In Halloween spirits, I give you The Witches' Ball, a collection of short stories based on canon and original characters that dwell in the grand ole Leviathan's world.
Behold, all ye sinners
The Great Ones stand before you
With pure wretchedness in their hearts!
Do not be fooled by their appearance, for they are masters in the art!
Be bold, and strike true
For the Great Ones will reign among us
Until they are purged from our lands!
Old Sermon from the Abbey of the Everyman - Pre-Dynasty
Do you know what they used to tell me? They used to tell me – right before brother Marcus died – that you could hear them wandering in the halls. Laughing. Giggling. Gliding their nails down the railings or tearing paper from the walls...I never thought that I could actually hear them, now that I'm all alone and rotting and dying here, my poor Brother sitting in my belly. But they're there. Loud. You can hear them as clear as a summer day, so close to you, like they're standing by your ear or in the doorway. You can't see them, not in the daytime; well, if you ignore them, you cannot. But when you are like me, sitting here and shaking with bloody fingers and the brain-shakes that come with eating human flesh...it's obvious that you are going to see things, things that truly rattle the human imagination, things that make you question your faith.
As much as will it, you cannot really ignore them, not at all. They're just as loud and peckish like those mangled, hideous-looking hounds that prowl the hallways. Just as mangled and fearsome, if not more, if I'm allowed to say it. Not even the dogs will stay in the same place, as if they know their real masters are there and will send them back to whatever netherworld they came from. They whine, like the wolfhounds in the kennels when their favourite master goes away or punishes them for nibbling too close to an outstretched finger. And they whine louder when they're near, like they are absolutely afraid.
Can you believe it? Those things, afraid? They are, if you listen good and hard enough, like I have. Brother Marcus used to hear them, too. He used to tell me that there was something else in the home before the witches came along; that and their demented wench of a leader, if I'm allowed to say it. I'm not sure if I am, though, and surely by the time this gets out to the wide-world I'll be dead, dead of the shivers from the brain-shakes that came with Brother Marcus' flesh. Though they forced me to eat him, I know by now that they really weren't the ones forcing me. They just served up bits of his thigh or his neck or some other tender piece on a platter, and if they felt nice enough they'd add some sauce or two, maybe some spice. Anything to make the swallowing go easier. But those were the nicer ones. The new ones. The ones not really demented.
Brother Marcus was fed the bones of those walking corpses – the Weepers – and he said he saw them. They would sit on the sofa right in front of the door and hold hands, heads tilted, and smile as he ate. Eat up, eat up, they'd tell him, and he'd eat everything, even though minutes later he was vomiting his insides out. But he did it without pain. In fact, he seemed to do it for pleasure; for the approval of these unseen things that sit on the sofa and watch me now, me now as I eat poor brother Marcus.
I don't know why he ate that way. He never told me anything aside from the girls that sat on the sofa, hands clasped together and giggling in harmony. I never heard them laugh, not at first when Marcus was alive. But he heard them. He heard them all the time and he never slept. I never saw his eyes but I knew they were heavy and red and purple, with veins criss-crossing under them from insomnia. And Marcus was known for being a deep-sleeper. Nothing could wake him, not even a klaxon near the ears.
But these girls kept him awake. They kept him eating. They kept him eating so much that he wanted more, and that frightened – yes, frightened – the witches that came to check on us. I'll have a fresh lamb steak, please, he said, the bloodiest bit you can find, and he would say it with so much enthusiasm I'd think he was a little boy and not a full-grown man, certainly not the Brother Marcus I knew. Brother Marcus was proud, stoic, and righteous. Truly admirable. Anything an Overseer could ever want; could ever aspire to. And here he was, sitting with his legs crossed, mask off and hair disheveled, eating human remains like it was the most delicious meal he had ever tasted. And then he would ask for more, and it would frighten me, because I have had real, human food, as they were just waiting for Marcus to die so they could feed me his flesh.
He kept eating. If my eyes did not fail me, I would say that he had gotten fatter. Plump. His cheeks were rosy, his nose like a fat rosebud, and his fingers thick and plump like sausages filled with fat. He was growing before me in size, but dwindling away in manhood. He didn't care. Brother Marcus didn't care at all; he never said a single thing, never a complaint or a cry or whine or begging! He just ate and ate and ate until he grew fat, until he was fat enough and they decided to take the food away. That didn't settle well with him, oh no.
