Quincunx

Minta's paralysis broke when the zombie carriage peeled itself away from its occupant. She backed hastily away as the girl in yellow numbered each disintegrating rib. Her indigo eyes stretched wider as she backed into the wall of her family's cottage. The girl in yellow ripped the last strands of flesh from around her waist, counting, ". . .twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-FIVE!" She stepped down from the platform, head high, eyes unfocused. With each step, innumerable silver bells tinkled on her wrists and ankles. Thump tinkletinkletinkle, thump tinkletinkletinkle. . . Half of the ghouls surrounded the collapsing carriage, raspy tongues snaking out of their mouths; the other half formed a semicircle around Minta and the girl in yellow. Thump tinkletinkletinkle, thump tinkletinkletinkle. . . The girl halted in front of Maralinda, pointed at the pile of zombified flesh, and commanded, "Tell me. Tell what that is as this what I am doing is." "Tell her what that is called," a ghoul clarified, slobbering venom. Minta's teeth chattered. She gasped and managed to stammer, "Z-z-zzzzom-b-b-ies!" "Z-o-m-b-ee-s," the girl repeated slowly, pronouncing each sound separately. "This is as I am doing now. . . .It is not here now. It was eaten. Eat." The ghouls ate. Minta hid her eyes in her hands, but could not shut out the rips and rasps of the feast. The girl in yellow watched impassively, taking a small abacus and shuffling the beads about. As the heap of flesh disappeared, the girl removed a pouch from her belt and opened it to reveal many wooden disks; the ghouls left the village as she laid eight disks in a row in the dirt, consulting the abacus. "You," she told Maralinda, "come here. I do not know what this is that I do. . . .Help me." Minta peeked between her fingers. Finding the undead gone, she looked at the row of coins. Each one was marked with a number: eighteen, fifteen, nineteen, five, thirteen, one, eighteen, twenty-five. The girl in yellow turned them over to reveal "ROSEMARY". "Rosemary," read Minta. "That is as I am." "Your name?" Rosemary sighed and answered, "It is as I am; those (pointing to each letter in turn) are what I have, but I do not have what you say. I say, but I do not have. Understand?" "No," groused Minta. To Be Continued. . .

The trade was arranged. The shepherdess Theodora and her new husband packed their belongings on the sheeps' backs and prepared to travel to the distant kingdom. Maralinda watched her sister, sniffing occasionally. Minta's time in the mage guilds had stunted her growth so that she appeared only half as old as she was. Now here was her five-years-younger sister getting married, and she hadn't even outgrown her baby fat yet. She rubbed chubby fists into her moist indigo eyes and borrowed the wool of a nearby sheep for a tissue. Theodora caught the head of a protesting ram under her arm and held the beast still as she told Minta, "Don't worry. I'm not going far. Also, our new village is sending a girl to you just about my age. She'll be like another sister to you." "I don't want another sister. You're my Dora." Theodora's husband carefully seated himself upon the ram. Dora freed its head, and the beast held its horns high. He tied reins to the horns, then jumped down. They caught and reined another ram as Dora again told Minta, "Don't worry, don't cry. Be nice to the new girl." Seating herself upon the first ram, Theodora whistled to the herd. Her dark violet hair, streaming loose, bobbed above the milling sheep. She nudged her ram towards the boundaries of the realm, her husband guiding the sheep from the rear. Minta sat upon a fence, watching them go, unnoticed tears smudging her dirty cheeks. She sat for hours, ignoring her mother calling her in to supper, ignoring nightfall, ignoring the houses bolted tight. A low shuffling finally drew her out of her reverie. Along the same road which Theodora had traveled, many feet thumped in the dust. Hoping to see the herd and her sister returning, Minta hopped down from the fence and ran along the road a little way. The retinue shambled into view. A dozen ghouls formed the perimeter, glowing eyes illuminating the darkness around them, venomed claws held in the gesture of a rearing horse, flaccid skin pooling around their ankles and turning their lower lips into oblongs that hung upon their chests. Within their protection, a great mass of rotting flesh shambled and swayed down the road, with two or three feet hitting the ground every second. A flash of yellow showed in the center of the decay. Maralinda was rooted to the spot with fear. Barely daring to breathe, she strained to discern the details of the central being. As the ghouls parted, the spiderlike construction skittered into the town, weaving sideways like a crab. In the torchlight from the tavern, Minta lost count of the many zombie limbs which supported the center, of the many bare bones which had ripped free during the journey. The flesh in the center had been shaped into a crude dais, and upon this sat the girl in yellow. To Be Continued. . .

