---Locutions---

---Pawel’s perspective---

“Whatever art thou doing, stripling?” comes a loud, woman’s voice, from somewhere.

Terrified, I look up from the dead zmora and cast around, searching for the new Demon who seems like she can almost speak Polish.

I see nothing.

I don’t want to start running until I know I’m not going to be running towards her!

“Hello…?” I say, nervously, trying to get the Demon to show herself.

“Shouldst thou be seeking for mineself, thou shalt be dissatisfied!… Here beeth no personage upon the visage of which thou mayest rest thine eyes(!) Yet, if thou wishest to look somewhere, look thee hither, to the barque, stripling.” answers the voice whose words and pronunciation are both very strange.

“Where?!” I ask, understanding her telling me to look somewhere but not having understood at all where!

“The navette…? The vessel…? The taker…?”

“The taker!?” I ask, horrified. What the hell are they taking?!

“Disregard the word that affrighteth thee so!… Dost thou grasp, ‘transport’?”

I look at the flying house “You’re… that!”

“Indubitably! Art thou surprised?”

“I never spoke with a house before… but, then, I suppose I never saw a flying house before today, either!” I answer the Demon house.

I wonder whether I should run but… well I saw how fast the flying house could move earlier! There’s exactly no way I’d outrun her when she can cover tens of kilometres in minutes! I could hide in the trees but, with how heavy she looks, she could probably just come down on top of me and crush both the trees and me together!

“Thy locutions presenteth something of a challenge to appreciation, stripling! Canst thou appreciate mine own?” says the Demon house, asking something but…

“What?”

“Ah, the response beeth a ‘nay’, then(!) Let us start at the beginning, stripling! Mine appellation beeth ‘Twila’… what beeth thine own?”

“Are… you asking for… my name?” I frown.

“Indubitably! Thy name!”

“I’m… not sure I want to give my name to a Demon house!” even if she did ask politely!

The flying house gives a hearty laugh and responds “Thou thinkest me a Dæmon, stripling!? Uproarious!!!”

I shrug “I don’t know… you might be a Bogowie but I don’t really want to give my name to one of them either! I don’t really want to give my name to someone who’s definitely not Human!”

“Absolve mine unworthy self of my discourtesy, but, were I a Dæmon, would I have offered thee mine own name so freely? Provide they not to mortals, the names of Dæmonkin, dominion over the Dæmon whose names they are?”

“Maybe…” I answer, cautiously. I have learned a lot about Demony, today, that wasn’t in any stories I’ve heard… I’m not sure how much I want to trust to folk wisdom!

“And… shouldst thou have found thyself conversant with a Divinity, would she have need to solicit thy name from thee?”

My mouth twists as I say “I… guess not… Fine! It’s Pawel!”

“Pawel! An esteem and a privilege it is to be acquainted with thee! Now… whither hast thou come, Pawel?”

“What?”

“What place dost thou entitle thy abode?” she rephrases.

“What?!”

“Where art thou from?”

“Oh!… I’m from Malbork… but you knew that already, didn’t you…”

“I knew not the name of thy township, Pawel… though I knew its latitude and longitude upon this globe!”

“You’re… polite… for a Demon house!”

“Ah… I should elucidate! I be no Dæmon! Nor be any of those thou art liable to have seen making use of my transport! They be mortals… of substance and blood… howsoever it may have looked to thee!”

“And… what are you?”

“Pardon?”

“You said they were flesh and blood… I asked what you are!”

She laughs “Thou art shrewd, stripling!” she pauses, seeming like she’s thinking, before answering “I be no Dæmon… nor Divinity neither! However, thou art precise in thy assessment that I am no creature of flesh and blood!… I am a cognizance fashioned from metal and silicon… not a presence born of natural milieu but one forged by the hands of other cognizant beings…”

“Like the old stories?” I say, thinking back to the parts of the story where people say that the Pilecki used to be able to think… almost like a person!

“I know not thy stories, stripling… so I cannot say.”

“Alright… well… it’s been surprisingly nice to talk with you… Twila… but I should probably go…” I say, turning to climb back up the hill and hoping she doesn’t try to stop me.

“Tarry thee a moment!” she stops me, sounding strangely desperate “Relay to me one of thy tales, Pawel!”

I turn back to her and say “Look… I was gathering firewood on top of the hill and I need to carry it home… It’s a long way and it’s going to be dark in a few hours! Zmory might not be any problem for you but I do not want to be outside the Palisades without being able to see!”

“However… err…”

I frown “Why are you… really so keen for me to stay?”

I begin turning, causing her to say “No… do not…!” but I ignore her and keep turning until I see the band of Demony coming back, only a few hundred metres away!

“You tricked me!” I say, looking at the house in horror. Then I dart for the trees.

