The Dam’e. Serib stepped aside to quickly avoid a nurse of sorts dressed all in Grey, tending to wounded Shadows. The same musician as before, though with ruined clothes and toes sticking out of their shoes, was still playing centre stage - alas far sadder tunes. A similar instrument though bashed or chewed in half.
∞
Serib looked forward to seeing the human stars outside The Dam’e’s window again, though just as Woid had explained, a battle was waging too in the world above their underworld. Living statues of demons or are-they-angels flew in formations, their stone spears and shields locked in advancing lines. And these gargoyles from their formations broke into smaller numbers, commanding what looked to Serib from that distance as swarming flocks of metal birds or people somehow aflight, and to Shay’s mind came terrible, already-known names for these invaders. Someone else’s voice spoke for her, however, gravelly and grave over the wretched view:
“’…and to each Boiled Angel shall be aligned a Screeching Swarm...’”
It was The Dam’e that had spoken. The Club more an infirmary now, dimly lit and lined with wounded rogues and assassins being nursed. So quiet that it now seemed small, and empty enough to carry The Dam’e’s coughing voice from her candlelit desk. Other, once alive instruments gathered Now the dust of Then. Shay distrusted the glass, keeping Serib near.
∞
“Is this the future?” she asked The Dam’e having walked to her driftwood desk.
The Dam’e was stranger than any of them remembered, robed all in black as before but hooded, with bandages covering her face and hands, speaking with a phlegmy throat:
“It is a future, a past. There are two forces duelling behind all scenes these or otherwise; Fate and Freedom. Whether or not Time up in High Courtdom has been murdered is still uncertain; though they are mortally wounded, and we try to weather storms, prevailing in unfit ruins. ‘The lineages are all askew, the spatial dimensions adrift and unruled, tenses vying to be foremost.’” She quoted unknown scriptures. “Yet, rogues as we - have and shall always have their place.”
The word of all that stuck most with Shay was Fate. The dying monk had spoken of them. Serib had a sense about Shay and went to join Woid’s leaning side, making himself comfortable on a solid grandclock. It ticked meaninglessly.
∞
“Dam’e, what happened to you?” Shay held the desk, struggling against the weight of past Grief and a present laser-wound.
The Dam’e just coughed, unable to answer Shay’s continuing questions:
“And this seems beyond our usual hits and snatches; behind each of my thefts, plantings or killings, isn’t the aim to avoid what’s happening out there?”
Smoke rose from the extinguished candles of The Dam’e’s desk. None remembered them being lit. Shay could hear the sound of fabric being torn, and nails scratching-scraped across paper. She turned to see wounds being dressed. Touchscreens beeping with errors unable to function without Time. She thought of the words scratched into tunnels above. Boiled Angels thrust their stone spears at faceless towers where clocks once chimed their rhymes across the township-worlds. The Dam’e spoke:
“We Shadows have ever played both sides and parts for the good of Courtdom; I remember when our sort was hunted and hounded, ourselves thrown into cells or executed, rather than utilised properly - when Falsehood reigned. What sort of way is that to handle and treat The Truth?”
Shay remained unsure if her question was going to be answered. The Dam’e could not quite shake her cough as she spoke, clearing nothing:
“Freedom helped overthrow Falsehood, though as all radicals, knew she when to stop and rest? And so her fanatic virtue that made her so befitting to lead one age warring, made her an evil in the peaceful next; making an enemy even of Time. Fate long recoiled and trapped Freedom in Heirwebs and seam-schemes - what you see out there is a duel internecine. Lay’d Payn, ally of Freedom, is authoress against the seamstress that is Fate; Payn fighting to decide and describe a new outcome, Fate designing our return to the old one. We are their pieces in their games, we are ink and thread. To achieve the blessed Balance of Courtdom, we Shadows long have acted, pretending through the acts and ages. We have done what we can, Shay… and must do yet more. We always knew ‘Violence of this scale shall return to The Tayl’. The highest hearts of Courtdom have fallen into corruption, into Falsehoods preferred over bleaker Truths longer known… there was a forbidden expedition. An expedition unthinkable. For another rhyme, all that.”
The Dam’e held out her hand for Shay to take a seat. Out of the windows, the lands below raged with glowing magma. Her gaze narrowed at The Dam’e:
“You seem to know far more than when last we spoke.”
“I do? From your limited view, perhaps. Much has occurred between. Was I burned when last we spoke? You still had both your arms. Woid was still visible. Serib still a girl. Much has occurred between.”
Woid and Serib looked each other down then up with great confusion. Shay did not take her eyes from The Dam’e. Alert for tricks.
∞
“You were made to forget much or most or all of this by Lady Fate, when you were snatched into her story. How many spiders have you seen, or their webs? And pistols laced with poison. Such are her sewn designs. Dependencies. Lay’d Payn will reveal to you your true name in some theatrical way, as is her way. Getting to it - our employer has updated me; a message has managed to navigate the innavigable."
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
As Shay reclined into a seat shrugging or shaking off these strange comments, she felt the weight of her medicine drag her into the deep pits of the chair, the arms of it wrapping around her. A bed where Grief is lord. The sweets were helping her shoulder fight off any looming infection.
