T A C: Session 07 -- 'A Fugue in Fugelin' Report

General Summary

Ave... Forgive me, I mean, Hail...         I watched the one-time executioner of men watch his companion set off. While the man leaving had said he went to learn what happened at the after-meeting, the executioner knew that this might quickly not be the case. His companion was mercurial. Anything at all might distract him. Later this would have a many-layered reason for making sense at the time… The executioner was used to his companion’s ‘well-planned whims’. It didn’t really matter. Things would be learned. He trusted his companion to get back in something resembling one, major piece. I was pleased that this did not concern him.       Furius, for that was the executioner’s name, moved back to the clearing. The Order of the Quadrangle waited there for him. He was their leader – their Grand Master. Dominus Magnificum. As in realms of old, a likely title. Well suited to the executioner.       After more than an hour’s wait, the undergrowth began to move. Someone approached. It was not the man we waited for. This was a person unexpected, although his kind were known to us. They had been seen at the Sainted Ark. Negrum Lotus. Black Lotus... In any language, living or dead, they were, the Lotus. He was one of these. He stood confidently, visible to the men in the clearing.    

      Weapons were poised but withheld. He looked to the executioner. His voice emerged from beneath a wispy scarf. The scarf was a minor shade to his features. His skin was an unhealthy hue for a mortal. This could not be the reason for the lotus’s voice. It was grating. High-pitched but oddly guttural. He might have the consumption, so harsh did his voice sound out.     “Furius. We must speak.”     “Speak then.”     “In private.”     The leader of the Order interrupted’ “I would advise against going off alone with a Black Lotus, Grand Master.”     “And yet I will do so.” The executioner replied to her.     The lotus led the way from the clearing. Behind us, one of the Cornerstone seniors made good some wager with the other senior. A pouch was passed across. Laughter was muted. I wondered about that but I knew my role. I stayed prepared for what might come. Semper paratus       The lotus only traveled out of earshot. When we caught up to him, he was on his haunches. He was watching some insects scurry away from a stone he had lifted from the ground. “Bugs.” He said.     We waited. It was still. No clues to lead one to think a breeze might visit. No scents came from the absent wind. No sounds came either. We were still. The lotus spoke, “I must say it. There is an issue between us. The Order and the Lotus cannot find common ground as we do here. You are their commander. What will you make of them?”     “I know that I would see cooperation between those who have declared themselves opposed. The Lotus has defended their city for far more time than many can imagine. The Order does the same. The Order’s is the Great City. The Lotus's is this singular City-State of the Overlord. I am hopeful we can find the common ground that seems to be there.”     The lotus pondered this. Cogitare bonum, Lotus. Then, “I am not like my brethren. I am able to see another trail. I cannot speak on their behalf but I can see well enough to meet you here?”     “I believe I understand you.” The executioner said.     NO… But I understood. It was obvious. This lotus was different because he had entered the new Realm. He was with Colour. He had found the ‘Ferro Mundi’. The plane of Steel. It explained his pallor. It explained his treachery to his brethren.     “My name is, Orchid.” The lotus extended his arm in the old way – the soldier’s way. It was surprising to me. He did not seem the soldier. More the silent knife under the bed… The shape in the closet just detected when it was far too late… somnus sibilus aurae tenuis… On the other hand, I quite admired his sword...     The executioner took the forearm with his own. A brief meeting of the flesh. Something maybe.     This seemed to decide it for Orchid. He stood and motioned, “I will show you something. Come.”     We went. Some hundred feet further away, we stopped. Furius was impressed. It was easy to sense. The glade we stood in was a special place. Colour imbued it in totality. The full spectrum was available here as it is not seen elsewhere. A brook sparkled at our feet. It trailed happily from our left to right. Energetic in its movement, it took to splitting from itself, forming competing rivulets, racing to beat the others to a point where they all converged. A never-ending race that seemed merry enough that it should continue for a time… The light that flitted through the leaves above us, dove straight to the earth at our feet. Falcon beams that were focused on their designated destinations. The earth they struck was warmed through by these shafts of descending light, giving rise to a humid and refreshing scent. Life abided.     Orchid awaited us, quietly. The silence is easy for a lotus.     “This place is special. You might do something here?”     