The Devil's Tail

[Shiress]

4th Day Spring 513AV Green eyes open to a blue sky dotted by white puffs of clouds. A small figure of a woman sits upright, satiny soft brown hair, sides pulled tightly up beneath a crown of white daisies, locks flowing down gently upon her chest and white ribbons falling down her back. She wears a white silk gown that mimics the bright sunlight. It lays against flawless skin that bears no marks nor scars. A tapestry of perfect color adorns the skin of her face. Thin dark lines define piercing green eyes, a perfect tint to her cheeks above glistening pink lips. Two hands lift, no flaws. Two palms open, no burns. Two wrists turn, no chains. White silk gown outlining thin legs, a hand lowers to slide the gown over slender thighs, no scars. A hand presses against soft skin exposed beneath a drooping collar, no brand. Gentle breaths raise and lower the hand as a steady heart is felt beneath. By her side, her slim arm stretches out a hand presses against the green grass, the other glides up silk fabric coming to rest upon her small shoulder. Sight fades beneath dark colored lids, satin hair wafts up curling against a growing wind as a growl of thunder crawls slowly across the darkening sky.

[Philomena]

The crackling spark of a cloud.

The sky does not invite me, here,
She wants to cast me out

The crackling spark of a cloud, grown and heavy with the sodden pregnancy of a storm.

The sky will carry only light hearts,
And mine is grown to lead

The cloud rumbles, groans, and hisses at the girl, tucked inside. A small girl, clean and wearing fresh white linen, clinging to her damp with rain.

No, sky, no,
Don't send me down, again,
No, sky, no,
Don't send me down, again!

The hissing whistle of a thundercrack, the sky does not drop the bundle, but thrusts it to earth with a ping of electric hatred, and the girl cries out in a voiceless, silent whine.

And now she lays black on the thirsty green earth, now she lays, coverd in the soot of her own white mantle, a naked spare-fleshed ugly girl, far uglier than the real world would create. And her face is in her hands, shivering. She does not show, but scrabbles about with her right hand - the right is struck in clean white ivory skin, strange against the sooty black of the arm.

The earth yields up a gift to the naked child, to cover her indecency: five masks. She takes the Mask of the Fact-speaker, on its slender bieech-wood rod, and lifts it before her face, arising slow, into a form. The form is Philomena Lefting, in plain black shift, and the mask is clear and passionless, its hollow eyes unperturbed.

She steps forward, her feet strange on the soft and grassy earth. So odd for her, so odd for her dreams, dreams of grey cities and brown streets and narrow stony apertures. And there before her kneels a memory.

In the earth, there is Shiress, the child, her Shearsy-dear. It makes Minnie small, small to nearly the age that Shearsy was when last she left. She holds the mask tight in a shaking hand, but the mask stays smooth and calm, the only face she has.

But it is not shearsy. It is hollow, waiting, a drift of dreamwood, waiting to be awoken. Shearsy kneels before it, and the is broken, floating, suspended above the body. The child-Minnie reaches tiny, ash-grubbed fingers on her black left hand and takes the torn skirt, lifts it - a deep red scar throbs at the thigh.

Gasps. Gasps. Gasps.

She touches the red scar, and whimpers, pulling,drawing down, drawing down, drawing down, her hands scrabble over a name, inscribed in the girls breast with fire, and she gasps again, and clutches the body close.

But the face is pale, emotionless, the mask unfeeling porcelain. It speaks only coldness, the gasp of pain echoing strangely, falling from her eyes in tiny hisses.

She draws the broken girl close, and takes her form to the dream-body. And turns the dream-self over, to dream buttons on her neck. She tears the dreamer's dress to make the buttons trace along the vertebrae, from just below the satin hair, to just at the back's base. Her finger interlace, the white and the ash-black, undoing the tiny buttons with a shivering vigor that resonates across the true-Shearsy's broken skin. She pulls them free, and takes the broken self up, in shaking hands.

And the face is still blank. Still cold. Still almost scornful in its unaffectedness.

The dream-body is hollow, smooth inside, and Minnie takes the Shearsy-soul, and presses, presses, presses, presses in, until the body's filled with her, and starts to fight the buttons shut. It leaves the body lumpy, like a poorly manufactured doll. The final butons clasp, and Minnie shivers fast,a nd looksat the soft, smooth back, and kisses it - but it is the press of cold, unmoving porcelain lips.

