"If there's one place you can rely on be a site for an Evil ritual, it's a capital city. They're even more trustworthy than blood-soaked altars out in the woods, because it's much easier to find a city than it is to find the specific blood-soaked altar the prophecy written by some gibbering illiterate refers to."
– Gnarl
…
The hoofbeats of the black horse clattered against the smooth stone of the road. Slung over the back of the horse was a staff of black iron. It was early summer but still the rider swathed in a midnight-black robe kept their hood up. The morning mists fled from the lone figure, and ravens flocked in her wake.
Louise shivered slightly. It was chill this early in the morning, and the clear skies just meant that it had been even colder at night. With a disgusted expression, she shot an annoyed stare back at the birds which followed her. The dratted things were after her breakfast, and had been following her while she tried to eat it.
Well, she wasn't going to let them have it! The girl chuckled to herself, and paused for a moment when she realised that she was giggling somewhat madly over the fact that she was not giving birds her breakfast. Maybe she had gone a little crazy from three months with the only intelligent being around she could talk to being Gnarl. She didn't count the minions as intelligent conversation, because, well... they weren't. It probably wasn't normal to be quite so triumphant about it.
But it was bread, which did not involve mushrooms or moss in any way! And she had bacon, made from pigs as opposed to rats! And there was butter and she had no idea where the butter in the tower came from, but the choices were either bats or rats and neither was palatable. Or, come to think of it, explicable. How did you get enough milk from a rodent to make those cheeses the minions seemed to love?
"You can't have it, birds," she whispered, as she made her way through the things she had carefully made for herself and wrapped in waxed paper when she had woken up.
By the time she had finished, the capital city of Tristain was just about coming into view. From this slightly elevated position, the slums and townships of the settlements built outside the walls, sprawling and enveloping the city on the plains of Tristain. The poverty could be seen, for they were built in wood and brick. Indeed, to the north of the city, a thicker black pall rising to the heavens marked a fire. They clustered around the grey and solemn outer walls of the city, and the River Senne like children around a mother's skirts, and yet were not permitted access.
Within the walls, building standards were at least somewhat maintained, and though the tenements and houses would often rise perilously to three, even four or more stories, the tallest ones were built by proper earth mages, in stone, and so stood as islands of wealth and taste within a sea of commoner constructions. This was the city of Bruxlles proper, the capital of Tristain, but compared to the city within the inner walls, where the true nobility and the wealthiest of the merchants had their holdings, its commoner-borne poverty showed through.
The inner walls were notably taller and better maintained than the outer ones, and sheathed in marble, rather than grey stone. They were freshly cleaned and maintained, and stood in stark contrast to the other, lesser walls. Several former kings and queens had spent a lot of time, and money rebuilding the oldest city into a place of wide boulevards and marble. The cathedrals and churches and palaces were seamless constructs, earth mages raising them from the ground and building them without mortar, giving them a strength and beauty than no commoner-built structure could have had. White stone was capped with spires and domes of polished marble and bluestone, and gardens sprawled in the heights. From this distance, one could even see the enchantments carry the smoke away from the inner city. The palace dwelt in the precise centre, and stood almost as a city to itself, another set of fortified walls rising even higher than the ones of the inner city. Those walls were trimmed with gold ornamentation, and shone in the sunlight.
"My eyes," Gnarl muttered, his voice echoing in Louise's head. "It has got even more tasteless and disgustingly Good since the last time I saw it, and that is saying rather a lot. It makes me want to vomit. In fact, I think I will go throw up until I feel better about having seen that horrible sight."
There was a clatter and a scraping, and distant coughing, before Gnarl returned. "That city makes me quite nauseous," the elderly minion said. "And the hypocrisy of Good is quite obvious. Look at how only the rich get the terribly shiny things, while the poor live in admirable filth and squalor! Sometimes, Good can work out ways to oppress and control and subjugate and humiliate which previous Overlords have never dreamed of. And the way the wealth is all in the hands of a few means that looting and plundering is far easier! Like that palace!"
Louise paled. "I'm not going to loot Princess Henrietta's palace!" she hissed into her gauntlet. "Not a chance! She's one of my oldest friends." Actually she was basically the only person Louise knew who she could even remotely call a friend in the first place, but she was not about to admit that to Gnarl.
"Are you sure? If the treasure vaults are anything like the ones I remember, they are both very large and very full. If they haven't spent all the gold on decorating the walls of the palace, that is. And they may well have some of the tower's artefacts in there. But if you're going to be careful about political matters and keep the crown on side... well, I'm sure that there must be unpopular and wealthy nobles who your princess would like to see taken down a few pegs."