The executioner did not. Orchid seemed perturbed by this. He reached under his deep doublet and withdrew a circular and steel-fashioned brooch. It was thrown to the executioner. His Steel hand caught it before it could carry the distance. Orchid did not react to this. He knew Steel when he saw it. He spoke, “My amulet gives me an ability in places like this. I will show you.” The executioner lofted the brooch back to the lotus by means of his invisible Steel hand.     Orchid spoke only a single, secret word. The brooch erupted in Steel-hued light. The Colour emerged from between the lotus’s slightly splayed fingers. These shafts of Steel did not last long. Orchid clenched his hand around the brooch, shutting away the Colourful display. He looked at us – at me.     The executioner took the steps away between himself and Orchid. He extended his arm in the same way as Orchid had done at the other clearing, “I am Praetor Furius.” Orchid took his arm, saying nothing in reply to this. After a pause, the lotus spoke, “You have this too, Furius. This is a place for you to do this. It would be wise.”     “What will I do with this?”     “You will know it for what it is.”     I was ready     Furius did not seem as ready. He was hesitant. He was careful to not invoke my name. The lotus might not be trusted, even though he moved from the clearing. Orchid might be spying. Furius chose to attempt the same as he had seen orchid manage. He called upon Steel. He made calls to power and offered up his blood along my cutting edge. Et sanguinem effuderit. Nothing stirred save the leaves that circled on their points in the brook’s embrace.     Orchid returned. It was clear he was disappointed for us. “Nothing? It cannot be so. Have done all you can?”     “I believe so?”     Orchid looked at the sacrifice still dripping along me. He was evidently confused. “Blood is not the way. Men are not Profane. Red is not Steel.”     Sensible words. The executioner knew the truth without his skills being called upon. The clarity was missing…     Orchid brought us clarity saying, “The sword you bear, it has a name?”     Furius nodded, almost grimly. Clarity.     He called my name to the glade and beyond to Steel’s place in the Realm, “Steel hear me. I wield Eternus Est, blade of a Final Man. Grant me your power.”     The effect was immediate, of course. Ego non Ferro?. A Steel globe surrounded my pommel. It sprang outward to an arm’s length. The Colour was intense. Furius soon could make out the Plane of Steel within this sphere. A landscape, perhaps for the taking? Perhaps it might be otherwise. He decided and acted. He took himself there and me with him.           We were on a gently rolling land. It was skied by clouds, low and ominous. They promised to unleash at a whim. Close to the ground we stood upon, these sails of steel billowed toward us, threatening to descend the short distance from where they flew. Myself, I grew cold. I am sensitive to temperature. It was in temperature that I was forged. I heard it at my birth, Heat, roaring to any who might hear it that it gave rise to me. Then the Cold, the quenching cold, that shattered all butthe finest of Steel... Ever since, I have acknowledged temperature. Hot and Cold. Quod fabrica. Et non potuerunt extinguere. The land we stood on was covered in sedges and brackens. These were all in rusty shades. There was no other sign of life; no grasses, no flowering things, no trees or running waters.       The clouds decided they had measured us sufficiently. They let loose. Small steelflakes dipped and slid their way down the short distance from their home above to the ground. We were the lucky ones that intervened on this journey. The steelflakes that did not avoid us, alighted. For my part, this was no reason for any flakes to stay at all. These flakes were not happy to remain with me. Those that landed on Furius were different. They gathered in the folds of his fugelin cloak. The flakes dug into his hood and even his mask. Where his eyes had to be exposed, the steelflakes stabbed their worst. Only an annoyance. The flakes were tiny after all.     I sensed, as did Furius that we were no longer alone on this heath. Another stood alongside us. As we turned to him, so did he to us. A mutual awareness.     His hair was freed to snap in the wind, ‘though it was not truly long. His coat was belted and blue, a shade of flowering corns. In his left hand he held a gladius. I was thrilled by this. In his right he held a flamberge, serpentine and still, all at once. It was an inch or so from being every inch an executioner’s blade. That inch it lacked was at its tip. There the expected flatness had been cruelly amended by some vast-like shearing, to make a crude sort of point. Such a fine, old sword to be ruined by an uncaring or ignorant hand! As his eyes met Furius’s, I could sense that he was puzzled and pleased to see us.     “I am, Kryger. Who are you and how did you come to be here?”     “I am Praetor Furius. You are a Final Man as I am. I have come by the will of Steel… Tell me of this sword. Is it yours?”     “No, not mine. I seek the man who it belongs to. He must be here somewhere.”     “Not yours? You carry it for another? This seems unlikely to me.”     “Not mine. This gladius is mine. I need it to hunt creatures that think to attack me from time to time. These I kill with my sword and eat and so I am able to carry on in my search for the other sword’s owner.”     Furius looked about us. Every direction looked the same. A series of near-barren horizons, frigid, austere and drear. No place for a man. A Final Man, even less so – even should a Final Man be able to overcome it. Steel held more than one riddle but this one was: Quare homines posuit in loco opus? Why place men in such peril? Steel would know the answer. It is not for me to do more than repeat the query.     “You hunt with a short sword?” Furius said impressed.     “Yes, it is that or starve.”     “Do you meet many others?”     “I have seen four. That is not many as I have been here what seems an age.”     “Indeed… an Age.”     “There must be a reason for all this. I have yet to know the answer.”     “Another of Steel’s riddles. There are many… May I look at this sword that is ‘not yours’?     “Yes, of course.” Kryger handed it to Furius happily – almost eagerly. Furius ignored this. He was intent on the sword. It was old. It was straight, true balanced. No easy thing in a serpentine making. Nothing like myself, that went without saying. I was less impressed than Furius with it. He ran his hand along the flat of it, first one side, then the other. I could tell that he wanted to do something about the shocking end that had come upon the blade. That tip. It was so crass, like taking utmost care to lie a blade in brine. I almost felt bad for the sword in his hand. Furius was evidently deeply unhappy with its condition. The blistered clouds expanded dangerously. Far-off, I heard the drumming of thunderheads.     Holding the sword aloft, Furius called out to the plane’s master. Might Steel take a hand in fixing one of its children’s sorry state? The steelflakes were whipped into a small frenzy by the encouraging wind. They gathered around the sword’s tip. They formed into each other, inter-weaving in segments quite too small to see. Only as they accumulated, could a shape be seen to be growing. Like ice forming at the edge of a pond, the steelflakes meshed themselves to form a new, flattened tip for the blade. In this world of Steel, Furius has the hand of a master.     Furius let the sword return to Kryger. Kryger took it most reluctantly. Once he held it, it might as well have been a new day. He revealed in his expression that he knew the sword for his own. He looked from the sword to Furius and back again. ‘A journey of a thousand thoughts, begins with a single realisation.’     He was quiet in his thanks.         Kryger was still a man with more feelings than words. Not that he was slow to speak but more that he knew he did not have important things to say. He was aware he was yet to reach landfall and until then he needed to concentrate on not drowning.     “Furius? You have done this for this sword, now what of the other sword?”     “What, your gladius? It looks fine. Besides, it is only a sword. It is not the sword of a Seneschal, which is what you are.”     “Yes, I remember that title. It does not come back to me at a rush though. I feel I am missing much.”     “I have been in your place. Things will return to you.”     “The other sword?”     “What do you mean by this?”     “There, look you. It lies with the back pack of the one that left them there.”     Furius now saw another sword. It was a true headsman’s blade. Quillions long and finely drawn by the smith’s hands. The pommel too was well-worked. The sword was quiet. Staid and Steel. It lay in a scabbard. This was near-unheard of in Furius’s memory. A headsman needed no scabbard for his sword. It was only carried when it was meant to be used. For any Seneschal, this was always. Furius drew forth the sword. The blade was as simple as its hilt had promised. Well cared for and complete. Furius knew this to be another riddle to solve.     He had the ability to find a sword’s owner, if that sword was made of Steel. He chose this power at t hat moment. He could see the man that owned the sword. He was elsewhere but likely not far-off. The place was even colder looking. Snows had plied upon each other, forming hills and sheer cliffs. Steel formed posts and planks that made up the man’s simple shack. At his hands, stood a pair of hunting cats. These were drawn from Steel as well. They were Steel in Colour bearing spots where Steel concentrated on their hides. Eyes shone in a glitter that spoke of Steel’s precision. Teeth flared in a sparkle that spoke of Steel’s sharpness. That cats were even adorned. Each had a piece of Steel upon them, as though they were soldiers who had been given medallions of honour. Unlike the cats, the man wore things that had seen better days. Multo tempore. On his face he wore a Steel mask. Horizontal slits for eyes to see from. A vertical slit to breathe and mouth words through.     