She takes, then, her ivory hand, and pressing it against the soot black nail of the other, tears the tender, translucent flesh, so that it starts to draw forth blood. She presses the finger against the lumpy back, and draws, slow, steady whorls of blood. Long, looping, red letters. She writes a name across it.

"Philomena"

And the flesh begins to smooth and quicken, begins to be alive. She sets it careful as it was, the clean smooth hand laid gently in the satin hair. It leaves a trail of her hot blood down the girl's perfect face, along her throat, and down along her breast bone.

[Shiress]

Falling calmly through darkness. A small pale hand appears touching a flailing arm. Darkness rushes in toward her then silence, a heat from the sun against her back, a hint of light beneath close lids, a warm breeze felt tossing her hair. Shiress slowly opened her eyes, her body heavy, her gaze set out against green grass. Her chin lifts slowly off her shoulder, her breaths heave in fear as her frightened heart pounds. Eyes scan left to entangle in thick forest, then right to climb mountains to snowy white peaks that taper off into flashing dark clouds. Shiress slowly sits upright hearing a clang of rustling chains as she shifts. Her arms lift out in front of her, she see's no chains, but feels the iron against her flesh. Her eyes glide down the glistening silk gown covering her legs, she reaches her confined hands and pulls the gown above her thigh, her fingertip runs across an unseen thick scar. A hand raises to her chest, fingertips glide across skin feeling her masters mark, her eyes lowers to flawless skin beneath streaks of red. A crack of thunder rumbles, she looks upward to deep threatening clouds, flashes of light hissing through them. Her gaze falls to a small figure standing silent beside her, relief rushes in as she smiles and begins to stand "Auntie Lefting." Her smile quickly fades as she stood upright, her auntie's face remains motionless, lifeless, glistening flawlessly in the light of the sun, dark hallow eyes directed at her Shiress shifted her sight to a pale hand covered in crimson liquid, her bound hands move to touch the blood on her own chest. Shiress begins to speak, but fear quietens her, a deafening roll of thunder surrounds her body as the urge to flee takes hold. She steps out to run, but blinded shackles holds her in place, she begins to sob as her body twists around, her eyes scanning the darkening land around her, she feels hidden evil moving closer She looks back to the small figure "Pllease hhelp me" She begged, but the small woman remained frigid and unmoved

[Philomena]

Minnie felt the cold frigidity of her face, struggled, pushed against it with her mind. Oh! Shearsy! She longed to take the girl and kiss her frightened face, her sore wrists, her scars, her brands, still there, she knew, just under the pitch-pale skin. Oh! Shearsy! But her lips were cold and still, and her eyes were empty, black, and spoke only truth, and love, love, love is too great to be spoken as truth.

And so she couldn't speak those words. Her white hand tried to speak, spoke soft and low words across the girl's face, tracing its bloody finger now, down teh lines of her neck, slowly, wordlessly, drifting gently across her collarbone, to reach, the clear, smooth skin of the girl's upper breast, just reach the edge of her neckline, drawing circles, slowly around... the brand. The brand that rested just beneath. She felt the brand, her eyes closing - this alone,perhaps, could she do, for the mask-eyes closed, slowly, as tiny child fingers traced round and round slow circles on the sensitive skin. She felt beneath the cloud of outerflesh, the brand, the trees of it, the clinging vine of it, hthe prowling beasts, and then her fingers pressed hard, very hard against the heart of it, willing it gone, willing it away, the helplessness of the dream body infused into the fruitless effort - for it did nothing, only she could feel her hand sending the memory of the hidden mark out in waves of cruel, stabbing pain to her niece.

She opened her eyes, and listened as her voice, but not words she had known, came through the still, cold lips of the truthteller.

"The wood... you come from the wood, daughter. The wood, you come from it. Do you know its name? The name of the wood is The Brand. Do you know its name?"

She closed her eyes, opened them again, straining, straining to speak, her heart burning with words: //I love you my girl, oh how I love you, come home, come home, come rest on my heart, and let me comfort you//

But the eyes stayed black and cold. And the lips calm and still. Only a red, blood-tear fell slowly , heavy and fat with scarlet, down her cheek from the corner of her left eye.

"The mountain, daughter. Do you know its name? Do you know its name? You must go to it. But you cannot, until you give to it a name."