Blitz One Banquet Hall, summer 1999

Aeson gloried in his gift. It did not come from the devils themselves; that would affront him, as an angel, and kill him instantly. Their righteously slain bodies left greasy outlines when they decomposed; it amplified his thoughts when he anointed his temples with this salve. Whims became reality, and sentient creatures were not immune. Thus did the beasts of hell serve the desires of heaven. When he had first realized this, he descended to earth. That he had not been summoned out of heaven troubled him not. * Sonje tossed her lance aside as the devils swarmed ever closer. The valkyrie, maddened by the infernal heat which had melted her shield to nothingness, leaped at the nearest devil and throttled it. With her face contorted, she snarled and slashed specially sharpened chilled teeth across its throat. Swiftly she flung the corpse aside as it collapsed and lunged towards another devil. Aeson, the dominion, spread four massive wings and halted in the midst of the devil blizzard, holding steady against their current. Keeping his hands tucked safely away from the taint, he drew in a single deep breath and exhaled mightily. Devils screamed as the holy vapor melted their wings and chilled their flames, falling from the sky and disintegrating into a greasy rain. * Devils were useless creatures. Mages wasted resources in summoning them, they laid waste, and then others wasted time destroying them. They left behind neither meat nor hide, unlike any other creature. No magical items sprung from the site of their deaths. Only Sonje knew how to glean good from devils. If eaten while still alive, devils could fuel the warrior dominion who destroyed them. That she had not been born of heaven troubled her not. Sonje gloried in her gift. * Aeson pressed his palms into the devils’ remains as if thrusting them back into hell. Sonje touched her lance to the last infernal flames, smothering them. Aeson slicked back his hair from his dry brow as Sonje chilled her icy sweat into vapor. He looked at her with jealousy and need. Sonje obeyed the picture. Aeson discovered her hand beneath his chin while she kissed him without tongue. She broke away, touched her nose to his, and turned to leave. Aeson swallowed the chunk of flesh which he found in his mouth, and was instantly hungry for more.

Frost Archmage Conservatory (Stories), May 2001

(Helenus and Vivien stood on either side of the doorway again, their crystalline wings held at right angles to their gazes. Vivien tapped her fingers delicately against her throat, opening her mouth as if to speak. Helenus held his hand out and lowered it; she folded her hands in her lap. Helenus's gaze became distant as he recounted the tale.) Aeson and Sonje, my dear, were wronged long before we first came to this plane. They descended physically from heaven; they were not called down as we were by magical rites. That mage whose lands they defended saw that as a symbol of their terrifying power. It should have terrified them, but they were cursed not to see it. Aeson's namesake had won great renown and gambled it away in cruel pacts and vainglory. Sonje had been a valkyrie in life, it was rumored, whose power came with her blind and ruthless opposition to Fire. Together the force of their personalities could reduce any opponent to a steaming heap of flesh, and their powerful limbs would fling the offal to the skies. Even when the foulskinned devils violated the borders and withered the archangels' mortal forms, they charged in recklessly and ripped devils to shreds with teeth and fingers. The taste must have entered their proud brains and inflamed them. Despite all protests, the next day they bared their wings and rampaged through the devil mage's lands; their desire for revenge tainted the air they exhaled, withering vegetation and sickening animals. When the devils rose to confront them, they desecrated all holy vows and initiated combat. Newly summoned to support them, we flew in, you and I, but were too far behind to join the combat. All we could do was watch, as devil's blood ran from their mouths and clouded their eyes, as devil's flesh spotted their clothes and fused to their skin, as they fused with each other and with the demons they devoured. (Vivien closed her eyes. The sounds of crystal striking crystal echoed as she wiped away tears with her wingtips. Helenus held his arms out before her, as though he would like to comfort her, but was forbidden to do so.) And then, for the last time, we heard them--it--speak. "I am I'on'e," it wheezed, in a voice that would have made an old lecher's skin grow cold. "Taste of the death that breeds in my breath. Speech is corrupting as deed. My fluids are foul as Lucifer's soul. He has one." It lifted its distorted double skull, and smiled at us, "Take heed." You could never recall the frenzied retreat, our longing to escape the leering face of our corrupted cousins, your dragging me away from the battlefield. As punishment for not destroying the creature, you were forbidden to ever let your emotions show again. They died within you. I have to carry them for both of us. (Helenus glowed again with grief, and I had to avert my eyes. While my head was turned, I heard the crystalline music rise to unbearable pitch; he and she must have launched into a re-creation of the panic flight. When the noise and light faded and I could lift my head, they were gone. This recorded by Rydia in Heldentime of Tyuli 22, in her realm. Peace upon them both.)