No! You can't take that away! He cried. You'll make them unhappy! You see them there, on the couch? Do you see? They want more. More, more, more! So give me what I need, what they need! Give me more! And that was when he'd start bawling like a boy throwing a tantrum, tears streaming down his face and spit slobbering down his three chins. Yes, three. I don't know how Brother Marcus got three chins, but I know that those girls on the sofa had something to do with it. Them sitting there, holding hands and skipping down the hallways, past oblivious witches who couldn't see their own reflections and by those who froze in horror when they skipped by. The girls holding hands, that's what a few of them called it. The girls with sharpened nails that scraped across wallpaper and banisters, waiting for an unfortunate young girl or stupid old woman to walk by and be snatched and thrown to the netherworld. I've never seen it, but I've heard a few speak about it. And like those dogs that whine at empty air, they are afraid. Morbidly afraid. Frigid and morbid like the statues in the crypts. And at what? Empty air?
Brother Marcus didn't believe this was so, and I don't either. I think I inherited some of his knowledge when I ate the first piece. His calf, I think. Or his forearm. I couldn't tell. It was dark and I was in the third week of my capture, the last week when the stomach coils and begins to devour itself from rampant hunger.
That's a sin, I will have you know. Rampant hunger. And wandering flesh. But there isn't anything about consuming flesh in the Strictures. Perhaps an edit should be made. Or not. After a while, the sting of eating it goes away, and when you have them watching you in the doorway, all your fears disappear. You feel...at ease. In your most peaceful place. Where your mind would go if it went awry. That's what I did. I didn't really work at first because they were there, but it eased away over time. It eased the pain of poor Brother Marcus. Eased the pain of his fat body being stuffed in an oven. I didn't personally see that, but they told me. They sat on a chair, side by side, and told me plainly.
Brother Marcus would not come back, but he would come back filled with stuffing and cream and herbs. Rare. He was going to be cooked rare. Nice and juicy and bloody. Just like how the cooks would make it at Dunwall Tower. I've never tried their food, but surely it has to be good, because the Empress has to eat it. She wouldn't eat poisoned or undercooked food. It would be the best food, the best in all the Isles, and I would be in for a treat. It wouldn't be stale and cold like the rations we get in the Abbey, since all the best food stuffs go for charity, but it would be great. Delicious. Just like how the cooks would make it. And all for me! All for me. Just me.
But not Marcus. Not poor brother Marcus. He wasn't stuffed with herbs and spices. He was charred black, so black that the night was brighter than he. His skin was hard and tough, tougher than my sword and mask –
(I'd rather eat them instead)
– and there wasn't any blood. None. It was gray and white deep down, and cold. It was all cold.
(I don't like cold food, I don't. It tastes of bitterness.)
He didn't taste good, no he didn't. He was bland. My stomach churned when I took the first bite. I wanted to spit it back up. But they forced me to keep my wrenching stomach still. No, not those silly little wenches that called themselves witches. I'm talking about the ones on the sofa. The sofa that's gone now. The girls. The twins. Holding hands, singing songs and skipping or playing hopscotch on the open beams. The ones with golden hair in elaborate styles like the ones before the industrial age. The ones that smile like their mouths are stitched, doll-like and evil. They're all long and crooked and stiff, like black stitches.
Brother Marcus had them on his mouth before they shoved him in the oven. The witches didn't put that on him, no. The girls did. They had so much fun doing it. I could hear them doing it, late at night when I was supposed to be sleeping –
(I am supposed to sleep, damn you!)
– and they pricked and prodded at his skin until they sewed his jaw shut, like how metals are smelted under a blacksmith's care.
You see, they didn't just sew shut his mouth. They did his jaw, too, fusing the bones together like they were bone charms. I think they took a few of his teeth, too, to make charms. The famous witches can do that. Not these wenches. These wenches are miserable little whores who have nothing better to do but play little lamb with their demented mistress. Whoever she is. I don't remember who she is. Do you?
Forget that. I don't want to know, anyway. I don't care. Whoever she is, she's not as rigid or frightening or imposing as the girls that sit on the sofa or the chairs.
I think they like the chairs better. They sit in them more often. Maybe they want to know more about me, or about the Abbey. I'm not sure. But whatever they want, I'll give it to them, just like Brother Marcus did.
Poor Brother Marcus. He was so fat when he came out and they added white gloves to make him look like a turkey. And then when the light shined on him, there was a flicker – yes, there was! I can tell you about it myself, you filthy heretic – of juiciness. And just like a turkey he gobbled and shrieked in terror when the heat grew all around and around and around and over him until pop! Poor Brother Marcus' head popped and all the little juices from inside came out his ears. But he was so charred that you probably couldn't see it. Not if you looked at him the way I did. I guess that made swallowing him a bit easier, because after the first bit, the girls started applauding me like I just won an award.