Furius brought the man to us. He was startled and defensive toward us. Understandable to Furius, so he worked briefly to make the newcomer feel at ease. Furius indicated the straight, simple sword. Suggested that it was the man’s. The man denied it most assuredly. “That is not my sword.” he said.     “It is. I have seen that it is.”     “That is not my sword.” the man repeated, more sternly. It was clear he did not lie. He meant every one of the five words he had said. His single eye glared a silent warning that he would not take another, similarly worded suggestion kindly.     “It must be. Steel shows me who belongs to what Steel. Steel has shown me that this sword belongs to you.”     “It is nothing like my sword. I would know it if it were mine.” With that, he seemed sure. He caused a high, pure tone to whistle from his mouth slit. It carried far on the steelflake-filled wind. I know this because the whistle was quickly answered by shrill screams from what I knew to be cats. Cats we had been shown by Steel. Cats that called out to one another and received answers. Cats that would soon arrive.     Furius saw now that this riddle of Steel was no simple one. It made no sense at all.     “Something is wrong with this.”     Kryger said, “I am Kryger. Furius here has made my sword whole again. When he did, it made me see it for what it had been. That in turn, made me see myself once more. Perhaps this is possible for you too?”     Furius said, “I am Furius. A Final Man. You are also a Final Man. This part of Steel’s plane seems a home for wayward Men like us. There will be an answer to this.”     “My name is Dorsai. I do not think you can be right in this ‘answer’ but if you mean to prove it, I will listen, until the cats arrive.”     Furius took this as a good sign. He drew on the same strength as he had for Kryger’s blade. Again, the steelflakes formed themselves into miniature ranks. Again, they worked their casting along the sword’s simple lines. Unsatisfied with what Furius was doing, Dorsai amended Furius’s first effort, by indicating where the sword’s tip was too straight or too narrow. It was odd for Furius to make a classic headsman’s sword into what he did. No decent executioner’s sword needed a stabbing point. What point would there be in that? Pain was not anything but a sign that an executioner had erred in his stroke. This Dorsai had clearly earned his time in purgatorum. When satisfied with this awful pointed end, Furius made other changes to what had been a serviceable sword. It must not matter to Steel what is made of it. I am not at all likely to warm to this sword as it has been fashioned. The puritanical quillions I had admired were shortened, multiplied and made sharp. What, one quillion per edge won’t do? Absurdity. Then when I could bear little more, Dorsai called upon Furius to rend the pommel. His instructions to Furius were to make it so that using the sword with two hands would be difficult, if not foolish. At best, the lower hand would be rubbed sorely by the broken ended hilt. It was as though the tang was left exposed. It was then made rough and where not rough, shatter-edged and abrasive. A nasty piece of work, even if Steel approved…     “This is my sword.” Dorsai said. Furius gave it to him. The cats sat close by Dorsai, calmed by their master’s quelled anger. Dorsai's single eye gleamed with the pride he felt. His was a mind already halfway clear before the blade had come to him. He was more of the old than Kryger, I could sense this.           Furius said, “While I would like to stay and find others, I am mindful that we have been away from where we were too long. I must return there. The others here can await until I can come back. It may be wiser to wait anyway. There may be future need that they are better suited for.” The two executioners stood by him. Furius decided they must accompany him.     The Seneschals are returned. Utinam ita sit semper             Returned where? That is the next riddle and this despite no longer being within Steel’s hard grasp. Where we have been placed is not the Isle of the Three. Furius quickly realises that this is not even near Legions-Alone. Blasted Steel! I can think this, even if Furius will not. What does the Colour mean to make of us? It had better be for the best. The footing is certainly not the best. We stand on a chilled mountainside. The air is bracing for the men. Quickly, an opening, finished not some animal den, is seen in the mountain’s face. We enter this ‘mouth’ happy to be ‘consumed’. This place is a series of short corridors. We walk these and I sense a growing unease in Furius. This place has meant something to him in the past. He wonders if Steel has put him back in time. Back before the great floodwaters took their ultimate toll on existence. An opening in the mountain’s wall, provides an excellent view of the land below us. Trees are plentiful, if not extremely dense. Among these, here and there, a river can be seen wending its way toward an inlet of some size. Protruding outward into this body of water, a single sliver of land extends, like a slender sword piercing a night-time sky. This land is perhaps a mile or more in length and at its tip a city sits. Furius as yet says nothing. He saves his exclamation. It comes when he notes that beyond the city, lying just off the land is a small number of lesser islands. On one of these stands a turreted tower and on another a low, wide citadel. Furius says, “Valetta.” and he seems relieved. He is also amused. This only happens when Furius sees the world for what it is. His amusement is stirred by the realisation that the mountain Steel has sent us to was long ago named, Mount Penitence. This was also the old name associated with the Seneschals...             