With the recent death of Spud, his hopelessly unskilled replacement botching half of the drinks ordered, and the departure of several prominent mages, the Banquet Hall had become much less inviting in the past fortnight. "Speaking of armies," Rydia commented to the greatly diminshed crowd at her table, "I'm wondering when those gloomy dominions Helenus and Vivien are ever going to smile. If there's anything intimidating in this life, it's a pair of five-meter tall dark-haired dominions with perpetual frowns and the tendency to express opinions by slaying whoever disagrees with them. . ." Behind her, the rats and hellhounds rooting around for scraps yowled in sudden pain. As the rushes covering the floor were enveloped in a fierce aura, the beasts died, desiccated, and blew away on the sudden wind originating from nowhere. From the purified portion of floor, the pair of dominions arose to confront their mistress. Vivien barely had to lift her arms to rest her hands heavily upon Rydia's shoulders and paralyze her. Leaping onto the table and crouching before Rydia, so as to look into her eyes, Helenus broke the ponderous silence. "We have seen one of our number fall to Corruption." Vivien covered Rydia's face with her right hand, shielding her eyes from Helenus's glow of grief. Rydia pulled the shawl over her exposed shoulders, feeling them blister in the white-hot forcefield. Cowering back into Vivien's sackcloth robe, Rydia hid herself amongst the scratchy folds. She only dared peek out when Helenus's thunderous footsteps no longer shook the floor of the Hall. Unfurling her glassy wings, Vivien crouched and launched herself after Helenus. The wind of her passing knocked Rydia back onto the bench. The other mages watched Vivien glide low through the Hall, noting with amusement the young mages of all colors withdrawing into their robes like turtles into their shells. No nether mage stepped forward to claim the fallen dominion, or tell its story, perhaps fearing the retribution of the scarred ones. Rydia was left with a name ringing in her mind--I'on'e--and the stubborn curiosity which was always hers. To Be Continued. . .

Corruption Blitz One Banquet Hall, 1999?

Rydia set an apple pie to cool on the Cabaret Room windowsill, then stopped for awhile and wrote down answers with green ink: 1. purple_shadows 2. capsule monster 3. gliding 4. Merelas 5. pegasi 6. capsize 7. sidewalk cafe 8. masquerade ball 9. frisk 10. purify 11. apple 12. vacuum 13. squiggly 14. parking meter She turned to check on the pie, but it was gone! The pie tin sat there, completely empty!

All hail Jechum, who taught us that blind agreement tends make the agreeing person look somewhat silly.

Tzimfemme sauntered into the area and used the public quill after banging it on the table a few times to knock the ink into its point: 1. troubled sleep 2. hyrax 3. shoveling 4. drummondo 5. semi-sweet 6. . . . She paused for a long while, trying against all instinct to not name someone via their underwear. A smirk broke the surface of her face and submerged again. 6. white bathrobe 7. hitchhiking 8. Eelix 9. the statue of Orlan strangling Wyvern 10. marbled 11. staplers 12. sashaying 13. the Coin of Endless Schemes 14. primordial soup 15. . . . Another long pause, and then the smirk flickered. 15. Lady Godiva 16. . . . "Well, if they insist. . ." she mumbled. 16. orange scratch-n-sniff panties 17. self-addressed, stamped envelope 18. taupe 19. ankle 20. test tube

Well then, what makes a German poem recognizable? Are there a set amount of syllables in a line, do they rhyme, does free verse exist in German?

There go the Conservatory insurance premiums again. . .

(Radio static clumping around words, bass; air swimming with tiny blue twisting shapes, then blackness, then teeming again.) Someone. . .outside. . .is helping. Clumsy. Might cut away help, as well as burdens. The Pen searched for the interrupted strands, and found warmth. Like hands warmed at a hearth, it absorbed the energies which the more magnetic personalities discarded, and weaned itself away from outside flows. Nonetheless, the sword severed many active connections and the Pen struggled to hold itself steady. A shiver now shouldn't shake the foundation. The sword dipped into the mass again, and the monologue became a conversation, shouted across unimaginable distances. . . .must. . .be. . .stable! . . . . . .help settle. . .the. . .new spells. . . A shiver, and the second voice fell away. That was Peredhil. I can see him now. There lies Elrohir. There lies Elladan. I! Where am I?! Consciousness slipped away, clockwise. The structure of the Pen creaked under its own control, then settled more firmly into place. Passions for words cemented the vaults and the passions which came forth in words weighed them down. Subconsciousness roamed until it found a familiar laboratory, stared at the posters, sculpted itself according to those blueprints, then fell down and waited for consciousness.

