The Poems of Madam Albithurst: An Agent Reunited

Down I slid, for how long I do not know. It was a descent most familiar for me, a descent most familiar to all, I am sure.

We have all fallen. Whether through fortune or failure, a steady descent surrounded by guiding sides of metal or wood, that gently nudge us to the left or to the right, in hopes the landing is much softer.

We never look up when we fall. We cannot bear to note how far we have slid, how impossible it will be to return to where we were. Only down, to prepare ourselves for the moment when the fall ceases, for it must cease some day.

Then, then we look up and realize we have stopped falling, for there is no further down to go. But we have become so used to the descent that we did not notice.

I stood up from the cold dirt floor, straightened my dress as best I could, and wondered if I had always been falling; if this sudden cessation of descent was the first time in my entire life that I had not been falling.

Around me, a passage dim. What little light there was came from faint gas-lamps of indiscriminate size and shape. The tunnel was dark and ancient, dripping with slick water and smelly dirt. Mushrooms of blue and red sprouted underfoot, and off in the distance, a chanting sound.

Drops of metal and hissing wafts of flame danced beside me as I walked. Paper lay everywhere, piled high and stacked short. The walls themselves were pulp and papyrus, dripping with paste and dew. Ancient files and reports were the veins of this monster, the bureaucracy of life. Every taxing notation instilling a icy brick of fact. This world, this place, it was. And because it was, it was seen, it was heard, it was observed and remembered. Recorded.

It was a quaint, almost primitive form of what we of the Grandiose Guild partake of on a regular basis.

The chanting grew closer, and I knew that I would soon be met by fellow travelers of the darkness. I waited patiently for the undulating shapes to approach. Dressed in white, and about their necks an iron chain hung with brilliant blue stones, they chanted in voices of men and women alike. Their bowed faces did not look at me, but approached me they did, carrying trays and cups, filled with meat and drink.

They placed a cup in my one hand, and a singular pill no larger than the head of a pin in my other. I swallowed it less out of politeness, and more out of curiosity, for it is in these moments of instinctive action that I find truth most easily attainable.

They brushed me down, their gentle hands caressing my sides and shoulders as I drank what they had given me, and then waved goodbye as they traveled on. I waited until the echoes of their beautiful chanted faded at last before moving on.

I walked up and down the cold tunnel of paper, left and right my wandering feet took me, carrying me along like the faithful companions they had always been.

I was not afraid. I tell the truth, though you might not think it. Indeed, how could I have been so brave in so terrifying a place as the dark halls of the Sibilants? Yet I was not afraid, for I knew that all paths lead somewhere, even if to a place without paths. The paper walls and stalagmites became withered and yellowed with age. Flickers of ink fluttered in the light. The tunnel quivered and heaved like the veins of a great heart.

It provided little comfort. I walked for many hours, or perhaps only a few minutes — oh how I despise that horrific poetic trope. An hour is an hour, a minute is a minute. How can the two be confused, when one is sixty times the other? But I mean my words quite literally, alas. Time is different inside, and it is indeed the inside where the tunnel led.

The tunnel twisted and wound about like an ill worm. It grew small, then large, then small again. It was a cathedral to orderly behavior, and a crumbling tomb to forgotten pasts. There was barely any light, barely any sound, I was trapped within my own head, my thoughts ever creaking towards and away from the past and the future, the dreams that were so eager to steal my life away from me.

I fought them, yes I did. Though they assailed me, pulling at my hair and tugging at my hem, I marched onward, striking and pawing at the walls to give my starving senses some means of sustenance, lest they turn inward.

I screamed, I cried, I debased myself in a manner quite unbecoming of a lady, much less an Albithurst. I fought, I kicked, I clawed like a cat at every thought that crossed my mind. I felt flames blossom from my skin, I became as a dragon, a wolf, a raging bear who tore apart the hounding toxic fevers that raged after me. I breathed out the poisonous gasses through bared teeth, I felt chains bend as I flexed muscular arms I did not have. My life in that tunnel was a constant menagerie of bizarre theatrics, all to chase away the horrid self-destructive thoughts.

I survived like that for a goodly time, though scraps of my life were torn away down whirling pools of dark regret and blinding hope. I might be there still, had I not heard, with a thrilling sense of discovery, a whistled tune of indeterminate length.

An odd description to add, you may think, yet at the time its unknown and indeed unknowable duration was foremost in my thoughts. How long would this tune last? Long enough to reach my grasping hands and pull me from the miring quicksand that threatened to consume me? Long enough to reach the end of my life? Or short enough to last for only a small portion of it?

