light as air. The icing lingered on the tongue, teasing it with memories of flavors only half-smelled. Each slice was no thicker than a porcelain saucer, and each of its twenty-three layers was specially and exactingly designed to represent one of the Eastern Regions’ twenty-three Spiritual Dimensions of Existence.

The cake in question was commissioned by the Lace Earle, on the occasion of one of their offspring’s coming-of-age. I do not remember which, frankly, as they are all long since of-age, and like all singular and significant events, the party has faded now into the mists and faulty memories of distant time.

Are memories dreams? Surely I have made clear my disgust over the presence and nature of dreaming, a consuming evil that severs your connection to the moments that, when strung together, provide us all with life; the hereandnow. Do memories not do the same? Rather than crafted illusions from the seeds of hope and fear, memories are impressions of the past, the many footsteps of passing life that sink into the sands of our minds.

But time washes all clean. Every tide softens the footprints until the sands are fresh and clean once more. Then, are memories little more than a twisted bastardization of what once was. Seeded with grains of sand, pearled memories are made. The air was fresher, the smells were sweeter. The pains lessen or the joys fade. The contrasts deepen as we remake what was into a story, a dream of its own.

What does that mean for us, the Grandiose Guild of Sensationalists? Though we craft poems out of pure sensation, is that not the manifestation of memory? Are we not, in some similar way, chained to the past?

Our seventh Edict offers the balm of solid record, set in stone, immutable and unchanging, but we are, if not unique, at least unusual. What it must be like, for those of you who do not experience the way we do in the Guild. How dead your lives must be, to experience so quietly, and then to have those moments live on only in your memories.

But that must be your lives, mustn’t it? Without your memories, how could you know — no, I cannot be so cruel. I have a memory as well, and while I have attempted to sharpen it to a finer edge, I too must suffer the shifting effects of time.

Time. It is time I wish to talk about.

Because time is nothing but the passing of memory, of dreams and illusions. Even our finest clocks, made with care and precision, are mere amusements in the face of the ever-passing.

The Yattrinti believe the hereandnow does not exist. Their philosophy, as alien as it is to me and many of my comrades, is that the hereandnow is simply the illusion created by the Future turning into the Past. It is a boundary line separating two countries, but there is no place between them that is neither. While I find this philosophy absurd, I will not disparage those who believe it, simply because it is a concept so foreign to me. I am certain I have not explained it properly.

But one thing I do believe about time, whether it truly exists or not, is that it is a personal thing. For some, it is a flash of lightning, here and gone in a blink of an eye. For others, it is a mire of clay, thick and yawning. Time passes for all, and whether it passes all too soon or far too slowly, it is your own time and no one else’s.

In the Sibilants, time is — or perhaps I should say was — a capricious thing. I still cannot say for certain how long I spent inside its marrowed halls, much less my companions, though we egressed together. Looking back, I am certain we spent no less than a week wandering down the Sibilant’s shin, deeper and deeper into the horrible depths, though at the time I would have guessed merely an hour.

We certainly did not eat much during our visit. The Sibilants has an arresting affect on ones appetite, laden as it is with teeth-marks on the walls and even the most vibrant candle-flame deadened by the oppressive air. The smell of the Sibilants is dark, clean, and free from hope. Flickering light of red and yellow cast dancing shadows, mocking those who believe of themselves a future after the walls that surround them.

Of course, as is evident from the existence of this poem, we did have an after. For this was the truth of our journey through the Sibilants. Though we did not know where we would end up, we knew where we would have to go.

Mrs. There-and-Back said it was possible that my informant resided at the bottom of the Sibilants, in the Apex. Too, she said they might be in the Elbow, or the Charnel, or the Sixth-wing. I hoped she was wrong about the latter, as the Sibilant’s wings were fabled to be impossible to travel without great care and risk to ones personage. So too are the residents considered a particularly unruly sort.

A thousand paths, a multitude of directions, and no way to know where we were going. Such is the stuff of dreams.

