VII
Le Mouvement d’Corps
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> “Every object perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, except insofar as it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon.”
—Azariah Villeneuve excerpt, Compiled Oxenfürt Lectures; On Principia, Volume I: Le Mouvement d’Corps.
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I had not intruded on Raphaël’s sword-picking.
He’d forgotten about me, yes, but that paled in comparison to the child-like joie d’vivre that frolicked through the fields of his spirit. He forgot not out of taken-for-granted ignorance but instead because, for the first time in years, a spark of true, untainted happiness was struck inside his heart.
Like me, the man ran from his past. Unlike me, there was no rage there, nothing to tether the sorrow into an effigy by which one could achieve catharsis—only an empty hollowing that threatened to devour you whole every time you reached the bottom of the bottle.
When you looked for answers in the sweet oblivion of alcohol, each and every plunge into those waters was a swim within the lévayathan-infested Océan Enfer.
You might reach West Ossir from East Serein, but you might well end up in the belly of a great serpent whose backwards-barbed gullet would not let you go.
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An hour after the meridian of noon, I arrived at the Mangy Feline—God’s blood, how I hated the name—with the spirit of hunger shrivelling my insides.
Made sense; I had burnt a significant portion of vital essence as my body drew upon the reserves of my heart-amber to repair itself. The strength and reflexes probably ate into my ichor as well, nearly three-days without breaking my fast only compounded upon my current state.
You did come to Claude’s for the food.
But necessity makes law and so I broke bread with murderers and worse. They did not keep to themselves, poking and prodding at a sullen man that wanted to do with them. The lot of the dregs wouldn’t have spat on me if I was set aflame and now they circled me, vultures around rotten meat.
I was under no illusion that I was better than them. I hated their bones as much as I hated myself down to my marrow. This was no insult to the Éder; rather, it was a shard of my self-loathing showing through.
This place reminded me that I had nearly become a monster.
Then again, I was one already, wasn’t I? Even before the parasite.
I ignored my oddly human-shaped and human-sized lice while I dunked stale bread into sempiternal soup and swallowed it down. In between bites that could break even the teeth of a vampyre, I caught sight of a face I wouldn’t soon forget.
The sorcerie in my blood drowned the world in treacle; everything became ever so still while I was unencumbered by the confines of mortal flesh.
In a single fluid motion, I broke the space between us in two, throwing to the filthy boards any in that dared stand in my way.
The problem with relying on active rúna was that they needed a flick of will to function and thus, knowledge preceding said intent. My body needed no such thing, ready to pounce on the turn of a Tithe.
An arm, rigid as metalwork, wrapped around Mallory Fæ’s shoulders with all of the affect of an old friend ready to snap her neck.
“Funny running into you at this time of day.” I said, locking up her spine with a voice that was kindness and murder made one. “Tell me, what’d you use on that blade of yours? I need some advice on venoms now that I’ve a weapon myself.”
I pulled a strap of Ashen’s scabbarding, tipping the locket and hilt forward.
“A beaut’, ain't she? Virgin-blade, she is. Unbaptized.”
When her tongue returned about her, Mallory spoke evenly albeit in a clipped, single-word answer. Didn’t matter for me—I could hear the quivering of her lungs and the stiffness of her back muscles. Heart-rate was under control rather quick, a testament to her abilities as a fighter.
“Nothing.”
That shook me enough for her to slip out from my grasp, shanking me in the kidneys all the while. Pain to a vampyre was rather like a draught; imbibe too much and you become numb to it. Adrenal artery severed in two, nerves nicked, and the organs themselves bruised; in response, a wave of endorphins, of milk-o’-the-poppy, washed over me like a great big tide breaking upon a brittle shore. I could feel my pituitary gland throbbing as it synthesised enough opium to knock-out a mantigore.
“Really, Mallory? This is the second shirt in two days that you’ve cost me.”
She looked at me as if I was mad.
I gestured ‘well, what are you waiting for?’ and then she knew that I was indeed—in both senses of the word—mad.
At her befuddlement I gestured then at my shirt.
“You owe me twelve coppers. Six for the linen yesternight and six for the cloth of today.”
I snapped my fingers in sudden realisation, causing her to recoil into a fighting stance—she had good form, better than me. Rúna were the great equalisers, bridging the physical gap between the sexes but not the one between rich and poor. Not even the guillotine had been able to break the chains that bind.
“Claude paid me your cut, so all’s well that ends well.”
I turned on my heel, went through a mire of knocked-over men and sat back down on my seat, dipping a piece of stale bread into sempiternal soup. Waved a little ‘ta, ta’ to the Grasshopper and threw the petrified chunk of barley-water into my gullet.