The flying house shouts after me but I don't hear what she says.

The Demony begin sprinting towards me the moment I begin running!

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I should be able to make it to the trees before they get anywhere near me! Once I’m in there, I can lose them in the tangled maze of paths through the brush!

Fuck the stick bundles!

I just need to get home!

I just need to not be caught by the Demony!

I make it to the path and am just congratulating myself on having practically already lost them… when I round a corner and practically run into one!

One of the almost Human looking ones, the helmeted one in leathers and furs, the one who I thought was a normal height but, now I’m close to him, I see he’s basically the same height as Witold!

I skid to a halt and try to bolt in the other direction but he effortlessly grabs me by the scruff of the neck and yanks me backward, causing me to stumble into him!

I turn to look up into his expressionless face, scarred with what I recognise as claw marks (though too small to be from a zmora)!

His eyes are an unnatural orange!

He jabs a finger forward and, in a flat, neutral tone, commands “Ӈэнэрӣ.”

He walks me out of the brush, still grasping me by the scruff of my neck.

“Yu go’im, Timancha!” shouts the leader with the single glowing green eye, sounding relieved.

Me and my captor meet the band, allowing me to see, up close, just how terrifying they are!

The blond man, who I thought was normal looking, is taller than Witold!

The dark skinned woman is almost as tall… the tallest woman I’ve ever seen (present company excluded)!

The only one of these women who’s even close to a normal height is the suit of armour with the woman’s face buried in its helmet (and I’m not sure she/it counts!)

She’s about the same hight as my mama but is definitely the widest and deepest woman I’ve ever seen, as if to make up for the height she doesn’t have.

The tall, fair skinned blonde stares at me, appraisingly, with her ice blue eyes!

By far the most terrifying, though, are the Czarcica, the Strzyga and the Leader, their appearance the most uncannily outlandish of the band! I can’t decide whose worst!

The slim, graceful, white haired Strzyga with the glowing eyes and the four, four fingered hands stands two heads taller than Witold.

She parts her lips, showing the tips of the long fangs she must use to drink the blood of her victims!

The Czarcica stands just as tall and, now I’m so close, I can see her jet black skin actually has intricate ripples in it. Like a slight breeze over still water. It would be beautiful… in another situation!

The silverheaded leader with the bright green eye, tight blue skin with plates of silver and gold growing out of it, the long, elegant sword at his hip and what I suspect is another kind of thunderstick on his back, (though still colossal) is most of a head shorter than the Strzyga and the Czarcica but powerfully built, more than enough to make up for it!

He stares down at me and the others all look to him.

I’ve decided he’s the most terrifying!

He gestures to me with a silver and gold hand and says “Fakin heww! Luk a’vah puur kiid! Hiiz petri faid!”

“Hithinks yur Dimunz! Mi tu!” answers the Demon house that calls herself ‘Twila’.

“Weww, viiz hewmitsent gunna bi hewpin wiv vat, ar vey!” he declares “Hewmitsap!"

With that, he, the Czarcica, the walking armour and my captor each bring their hands to their heads.

Focusing on the green eyed cyclops, I’m briefly horrified into thinking he’s tearing his own head off before I realise, what I thought was his head is actually a helmet!

Obviously, I thought about whether their metal heads might be helmets before, but I just thought they looked too seamlessly attached to the rest of them to be!

The gigantic man’s helmet now off, I can see he has a relatively normal face… relatively…

His skin is as pale as the blonde’s, his two eyes are a bright, vivid green and his hair is a fiery red like I’ve never seen on any Mazurzy… but, other than that… and how tall he is, he looks… normal…

I can’t say the same for the two women who took their helmets off, though!

Now fully able to appreciate the face of the one in the ridiculously heavy looking armour, I can see her orange hair is frizzy, like wool, her brow juts out way too far, her nose is both too long and too wide and her chin… well… doesn’t exist!

Her skin is, more or less, a normal colour… A little on the tan side but it just makes her look like someone who works the fields.

That’s not true of the Czarcica, though!

The woman in the shiny cuirass, having already lost the title of ‘tallest woman I’ve ever seen’ to three of the other women in her group, just lost another title to a groupmate… her skin is now the second darkest I’ve ever seen! (Not really counting the Strzyga, since her dark skin looks more like it comes from nighttime than sunlight!)

Where she looks like she spends every day outside in a land where it’s always Summer, the unhelmeted Czarcica looks like she spends every day outside in a land with five suns!

Her eyes are a distinctive purple colour that I’ve never heard of a Human’s being but… she is also a woman who’d need to bend to not scrape her head on the ceiling of my house, so maybe her eyes aren’t that strange(!)

Her hair is the same jet black as her armour and falls in tight, corkscrew ringlets, to her shoulders.