Well, the artefacts were hers by right, and some nobles were suspected of... no! She shouldn't even be tempted! "This topic is not a matter of discussion!" Louise snapped. "And nobles are the rightful rulers and so entitled to wealth! You say I'm an overlady... well, that just means I'm another kind of noble! Nothing changes!" She flapped the reins at her horse, which had taken the chance to pause and crop at a bush, and continued onwards.
...
Some way behind the nascent overlady was a cluster of five small children. They were certainly children, because they were dressed as children. Moreover, the fact that they would periodically go and kick over flowers, or steal chickens, or smash things just for the enjoyment of the noise they made, or occasionally jump travellers, beat them senseless, and take anything of value they were carrying merely confirmed in the eyes of anyone who saw them that they were about six years old.
The people of Tristain were well aware that children were pure and innocent. However, what they were pure of, and innocent from were rather more variable. Sometimes, like with this band of hellions, it was 'respect for property' and 'basic human kindness".
However, shockingly, these were not in fact children, but were in fact minions serving a force of terrible darkness. Hence, their lack of basic human kindness might have been viewed as part of their nature, and their disregard for property laws part of their job description.
Maggat adjusted his bonnet, and glared at his companions. "We not need more cluckies," he said. "We have lots of cluckies already."
"What we do now?" Igni asked, scratching his horns. The red minion smelt strongly of various alchemical reagents, and even more strongly of explosions. "We no can put cluckies back. Cluckie house on fire."
"It on fire because you set it on fire," Maximilian – who owed his name to a former Overlord who felt that naming minions personally encouraged loyalty – said. His floppy hat squirmed and fought as if there was a chicken underneath it, which coincidentally happened to be the case. With a look of concentration, the brown minion punched himself in the hat, and grinned when the fighting stopped.
Maggat folded his arms. "We wait for Scyl to go recover Fettid from pond where he chase duckie into," he said, with an annoyed glance over at where a drenched blue wearing a wimple was dragging a dead green out of the water. "Then we move on and you can burn cluckies, Igni, so we have hot meal. Then we go after Overlady. I have plan and that means we follow it, because it not right for Overlady to go off alone without loyal minions to loot things for her."
Maximilian grinned. "We helping, right."
"Yep!" Maggat agreed, idly watching as the blue bought the green back to life. "Well, that about all we need to do."
Igni raised a hand. "Can I's burn the house down?"
Maggat shook his head. "No. We is being sneaky-like here. Now, sneaky-like, we will sneak off like we is all greens. And maybe this time Fettid not drown."
"Not my fault," the soaked green managed, as they set off. "Duckie ran away and I ride it into water."
"Water is tricksy and cunning," Maximilian agreed. "We has to be careful about it. You know how my poem goes. 'There once was a sneaky lake/ Whose endless hunger could not slake / So it..."
"And no poetry. At all," ordered Maggat, hefting his rusty blade with a threatening look.
...
This... was not an area of Bruxelles she had ever been to before, Louise observed. Built up against the shores of the River Senne, this district was lower-middle income despite its proximity to the inner city. Maybe the sight of the shining walls lowered the price of housing here, because commoners didn't like having their faces rubbed in how they were inferior to the wealthy, she didn't know. She just followed Gnarl's somewhat vague instructions until she got sick of being lost, badgered him for the name of the place and asked for directions.
That had upset the elderly goblin for some reason. Apparently an overlady should not ask for directions, and the previous overlord would never have thought of doing that. Louise had suggested that the reason for that was that he was an overlord – ie, male – and Gnarl had gone quiet. Which was a blessing in itself.
And so she had found her way to the Charming Fairies Inn. The large, greystone building was slightly larger than the surrounding structures, and looked fairly prosperous and well-attired for a place of commerce and trade like this. Louise noted the roses growing by the entrance, and the hired guards, and mentally made an approving note. At least it was not some scummy waterside dive, which was what novels told her such mysterious contacts often dwelt. Raising her hood again, she entered.
The buzz of voices welcomed her in, along with a faint smell of wine and beer. Well, it was an inn, and that was to be expected. Someone jostled her aside as she waited in the entrance, and she went to shout at them before remembering she was meant to be here in disguise.
"Try to find a member of the serving staff you can talk to," Gnarl suggested.