Light streamed into the Conservatory, charged with the reflected magic of the planets, and outlined auras while bodies grew dim in the earth's shadow; if anyone had looked away from the dazzling sky in those moments, they could have seen souls. Awe sparked among souls, traveling the established pathways of relationships, eddying in a thousand circles and spirals of light, head-high to the crowd--to most people, just another color in the eclipse. Against the threads which connected the quincunx, the darkwood dagger rose up from the first floor and punched through Rosemary's chest, lodging in her heart. Her body, paralyzed, fell backwards from its heels, and her aura wavered. . .then peeled apart. Writhing black whips of soul fell down with the body but the pink-silver stood alone. Without eyes, it looked in all directions at the multi-dimensional threads--and reached out for one which floated alone above the crowd like hair on water. That anima cord!-- They touched, and fused. Rose-Mary d'Englesche de Carpathienne remembered where she had originated, and realized exactly how far she was from her material shell. In pink-silver, she looked down at the scrap of D'Abydos in the reincarnated flesh, dying again, this time of darkwood poison--looked down from a great distance, as the magically charged anima cord contracted, dragging her back towards her proper universe. Beneath her, the spiral shrank into insignificance, then was gone. ***** On the shore of a small lake, Lorraine, anno Domini 1197, World of Darkness. "Rosemary! . . .Rosemary!" The air vibrated for a moment as though it were a plucked lute string. A body appeared, dangling in midair and silhouetted against the moon's reflection on the lake, then fell lifeless to the ground. Its crescent-moon pendant gleamed in the dark with the last colors of an eclipse in a faraway galaxy. "Rosemary!" Two younger people descended from the forest after the shouting old man, the man breaking branches and muttering, the woman daintily holding her hem in one hand and never making an unwanted sound. "Vladimir, darling," she chirped while waiting for the man to catch up, "you don't have to come on Nicolae's little excursions, and you're certainly not suited for them." "Why thank you, Astarre, I hadn't noticed that we're in the middle of an untamed wilderness," Vladimir replied, pausing to press his palms together and make a peculiar half-bowing gesture, doubly strange for its refinement in the middle of trees. "But I have access to skills which you and Nicolae do not. Notice that I am not shouting randomly for our little lost Malkavian. I have been looking for some specific tracks to tell me that she is near, and I see them," Vladimir lied. "Why don't you run ahead and tell Nicolae he's heading in the wrong direction." Astarre flushed pink, then turned and bounded down the hillside with unnatural speed. After she had disappeared from view, Vladimir sat down on a fallen trunk and took from a pouch a modified sundial, now written over with moon phases, and suspending a pointed stone on a thread. "Let's see," he murmured, "the disturbance was about five minutes ago. . ." He held the sundial upside-down and aligned it with where the moon had been; the pendulum wavered, then jerked towards the lake shore. Vladimir took its bearing, then replaced the strange device in the pouch and re-sealed the knots. "Oh, I cannot wait to see how much it will cost Nicolae to get her reinstated. . ."

Two enchantments fought around Tzimfemme; one kept supplying her with a satin hoop-skirted dress and hair piled high with painted feathers, while the other continuously vanished whatever costume was provided. She eased the tray of drinks onto an empty table and was about to settle the problem when the strident click-click-click-click of wooden rollerskates on plank flooring distracted her. Tzimfemme hoisted the tray again, went back to the bar, and made a small substitution before gliding around the table with the costume whirlwind still in progress. "Rye and water for Regel, haven't seen you in awhile," she grinned and set down his drink, "sassafras tea, first drink for the little one is on the house," Tzimfemme placed the glass before Sweet and ignored the background chuckling, "and if any of you want anything, just ask. We serve Bruteweiser bottled or draft, mixed drinks, soft drinks," she chanted, circling the table with the half-filled tray. Mynx saw a carton of cream sitting alongside the Mudslide and unconsciously watched Tzimfemme as she sauntered back towards the bar, there to sort out the costuming problem. . . .