[Shiress]

Shiress felt cold and rigid, a thousand hands held onto her keeping her motionless. Her chest burned in the wake of the fingertip, leaving a trail of burning blood against her skin as it moved slowly across her flesh then resting against her scar. A torturous pain was sent through her chest, shooting out between her shoulder blades, her arms stiffened and forced out to her side, her head sent back with a ghastly shriek echoing up through the wind as her body plummeted to the ground. As her body fell against the earth her eyes flew open, her sight settling on gently swaying tree tops against a stormy sky, she sat up bringing her wrist to her front, feeling free of the weight and unseen iron. Her eyes slowly move around thick wood, ghostly shadows dancing against tree trunks as the storm clouds chase the sunlight from the forest canopy, slowly standing upright as leaves begin to swirl around her feet A forceful wind blows against her body, her silk gown presses against her form, her long hair drifts off her shoulders. A roar of thunder comes from behind her, slowly she turns to see a small figure of a woman against the treeline her arms outstretched sending darkness pushed toward against a blast of wind Her body twists around in fear and she begins to run deeper into the wood.

[Philomena]

Minnie watched as the girl struggled against her, and moaned low in her chest, a moan of feear and apartness, It flew into her mask, and filtered out as a low, mechanical hissing. Shearsy darted, and Minnie stopped, became in another place, for she saw the way the child ran - toward the brand, toward the brand...

Minnie went before the wood, and lifted her arms, and her arms were wind, and she lunged forward with them, desperately, trying to touch the girl's face, to carress her back, to push her away, to point her to the mountain. But the force of it cam strong and fierce from her, and leaves and sand and gravel flew in great spirals from before her. Seh tried to pull the wind back, but it was too large, and simply swirled, twirling around the girl, drawing hard at the torn seam cross her back, crawling inside the silk scratch and nip at her naked skin.

Minnie shook her head and moaned, for the sand began to accrete atop the marks and scars, and Shearsy still fought toward the forest. And then, Minnie sang a songbird out, and it was a black and sleek and quick, and had a soft-toned, feathered throat, and it flew out from her lips, to sing peace and calm, and love. But it melded into the wind, and tore through the air, growing, pulsing, into a great, heavy blue raven, that struck the girl, and dgripped its talons across the girl's chest, and drove its beak wildly against the spot that hid the brand. It croaked, hateful and fierce and wild, and pulled and tore and ripped, its wings a whirl of blue-black feathers and air, driving the girl down, driving, pushing her down.

And then the birds feathers leapt from its tail as it tore at the girl's chest, and they danced across her tender skin, making lines of black, fluid ink, that spelled a story, slowly threading over the girl's arms.

"Death, death... death to the brand. There once was a girl, who ran back to her brand, and it was death."

The feathers flurried over her face, driving words into her cheeks, into her eyelids when she blinked, into her lips, into her tongue. Her lips agian, her lips, her full red lips, stained blacker and blacker by a thousand secret words.

"My child will be clean and beautiful. I will not raise a gutterslut. My child will be pure and untouched. I will not raise another meat-hook."

[Wrenmae]

"Enough"

And it was a whisper that roared with the force of a gale. And from Shiress' lips was born a smoke that smothered the black-glinting words, tore them askew as black and white and grey and colors beyond counting poured from her open throat, forcing the bird to reel, wing back around.

And as it dove the smoke became words, became sentences and paragraphs. It was a bird as well, a black wren with green-glint feathers that rose into the stories of the truthsayer.

"And they said the hook that touched the meat burned lies from bone, and the truth of flesh grew and man became, became and was."

Philomena's own scars burned, bright harrowing balefire burning through her imperfections, burning through Shiress' brand, through the smoke that became.

Became man in cloak.

Became Wren.

And as the birds dived and crowed, spoke in their gibberish tongue, the trees around Egyptus died and withered, the forest falling to ash and ruins around them all.

In his half-waking nightmares, his influence spread through their joined minds like poison, at once bright in the hues of infected sores and oozing pustules and then giving way to the shared psyche.

And he was shadow and smoke once more, barely there enough to speak, but his words came as blood when his bird was stricken.

They were all three here, bound commonly to Mina.

But none were fully awake.