"I know that!" Louise hissed under her breath. "What, do you think I've never done this kind of thing before?" And indeed, there was a slight gated off cubicle in a niche in the wall, just before the door which led to the main room. Through there, she could see women – rather underdressed women, she thought disapprovingly – serving drinks to the clientèle. Wait, no, there was an underdressed man. And... no, she had to focus.
The woman behind the counter was... decidedly female. And would have been described that way in any language one cared to mention, including Braille. Especially Braille. And any description of her in sign language would have involved cupping motions, and possibly the gesture for 'those things are trying to escape from her dress'. Louise raised her eyes to eye-level, tried not to feel jealous, and managed to blurt out, "I w-was sent here by a... by Gnarl."
"Gnarl," the woman said with an interestingly bouncy shrugging motion and a pronounced Gallian accent, looking down at a book in front of her. "Ah, yes, I have a scheduled reservation for a party of one for that name, under the name of Psueda Name. Is that correct?"
The girl nodded.
The woman unfastened the gate in front of her, leading Louise to a door behind her. "Take the steps down, Mademoiselle Name, and please, find a place to be seated," she said.
The stairs wound down underground. From the sense of height she had acquired from three months inside her ruined tower, Louise was fairly sure that she was going deeper than the basement of the building. She frowned at that, because this place was built beside the river; clearly they couldn't be doing too badly if they could afford the mages to waterproof the structure. The light down deeper was redder, and there was perfumed smoke hanging in the air.
And as she walked down a wood-lined corridor, she boggled at the sight of the – well, she been wrong in calling the serving staff upstairs scantily clad. They were not. Not compared to these ones. Louise de la Vallière felt her cheeks begin to blush, as the two men nodded her into the main underground room.
"Gnarl," Louise hissed into her gauntlet, "have you brought me to... to a place of... of ill-repute?"
"Oh no. No, no, no," he protested.
"Really? Because..."
"I am certain that people will speak very highly of it."
Louise pursed her lips. That was not what she wanted to hear. Young ladies like herself should not even know that this kind of place existed – though of course they did – and they certainly should not be in such a place. It was just as bad to be in one with a chaperone as it was to be in one without! It was barely better for her to be in here as technically-a-patron than it was for her to be in here as... as an employee!
She pulled her hood up. At the very least, she could manage to not be seen in this place. Louise looked around, and settled for one of the tables in the corner. Something which – God's will – would mean she would not attract the attention of one of the serving staff in that sense, because she very much did not want that. She settled down, making sure her back was against the wall, and rested her hands on her lap so she would not accidentally expose her metal-encased left hand to questions. Idly, her hand stroked the gem on it as she waited.
"Psst!" someone hissed at her, breaking her from her reverie. She jerked upright, and looked around wildly; a motion which was lost entirely by her long hood.
In front of her was a small group. The bright-blue-haired lead was clearly a noble, wand-sword slung at his belt, a breastplate evident under his mantle. However, he seemed to keep mixed company. There was a shifty looking woman at his side, with dirty-blonde hair and a musket slung over her back, and beside her was another woman dressed in a nun's habit – trimmed with the marks of a healer – holding a plain staff. Finally, there was a roughly dressed man with... Louise boggled... two things which looked like the offspring of a sword and a butcher's cleaver at his belt, his face a mess of scars. All of them were looking at her with expectant faces.
"What is it?" she said, warily.
The man looked around carefully. "The knightly owl hoots in the darkness only when it wishes to be heard," he hissed. "Else it jousts at cowardly mice."
Louise sighed. Who was this madman? "Begone, stranger; I am not waiting for you," she said imperiously. "Who cares what the owl does?"
The man did not go, but instead nodded. "Good," he said. "I come bringing ill-tidings. The Council takes more power for itself, and the Sevenfold Brotherhood finds it cannot stop the tides of change. Madame de Montespan is closing in on our commands, and we fear that she will use her influence to seize our holdings, despite the fact that we do not think she has concrete proof to what our branch in Amstelredamme has been doing. Water's Genesis is not safe from her prying eyes. We came as soon as we received your word that you had a new quest for us."
"I'm sorry, what?" the girl said, by now thoroughly confused. "Who even are you, and why did you not go away when I told you to go?"
The man blinked, and exchanged confused looks with his companions. "You gave the counterword," he said, slowly.
"What counterword?"
The woman with the musket groaned. "I told you that bloody phrase was too close to something someone could say normally," she hissed at her companion. "This is the Charming Fairies Inn, for Founder's sake; it's not like mysterious hooded..."
A black-robed and hooded figure rose, poking their head over the divide from the next seats. "What are you idiots doing?" it hissed. "Get over here!"