That made me feel good. Just like Marcus. Or maybe even better. They said they liked me better, so I suppose that they do. They certainly seem happier now that I'm the only one left. When they skip through the halls at night or tear down the wallpaper they do so more vigorously, laughing and throwing bits at each other and playing tag, with one wearing a huge sheet over her head and chasing the other down the corridors and the skeletal steps. When they're that loud, it makes me smile a bit: I know that they're happy, and when they're happy, they give me gifts. They promise me lots of things and tell me that everything will be all right. They tell me that I won't get sick from Brother Marcus and that my work will have a reward befitting my title: a big estate out in the country, a big plaque with my engraved name in the Abbey's relic room, and entire rooms heaping with coins and other priceless artifacts.
I dream of their promises: of everything covered in marble, ivory clocks on one end and ebony on the other, gold and silver and so many colours flashing back at me. It's all so beautiful and comforting that it takes me away from this netherworld, this netherworld of flooded rooms, undead canines with ghostly voices and the ever-imposing presence of the twins that first stepped foot on this swampland.
Then it stops and the clockwork's gears all wind down. The ballroom empties out and the chandeliers stop swinging; the wine stops flowing. And it is in this instant that I realize that I have been deceived. I realize that my mind has played tricks on me, and that I have broken the oaths that I swore to uphold and protect at my initiation. Somewhere in the part of my mind that has hidden from the horrors that dance around me; the sane part that has guided me all this time, says to me that I am a hypocrite and that I must pay for my sins. It is small, barely noticeable and just about negligible, but it continues to pester me and scream at me:
You have broken your oaths, you insolent! The Wandering Gaze, the Roving Feet, the Rampant Hunger! You have committed them all! And yet you continue to live in this netherworld, believing that you are somehow sane –
Oh, don't listen to him.
Yes, please don't. He's dismal and boring, not like how you are.
Yes, Brother Pradclif. Listen to Sister. You're exciting and unique. You don't want to be like the rest of them, do you?
He certainly does not.
Quite so. He's just like us, isn't he?
Just without our gifts. But he has gifts of his own.
Indeed he does. And we've seen them. He can see us, can't he sister?
He's speaking to us now, sister.
He certainly is! I wonder, how long do you think he'll listen to that pestering little voice?
Not for long, I am sure. He's already questioning himself.
And he is listening to us!
Indeed he is, sister.
He seems so sad. Brother Marcus was a joyous thing. So sad he had to die.
But Brother Pradclif is better.
Oh, you humour me, sister! He'll go out with more than a pop, won't he?
They never suspected it was us, sister dear. They won't suspect us this time, either.
Those stupid mummers calling themselves witches. They're so pathetic they can't see two feet in front of them!
Not to mention their own feet.
We sure give them the willies, don't we, sister?
You're so old, sister. No one says 'willies' anymore.
But I do!
I know you do.
Oh no.
He's trying to shut us out.
Shall we pay him a visit?
We shall, indeed.
It's too bad they took away our favourite couch.
We shall see that they will pay for that.
Indeed we shall, sister.
Oh.
That wasn't supposed to happen.
No. No, no, no! They couldn't come here! They couldn't! I have nothing, nothing except poor Brother Marcus...
He is gone now, don't you see?
You ate him to pieces, merril-ly.
"It wasn't my fault!" I screamed. But it's distant, like I am standing on a cliff and my other self is yelling to me from a beach. It is so distant and hollow that I can hardly care for it. Yet I find myself screaming, anyways. "I had to do it! You made me do it, don't you remember?!"
Look, sister dear! He's yelling!
Out loud and for all to hear...
...Like the wolf hunt-ing for his deer...
Out in the forest, out in the field...
The Overse-er will not yield!
"Stop! Stop singing!" My hands clutched my head to drown them out, but I know that will be futile. The girls get whatever they want, when they want, and it is too late for me. I have been a pawn in their games, a stuffed animal on their shelves for them to gut and throw the stuffing around their heads. I have been a willing pawn, like poor Brother Marcus, and I took pleasure in it. I took pride in knowing that I was making the girls happy.
I found myself screaming again. "I don't want to hear you anymore!"
And they respond, chattering like birds for bread.
Why?
You've never heard us sing!
Why make us stop now?
Why make us stop at all?
"Please! Please stop! I can't handle it anymore!" My voice screeched, barely masculine and was more like a boy screaming for his life. I thought to myself, this is why those monstrosities of dogs whine at nothing. They whine at their voices, chittering and chattering like so, and that is why they run away.
And that is why I must run away. Their lecherous smiles cannot hold me anymore.
The will power will not come to me, and I am not sure if it can, either. My legs will not move because they are plump from Brother Marcus, and my tongue is small and cracked from thirst; it has not swelled and choked me like it should. But should the energy return to me and I should flee from this wretched place, I would have nowhere to go. I have no weapons, not even my wit, as that has deserted me. The swampland shall consume me, and I shall join the mausoleum of the old ones, the Brigmores that claimed this land and turned it from a yellow-fevered horror to a marble wonder. Yet even that is doubtful. The land and legacy it holds is cursed, and the cursed ones walk among it.
