T Q E: Session 03 — ‘ & Grandfather Makes It a Baker’s Dozen’ Report

General Summary

Nails on a Slate             Nails was a hardened-off sort of man. A miserable night without cover, under an enemy’s sights was nothing to him. He’d seen a lot of what others called trouble and he called it regular. Nothing elaborate, that wasn’t Nails's way. He became ‘bigger’ when saner types saw a wiser course in making themselves less obvious. Nails's problem was that he was always ‘big’. Ready to, “get after it”, as he often said even when it wasn’t really necessary. This made him an unwelcome visitor to most shopkeepers and inhabitants of the city. As there was nowhere else for Nails or those he met to be, this meant they had all since learned to get along, more or less. Sainted Ark, the lonely city, could just about handle its citizens and Nails.     Nails wasn’t at all flamboyant. Shabby, was a word that stalked Nails like a ranger-lord. Nevertheless, he made something of his entrances, whenever required to do so. Not by action but more in the odd fashions he chose to wear. His overall attire was a hodge-podge of colour and form. A hat from somewhere and a jacket from some-other-where. Odd brooches adorned one side of a vest that was more tatter than cloth.     From where Slight sat, upstairs on the over-looking arcade, she instantly noted his arrival. He didn’t see her. Her upstairs table for two, was selected for its being out of the way. Nails strolled through the downstairs, looking about for her. Slight smiled. Her teeth were a brilliant flash against her tight, black lips. Amused by Nails's obvious irritation but aware that he might soon take to using this emotion as an excuse to cause trouble, Slight picked up a grape from her platter and dropped it as Nails walked below her. The grape, not knowing what it dared, dropped precisely and lodged atop the point of the star-shaped badge that pinned up one side of Nails’s soft, flat cap. Like many that came into contact with Nails, the grape expired. A small amount of the grape’s ‘blood’ dribbled down Nails’s cheek. He wiped at it, tasted it, frowned and looked upward.     Sharp teeth shining showed Nails where Slight sat. Slight was leaning with both forearms on the balustrade. She dropped another grape. Nails could have caught it but he did not. He was already on his way to the stairs. He came up to her without carefulness. Nails was at ease with stranger and the strangest. It was what made him useful. Slight valued him for this too. They had met only three weeks earlier for the first time. Even so, she knew already that he was a good man to know.     “Slight. You’re looking good.”     “A flatterer? You?”     “Nah, I just said I like the way you look.”     “Well, in that case, thank-you. Enough small talk. Let’s get to it.” Slight's eyes were narrowed and decidedly about something that Nails knew well to avoid. He kept his eyes limited to glances only. Slight's eyes were demanding too much.     “Sure… Slight, I need to leave here. I should say, I’m leaving here and I’m not against it.”     “Heh, leave. You’re having me on. You know that’s not happening. People here would pay you for such a chance and I know you’d take their money. If you had a way to leave, you’d be profiting from it… I see in your face that you hadn’t even considered that. That is something. Go on then, tell me more.”     “Right. Let’s say… Look. Right.”     “Problem?”     “If I said it’s ‘cause I’m going to miss you that I hesitate would you believe me?”     “Heh, you’re funny. What’s this? Are you turning into a troubadour over me?”     “Nobody wants to hear me sing.”     “No, but you could use that gravelly voice to best effect in spoken word?”     “Right… Get this. I need the crown. I know I can’t ask you to give it to me. That makes this hard. I’d offer you money but I know that won’t do it.”     “That's why you flatter me. No, no the amount you’d be able to lay your mittens on wouldn't quite be enough.”     “Even so Slight, I mean to have it. We gained it together. I was fine with you having it. No problem you having it. I’m leaving though so it needs to come with me.”     “I haven’t done with it.”     Nails looked at the platter of food for the first time. He chose a slabbed piece of meat to hack a smaller piece from. He chewed on it thoughtfully.     “If you give me the crown… give me the crown and I’ll make you the richest Vix in the Ark.” Her throaty laugh irritated him. “Not tonight but when I return, I mean.”     “If you knew my price, you’d choke on that gristle.”     “I like chewing on things. The tougher the better.”     “Don't make statements you aren't prepared to be tested on... Alright then, I’ll make you an offer. The crown for you next-born… What’s the matter? Something wrong with the meat? Are you going to choke?”     “Next-born? I told you I’m leaving. I won’t be coming back for a time. When I do return, the trip will probably be hard. No place for an infant and I don’t have teats to suckle one with.”     “Nor the manner of a mentor.”     “Agreed. So why suggest this?”     “It’s my price. I’m allowed to make it. What do you say? Agreed?”     “Slight, I… Tell me something? Why did your parents call you Slight? Seems a strange thing to name a child. Not very promising.”     “Are you stalling? You’d better not be. If you have to know, it was due to my narrowness of hips. A thing more positive than negative among the Vix. Narrow hips mean you can wiggle through things others cannot. A useful thing in many instances.”     “Your hips look alright to me and I’m a human.”     “We’ve already taken this road last week. You didn’t seem to be able to make ends meet?”     Nails grimaced. His habit of talking up women had gotten him into that alright. She continued. “It happens. Not to my kind but to humans. I have learned since last week, from the women here-abouts, that it does. The child doesn’t have to be ours, just yours.”     “…doesn’t have to be ours? You and… Is that even possible?”     “Won’t know if we don’t try. Well, trying isn’t enough.”     “I like a challenge but…”     “Some other woman then.”     “Thrust some other girl, Slight! Where would I find one to get a child on before the night is over? I have to leave tomorrow.”     “That quick? Well you’re able to be surprisingly quick as I remember.”     “This is not the way to make a man want to…”     “No? I’m not challenging enough for you? I didn’t think you were such a regular sort of man.”     “I came here to fill you in… Stop smiling at me. I meant I came to let you know what’s happened. Then once told, I’d ask you for the crown and be on my way. The Armory’s way, more actually.”     “They’re all going? That’s going to change things in the city for certain.”     “You think?”     “Vix find sarcasm a prelude to mating. Have I ever told you that?”     Nails cursed with her name. Slight’s sharpest teeth appeared. Nails pondered that those teeth could rip a man’s throat out. Not easily if he was armoured. In a more casual setting however, it wouldn’t be a difficult thing for such teeth to do. If the man were naked? Nails was sure that a vix would be dominant. He had experienced this a week before. He wasn’t a fearful man. Combat and the prospect of death filled him with a healthy regard for life’s benefits but never to the point that he didn’t go in headlong. He had attacks and defences well practiced. Lying with Slight, he’d been disarmed in more ways than one and that one was bad enough.     “I like how you said my name just then. Do it again.”     “I was on my way back from Acshin’s Laundry.”     “Your loincloths to pick up?”     “I was on my way to the Armory Barracks. I felt something wrong.”     “Did you enjoy feeling this something?”     “There was a change in the air. I have a sense for changes.”     “Do you like changes? I might be able to create some changes in you.”     “The barracks doors were opened. That was unusual. At night, they are kept sealed. It’s how it’s done. A wise precaution.”     “I begin to see where your struggle arises. Your preference is for sealed doors. I’m more like the opposite?”     “The doors had a scent of casting on them. Someone had used a chantried thing to open them.”     “It can be called magical when it’s done well, I can only agree.”     “Listen woman, the doors were wide open do you know what that means?”     “I do, do you?”     Most deliberately, Nails continued, “I went inside. Careful not to detected.”     “That’s not the way to do it, you realise?”     “Before the office door sat a disheveled man, with a pipe in his mouth… Do you want to make a comment about ‘pipes in mouths’?”     “Too obvious.”     “Right. He was clearly eavesdropping on what went on the other side of the office’s door. He was very intent on what he was doing. He didn’t hear me approach. I pushed the door open and stepped inside. As the man was seated on the floor, next to the door, I had to step on his pouch to get over past him.”     “Painful?”     “Yeh, I kind of made sure.”     “You know, you’re not that good at stories? You get off-track, leaving the best bits behind.”     “Right… I got inside --”     “You’re improving! Go on…”     “There were two men in there I didn’t recognise.”     Slight grinned sharply but said nothing.     “You're looking kind of -- feral.”     “You might like me like that.”     “I'd never seen ‘em before. I’ve been in the Ark for years and these were the first that were new to me, in all that time. New but not unusual otherwise. Well, maybe a bit. They were somehow better than most and don't ask me to explain. Just the Armory’s kind of men. Both trained in bringing fast-death. Commander Campaign had taken them both in and that was clear by the way he introduced them to me. Minutes later, Hammer walked in too. She got the same treatment as I had. She’s the one I told you about? The one who has a hate for me.     The talk turned to the Order. Quadrangle stuff. The Grand-Master’s name got mentioned a lot. Bleys of Amber, you remember his name? There seemed to be a half-idea to deal with him. I could get in front of that. Then they discussed risks and came to a more cautious approach. Sensible, logical. Methodical. I half-listened. Details are for planners. I like to be shown where to point and strike hard and fast, leaving the blood to fall where it may.”     “Do you? Excitment.”     “… Riiight. We sent word through a ledger entry that a meeting was needed between the Grand-Master’s new soldiers and us. We set off when we got word from above that they were waiting for us in the pastures next to the citadel of the overlord. When we got there, Bleys stood with the Regulus. Behind was an unnatural fog. My senses, you know… There were hidden members of the Black Lotus within the fog. They revealed themselves quickly enough to stay my hand. There was an odd, old man in a poorly built wheeled-chair. He didn't offer any words the whole time. Bleys called him grandfather once or twice. I found this odd and it made me uncomfortable. Don't know why... The other cohorts of the Order showed up too. The Xiombarg demons, the Cornerstone waylayers and the Avernal magicians. Antares, the Xiombarg commander? He’s a proper fek-jerk. I had to stay one hand with the other not to lash out at him.     The talk was of action and reaction. Then one of the newcomers, named Grey made an offer to activate a pact he held along with the other newcomer that they shared with one called Benedict. He turns out to be a brother to the Grand-Master. Bleys is not suspicious about this coincidence, not that I can tell. I think he probably has a way to learn the truth of this quickly enough. The offer is a convenient one for him, if he takes it as truth. For this reason, the meeting ends quietly. I’m left disappointed and not spent as I had hoped.     “I empathise.”     “Ahem… The newcomers tell us, on our return to the barracks, that they have a way to get us all safely to a new city. It thrusts belief. This is what Campaign and Lever have been pointing toward without luck for months. Very convenient. My suspicions are aroused.”     “Go on, tell me about this arousal.”     “My suspicions are not required. Another man like them, called Absolom joins us. His story and words convince us -- yeah even me -- of the truth of the others’ plan for the Order. There’s something about this Absolom that comes through his face and into his words. You feel like you should believe what he says. Not like Campaign’s power. This is more… more like hearing a story and thinking you must have heard it before and forgotten most of it. His face is young but old at the same time. I don’t like most men. Him? I think I must.”     “Absolom? Is that the way to say his name? I think I must lay eyes on him. Talk with him. See what he is capable of doing. I need a man of… capability.”     “If you’re trying to make me jealous…”     “Could I make Nails jealous? If I could what would Nails do to stop it? Can he think of something?”     Nails murmured a string of words even a vix sitting far-too closely could only hear the low timbre of and not divine their meaning.     “I like it when you growl, Nails. It reminds me of a vix or two I’ve known well.”     “Does it? I have half a mind --”     “—and less than half a night left. Let me take you down the hall? I’ve a room here. Give yourself to me and I will give myself to you. I am ready for a man and for a child. Don’t look alarmed, it is the vix way to know. Give me a child and you will have your crown. I mean to make you realise that this headgear is far less important than what comes before.” Slight smiled.     She smiled again that evening, that turned to morning. Nails proved he had more to offer than death to those he engaged with. Nails fought Slight manfully. She won the contest, of course. It’s the vix way.     Nails got the crown. Not that he cared so much. He almost forgot it. Slight made sure to remind him after thanking him for his absent-mindedness. Slight was a clever vix. Nails knew that now.