[Shiress]

The girl ran, but passed no trees, her legs driving her deeper into the forest but she went no further. It came from behind her, a song of heavy wind, tearing across the earth's floor, breaking through the trees, bearing down on the girl. The winds grew and formed, it's sound twisted into a growl as a great bird took shape Then it came, the first blow: Piecing talons across her chest, shredding white silk that hid her tender skin, another strike from the birds sharp beak ripped and tore at her flesh, finally forcing her back against the forest floor. She lay watching the raven bird flail wildly over her, it's feathers falling off and sliding, carving across her skin. Her arms flung about, hands grasping and pushing at the feathers, but she could not find them Her chest expanded with a deep breath, though she pulled no air through her mouth. The air lingered, festering, pulling from the girl what made it grow, what strengthened it until it well fed Emerald green eyes rolled away beneath slowly closing lids as the festering breath began its journey, an arching back caused her chest to thrust out opening her throat spilling the breath to her mouth, pushing it passed her lips. Her eyes remained closed as a roar of voices ensued then turning against the girl, the words burned and drove against her branded chest and wrist, parting her mouth in a silent scream that lifted her body and stood the girl to face man and woman. Remnants of smoke drifted slowly from her plush red lips as green eyes gently open, slender arms motionless by her side, a wrist bearing her own name seeps blood that spills from her skin as white smoke that wafers gently toward the woman. The slave mark of her chest, too, spills crimson, taking to the air as black smoke that bears upon the man as an armed villain to war The smoke pulled from the marks, draining, taking all from the girl, breaking her, wearing her down until nothing but smoke wafted away from where she once stood. The smoke lingered, swirling the air before each. The black ash before the man spiraled and from it's core was formed a man, a large man born of agony and enslavement. This man lifted his hand and from Gypa's chest came shadows. These shadows encircle the hand that drew them and from this was formed a mighty sword whose hilt glowed a brilliant red. The white ash before the woman spiraled and from it's core came smaller twin spirals, from these formed against the earth, a golden quill dipped in golden ink and a book whose pages bore no marks.

[Philomena]

Blackness... blackness... this color of blackness she knew. This color and sound, this hissing, this great black bird. These were not strangers. And she knew he had come. Gypa had come.

Her heart felt sick and full and hungry all at once, and she began to grow smaller, needier, smaller, needier. Her Shiress, she was strong. Her Shearsy, she was the priestess, the wise-woman, the one she raised to be strong and great. Her Wren, he was the one she raised to tell stories. Her Gypa... and she looked at him, now, and knew, with a sickly horror, what she had done to him. She looked hard at him, and she saw him for what he was. Her fingers rose and she held him - but not him, a doll. She touched his face, and his hair grew golden, long, his face narrowed, grew feminine. His clothing wavered, changed, the lank dress of a Kennel Girl.

Lanie.

And then, then she knew. She knew what she had done. She had not raised Gypa, she had pressed him, trained him, urged him, taught him to be... what she needed. And she looked again, at the black bird.

A carrion bird.

Vayt's bird. A thousand-thousand years ago the Bird Lady had pinned a black wren over Minnie's pillow, and Lanie had become the bird. The Bird that Brought Death. And Minnie taken her son, and nightly kneaded, pulled, pressed and formed, and made for him, his own pair of wings, and made of him a Death-in-Life, just like his mother before.

And Minnie felt sick, her mind revolted against the sight with such revulsion, that it nearly tore her awake. But a figure, a second Minnie appeared behind, a horrible monstrous Minnie, younger, angry, uglier, fiercer, hateful and cruel, her lips curled into a sneer. And it spoke with the hiss she kept within her own mind, the hiss of hatred.

"Wake? Escape? Don't you dare, you petching gutterslut coward. You filthy beast. You daughter of shyke. Kneel down. Kneel down, take the quill, and write it down. You wanted to be a petching Qalayan, did you? You and your filth-soaked prayers. Write it down. Stop pissing yourself, and write, you worthless thing. That's it."

And she did, she fell to her knees, tried to take the plume, failed. Her hand flew through, and her fingers shook. She reached her hand into the earth, and found a heavy stone, and took it, smashed it hard against her face, the mask shattering, leaving blood and glassy shards of ceramic scattered over the book.

And beneath, nothing. Behind the broken mask, nothing. No face, no skin, no blood, no flesh, nothing. Simply... nothing. An empty place far blacker than the feathers of her son. The cruel laughter of the hate-Minnie rang out cruelly.

"Well done. Well done. We've been a monster so long, why not make a face for it? Tell the truth now. Tell the truth, tell the truth. Tell how we sent our sister-love away. Tell how we've murdered two of our children, and how we've branded a slave-mark on the third. Tell it all. Write! Write Gutterslut!" The voice grew frantic, frightened, cracked, desperate, terror, terror, terror in it. "Minnie Lefting, for once, you petching bitch, write me down! One petching time, write me down!"