I dared not guess. Instead I followed forward, seeing the whistling as one might seek a light in the forest. Oh, the sensation of hope! Is there any other feeling in these Myriad Worlds that so combines the twisting Hegelian Dialectic? Fear and delight, attraction and repulsion, pinning one’s efforts on a vanishing possibility, because the alternative is simply too unbearable to contemplate. A dream, yes, a spiteful hateful dream that what may come is no less than different.

At long last the whistling stopped, and I knew I had found my destination, for the pursed lips had guided me to a single lit torch-sconce pressed into the wall by firm hands and metal bolts.

There, at the base of the wall, sat the gravestone-shaped body of an Archonarchian.

At first, I did not realize what I was looking at. Surely, I thought, it is but some shadow of a rock, though I had not seen rock nor stone in some time.

Then, the shadow looked up at me, eyes glittering in the dim light, her black lips a single line. For not the first time, I shuddered at the visage, so lifeless it was.

Now I must admit an unfamiliarity with the different features of the Archonarchian physiognomy — especially when masked, as this one was — and so I was surprised, dare I say shocked, when she spoke thusly to me: “So, we meet egein, Medem Elbithurst.”

“Have we met?” I asked out of shock and surprise more than uncertainty, for there was only one person it could have been, a truth she acknowledged when she nodded and said:

“It wes I who you sew, stending over the deed Eeolam. You seid I wes no killer.”

“Yes, of course,” I said, making sure to keep my distance from the sitting form. “And you corrected me, if I remember properly.”

“You do,” she said, nodding her broad head once. “I em e killer.”

“Forgive my ignorance,” I said, most ashamedly, “but your mask is of a slightly different shape and design since last we met. The curves are thicker, and fewer. Dare I say, sadder?”

“Beceuse I weer e different fece,” the pilgrim said, “I em of different purpose. I bring e different deeth, though I edvence no more.”

Naturally, my mind went to the same place that yours undoubtedly has, and I knew immediately that this new purpose of my strange companion was to find the Encinidine. This worried me slightly, as while I knew the pilgrim had not killed the Aeolam, I had no doubt that she could — and perhaps would — kill if she had a reason to, and stopping anyone else from reaching her prize first seemed likely to be a good enough reason.

But I am not one to fear death, certain or otherwise, so instead of recoiling or running away, I moved closer to the hunched-over figure. “I have been wandering this paper-tunnel for some time. Do you happen to know the way out? I am looking for someone, and I doubt I will find them living here.”

“There ere meny things thet live here,” the pilgrim’s mask sank low. “Things I thought long deed.”

I looked around at the paper walls. I had seen nothing save the silk-veiled penitents. “Perhaps I am wrong,” I admitted, “and they deign to live among rotting dirt and wailing priestesses.”

The Archonarchian pilgrim said no more, and after a goodly while I found myself in the uncomfortable position of deciding whether or not to continue a conversation with the woman.

“May I ask,” I said at last, “how you come to be here?”

“I treveled here,” came the glib reply. “Through send and weter, I treveled.”

“I only ask, you see, because you gave the impression, last we met, that you were to be punished for your failure.”

“I em,” the pilgrim’s voice was solid as ice. “I em in the Sibilents.”

“You are,” I said, “and so am I.”

She looked at me then, her mask cocked to the side as if I had spoken some profound truth, some holy koan that had broken through her darkness.

“Do you heve e piece of string?” She asked at last.

“I do not,” I answered.

“I em being punished.”

“As are we all.”

“Do you know how the Sibilents were slain?”

“Violently, I imagine.”

“By the blede of the fether, by the hilt of the mother,” she said in the same flat tone as before. “Torn from the ground and spreed in the Velvet, a fetish totem to werd off e greeter evil then even them.”

I considered the massive shape we crawled within, its multitudes of caverns and caves. “What could possibly have been greater?”

“Et one time,” the Archonarchian said, “us.”

In the distance, far beyond range of my hearing, The Door creaked. I have heard tell it is a metal door, lined with brass and inlaid with polished wood. I have heard it is no bigger than any other door, perhaps even smaller. Behind it, the Archonarchy resides, patient and still.

“Would you walk with me?” I asked, hoping there was a chance for her, and for me.

“I cennot,” she said. “I em being punished. Here I sit end here I weit.”

“Wait for what?” I asked.

“I do not know,” she said. “Mercy thet will not come. Forgiveness thet I do not deserve. Peece. Vengeence. I will see it come.”

“Then you will not object if I wait with you?”

The pilgrim looked up from where she lay, before her masked visage gave a slow and gentle nod.

I sat next to her, then. I sat and watched as her masked face told me nothing, as her gentle breathing provided no clue. Covered in cloth from head to foot, showing no sign of mortal flesh save her black-painted mouth and pale skin.