Have you got crying-in-your-beer country music or rock-hybrid country music playing? Would you welcome a cocktail waitress with some experience serving more alcohol to the terminally drunk, and certified for proper handling of Ol' Peculiar?

Minta scowled. Without breaking eye contact with Vlad, she thrust her hands into her pockets and pulled out the linings, showering all sorts of neato stuff onto the floor. Clumps of crumpled pixystix wrappers popped out first, then disappeared under the showers of weightier junk; a cardboard lid labeled "Whipped Chocolate" fell on its side and rolled past Gryphon before crashing into the far wall. "YAY!" she announced, with only a tiny hop and a huge smile, and brought her hands--stuffed into zombie-leather protective gloves two sizes too large--out of her pockets. "You don't hafta be my super-duper neato spellcasting lich," she bargained, and picked up the phylactery carefully, "but I don't hafta put this in some boring old dark tomb. Maybe I'm gonna get another one an' make stilts outta them an' do cartwheels with them tied to my feet!" Vlad knew perfectly well that Minta was baiting him, but the mental image of Minta spinning down the hallway spraying his ashes every-which-way whipped him into a frenzy. He reached out for the phylactery but his hand once again melted through the urn. Minta's arms shook with chills but she kept grinning and hugged the phylactery close to her chest, then moved her feet sideways. Slowly at first, but accelerating, she galloped sideways out of the Cabaret Room, never turning her back to Vlad and nearly mowing down Gryphon. The new lich glared at Gryphon for several seconds and might have displayed more powers if a tug from the urn didn't compel him to pursue it. Gryphon waited for a minute after Vlad had clomped out of the room, then curiosity drew him through the doorway.

Tzimfemme settled tiny round bohemian sunglasses on her face and went to work as people turned towards the Conservatory roof, fluttering her fingers under outfits. A discreet portal hastened after her lurching, drunken footsteps, catching underwear and funneling it into her nest. "Heheh," she murmured, "much more fun than the long-distance approach," and tossed behind her a pair of long-legged peach control-lace briefs--frog-sized. Occasionally she dipped into a pocket and helped herself to food that people were trying to smuggle home for later snacking. ***** "Hihihihihiihihi!" Minta pole-vaulted over the crowd with the velium brawl stick, waving wildly to Kaitlyn who was dangling from a tendril of the Gwerry-Go-Round, holding the vine in both hands. "What's your name, didya see my Double Frubble, I think it got lost but maybe since you're way up there you can see it!" "Hihi!" Kaitlyn squealed, hooking her knees over the tendril, then hanging upside down and kicking her feet, "I'm Kaitlyn and what's a double frubble? Oooooo look, sunglasses!" and she pointed at her face where a pair of giant plastic heart-shaped sunglasses were sliding towards earth, but Minta was concentrating on the other stuff falling out of Kaitlyn's pockets. "How come you got my dagger?" she asked, dropping the brawl stick and scampering forward to catch it. A set of skellie-bone-frame sunglasses flew up as she stopped, settling in her curly indigo hair. The darkwood dagger dropped into her hands, dripping a spot of poisonous sap onto the base of the Gwerry-Go-Round. Kaitlyn squeaked as the entire structure wilted and the vine on which she hung sagged down to the floor. ***** From every banquet table in the party, celery sticks briefly dematerialized, leaving streaks of ranch dressing, peanut butter topped with raisins, and heavy whipped mana on the snack platters beneath the sticks. Fields sprouted thousands of divots where celery plants had been growing, then just as quickly re-sprouted, leaving the sole witness unsure of his sanity. On a distant planet on the opposite side of the universe, Celeryman tumbled off of the catwalk as his arch-nemesis Rutabaga Rob flourished his celery-wilting gun, but swiftly unfolded a series of celery-stalk levers and flipped himself back onto the top of the grain elevator. Xaious frowned and wondered which spell-bomb had exploded ahead of schedule. ***** "Oh my god, it can't be time for the eclipse yet, my hair isn't ready!" Rydia wailed, clasping her hands to either side of her flared green cat's eye sunglasses while dead Gwerry-Go-Round leaves landed atop her hairdo despite the best attempts of her ears to flick them away. "How can I possibly MINTA!" she shouted, her hair instantly forgotten and ears flat with rage, "give me that dagger right now! No weapons at a party!" Rydia crossed her arms and glared at the neato necro gnomie girl; Minta pouted, squinted into the light, wound up her arm twice, and flung the dagger up and over her head; it also flew over Rydia's head and rose in a parabola, overarcing most of the party. ***** On the observation deck, Rosemary winced and turned to face the light, casting a darkening shadow over most of the rest of the partygoers beneath her. Around her hair, beads, and jewelry, the light refracted into scintillating pink haloes. She reached up and removed the wraparound ultra-modern sun shades, folding them neatly and tucking them into her belt. "It will be that those who sing will see what I have seen," she breathed, and refused to take another breath; although her lips formed that accursed tercet in the last eight seconds, no sound came out.