And the hate-child began to cry, heavy, red tears, and Minnie took the quill up. Then tried to write.

//Qalaya, I am this monster, with the broken face.//

The page crumpled, burnt, floated into the air, dissolved.

She tried to write it again.

It crumpled, burnt, floated into the air, dissolved.

She felt then, the sick release of surety. She stood, reached, and clutched one of the black feathers, floating, took it in her hand. The frets of it sliced at the flesh of her hand, and drank her blood into the well of its center. She set the quill tip to the page.

//Qalaya... I do not have a story, that I know how to tell, of myself. But I have three children, all beautiful. //

Her head did not move, and yet she looked, though no more had she eyes.

//My child, my Shearsy, my brave priestess, Qalaya, whisper to her one more poem, for I have written her a Book of Days but could not teach her the Book of Nights.

What is the chain, that binds the foot?
What is the brand that burns the skin?
The shackle rubs the ankle raw,
But cannot touch the soul.

Love is the only chain that binds,
Love is the only fire that burns
Love rubs the skin of the soul straight through,
But Love alone, though hard and cruel,
Can make the spirit whole.//

The eyeless eyes look again. And she sighs, and sets pen to paper again, and writes.

//My child, of the stolen heart, my Gypa, slave of his body-mother's past, Whisper to him Qalaya, the secret of the Ukalas, that I have--//

Her body shook, and melted smaller, dark and tired and empty husked.

//That I have made a road for him, that seeks a story's end. But all the ends the story has are wicked, but for one. And if he need a hand to worship she who is the final goddess, I will draw close to him, and I will pull the blade across his tender throat. And I will draw my courage up and live, when I am done. And I will write the story down, and break my oaths to Lanza-mae. And Wrenmae Wanderer, at last, will sail into the stars.//

And Minnie set the Quill down, and the voice of what she wrote pierced clear and sweet as eyes of deepest, deepest, ever-knowing blue, the bluer eyes of memory. The eyes that write things down.

[Wrenmae]

"The bitch wants us dead."

That was Shroud, the no-more shade of mental shambles past. Torn from Wren when the sword was pulled from his chest, that back nothing, that soot within him. Poison to make a blade of rubied blood and carrion-black steel. The giant towered over him. Imass, perhaps, or someone else...Ximal. But that oaf had never carried a sword never...never

And he was three again.

"Mom wants to help us," Gypa said quietly, tugging at trailing edge of smoke-cloak across Wren's shoulders, "We've gone too far, you know that now."

"And once upon a time there was a boy who wanted to tell a story so great...that the gods themselves would delight in attendance." Weaver now, a smile floating below the shadows cast by a too-broad hat. "But the gods did not listen to his tale, no, no, they puppeted him, danced him like a toy, and made him a weapon."

"I am not a weapon!" He shouted at Laviku, tall and broad for an instant, looming over them with seaweed beard and piercing, cold eyes, "Take your burn-touch off my flesh! I can be redeemed! I can be-"

"Selfish." Gypa now, "This isn't your dream and you make it about yourself."

"Shut up, petch," Shroud leered at the child from his phantasmal abode, "We do the work no one else can. We are the godhand now. No time for tears, your petty shattered dreams. You asked for this. You shook his petching hand."

"And did that boy learn his less?" Weaver crooned, "We ask ourselves most every day. And in our vault, our barely breached dam, we take our bets on what will crack first. His resolve or his mind, for one will swiftly follow the other, as these things always do..."

"That girl," Gypa tugged at smoke-Wren, "She needs help. Can't you see she's in pain?"

The soldier rose above them all, Minnie's voice still ringing in the background.

"I will go to die," Wrenmae said slowly, "When my time has come."

"Petcher," Shroud spat, "You're nothing without me."

There was a dagger in his hand, the dagger still red-slick with his blood. And he was bleeding, the second mouth his mother had carved into his throat wept the tears he could no longer shed.

And he stood against the giant.

"Let her go."

"Mother cannot help us now, she's just as broken as we all are."

"Trash. Petcher, We are the plague-kind, the fate of the lessers. We bring judgement."

"Staff in hand, or was it dagger? He was killer and savior, the tortured king. Bow ye, bow ye, incline your head for the cursed and the damned."

Wrenmae took the blade and stepped forward, beneath the giant, holding up the dagger.

"I do not know you. I do not know what pain you've suffered, what torment you've felt. But release her. We are all greater than our pasts."

Petcher!

Remember who we were.

And they never lived happily after again.