It is a few hours but in due course and having crossed a river’s course, we make the Valettan outskirts. Once there, a series of descents, from one level of land to another gets us closer to the centre of the city. We pass orchards and farms. We see people tending these things. A place that feels quiet. I sense it is a quiet to be shattered by the scream of swords unsheathed. I am no less assured of this as I learn that the waters beyond the city are called 'the Sheath' and that the river we crossed is the called the 'River of Swords'. Men are strange to take a place like this and name it so. What do they expect from the land, when it is called these names?     In the city, people abound. Perhaps it is that it bustles more than Alone seemed to. I cannot be sure. There is the sound of ships too. This adds to the sense of industry about us. We make for places that Furius remembers. In all of these I sense no loathing. It seems his memories of Valetta are all positive. He speaks at length to a shopkeeper, asks after a teacher of fighting, talks to a schoolboy, asks about the mayor and if he’s been supplanted, tries out some new food item called ‘sweet pork’, sees his daughter Akira who is not herself,           realises that a ‘fiery-haired Lady of the Landing’ came to the city and caused wonder in all who saw her, meets an ‘armiger' and his offsider, and much else of local-flavoured information besides. Several of these conversations mention the foreigners that have come to Valetta recently. Their contributions are seen in the upgrades to various of the warehouses and dockyards. It looks that Valetta is being readied – readied for what? -- is the next riddle, one that has several possible correct answers.       Worried greatly for Akira’s well-being, Furius summons Kiri the Younger to his side from Alone. She is not nearly as perturbed by what he describes of her sister. In fact, she defends Akira’s stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge her family or Furius. She states plainly for her father to heed that he cannot “…interfere with their lives,as they are not children. They have their own mistakes to make. They have their own steps to tread…” Furius is not overly moved by this, standing to his ‘father’s privilege’.               Furius wants to stay in Valetta but knows it cannot be. Too many of the order and his offspring are spread too thinly across Miranse. He senses for Grey but he is not anywhere. Furius knows this means his partner must be off-world, even off-plane. He does not like this state of affairs. He readies the two Senschals. They will depart in the morning for Legions-Alone on Tighan. Later, after some other conversations, he is down one Seneschal – Kryger has gone for a wander. As he looks for Kryger, who has gone off to learn more of a world he is very new to, Furius is attacked by an enemy almost lost to his memories. ‘The Bit’, he calls them. I remember. They came at Furius’s family while we sailed to the Third Realm. Slaying the crewmen of Assurbanipal’s flagship and attempting the same on those dearest to Furius. Repulsed then, they returned once Valetta had been reached. Here they have remained for all this year past. Only their slavish duty impresses me. There is nothing else about them that is worthwhile noting.         They always attacked us in Valetta and always they attacked in pairs, as the fangs of predators do. First one and then the other drop from the shops above; unannounced, no challenge issued, no honour earned, strictly adherent to their twisted code, if code they abide by. Next to Furius, Dorsai made us aware at the outset of the imminent assassination. He did not shout to us but instead used his blade as a ‘threat’ to Furius, causing us to tumble down and aside as the Bit attacked from the roof. The other soon followed his partner to the street. This second fared no better in his attempt on Furius’s life. The two Seneschals did not strike them down forcibly. This was not executioners’ work, but gardeners’ toil, scything through the pair of killers, removing a portion of their lives’ length, one arcing swing at a time. The Bit assassins streamed themselves on to the hard-packed earthen street as their last action. It was enough, and time to find Kryger at the ‘Distant Port’. A bed for each of them and a pommel to the wall for myself. The morning would see Furius arrange our leave-taking. I wonder if another casting for Grey would be in order before leaving?     Me manere: Tempus est sempiternum