The Poems of Madam Albithurst: Escape

Now I suppose you desire an explanation for what happened once we had finished our dance. Alas, this is a poem, and poetry provides truths not through narrative, but through thought, heart, and soul.

The Great Construction was completed, but so far I think never used. The engineers and scientists went home, happy with their efforts and with the simple assumption that someone somewhere might finish it someday. A commonplace occurrence for those who are only responsible for the middle of a project. Those who begin and those who finish, they never have the luxury of contentment.

I saw the completed structure. Scattered about, a massive skeleton of metal and stone, wood and glass. Curving pipes of soft rubber twisted about like angry vines from the deepest jungles. Sounds that echoed out from distant alcoves. A turn of phrase, an errant thought, an instinct, an assumption.

I might have called it beautiful, upon a time. I might have once called it horrifying. I perhaps would have seen it for what it was, instead of what I knew it could be.

When I found my friends once more, I was surprised, and not a little disappointed, to see they had been apprehended by the assertive and starkly-dressed forces of the Torquates of the High on High.

They stood like statues, lined up perfectly in little rows and columns. They would have been going to war, I’d have thought, had I not known their purported enemies surrounded them, ripe for the targeting.

In front stood the winding bulbous body of the indefatigable Mr. Slate.

“Madam Albithurst,” he spat, his curling fingers reaching out to me, “what a pest you have become. It is time, I’m afraid, for you to come with us.”

“Certainly not,” I refused, calmly walking down the stairs towards the militaristic tableau. “I find myself uncomfortable at the idea of remitting myself to your care. After all, you may decide to exert your will in a manner I find disagreeable before I am given a due judgment from my peers.”

“Judgment!” Mr. Slate’s twisting neck curled about, writhing in barely suppressed fury. “Exert! Decide! Madam Albithurst, I shall not endure your insults and assaults on the High on High, nor the Torquates! If you do not give yourself to me at once, submit to my right to rule over your crimes, you shall give me no choice!”

“Then you have a choice now?” I asked. “How interesting? What choice do you have? Or perhaps you meant you have no choice at all. If so, how can I submit to your right to rule, you being so powerless? I know that I have the power you seek, and I am undecided if I shall give it to you or not.”

“Shall you ask us questions, then?” Mr. Slate growled. “How we found you, perhaps, or why we suffer to let the Great Construction survive? What will become of you and your friends? What we shall call victory in the end?”

I did not answer, as none of the answers to these questions would have improved the quality of my poem to any great extent.

For you see, I had realized in my conversation with the animated corpse, or spirit, or real Duke of Ten Vials, that I had been distracted from my singular purpose. I had, in my foolish way, become so enamored with the questions, the uncertainties, the possibilities, that I had forgotten my singular answer to all things. The reason why I went on my jaunts. My — as Image may have put it — soul.

“One question,” I asked, given the opportunity. “May I touch your face?”

This surprised Mr. Slate, and at first he found himself flat-footed in the face of my sincere and unashamed question. He nodded, and I approached, taking off my gloves.

Cold and golden, soft prickles that together made rough. A scent of salt-water and the sound of hissing air from tiny holes, not atonal but musical in its own way. A vibrant quaking in the chest. Mind racing. People around me, but no one to be seen. A twisting of horrid egg, rotten refuse spilling out in putrid liquid, an unquenchable rot in the throat. Voices from far away, pulling strings through the ears, flossing out the bits that don’t make sense. A statue hidden in rock. Meaning covered in trauma and scar-tissue. It felt like a piece of the past I had purposefully forgotten. It felt like the piece of home I had never wanted to find again. It felt like he had always known.

I put my gloves back on.

“Thank you,” I said. “I have never touched the face of one of the Torquates of the High on High before.”

Mr. Slate stepped back, his curling fingers working the air like an aimless butcher. “Are you finished with this charade, then?”

I nodded, spreading my arms. “I submit.”

“I am surprised, though not astonished,” Mr. Slate hissed. “I had not expected your surrender so quickly and unreservedly.”

“Oh, I do not surrender,” I answered. “Not to you, but to a different power. One that, at the moment, holds a precedent claim. I speak, of course, of the Anointed Bulwark, and I remand myself into their custody.”

For a moment, Mr. Slate looked at me with a blank expression, one of bemused curiosity. This was because he did not know my Captain as well as I did. Surely, I knew, that he would spare no efforts to lay his peacekeeping hands upon me, no matter the time, distance, or political ramifications.

Sure enough, before three heartbeats had passed, the sudden cacophonous chaos alerted me to the arrival of the Annointed Bulwark. From behind me, a massive surge of truncheon and shield bearing peacekeepers charged with the bull-headed stubbornness of those of singular-purpose. Suddenly beset from all sides, the perfectly lined tin-soldiers of the Torquates dissolved into childish flailing, desperately trying to fend off the wave of judicial aggression.

Mr. Slate roared in fury, commanding his soldiers to attack and destroy those who dared claim jurisdiction over me, and before long the battle was joined in violent and bloody earnest.

Sir Juhrooz, brave hero, I had never suspected such skill and talents in a man so simple and unassuming. He was indeed a Doppewassl, a warrior as strong as any two men. With his sword unsheathed, he carved his way through a thousand plus a thousand soldiers. Calling his prayers to the Angry Pantheon, his way was aided by the sharp eyes and clever eyes of Image and Mr. Porist, who called out to him in support and caution. The Archonarchian Agent had come to our side as well, darting like lighting through shadows, carving down our assailants and directing us through the maze to the exit.

We escaped, of course, just in time for the combined armies of the Tentative Alliance to crash upon the shore. I am certain what happened after that was very political, but as I have no head for such things, I paid little attention. Instead, I calmly walked through the hails of bullets and battalions, and into the waiting arms of my dear Captain, Sir Venriki de’Laisey.

I smiled at him as he placed me in protective custody. I am certain I saw the muscles of his mouth twitch, the closest the darling professional would ever allow himself to returning a smile to me.