For only minutes we sat there, and from her I took such a feast, even in so short a time. The frame of her dress, the make and style, the colors and their inconsistencies, the shifting —subtle and barely noticeable — of her hands and head as she breathed.

“Ere you en enemy?” she asked at last, in a voice as soft as the richest embarrassment.

“That is not up to me, I think,” was what I said in return, for I have a great many philosophies and theories surrounding such questions, and this was, while perhaps not the most helpful answer I could have given, was certainly the most accurate.

For a goodly time we sat and stared at each other, until at last I could bear the silence no longer. I reached into my pocket and pulled from its depths a secret weapon, a jewel from my past. A small hukfruit from the furthest reaches of Gram. “Would you like a slice?” I asked.

She did not answer at first, until I peeled a small piece for myself, placing it into my mouth. I inhaled deeply, embracing the scent of deep jungles, I let the juice rest on my taste buds, bringing with it the flavors of blood and sugar. I felt the pressure against my teeth, and the simmering of distant fog.

Flavored it was, seasoned, with the dark and echoing caverns around us. The dripping wet, the still air, the cold, the harsh, the counterpoint, the contrast.

Once I had finally chewed and swallowed my singular and unique experience, I found her with her hand outstretched, gently accepting my offered kindness.

I peeled a tiny slice, and handed it to her before taking another for myself. We placed the slices in our mouths together, and with teeth of varying sizes broke the soft flesh.

She spat the slice out of her mouth, sending it spinning into the darkness. “Revolting,” she said, her voice still soft. “Poison.”

“It is quite disgusting, isn’t it?” I agreed as I chewed. “It always reminded me of a damp sock, with wilted cabbage and sour musk. Somehow, I always taste a hint of cotton, though I have met no one who has tasted hukfruit who agrees with me.”

“You find it disgusting?” the Archonarchian stared at me. “You eet whet you dislike?”

“Let us not be crass,” I said in reply. “Disgusting and disliking are two different things entirely. The taste of hukfruit is foul and rancid. When I eat a slice, my tongue offends, my mouth rebels. No matter where I go, what I see, I feel, I taste; it is still revolting. We of the Grandiose Guild are not Hedonists. We do not seek pleasure exclusively. We do not reject that which we find no pleasure in. Indeed, pleasure and pain are both subjective, and therefore must be of equal objective value.”

“Flegellent,” the pilgrim hissed. “You herm yourself beceuse you think it mekes you better.”

“Not at all,” I protested. “I simply find great pleasure in finding the world as it should be.”

“Then you ere not es you should be,” the agent whispered. “The disgusting is to be evoided. Thet is its purpose. By finding pleesure in pein, you defy its neture.”

I am not ashamed to admit that I had never thought of it like that. To hear such a plain explanation from someone of such calm and placid demeanor, I found myself — just for a moment, mind — disarmed.

“Perhaps,” I admitted, “I do not understand what should or what shouldn’t. All I know is that life is full of moments, singular and disparate. If I were to ignore the one in favor of the other, or embrace one at the exclusion of the other, then I am killing myself by slivers.” A moment of thought was all I needed to say: “Do all the people of your home agree with you? Are there none who crave the sublime beauty of sensation, no matter its manner?”

“I cennot sey,” the agent looked away. “I will not speek of home to outsiders.” A moment longer and she spoke again, her voice softer still. “Tell me of your home.”

“I have many houses,” I admitted, knitting my fingers together and placing them upon my knees. This was done to both affect an air of casualness, and also to rest my arms. “I do not remember the last place I called home. I suppose, though, you do not understand how difficult a question you have asked. Behind the door, things must be different, but here…to ask me of my home, do you mean where did I grow up? That would be on the World of Hura-Din, in the provincial town of Rusbus. A tiny cottage on the lands of the great Count Ospicius Majestic. I could tell you such stories of his pride and compassion.”

“Or,” I continued, “by home, do you mean where have I spent the most of my life? Perhaps that is the World of Wenshire, among the many villages of Jorbuburg, never the same place for very long. Where is my legal place of residence? As far as the Arcwhite Kingdoms are concerned, that would be the Albithurst Villa on Kolph, on a small plot of land donated by King Halsingwall for a favor my dear brother once did for him. The United Conclave would call Esphret my home, though I haven’t been there in decades. Other kingdoms and governments have their own theories. Where do I always yearn to return to, when homesickness strikes my chest? Why that would be any of the Guildhalls of the Grandiose Guild of Sensationalists, all across the thousands of the Myriad Worlds. Or you perhaps mean to ask where my parents are from, which compounds the problem twice over.”

The poor thing didn’t respond to this, and instead simply stared with empty eyes while I reconsidered my answer.