Her face, like the short one’s, with the frizzy red hair, isn’t ugly… but it is definitely strangely featured! Her mouth is just a little too wide, her cheeks just a little too flat, her nose both wide and flat and her chin forming a perfectly sheer vertical surface from her bottom lip!

“Sii…?” asks the redheaded man “…Ol Hyumun… err… septfer Toon… Noh uffenss, beibi!” he continues, turning his head to the Strzyga.

“Enginn tekinn, Vii Ktar(!)” chuckles the blue skinned woman.

“Victor wisheth to relay to thee that, with but one omission, all those thou seest before thee are of Mankind, Pawel!”

“The lady with the blue skin?” I ask, warily.

“Indubitably!”

“What is she then?” I ask.

“Her kind are termed ‘Don’.”

“What about the tall lady with the very dark skin? The broad lady with the frizzy orange hair? You want me to believe they’re Humans?”

Before Twila can answer, the one called Victor holds up his hand, seeming to have understood my question from context and me looking at the women I'm talking about.

He points his hand at me and says “Seipiunz…” then to himself “…Seipiunz…” then to my leather clad captor, the shorter dark skinned woman, the normal looking man and the blonde “…Seipiunz, Seipiunz, Seipiunz, Seipiunz.”

Then, he points to the really tall, really dark skinned woman and says “Chwarnii!”

Then, he points to the (relatively) short, frizzy haired woman and says “Niianduhfarl!”

The blonde chimes in “Its pronaunsd ‘Sappienz’, Victor(!)” mirthfully.

“Noh wen Ai seyit, itsnoh(!)” he answers.

“As Victor doth so valiantly endeavour to express, Pawel, the womenfolk thou hast designated are indubitably of Mankind… but of a dissimilar ilk to thee thyself and the collectivity of the other Men, here present!”

“Alright… you’re ‘Humans’!” I say “So why are you not letting me leave!? What are you planning to do with me!?”

There’s a pause before Twila says “Gaiz… hiiz ars king wot wiah gowing tu duwith him… Ai think at liist!… Hiiz spiiking sumsortov criowlaizd blendov Sentrul and Iistan Yuruppiun langwijiz… itmeiks ita litul hardtu unduh stand him.”

My captors exchange glances with eachother.

The blonde eventually says “Wot kan wi duwith him?”

“Gætum við ekki… sent hann upp í Skær Skottfjöður?… Bara þangað til á morgun!” asks the Strzyga.

The blond man speaks for the first time I’ve heard “Ow, yaaah(!) ‘Happi Riyuunyun Dei, evriwun!… Shud menshun; wi kidnapt yer kid… juuus ferra dei… houp yah doun maind(!)’”

The redheaded man with the bright green eyes speaks “Liiyonz rait… surri Toon… Wi kahnt kiip him aghenst hiz wiww!… Anvah faktvat hiiz siin az miinz wi kahnt du vuh houl ‘stewf riikon’ fing, aivuh!… Wiah gunna goh bak wiv him, meik awursewvz nohn, apolojaiz for vah trubuw an trai awur best tu gettakross vat wial bi bak tumoro fuh propah intruddukshons! Tewwim vat pliiz, ifyu kan Twila.”

“Quoth Victor; ‘We shall attend thee unto thy abode and effect genteel remorse to thy kinfolk until such time as we take leave, assuring all of our ensuing return on the morrow, indisputably more apt a time for introductions!’” translates the Demon house.

It’s lies… they want me to come quietly so they can threaten to kill me if the gates aren’t opened for them! The nice side-benefit for them is that, if they surprise me, my terror will look much worse… If they told me what they plan to do, now, by the time we got there, the effect would have worn off!

With a great effort I force myself to answer their lies with my own!

“Tell him… that’s… fine…” I say through gritted teeth.

“Marvellous!” proclaims the Demon Twila, before addressing the others “Hi agriiz! Bat… bifor yu goh, wuddit bi olraitif Ai jast gotta litul mor ov hiz langwij?… Mait bi helpful for Yazmin tu luhk atit bifor tumoro!”

The Demon, Victor, waves his hand “Gowa hed, Twila!”

“Pawel, might I impose upon thee to relay to me one of thy tales before thou sally forth?” asks Twila.

“You… want me to tell you a story?” I ask, slightly incredulous.

“Indubitably!”

“What about?” I ask, wondering why they would want to hear stories from someone they’re about to use as leverage!

“The subject matter be of no great import… whatsoever thou wishest!”

I think for a moment before I say “Alright… I’ve got one!”

“Prithee, relay it!” says the Demon house, excitedly.

I clear my throat before starting “Earth is a planet, far, FAR away… the light of Chors, that takes 16 and a half minutes to reach us here, takes so long to reach Earth that, when it does, you and I will have been dead for tens of thousands of years!…”