The noble shuffled uncomfortably. "Sorry, sorry, mistaken identity," he said, awkwardly. "Can you please forget what I said, please?"
The group left her field of vision, and Louise boggled. That had been... very strange. Maybe she needed a drink, to calm her nerves. No, that was a bad idea. She would have to take her hood down to catch the eyes of the serving staff, and she did not want them to misunderstand her intentions and...
Someone cleared their throat to her right. It turned out to be a woman, dressed all in black, with dark eyes which cut a sharp contrast to her pale skin. Her hair was shaved to a close-stubble; little clinking noises as she moved indicated the presence of hidden pieces of sharp metal on her person. She took a chair without asking, and leaned towards Louise, her arms propped on the table. "Dark master," she said, "the bishop of Nantes is dead. Command what you will of me, oh burning-eyed one."
"What?"
The pale-skinned woman blushed. "Sorry, sorry," she said hastily, "I was meant to be meeting a man. Um... I didn't realise you were female under that hood," She pulled herself to her feet and leapt away with a hint of an acrobat's grace, flicking a denier onto the table. "Get yourself a drink for the inconvenience," the shaven-headed woman said, disappearing back into the crowd.
... yes. She needed a drink, and drat the consequences. Wait. Burning... were her eyes glowing? Drat, drat, drat. And she couldn't use that minor magic until she calmed down, so... Louise looked left and right, and covered her eyes with her right hand, breathing deeply. She shouldn't think about how she was in a house of ill-repute, or how she kept on being approached by strangers – which she hated – or that...
"Ah, mademoiselle," a voice said, addressing her for the third time in about as many minutes. With a sigh, Louise peeked through her fingers, and then gasped at shock at the sight before her glowing eyes.
The man was… well, he was. He was. He existed, despite the immediate confines and constraints of such things as 'common sense' and 'human decency'. His broad shoulders, narrow waist with clearly evident sixpack, and bulging biceps would have been attractive on another; in many ways he was built like those pictures of ancient Romalian heroes which Louise had certain fond memories of. But there was a subtle cast to his face which disquieted the girl, though she could not pin it down – something which left her feeling chilled.
And his garb! Ay, his garb! It was positively indecent! It could hardly be much worse if he was entirely naked, in her opinion. His breeches were far, far too short, and he was unquestionably male; Louise really hoped that there was a codpiece down there, because that… that thing which kept on drawing her gaze made her want to cross her legs and wince. He wore a sleeveless jacket cut to expose his midriff, which somehow was worse than if he had merely been shirtless. And… yes, Louise thought, looking down – her eyes protectively skipping over the… the bulge – he was wearing clogs appropriate for a woman.
Oh, and he was wearing rouge, eyeliner, and lip-paint and his moustache had been waxed and trimmed elaborately, but even that normality – it was the height of male fashion at court at the moment, after all – was not enough to excuse the rest of his dress.
"Ah that's him," Gnarl said with satisfaction. "I'd recognise that moustache anywhere. S'kareryeon, Prince of the Abyss, Master of Lies, Corrupter of Men, how are you?"
The man beamed, the corners of his lips turning up a little more than was perhaps normal – or human. "Ah, tres bien," he said with an affected Gallian accent, "Gnarl, you old goblin, you! I have not heard from you in, oh! Eighty years! I had thought you might have abandoned me and our little friendship! And I go by 'Scarron' now!"
There was an embarrassed cough from the gauntlet. "Nothing so simple..." Gnarl began.
"Well, I am sure, mon ami, that you have all kinds of interesting tales to tell me of your great and Evil exploits! Unless you were stuck at the bottom of a hole for eighty years, I cannot guess what secret and dark deeds you have accomplished!"
"I was," Gnarl said. "A vampire killed my last Overlord and stole the tower and locked me in a cage."
"Ah! Oh well, I hope he was one of those dashingly handsome vampires, with the gorgeous floppy hair and the..."
"It was not. He was disgustingly bourgeois."
"Oh! My, my, my! Such a shame! We will need to catch up, mon ami, have a little tete a tete." Louise frowned. There were oddities in his pronunciation which led her to suspect that he did not actually speak Gallian, but was merely throwing in half-remembered phrases out of some kind of sense of obligation, she thought, as he turned his attention to her. "And, my! Gnarl, you come bearing gifts! Who is this adorable little girl with the glowing eyes! The daughter of your current overlord? My, my, someone wants his little girl to be precocious!"
Gnarl coughed, "Ah," he began, but not quite fast enough. Louise already had her gauntlet and the hand within it pointed at the man's face. And then with a moment's thought, the elevation dipped somewhat.