Relished her reaction more than the bite.
You did not come to Claude’s for the food.
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Once my fast had been well and truly broken, I gave some scraps to Bellamie; the rat that dwelled inside my cloak’s pockets, a very docile and meek little thing. Gave him a good scare when I had called on blood so now I tried to earn back a little bit of that lost trust.
I hid him from the rest of the establishment, knowing that it was not wise to leave a mouse among rats. After Bellamie ate what was left of my crumbs, I draped my cloak on one of the many pegs that lined the farthest-most wall, leaving there my sleeping friend—his belly was full and that made for the best of naps.
“So the problem lies in me.”
Even though I already knew it, jaded sceptic that I was, some little bit of fool’s gold hope had taken root in my heart of—quite literal—stone. Maybe, just maybe, Lamaré was right and Mallory had dipped her blade in some neurotoxin—a concoction of mantigore venom laced with something even more exotic; perhaps even a drop of golgothan’s blood.
But no. I knew that Mallory Fæ said the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the ugly truth. That I was not rid of all the downfalls of vampyrism; chief among them, the sin of wrath. For so long as I lived, I was to be a slave to my urge for violence and vengeance. That in my rage, I might cave and let the beast within—the parasite in my spine—out of its cage and become that which I already was.
Confirmation of your own worst fears was a lot like discovering where babes came from: shock, denial, disgust, and then acceptance before the fact that Man was flaw made flesh.
I let the maelstrom of emotions wash over me, water off a duck's back and in its lungs, drowning it, choking it from the inside out.
A guilty mind needs no accuser.
Went down to the Pit to throw some of my unease into the furnace-mouthed crucible of combat. Perhaps, then, after I was bruised and cut I would feel right inside my own skin. Before I became kindred to Azazel, I could scarcely comprehend why some men and women took the razor to their skin; now, I knew better: there was fleeting release—there was momentary catharsis—in indulging in self-loathing. There was pleasure within pain.
The call of the void whispered my name in its serein-song and I, fool that I was, answered.
You do not answer sereins; anyone and everyone born this side of the Aller knew to not trust in a woman’s voice in high sea and low storm. So ingrained was this in our collective psyche that we named the damned continent after it.
Spars happened on the well-trodden earth below the stands, sections cordoned-off for more mundane bouts. Though sacrūna and flashy fights brought in the most amount of Crowns, those were few are far between.
Yes, the greater occurrence of blood-rains made ichor and heart-amber more accessible to the common man, but that was in comparison to before. Just because you had some charms did not make you into a sacrūna proper; that title was reserved for those with an actual suite, with schema that was heavily modified rather than mass-produced templates.
Looked around and found two swordsmen in nothing but their breeches, intent on making eachother bleed as much as possible. I recognized the script along their spines without Lamaré’s explicit help—black market suite dedicated to stopping bleeding and nothing more.
No added strength, no faster nerves, no nothing but not dying after having an artery nicked. Called them ‘stuck pigs’ because these fighters were made to be able to bleed and bloody themselves as much as possible for the crowd.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Never saw a half rūna melding in the flesh, Lamaré said, breaking through into my thoughts. I had suppressed him, had held him back from the bulk of my self-flagellation. That sort of thing generates far too much interference; probably cut their life span in half. Looks like a whole mark, doesn’t it? Well, it's actually two.
“Dagesh-Esh?”
Wrong and technically right. It’s Dagesh-Pesh but without the -esh suffix from the rūna of cessation and lacing the consonant affix for Pesh. So, in essence, it’s just Dag-Esh. That little crevice makes a modified clause that acts upon anything flowing-out of the body—dangerous.
“Feedback loop?” I ventured.
Feedback loop, Lamaré agreed. There’s a reason that enchanters use so many glyphes—it’s to specify clauses and to nip any recursions in the bud. Three at minimum though I’ve seen two used for purely peripheral functions and even then there’s a framework, there’s infrastructure behind it.
Here? There’s a slum made of wood and no water in sight to put out the inevitable fire.
“Rather fitting analogy,” I cut in as Ré recovered his imaginary breath to launch into another tirade, “seen ‘em both before—by the north quarter.”
If we weren’t bound by a shared heart, I would have thought the man ignored me as he trampled on, the momentum of his cataract of words not to be denied.
Through the binding, I did not think but knew that Ré did not hear a word I said. But he was just so animated, so invested, that I could not help but brush it away.
You lose blood, so your rūna burns blood to stop its flow; ichor expenditure is rendered exponential, rate of combustion proportional to how close to exsanguination that the bearer becomes. You avoid any and all predicatives relating to blood-flow because that’s just playing with fire.
