Sevensborough Rebellion, huh? Is it rebellion to demand our right to be heard? To be counted? Our right to live?
Look, folks, I got a real simple way to tally up the right and wrong of things. Ask yourself: which side is sending in armored jackboots to bludgeon every man, woman, and child they find to death? Which side is declaring their opponent heretics worth of death?
Can you really blame the folk of Sevenborough for protecting themselves against that? What’s so damn terrifying about freedom?
Spring 49
A respected publication, The Journals, ran a rebuttal of the scurrilous accusations fomented by the yellow journalists of The Posts. Additionally, below the fold, a concerned citizen laid charges against Lady Mishkan of direct, material aid to the brewing disorder in the boroughs. Every lurid detail rose to light! From pictures of secretive meetings to charts of the money flowing through the so-called Mishkan Alliance, all was laid bare!
The folk were spoiled for choice! Which newspaper would a man believe? Which article? Let all decide as was their wont!
Fights broke out in the taverns over the matter.
Citing the publications and the formal investigation into House Mishkan, Firstborough Constable Chief Johnson decided to make a name for himself. On his own initiative, he drove north to Briarwood to demand vehicles for sortie.
Of course, Briarwood had a scandal of its own. The lieutenant’s report on the motor pool – or rather, lack thereof – had reached the brass, and the generals had descended from heaven in fury. Everyone from the pool captain on downwards had been thrown in irons and sent to the west to shovel ash!
Having shipped all their mechanics west, the brass realized about lunchtime that they had no one to salvage the motor pool.
Denied military splendor, the constable chief instead assembled a motley crew of farm wagons and appropriated warehouse trucks for his crusade. Rather than a proud parade of military vehicles, he and his eager men arrived in their coughing vehicles to the Mishkan estate in late afternoon, their hindquarters aching from the ride.
Despite this, the men remained in high spirits. Firstborough had long been the precinct for the ambitious, and the men shared speculation on what wonders might wait in the manor of the most renowned noble heretic!
“You think all those rumors about her southern lovers were true?”
“Mishkan? That bitch is colder than the icy hells; you’d get frostbite.”
“Pah, I could warm her! They’re only cold until they feel a real man!”
While they laughed, the constable chief made sure their photographer loaded his camera. Then, assured of his photo op, he strode forward to Mishkan’s old gate.
Click! The camera obediently witnessed him shove the gate back.
Click! It followed him up the worn gardens to the front porch.
Click! The history books would know that Constable Chief Johnson rattled the rafters as he hammered on the door.
“Lady Mishkan, by the authority of the Conclave and in the name of our One True God, I hereby demand your appearance in answer to the demands of God and Conclave! Open on penalty of dissolution!”
***
A thousand miles to the southeast, Alisandra balanced a concept on her fingers, delicate as a dream.
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To mortal fingers, a father’s pocket watch.
Yet to Alisandra, closing her eyes, she felt…
“Gevurah,” Sebastian guided. “Fire and strength. Judgement and the left hand of God.”
Around them, the Bones bloomed. Great spikes of Light slowly rose like a well-tended crop – or the fingers of a skeletal cage.
The channels which Sebastian had etched with a muddy stick now pulsed, crystalizing the surrounding mud as a flood of Light drew this sliver of Malkuth into higher spheres.
All from Light. So much Light! All she could pour forth, her soul aching with the demand.
Mortals give their blood for what they believe in. I… Drawing a knife across her hand, she let the Light well between her fingers, bathing the pocket watch. I do the same.
“Symbols. Concepts. Dreams. They are real, though the hand cannot grasp them.”
“Then what do I hold?” she muttered, struggling to see symbol and metal with the same eyes.
“A pocket watch. An idea. A note of Song. Fingers hold, but the soul grasps for meaning.”
We are incarnate
Our blood is Creation
Our Right to command the stars as a man might his legs
“To risk ourselves as a man might risk his hand against a running engine,” Alisandra muttered.
As that mental image bloomed, the pocket watch ticked. As it ticked, a ripple spread along currents of her Light-blood to ripple through the Work.
This risk assumed
For the sake of all
The Edenward vibrated, bidding her further…further…so much more to learn…
She stretched before the demands of this new dance, growing ever further from the girl that skipped along a path to a white gazebo.
“All that we hold here enters the ward, Archangel,” the Witness warned. “Our hopes and our regrets.”
So she caught her pang of nostalgia and rewove it: that gazebo had been destroyed by the Wyrm in a fit of pique; the last symbol of her childhood taken; let no others know even that trifling mourning.
The pocket watch ticked, melting into Light, and her echo carried.
Judgement and Fire
The Hand of God
An Archangel’s resolve pouring forth onto the spider weave of Light.
Meanwhile, far distant, some self-possessed mortal shouted her name.
Like a raindrop demanding a mountain’s attention.
***
After ten minutes of shouting, Constable Chief Johnson returned to the camera to somberly report, “Sadly, the Lady Mishkan is non-compliant.”
Hiding his smirk, he gave the order to break down the door.
Two of his lieutenants, fresh off their own photoshoot, hefted the battering ram and smashed down the door.
Constables and their cameraman poured into the atrium. Unanswered, they fell to looting under the pretense of a search.
But the Lady Mishkan long since removed her true valuables from such an obvious target, and they had to settle for old jewelry and the silver ware. One, slightly faster afoot than his fellows, came to the exhibition hall and the queen’s regalia in its case alone.
He recognized it.
Recognized the regalia and what it might mean.
Dismissed it out of hand, swore, “The harlot even stole this!” and raised his club to break down the glass.
Arm raised, he then crumpled dead on the spot.
His fellows burst into the room just as Father Panther flickered into view, his maw wet with blood though the body bore no wound, and all icy hells broke loose.
Johnson and his men had come for an easy victory. Instead, they found themselves in panther’s jungle.
Some fled into the outlying rooms. Others hid in closets and pantries. The sensible ones turned tail and fled for the vehicles. They all discovered the unerring, pitiless attention of an astral predator.
Somewhere in the chaos and gunfire, one spark among many caught on the wood. Urged forward by Foundation’s subtle command, a fire swiftly rose to consume the manor to the last inch.
As night fell and the fire ebbed, Father Panther nosed through the wreckage. To his annoyance, he found his favorite bed reduced to matchsticks. With his favorite bedwarmer far to the south, the panther sighed at the imposition and vanished at last for his other territory.
***
A follow-up expedition the next day found maimed corpses and ash.
Based on such clear evidence – and the continued silence of the Lady Mishkan herself – the deacon council unanimously agreed to excommunicate House Mishkan.
Though the council lacked a Keeper of the Flame to enforce such a mandate, the Lady failed to lodge any complaints otherwise.
Emboldened to reckless acts, the council then revoked Alisandra Mishkan’s House and rights as a noble Lady of the Conclave – despite such rights belonging only to the Houses themselves.
The Houses now objected, if only out of fear for their own titles, and immediately took the matter to the courts. They argued not for Mishkan’s sake but merely against the deacons. If the Holy Receivership would return, they would happily renounce her title through the proper procedure!
Yet Alisandra, deep in the Work, felt the last anchor of her old life snap free…
…and she found herself secretly relieved.
Let the ashes be my effigy
Cast the coals upon this spell
Finally, I can focus on more important Work