"No," Louise said, rising to her feet; a gesture which accidentally pulled down her hood. "Gnarl, how dare you make me visit this... this disgustingly uncouth man! I... I will not sit here and be casually insulted!"
"Sacre bleu!" the man - S'kareryeon, Scarron – exclaimed. "It is Karin, come in pocket-sized disguise to wreak havoc on me! I have done nothing wrong in sixty years! Spare me!"
"..." Gnarl did not say. "No, S'kareryon, you are spared that much. She is a new overlady, and one who shows rather a bit of promise in her mastery of cruel imperiousness and ill-temper. Why, she beats up, burns, hits or otherwise punishes her jester at every opportunity!"
The man wiped his brow. "Ah, thank all that is wrong," he said. "I was terribly afraid that a most dreadful woman would come and peel off all my skins with flaying winds for all kinds of minor wrongdoings in my past.
"Oh, don't sell yourself short," Gnarl commented. "You're the high prince of the Incubi and the lord of the rising tower, master of the one-eyed giants of Angarok and the purple-helmeted guardians of the V'hanemsaw depths. Your wrongdoings are rather more than minor."
Scarron flapped a hand in Louise's direction. "Oh, you charmer, you," he said, smiling. "But alas, I too am down on my luck for the last sixty years." He shook his head sadly. "You say you have been in a hole at the bottom of the ground for the last eighty years; well, I have barely fared better. But... ah! This is not a conversation for the public rooms like this." He bowed to Louise, a gesture which had him fold impossibly at the waist until his forehead was momentarily pressed against his shins, before he rose again.
"My dark lady," he said, graciously, "I must apologise with utmost sincerity for my most terrible doings in not recognising your power here, and assuming that you were Karin of the Heavy Wind using the Rite of the Tiger-in-Palm to come in most cunning disguise."
"Uh," said Louise, who was not sure what else she should say.
"Please, come with me; I feel we should talk in a more suitable place," he added. "Gnarl, you old goblin, I hear you have been putting out some petit feelers, looking for my services in particular, and that means I believe we can make a... how shall we say it, deal."
"That is the intention," the elderly minion said, as Louise followed the man – the demon – down to another doorway, and down a second flight of stairs which left her with the nauseating feeling that she had been walking on the spot, unmoving even as she descended.
The pair of them emerged into a room much like the one they had just left. Much like, but not identical. For the light was even redder here, and the smoke was thicker. There were windows mounted in the walls, and through it fires could be seen burning and the movement of half-seen figures.
But the main difference was in the clientèle. In the last room, there had been a disreputable bunch of hard-faced men, armed women, mysterious strangers in black robes sitting in the corner of the room, and other such individuals who contribute mightily to society in various ways – mostly in the fields of acts of premeditated crime, conspiracy, and looting the hoards of dragons. In this place, the individuals were of a rather more demonic nature, although otherwise fairly similar. Busty horned women festooned in pistols played dice games against small imps who snorted lines of blackpowder, while a winged man with blue-black skin juggled eyeballs on stage.
Everywhere, there was the chatter and hiss and shriek of voices raised in conversation and raucous laughter. A few denizens turned to stare at the black-robed figure with the glowing eyes who had just entered, but Louise did not appear to be sufficiently interesting or unusual to keep them from their entertainment.
"Oh," Louise said, faintly. The entire scene looked like an instructional artwork of the fate of sinners after death, and... she hastily patted herself to check for any puncture wounds that she may or may not have acquired on her trip here, because it would be just her luck that someone had actually murdered her and this was where she ended up.
"Ah! Mi mademoiselle!" one of the horned servers said, bouncing up to Scarron. "Welcome back! And who is this Evil-eyed lady you have with you? A first time guest? How wonderful!"
"I know, I know darling," the man replied, with an extravagant air-kiss. Scarron took Louise's arm in the manner of the court. "Welcome to the Abyssal branch of the Charming Fairies Inn," he said, smiling a smile which nearly linked ear to ear. "A friend of Gnarl is always a friend here; I will have to make sure you get a membership pass. But, come, come! We must drink, and then get down to business! In harsh times like this, with the crown princess arrested and the Council having assumed the regency in the Queen's distress, there is always a chance for Evil to make a profit!"
Louise paused. Blinked. Blinked again.
"Wait. What?"
Scarron's eyebrows raised. "You have not heard? Where have you been for the last two months, at the bottom of a hole in the ground?"
"Yes!"
…