Lamaré meant that rather literally, too. Spontaneous combustion was not a pleasant experience to witness much less suffer through. Saw a few faulty charms turn men into Narancan candles; weird that we named a type of firework after a rather brutal method of execution.
“How’d they—you know?”
Gold-to-silver circuit embedded in the sternum, most likely. It’ll be linked to a lodestone array, reversed to only work within the confines of the arena. You loop enough circles of wire in the shape of a cage and it interferes with ambaricité and way-guiding.
There was a lull in their spar, one of the men thoroughly drained of blood and burning up worse than an oven. To my enhanced senses, the air around him was painful to touch and I was currently four metres away.
“Mind if I take your place for a bit?”
Took a look at me, startled at the sight of the ‘Brute’ and then settled when he realised I didn’t bite—yet—and shrugged.
“Why’s not? Durante needs himself a sparrer.”
Gave a nod towards Durante and he gave one back.
Oh how was I itching to use Ashen, my fingers twitching and my breath coming in fast and out shaky. The bellows of my lungs and the pumps of my heart went into overdrive. I knew then that this was the vampyre blessing at work, a bastard of sorcerie and science; hormones flooded my veins, dilating them and then tightening them just as fast, spreading pins and needles across my prickling skin.
The pressure change seemed to be a built-in mechanism with the express purpose of not blowing up all my capillaries at once, instead only popping about a quarter of them once the copious amounts of adrenaline hit my system like a runaway bull. The whites of my eyes coagulated into sanguinello flesh, full-blooded and vivid.
A tap at the chape sent the locket of my scabbard forward, the strap I held in my left hand pulling it farther. My right grabbed onto the haft and pulled, unsheathing most of the blade. Sparks flew from metal scraping against metal.
I caught Ashen by the ricasso as the ungainly position of a longsword sheathed on the back was at odds with human bodily proportion. Threw the sword up for a blink to change the position of my hand, fingers clamping down just below the crossguard.
Show time.
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Raphaël did not tap into the keg of vampyric speed in his veins, holding back somewhat. Were it not for that, he would’ve mopped the floor with Durante. Instead, the opposite happened.
I knew a little swordsmanship from Father’s many ‘instructions’ which were just thin veneer for catharsis through abuse of another. I knew enough about swordplay to know that Raphaël was piss poor at it.
Sure, he was well and good with brawls and wrestling, but contests of steel were not his forté. His guards were inexcusably sloppy, his reaction time the only saving grace of this farce of a spar.
He held his sword always in the long-guard, as if he was scared of a little nick. His strikes and slashes were straightforward and hopelessly telegraphed like an invading kingdom sending out heralds with the names of their own spies and informants with sympathie needles having tasted of their blood.
God’s black body, it was like having teeth pulled! That was not how you parried—you do not meet the blade at the middle but instead aim for the body. You always aim at the body; this was not a play, not mock theatre!
Well, technically it was prize-fighting so performance need be factored in but still; I’d rather stake myself through the heart, again, than be a spectator to this.
Though I did not intrude in Raphaël’s sword picking, I did intrude here.
Like a rock parting a stream, I forced the flow of El’s ichor to conform to my design. I became a sympathiste puppeting a man with a mommet imbued with a drop of his blood; which was to say: ungainly, spasmic, and seizure-prone.
Muscles cramped and relaxed as conflicting ambarique signals fought for control. Were this a mortal body, it would’ve been crippled twice-over, tendon ripped from bone and sinew frayed from nerve. Rather, it only looked like the Brute was strung-out on a mandragore draught; all neurotic tics and mania.
What, in Azazel’s hairy taint, are you doing!? El bellowed within the vast ether between us, voice resonant, voice echoing, voice reverberant. Even against the twitches, he managed to wrestle some amount of control and thwart Durante’s strike, skirting along the true with his false.
Mieux vaut plier que rompre, mon ami—the tree that survives the storm survives because it bows before the wind.
Raphaël scuttered back from his opponent, exclaiming: “I yield. Need a breather—rúna’s acting up, again. You know how charms are: better than nothing but nothing compared to better.”
Durante raised an eye but otherwise gave an ‘aye’ and we retreated a few steps to one of the benches that lined the Pit during the day.
So what’s it that got you so pushy?
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Even though I could not see him, I knew that Lamaré winced.
I apologise, Raphaël. I did not think when I tried to take the reins; and though this is no excuse, I do want to offer an explanation: you’re sloppy—couldn't take it anymore seeing you lick at that man as if the shaft in your hand was some foppish switch.
The fact that Lamaré did not pounce on his rampant innuendo meant that this was something serious to him.