Rydia. The Anti-Spam Carp belonged to Rydia and hasn't seen serious use since early 2001, or whenever she donned it as a pseudo-Killer Necktie as part of her masquerade costume. The cloisonne trinket is presumed to be somewhere on her shelf of shinies.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" Minta scampered around the tunnel holding the phylactery in the air, then skidded to a halt and stared as the hole bent into an oval shape, then bulged out again. "Uhoh, gotta hurry!" she said, "Gryphon, if you suck up all his ashes 'fore I'm done, you hafta wait for me 'cause Vlad's gotta help me seal it up." The neato necro gnomie girl dropped to her knees and carefully lowered the urn onto the floor, where it settled with a faint but chilling clank. Dana watched Minta thread the first of three twisted pins out of the lid, but as the full length of the silvered pin came free, she saw a banshee slip behind her left side and spun around to ward it away. By the time Dana checked the mana flows and realized there had been no banshee, Minta had covered the pins with the lid and turned the urn upside-down over the tunnel, extinguishing the image of Vlad. Vlad did not sink for long; the empty phylactery latched onto his soul, dragging it out of the afterlife into a more profound void. He couldn't surrender and speed the passage. He felt his connection to the afterlife snap and his soul draw back like a wounded pseudopod; the interior of the phylactery extinguished his senses. He would not surrender to-- Minta scooted her weaker hand, cupped around a tiny pile of crushed powdered pearl, alongside the opening of the urn and lifted up one edge with a struggle, exposing the smooth floor while keeping the seal intact. "Okok Gryphon, nownow please," she shouted, cradling the phylactery against her knees and not looking up, "put the whirlwind right here an' the urn will do the rest!" Gryphon grimaced but directed the dirty whirlwind without a gesture; limbs poked out of the funnel as it made a final slow pass across the area and glided to a halt in front of Minta. "Ready, set, NOW!" she shrilled, pushing the phylactery off of her knees. The powder flew out of her hand and she leaned backwards against the phylactery's vortex until she fell down on hands and knees, scrabbling away from the urn. Vortex met whirlwind and Gryphon's mouth opened with an unvoiced scream. He lost his grip on the whirlwind and the funnel reversed its spin from the point upwards, shredding what little of Vlad's body had been intact, before collapsing into the phylactery with its payload. The lid rose up on one side in the sudden suction and wobbled twice, the twisted pins dancing behind it in the lee, then flew across the gap and clanged against the urn. Minta lunged for the pins and wiggled them all into place, then stuck her hand into her mouth and sucked at her pricked fingers. Above the phylactery, the air rippled. Again Vlad faded into sight, but over many minutes, he grew more solid, until nobody could see through him. He clasped his unmarked hands, looked down at his unburnt torso, then bent one knee and reached for the phylactery. It passed through his fingers, and he glared at Minta; she returned the fiery gaze with abnormal quiet and awe. "Am sorry. . .that's the one thing you can't pick up," she told him, and then the grin burst over her face, "so I get to keep it! My very own SPELL CASTING LICH! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Gods, I feel horrible, moaned Tzimfemme. She poked her head over the side of the bed and met the stench already hovering above the bucket. Gagging, she added to it, then dragged herself back onto the sheets. She shivered and clenched for covers, despite raging with fever. The vampire Rosemary drew a heavy blanket over the bed, printed with the contours of Terra, and traced her fingers along the lands. I havent been anywhere, Tzimfemme moaned in answer, except to the gardens. Rosemary murmured something religious. I ate nothing! I dont steal from the gardens! But you know, Tzimfemme stopped to twist and be sick again, You know about the holy war. They attacked the gardens. She fell back, her limbs jerking and muscles twitching, Th-the gardenersthey s-scourged the invadersand I was th-there. . . This is how they defended themselves? I cannot understand, Rosemary sighed. This is mad beyond mad; I can smell it ripening even still. Yet it is unfamiliar. She stared intently at the hand convulsing between her own. There is only one way I may learn. May I? Tzimfemme ceased moving as best as she was able. Rosemary clasped Tzimfemmes wrist with one