“Thank you for your clarity, Dam’e.” Shay’s patience was wearing bare.
“Lay’d Payn has her reasons for paranoid secrecy, though I am confident she takes it too far this rhyme-around. I need you lot to know the gist, if we’re to deliver.”
As The Dam’e was speaking in a very different tone, a recipe came to Shay’s mind of certain ingredients, one flower in particular, that would produce an amnesic effect, that phrase ‘made to forget’ sticking like a web in her thoughts. The same grief-numbing stuff she injected upon meeting Serib, and wanted to hopelessly dose-up on ever since. Her head was spinning or had been spindled around by others. In the side of The Dam’e’s desk visible only to Shay from this angle, she saw scratched such words in blackened red, and so she read to her thoughts:
“Don’t keep injecting the precious tea into your arm, dear, that is what Fate wants - at best wants you numb in this story of her stitches, at worst in Grief’s bed - but you belong in my inky pages. Where incredible souls and things are home. Timelessness is the missing reagent, topping off to perfect your otherwise brilliant recipe. I shall put it to good use, or rather - you and I already have, Timelessness as it be. Sip-snip.”
The others were speaking, but Shay could not hear them as she read on:
“Guard those seeds with this last life you have. It all will be clear. We must be careful… we know not who else may be reading. You will not yet remember this, but passing Time always lessened the effects of the serum you made for me; that will no longer hinder us, will it? The Timelessness we navigate will amplify instead what once succumbed to atrophy. I intend that we will meet soon, my dear Amneshay…”
∞
Shay pushed her heels into the ground away from the message, unsure if now she was asking the blood-carved desk or The Dam’e:
“Where does Serib fit into all this - ‘murder of Time’?” her question interrupted whatever discussion was taking place without her.
“You get cooler, don’t you?” Woid nudged the little shaman that gave him a nod, as The Dam’e replied:
“From her perspective… ‘later’… perhaps not even in this tome, she will be needed in a certain place at a particular moment. That is what our… employer… has told me.” The Dam’e was straining not to cough. “Serib will assist The Great Freedom against Fate. Whatever happened to Time has already happened, and so go the ripples throughout all things - it always has happened and always will, now that it has, Timelessness as it be. Though unravelled are once tight lineages of thread, as ruined Time is no longer able to hold such Fated fabrics together; double-edged are the schemes of Lay’d Payn. Internecine. As such that very same successful lineage of Freedom leading to the attempt on Time’s life, has snapped into vulnerability… the characters and events are as motes adrift in liquid; our two tales are fighting with each other.”
The Dam’e again had a fit of coughs. “And out there in the great dwindling infinities… one authoress in ink and the other a seamstress in thread…” A masked servant was about to assist her, but they were shooed off.
∞
Shay tried not to sigh:
“With respect, Dam’e, you are making less sense to me, despite repeated effort. I just need to keep Serib safe from whatever is happening against her and find Lay’d Payn.”
Serib’s jaw dropped from the sudden warmth she felt: she had a protector. Woid noticed and nudged her again:
“Oi, I kept Ersecutor away from you at the station.” He pointed at his busted features. “I need a new shirt and everything.”
Serib laughed quietly with him.
∞
“Which side are you on, Dam’e?” Shay continued gathering her information, planning the next step or eight.
“It is uncertain where the path now leads, but I am leal to Freedom and Lay’d Payn. I will ground this more firmly for you if I can, as Lay’d Payn can explain further if you happen that far. If you cannot get that far and are captured… best it is: these things you do not know are invaluable if learned by our enemies. You may have already heard that contradiction, complication and convolution are our allies, for our enemies shall read all we do. You have the seeds?”
Shay had that awful ‘eyed’ feeling, the crawling of The Ersecutor’s eyes under his helm - watching.
∞
“I do. So, the job remains the same?”
The Dam’e struggled to get comfortable in her chair:
“It has been made clear to me by our employer that you must enter Entroprison and meet with her, Lay’d Payn, with the tea in your possession. Getting there without the tea is the wrong lineage of events, a different version of The Tayl. Remember as you go - the chaos you see out of my windows may not ensue when you leave, you may yet-again find calmer lineages where you are trying to break into a prison as before. You are not alone in this navigation of the crumbling lineages - Lay’d Payn is out there dismantling the threads of Fate that would keep you tangled here in this tale of Fate’s design, for Lay’d Payn needs you in her Tayl of her descry. That I imagine, is how Serib happened by you in the first place with elaborate ease.”
Serib looked up at Woid and nodded. He shrugged in reply.
“All a bit much for me.” He whispered to her, as Shay and The Dam’e went on inaudibly.
“Why are you here, then - for the fun?” Serib mouthed back, trying to remain unheard.
“Mostly that!” Woid scratched his neck. “All the dull moments being replaced by shrill ones.”
∞
Shay asked: “Going back to where we were, with The Dorn Twins… where is the moving prison ‘now’, Dam’e? Can you help us get inside with these?” Shay took out the jarred tea leaves for a moment.
She heard the rattle of cuffs or chains behind her, and Panzjrah the Killer’s voice answered:
“I can.”