You know some Escalier? Didn’t take you for a swordsman, Ré; though it tracks. You seem the sort to shout ‘you dare!?’ and begin a duel for your honour. And that of your ten mistresses.
Got a crack of a smile from the bastard.
Humour; what a miracle! Seems I’ve finally rubbed off on you.
I hope not—can’t quite clean the inside of my skull.
Now, now, let’s not show off dear; that’s unbecoming.
I back-tracked a few sentences ago and asked: ‘what was it again you were trying to do during the spar?’
You need to relax your body a little so that I can crawl inside the cracks.
Didn’t dignify that with a jab but did ultimately answer him: ‘you mean controlling the body simultaneously? Seems untenable. Too many captains sink the boat, Ré.’
Almost but not quite—let me take over only a select few parts; give and take. When I prod for control, relax; when I retreat, take back the field of battle. So on and so forth.
The idea wasn’t half bad, which was to say that it was nearly entirely bankrupt—the lynchpin of it all was that we needed to be of one mind to be able to pull it off. I had access to Lamaré’s knowledge of things, but I did not inherit his muscle memory—so far at least. Hadn’t been able to draw upon that aspect of him and it wasn’t like there was a treatise on hosting familiar spirits.
Well, technically there was but I just didn’t have the Crowns for it—grimoires and occult spell-books were worth ten times their weight in gold; quite literally too as the heavy bastards were weighed on a speciality scale for just that express purpose. The esoterica within was then further added on top, making the meanest, most pauper grimoire cost as much as ten pure-bred racing horses.
Well, bleed me dry; let’s have at it, Ré. If it works, you can end up teaching me and correcting my form.
I stood up from the bench and drew Ashen from its scabbard.
You may hold the blade however you wish—there are no hard and fast rules there; though many hold the belief that the dominant hand, specifically the right or destreza, must be held above the sinestra or left hand. Crusaders oathsworn to the Church may hold that sort of superstition but we need not.
Lamaré nudged my posture, inky tendrils of his will bleeding into my body like blood in the water. I parted before him and then retook when he ceded ground. It was rather like a slow, ballroom dance—ebb and flow; iron and lodestone; tithe and take; push and pull; tide and night; sun and moon.
My resident spectre was a rather good dancer, patient to teach and slow to reprimand. At first, we began with awkward and jerky motions as we were of two minds, but inexorably, we harmonised, coming to expect and know the other.
It was like dancing with a ghost, immaterial hands leading me to move to the rhythm of a song neither of us heard but knew down to our marrow, writing it as we went. Whispers of Armizare and Escalier explained the mechanics behind each Step, martial wisdom coalescing within me like dew upon leaf.
Perhaps it was because we had synchronised like bells were wont to do. Perhaps it was because the barrier between us broke as that little bit of apprehension that I possessed evaporated before the tempered intimacy of trusting someone with yourself. Perhaps it was because I was a tad aroused and that was like a lodestone to the eternally-lustful spirit housed within my breast, binding us together even tighter than before.
I felt my soul dissolve into the vast ether, questing out for a hand oh so very far and yet so intimately close. A yell across the mountains and a tap on the shoulder; memories flooded me, terrible and soaked in fear. Old and scarred over, hated and unforgotten even under a sea of drink and draught.
Saw Lamaré broken down, again and again, before a wooden practice sword. Welts on his flesh, bruises on his heart, lumps on his bones. Father loomed before him, ever taller, ever frightening, ever uncaring. Those red eyes of his were wan in comparison to mine own but to a child no greater than the years on your hand, they might as well been the ruby eyes of a mantigore.
Rebellion or failure were met with punishment while success and obedience earned nothing but the executioner’s stay. Years like this passed by in a blink, striking my mind and beating it to learn to wield the sword, to know the Steps of the Sword as one might know how to walk.
By the end of it, I fell back to the bench, having performed a full Danse of the Steps as if a master of the art. And yet there was no joy there, no exaltation in martial prowess; only the hollow ache of a child that wanted to be loved.
It was a deal with the D’yabel; the Night-God, that ancient serpent, Azazel—take your pick of whatever name the Deceiver had earned in the hearts of men in ages bygone and long since past. Pierre Picard D’Amice had traded away the relationship between a father and his son to forge a living weapon.
Lamaré’s tongue was not half as sharp as his skill with the blade.
And how sorrowful it was to have honed myself in the whetstone of his shadow, to have tasted the life of a boy that feared his own reflection for it reminded him of his throat tight with held-back tears.
His own face was like one great big scar. Those eyes were the wan red of a father that saw his own flesh and blood as nothing more than just that; an extension of himself that could be done with as he wished and done away with as he was wont.
Lamaré had no scars on his face