Even if a miracle should happen and my brothers return, they would not make it through the front hall. I do not think they would even survive the first few feet of swampland.
It is not as hard as you think, dear Brother.
You know you can do it.
It's not that hard.
No, it's not. We can help you if you like.
Maybe a push?
Baby steps, sister. Baby steps. He is still sick from eating his Brother.
"Because you made me do it!" I pleaded. Don't make me eat anymore. Please.
There is a trill from them, and it is not at all pleasant to hear.
"No, no. That wasn't us. That was you, little Brother."
"Yes. All you. You didn't need us to egg you on."
"Just a push."
"Baby steps, sister."
Their voices are clear as a summer's day, with an unstable tilt to match their unstable smiles. Their shadows overcast all the others, their heads brighter than the flames on the candlewicks. I couldn't see their eyes –
(I don't want to, you filthy heretic! Don't make me look!)
- But I know that one is blue and one is green, one on either side, mirror copies. I can see their scabbed skin and almost feel the wires, coat hangers and meat cleavers as they sink into their skin.
And I can feel their wicked, stitched smiles, like their dolls on the shelves.
The ones they caught and trapped within, the ones they sent away to the Netherworld.
They came to my side, hands on their knees, like they were addressing a child. One blue on the left, another on the right; a green on the right, and one on the left. And a smile. Not two smiles, just one. One big stitched one with pointed, unnaturally white teeth. They put a hand on each of my shoulder, tender and loving.
But they do not love me. They never did. They never loved Marcus, either. They do not know love. They have not heard of it, not ever. They are the Old Blood, banished from the earth for their great wickedness; creatures we Overseers fear until our end days, if not beyond them. Death will not protect us from the Old Blood, the Leviathan's greatest children, and will power alone will not protect me from their embraces of sunshine.
"I denounce..."
They knelt and embraced me, and I could smell mint on their clothes and hair, with a little field berry on the seams. A blue and a green, a forest and sky beneath two suns. As much as I despise it, I cannot ignore their beauty. There is energy in them, sinister and relentless as it may be, but they are the jewels of the swampland. They are the first of their kind.
They are the Brigmore girls, Yvette and Yvonne, first of their names, and it is they who rule this coven; of this jewel in the middle of hostile, asphyxiating swampland. It is they who are the ones the coven fears; the ones we should all fear.
They used to tell me that the Old Ones were dead and gone from the earth, and that so long as we stayed noble and true, there was no hope of them returning. So long as we kept to our faith and kept it pure in the people, the worst events that would ever happen would be these current witches, ones that can be kept at bay by our instruments. Brother Marcus assured me of this. All the evils of the world can be destroyed forever by our boldness and truth. Yet it seems that it isn't so.
For why would the Brigmore girls be here before me with tenderness and gifts? I wonder.
And it is in this that I feel my mind slip, and I can see in my own writings that the tenses are changing and that I often repeat myself...
"I denounce..."
Promises cannot be held by witches. Or by my faith.
I have only myself to blame for everything: for Brother Marcus' cruel death and my subsequent meal of him; for listening blindly to my fears; and for listening and taking comfort in women that are not truly alive...
...Yet I can see them. Brother Marcus has seen them. And anybody can see them, so as long as they –
(Note continued in indecipherable handwriting, followed by a large tear near the end.)
(Another sheet of paper is tacked to the note, in another hand.)
To whoever may come across this,
Dear Brother Pradclif did not lie in his ramblings. We are here and we have not left, nor will we leave, whether by force or kindness. Do not be fooled by those with weeds sewn in their hems or daisies in their hair. They are simply chickens in a badger's den, fit for our disposal. They may have nudged and slithered their way in our once great home, but rest assured, they have no place here. And neither should you, should anyone other than us rule in this swampland.
It is we who built this place, and it is this place we shall rest for eternity. Any other person that treads on our land without our permission shall be given just punishment, which is to the utmost pleasure to us. We shall not be moved without force, and should your force prove not adequate, even by your standards,we shall pleasure ourselves in your comical attempts.
Do not doubt our word. And do not think you can ignore us.
With our genuine honesty and pleasure,
Yvette and Yvonne Brigmore.
The following note and its attachments therein have been committed to inquiry by highest security order of the Abbey of the Everyman. Any unauthorized access to this document will meet swift and deadly punishment.
There are definitely Stephen King tones here. In tune with Halloween, I wanted to make a series of vignettes on the witches and magics of Dishonored, something that the fandom doesn't touch on. So I added my own lore and characters with a spice and twists. With horror, of course.
I was weary on the tenses used here. If some don't make sense, please tell me.