The future is a hidden shell, a veil behind which the hereandnow waits, like a nervous beast ready to pounce. If you are gentle, you can approach the animal without suffering its teeth, and mount the beast safely. There is no telling where it will carry you, then. But if you fight it, kicking and screaming all the while, the monster will dismember you, fracturing your singular self into a million pieces. It will devour you, and you will find yourself the worse for it, and no more prepared for the beast behind the next veil.

A thousand paths, a multitude of directions, and no way to know where we were going.

We followed our guide, the indefatigable Nock, down a hallway of signs, filled with arrows and squares of warning and direction, instructive as well as terrifying. Straight and narrow, winding and wide, we wandered.

And above us, always above us, hung the Mourners of Cresis. Dressed in black and smoke, they swung to and fro like seaweed in the sea currents. Rope and chain wrapped about their ankles, they swung with leg outstretched, arms clasped, metal and wood mimicking the unearthly shape of the corpus domum that surrounded us all. A vein hope, perhaps, that drove them to try and fool the powers that be. Hung like chandeliers, they gave no light, yet their presence illuminated everything. We knew, staring at them, who the Sibilants had been, what the Sibilants now was, and how never again the great and beautiful shapes that once filled the velvet would return.

How to describe the things we saw?

Be our final destination Elbow, Charnel, or Apex, we needed to travel first through the dark and treacherous, we needed to brave the harrowing and callous. We needed to pass through the Underheel.

The Underheel is famed for what is absent. The first step on every journey, the rooms and halls were filled with those who were not brave enough to continue deeper, or wise enough to find a true path. They huddled in doorways and whispered to each other, scavenging among the ruins and eking out what existence they could with only each other for sustenance.

When we met the residents of the Underheel, we spoke most politely of many things but we never discussed our destination, because there are certain things we simply do not discuss in pleasant company. I admit to having felt a pull to wander, a desire to explore. Perhaps if I had indulged, I would not be alive to tell my poem now.

And above us all, the chandeliers macabre.

Not three paces later, we found a gaggle of workers. What noise! What clattering and clamoring! Steel on iron and wood scraped through the air, as fleshy limbs drove joints and fixtures together, hammering, sawing, screwing, and tightening. By the truest of oaths, I swear, as surely as I could not separate one sound from another, too could I not discern what they were constructing. From one angle, it was a staircase, sweeping and looping as it crawled up a far wall to some unseen destination. From another, it was a house, or similar structure, destined to shelter inhabitants, rather than facilitate ascension. From a third, it was a statue of macabre and alien delight, some strange bestial figure that snarled and clawed at the air.

I could scarce tell where the construction ended and the people began. A silly turn of phrase, I’m sure you’ll agree, for the construction never ended while the people never began. They crawled over their construction like ants, pulling and pushing and building away. They were half as tall as I, at least, and their limbs bent at right angles; as boxy as the wood they beat at, passing tools back and forth like silverware at a party, the material for their labor coming from what had been built only minutes before.

“I may not understand you soft-skins very well,” Image rested a clawed fore-limb on my shoulder, “but I have never seen your kind engage in such…counterproductive behavior. Is this some kind of religious ritual?”

I could not answer, and nor could Mr. Porist, nor Sir Juhrooz. The former watched in rapt attention, a gnawing fascination clear in his eyes. The latter, on the other hand, had a face of such concentration as I had never seen before.

“What are you building?” Mr. Porist asked of a nearby saw-wielder.

“Don’t ask,” the laborer put a finger to their lips.

It was like a ripple in a pond. Every laborer who saw this transaction placed their own finger to their lips. Then those who saw this, placed their finger on their lips, and so on, until the whole room was filled with people working with only one hand, the other sealing their mouths shut.

“Do you enjoy it?” Mr. Porist tried of another laborer.

“No!” the worker dropped their finger with a look on his face of stern stubbornness. “This is just the way things are; a science!”

“It is unlike any science I have ever seen,” Image admitted. “But then, I suppose our people have very different ideas of what science is.”

The workers proved unhelpful for our quest, and so we continued on.

And above us all, the chandeliers macabre.

Deeper we traveled, descending the steps down the ankle and leg. The swaying made my stomach sick, as the Sibilants drifted back and forth, pushed by an untouchable wind as it hung from eternity in chains.