“Perhaps,” I said at last, “you mean to ask where am I most comfortable. Where do I find myself most myself. I’m afraid I have never found a place that is more such a place than any other. No…” I paused. “There is one such place. On the planet of June there is a meadow-field filled with watermillet. The grain brushes against each other, creating a sound not entirely unlike the soft babbling of the nearby brook. On the smooth black rock by the nearby brook sits a man made of cloth and mud, fishing, though there is no fish to catch. If you ask him to, he will sing you of his people, long since gone to the places outside place. It is a wonderful meadow-field, and it was there, for one moment, I truly understood what it means to live. That moment…” I paused here, quite overcome, as often happens of Sensates when they speak of their first poem, regardless of its comparative low-quality.

I will speak no more of it, for I find it incredibly poor taste, to say nothing of boorish, when an artist of any mettle waxes rhapsodic about their previous work, akin to an old dowager complaining of their lost youth, or a drunken lout pining over an ancient love. If one finds the present less alluring than the past, then it is a present surely wasted.

“What of you?” I asked when I composed myself. “You must be able to tell me something of behind the door.”

“The greet construction proceeds epece.”

“I see. Is that a good thing?”

“It simply is.”

“There are a great many who wish to stop this great construction, though they do not know what it is.”

“Do you wish to stop it?” she asked, her head not turning, her hands not moving.

“I do not know,” I admitted. “I want for very little in life. To live, to be reminded of living, to free myself from the automation of routine and the waking sleep of a wandering mind. When it comes to the baser needs of the body, I find myself unhindered in my passions. This is in no small part due to my frankly substantial holdings which were given to me by any number of fortunate windfalls.”

“Fortune,” the agent spat. “Whet do you feer?”

“I fear very little,” I said, before catching the glint deep in the agent’s mask. “If I were forced to pick something, I would speak of dreams, of illusions, of distractions and misdirections. I would speak of things that take us away from the moment in which we truly live, and beguile our limited hours and minutes and seconds away from us like thieves. Hopes and dreams of the future that do not guide, but only inspire regret. Memories and hauntings of the past that do not teach, but only ensnare and betray.”

“Lies,” the agent said, with a whisper as smooth as silk. Her hand reached out from the black and red of her grave-stone dress, to touch mine not in comfort nor warning, but in simple presence. “Lies thet steel.”

“Yes,” I answered, though I did not truly understand what she meant. “Life is such a wondrous thing, is it not? For in every moment a multitude of sensation, each found in the most beautiful of places. To truly devote ones self to the moment, to truly be present, to not be beset with ghosts and demons who will suck you from your life and place you in the past or future…these are the things I despise.”

“Feer,” she said. “Feer thet freezes.”

I suppose I do fear the dreams and nightmares. Can we ever truly live if we spend our time in hope and regret? We do not exist in the future, for the future does not exist yet. If it did, every choice would be but to kill a thousand future selves whose future you did not choose. We do not exist in the past, for the past cannot be changed, and nothing is immortal, much less the selves of our past. Sitting there undying in amber past, or dancing formless in the mists of future, the present is the only thing that exists.

And here we sit, you sit, in the hereandnow, tearing yourself away into tiny deaths, temporarily becoming a corpse so that you might escape your life for but a brief moment.

Yes, I fear death. The death that is so beguiling and alluring that life becomes a waking nightmare.

“What do you fear?” I asked. “What makes you freeze?”

The hollow mask looked at me, and then turned away in shame. “I must not feer. Feer is not the wey of the Erchonerchy.”

“I see,” I said. “Then you must have been waiting for something when I arrived.”

I will not describe this moment in great detail, for I believe it was the moment in which the Archonarchian pilgrim was forced to consider a great many things about herself, her place in the Myriad Worlds, and even her life behind the door. Of course, I am not certain of this, but were it not the case, my poem would be far less enjoyable.

At last she spoke: “Fortune. Chence. My own two hends, heng et my side. I speek, end no chenge. I ect, end no chenge. I will it be so, end no chenge. I lose thet which I hed through thet which I heve lost.”

“Control,” I said. “Control lost forever.”

“It is the only feer,” she said, her head hanging low. “I em no true Erchonerchien.”

“Perhaps you aren’t, and perhaps you are,” I said, resting my own hand on hers, “for there are many things that mean the Archonarchy. Take heart, for there are many who look at you and see a hated spiteful foe, and they will stop at nothing to strike you dead. You are Archonarchian enough for your enemies, and I have heard that certainly counts for something.”

At hearing this, the poor dear looked at me once more. A pause was all it took before she stood up from the ground, pulling herself straight into the prominent grave-stone shape that was indicative of all Archonarchians. She took too shuffling steps, and then turned to face me.

I took this to be an offer, and so accepted gladly. We walked the rest of the way together.