hand, then bared her fangs and slit her free wrist. This she placed over Tzimfemmes mouth before biting the hand held steady, piercing the web between thumb and forefinger. The patient remembered, and opened her mouth to receive blood even as it was drained from her. They were most careful, and Tzimfemme remained as human as she ever was. Purified (though with blood now diffusing a touch of insanity into her), her sickness subsided. Rosemarys tougher constitution felt no disease, yet she was uneasy. That blood had had some psychic poison steeped into it; her eyesight was impaired with pure white light, her internal organs toughened like fresh-killed meat upon a fire. Her heart, long dead, filled with this taint and began to pulse. At that, she clutched frantically at her chest, eyes wide and whitening slightly. No! she cried out, repulsed by the sudden pain of life released. Forcing her soul to the horizon, she called to the dreadful things which had always pursued her. With greedy glee they flocked around: murderers souls, the thoughts of werebeasts, unholy servants, guilt, sin. Yet when they approached, the taint absorbed and burnt them to nothing. ********* Rosemary held the condemned mage at arrow-point, tucking her arm behind her to draw the bow in such a confined space. Traces of his inhuman cold made the arrowhead brittle. I smell you, tainted one. I am not interested, commanded she when he opened his mouth. She leaned her weight on the arrow, and the arrowhead sank into his vocal cords. You are blessed for all that, flecked with something that must not die with you. The bowstring snapped, and the arrow shattered as it froze through his throat. As he thrashed, droplets of blood flew. Some fell to earth solid and rolled under the bed. Others splashed as normal, and these she licked up quickly, not letting her tongue contact his bare skin. At the very last, Rosemary wrenched his head around with gloved hands, looked beyond his eyes, and called out wordlessly to that unnatural heat which plagued him. It answered, and he liquefied. Rosemarys hair and skin crinkled and baked as the heat found her. She gave him no benediction, but left seething as his body soaked the bed. ********* She filtered dust from the air with her gown and breathed it in; she drank the ashes of everyone slain in the holy war. Rosemary was addicted to the taint, gathering it particle by particle from every corner of Terra. Her eyes had lightened from chestnut to palest tan, and her heart quivered at an unsustainable pace. She was a walking column of fireless heat, deadly to any beast standing within arms length of her. More and more she retreated to the gardens, smelling the poison in the soil, longing to rip the plants from the ground and gorge on its power. Yet she was a vampire still, forbidden to eat the food of mortals, and could not. She was starving, unable to approach her prey without their blood boiling to worthlessness. When wandering in the gardens, often she would see the gardeners strolling through, smiling as they picked this fruit or that flower and delighting in it. Wracked with jealousy, she could only hide among the vines and plot to snatch their ashes should some accident befall them. They were charmed, though, overflowing with the poison which warded off all ill. Paler and weaker she became, burnt with bloodlust and heat and the taint of life. At last she flung herself facefirst onto a thorny vine like a shrikes prey, dangling above the ground, and waiting for the deadly dawn. The thorns on which she impaled herself rustled and grew, drawing the last few drops of blood out of her body. Each pierced through her body and shimmered as they emerged. Rosemary felt no pain until the last thorn emerged and pierced her frantically beating heart. The dawning was not of the sun. The collected life of the garden burst out of her in a searing white light. Unseen invaders, also jealous of the garden, had no time to scream before their ashes dusted the earth. Its not so, whispered the dying Rosemary, as life once more ebbed out of her body. It cannot be so. Thorns retracted, oozing blood back into the corpse which healed as they passed through. She tried to protest as a thorny red vine blossomed and ripened before her mouth, but the berries smelled of blood. Hunger won, and she drained every one before the vines released her. She drew her pierced cloak around her tightly. So cold, she whispered, and her demons flooded around her once more. So lonely, she sighed, and the gardeners gently expelled her from the grounds. So unnatural, she mourned, before the insanity claimed her again.