The walls pulsed at my touch, opening to new vistas and strange memories. Leaking green trickled down open pipes and microchip plants. The scuttering of the engineers provided a susurrus of sound as we slid down the giant bone. Veins without skin gathered up the cast-off refuse of what society remained, and cries of ecstasy chased us on, darkness beckoned us further.

All at once, a tiny voice arrested our passing. “Names please?”

I looked up into the eyes of a being most peculiar. Sat atop a mighty bowfront desk, a hunched over shape dressed in immaculate pinstripe stared down at us. The desk wobbled from side to side on tiny legs of brass, while the figure scrawled and scribbled on a curling piece of paper.

Perhaps most odd of all, the figure had no face. Instead, what I can only presume to be the being’s visage hung from a wrought-iron lantern hook that curled and wound over its right shoulder, like a reading lamp.

“Names please,” the voice came again, and I noted with interest that the sound came not from the hanging face, but from the empty place where the lips should have sat.

“Forgive us, good sir,” I said at long last. “I fear I was not prepared to meet someone of your countenance today. May I ask why your face hangs so lightly at your side? Please forgive my impolite curiosity, but I am a member of the Grandiose Guild of Sensationalists, and meeting such new and interesting things as your fine self are cuisine to me.”

“Ah,” the scribbling continued as the face-less head dipped down. “A Sensate, are you? I see, I see. Most inappropriate, that.” The clerk looked up from its paper, if looking can truly be what it is called, and pointed with its long pen. “And what are you?”

“Doppewassl of the Arcwhite Kingdoms,” said Sir Juhrooz, “And I dare you to say my calling inappropriate, cur! By the Hewn, I will carve your head from your neck!”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” the scrawling became most animate. “I need my head and arms connected to do my work.” the thing heaved a sigh. “More the pity. It would have made everything much quicker and easier, if it were otherwise.”

“Easier?” Mr. Porist stepped forward. “I must trim my ears daily, it seems now, and I cannot say it is difficult. Time-consuming, yes, but not strenuous.”

“Ears are not a face,” the long pen pointed at the dangling eyes, nose, and mouth. “It was most inconvenient, I’ll have you know. But necessary, oh yes, most necessary.”

“Indeed?” Image clicked and clattered as they took their spot next to me. “I myself have often wondered why face-less bureaucracies and corporations remain so. Might it not improve things if you replaced your features?”

“Not at all!” the thing wobbled as the desk shifted back and forth. “Why, I could smile then! Or gasp! Wince! All manner of emotion might come to me. Just imagine, me tallying the numbers and collating the fields, and then, bam!” it clapped its hands once. “I catch sight of a bird out the window. What it must be like to fly, I wonder, and there I am, daydreaming! All for the having of eyes. Or I see a name I recognize or remember. No problem at all, it happens a lot in my job, but then a wistful smile or thoughtful moue crosses my mouth! What may I do then, but feel as my face has commanded?”

“And this is a bad thing?” I asked, amazed at this clerk’s demanding attitude.

“A horrible thing!” the clerk slapped the desk, which reared at the abuse. “Why, it’s one step from there, to thinking about myself! Considering my work. Then I might perform the unpardonable sin of frowning! Can you imagine? If I frown, then I might be forced to wonder, ‘why do I frown? Is perhaps the work by which I maintain my life, the mechanistic manners by which I prove my worth, the ordained rules of hierarchical structure, unsatisfactory? Then come questions, concerns, ideas, suggestions! Oh! How could I do my work with things such as emotions constantly reminding me?”

“It seems cruel to sacrifice your humanity for your work,” I said. “If I had your job, I should not wish to become a beast or a machine for the sake of a little scrip.”

“But see here? I have not thrown my humanity away. It hangs there, waiting for me to take it back and place it on my head once more. So you see, I am no monster nor inhuman beast. I am simply have a job, and wish to do it professionally.”

“When will your job be finished?” I asked.

“Never, if I am lucky!” The clerk sounded most delighted. “I shall have purpose and meaning for all my born days! Please, enjoy your stay!”

“But do you not need our names?” I asked as the desk wandered off, rocking back and forth on its many tiny legs.

“Not at all, not at all,” the clerk shouted at us over their shoulder. “What use to me are your names or your stations? I have all I need from you, thank you most kindly! Please continue on your way!” And so we did

And above us all, the chandeliers macabre.

We journeyed past a great broken windmill, cramped and bent in the narrow spaces of the Lower Shin. The distant winds made each ancient wooden plank creak and groan like a thing alive. Bending low, the monstrous contraption loomed over us, its growls and groans urging us onward.

“Perhaps those builders from before,” Mr. Porist pursed his lips, “might put their labors to better use here. This poor building could use a bit of work.”

“Never,” the Mill replied, “for I am what I am. If I were to change, then I would not be me. I would be something else.”

“Quite true,” Mr. Porist shrugged, “but I change all the time, am always something different, and yet am always me. Perhaps that is just the way it is with we Nobblefolk?”

“I assure you it is not,” I soothed my friends concerns before turning to the towering Mill. “Pray, good Mill, I have it on greatest authority, that one within the walls of the Sibilants knows the location of the Encinidine, which even now is hunted by the Archonarchy to complete their great construction. Do you know who this person might be?”

“I know only what I know of being a Mill,” the creaking and groaning grew louder. “Everyone knows only what they know of themselves. If you want to find someone who knows, you must look for someone who knows.”

“Surely,” Mx. Image waggled xer antennae as we continued onward, “that is what we are doing?”

And above us all, the chandeliers macabre.

We passed through passage and hallway reaching the Chamber of Frames, where the wake was unending. There, bedecked in bright clothing and wailing in an inescapable deluge of sound, we were taken by the hand and allowed to baptize our cheeks by sharing in the communal sorrow. We all wept quite openly in turn.

We asked them where we might find someone — anyone — who knew the location of the Encinidine, for we had to find it before the Archonarchy stole it to complete their great construction…but with every word the shrouded figures shook their heads and wept all the louder. We understood their pain, but we could not stay forever.

And above us all, the chandeliers macabre.

We found a tiny bison of long hair and longer tail. She looked up at us as we asked for aid, and spoke with wide eyes: “I will get there some day. I will descend the steps all the way down to the Apex, and I will have golden grapes and hot butter for tea. I will sleep on warm stone, and cover my head in soothing leaves. I will never have to lift a hammer or drive a nail again.”

“You could come with us,” Mr. Porist offered. “The more the merrier, I always say.”

“No!” the bison shouted. “I’m no thief!”

“No thief!” The echo shook the walls.

“No thief!” the bison shouted back.

“No thief! No thief!” The echoes returned, and soon the entire room was chanting in time, so we left the bison to her toil.

And above us all, the chandeliers macabre.

If this poem feels disjointed or awkwardly structured, I can only say that the Sibilants knew its job, and performed it well.

Though I should say before I continue; Nock was a most efficient and efficacious guide, floating ahead of us and calling out most beautiful poetry in the guise of direction. Our steps, tentative and awkward as they were, became all the more confident for their presence.

“They are interested in keeping their family well, and will always be eager to help when able.” Nock’s deep voice trailed alongside as we walked. It was in front of us, and behind us, and shared the path we walked. It spun in place, looking left and right, sharing its wisdom when it had a mind to. “Do not creatures go through a natural change and by decay pass into different forms, as bees are formed by the decaying flesh of calves, as beetles from horses, locusts from mules, scorpions from crabs?”

“I think we are getting closer,” I often said to my merry band. “We cannot be far.” This was, of course, a great lie, as the distance between the different places in the Sibilants was further than any one person could walk. We turned corners and rounded bends, we rose over hills and slipped under overhangs, we walked across bridges and slid around monuments.

At last Nock spun about and faced me squarely in the eye. “If I have not seen such a figure in years, it was a tragedy. A mean tragedy.”

“Are you certain there is no other way?” I asked, for I was not certain I would be able to manage. Nock did not answer, and instead waited for us to continue, knowing, of course, that we would.

And above us all, the chandeliers macabre.