Archivist's note: Meant as an stand-alone "apology accepted", this became one of the more important stories in the Quincunx canon. Originally posted to the Legion of the White Rose boards.

The golden specks faded almost as soon as she hit the floor, but Tzimfemme still felt anomalies in the persona-patterns, and squeezed her eyes shut to check her body for consumed vampire blood--none? Tzimfemme's mind ranged over the pattern speaking words like footprints on foil; you absorbed Rosemary's mysticism, now use it!. Her skin prickled at the noise and she spoke aloud, "Rosemary called this spiraling. There are vortexes around the more prominent people and a diffuse glow at the magnitude of the Pen itself. The Dreamer's just gone down a mana hole shaped like Gabriel's horn--clever, anything tracing along the outside of the spell would never reach him. The vortexes are simple; I could name most of them from here. It's the glow that bothers me. It's like, it's like--" Tzimfemme shivered and opened her eyes. "It's like the garden?! That was an allegory, there was no garden, only us! Besides," she rationalized, "our garden doesn't even look like that, especially with the wiggly cabbages--" and with a clockwise silvery sliding motion, the cabbage patch materialized in front of her, or had she traveled to the cabbages? The color and the personality drained out of Tzimfemme. ". . .Soaring Icarus's placards, Banquet Hall." Before she finished whispering, another clockwise glide brought the two together. "So that's how he--" and the world flowed again, lightening and shifting from gray to blue. . .but the flow never crystallized and her body stretched like taffy. "Dear gods! I can't, I can't, I can't I can't I can't I can't--" (Radio static, bass; blind.) Very strange to understand and not understand at the same time, yet the paradox. . .helps. Paradox, arch, super-ego and id. Unbreakable compassion. The Pen formulated its checks and balances. Where it had been drawing a great deal of power to wrap around each person, the Pen began to use the passive powers of each member as a catalyst. Conservation of energy, not drawing of their mana, catalyst remains pure. Cannot feed power for all time. Survival or death, twice-told tale. ***** Minta tumbled cartwheels into the doorway of the Cabaret Room. "Hihihihihihi!" she sang, "didya see my zombies, they tried to run away, ooooo what's THAT!" She pointed one tiny gnomie hand at the whirlwind. "Be careful!" gasped Dana. "That's Vlad. . .Um. . .That's what's left of Vlad, we're going to try to fix him. . ." "Coooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!" Dana briefly lost her grip on the mana flows. "Cool?!?!" she echoed. Gryphon directed the whirlwind along the junction of wall and floor, where it sucked up all the loose particles and spat pure dust out of its top, and explained, "That's one of the necromancers I told you about. Minta, wait a while, I haven't collected all of his ashes yet." "Don't need those nownow," she giggled, stepping into the room. "He went splat right over here," Minta announced, digging in her heel on the cleaned floor, then hopping back a step. She chomped her jaw a few times, then puffed out her cheeks and spat blood precisely on the spot; the floor sagged underneath the blood, slowly folding in on itself and making a narrow tunnel, not much wider than a drain. "How come there's no smoke an' hellfire comin' out?" Minta wondered aloud, lying down on the floor and putting her eye right over the hole. "Hihi? Anybody down there? I wanna see Vlad pleaseplease!" The air wavered, Minta scrambled to her feet, and faint energy spread from the entrance of the tunnel, diffusing into a watermark of Vlad's face. The face twisted this way and that, yet the eyes were too faint to show motion. "Am sorry but I don't think I got enough of you to let you talk," Minta sighed. "Stupid Pen wards." She shoved her hands into one of her larger pockets and extracted a silver-inlaid leaden urn, holding it up with both hands so Vlad could see it. "You're kinda very burnt an' I can't make you be a vampire again, but I got a BETTER idea. You can be MORE POWERFUL an' HARDER TO KILL an' COOLER! It'll take two spells though, first I gotta put your soul in this--an' that's the part you are nownow--an' then I'll scoop up your ashes an' put them in this too an' do another spell an' then kaboom! You'll be outta there an' back here an' super powerful! Nod to say okok!"

chick lit! won't I regret this in the morning! I am the woman who knows exactly what you are. You sit on my hand like a glove puppet, and my two leading fingers poke out of your nipples. All of the energy you expend is only what I need to move my hand; the seeming insensitivity is a matter of scale. You are a thin layer stretched over other people, and each one steps up to your mouth in turn and shouts out its lines. Most of them lie. You can live all your life as a conflicted balloon--many women do--but you could expel the commitee and thicken yourself to the point where my eternal, wiggling fingers are calcified. Some branches of the female fractal, glove on glove on glove, are brittle and barely move. There is hope.