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Pamela
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Post by Pamela »

Gertrude listened attentively to Crow’s tricks on coding; she and Rupert had their own special phrases, but it never hurt to learn others', especially since she didn’t have their magical skills. When ages were mentioned, she quickly did the math: 19 in 749- Crow then 18; 759- ten years later- 28 now. A prodigy, indeed... It wasn’t impossible but a youth, let alone a bard, who rose so quickly should have caught the attention of others outside Il Aluk, even if only via the backstabbing correspondence shared between Brothers. Her questioning at Brautslava and Lamordia’s cells had revealed nothing so far, but she had asked for a list of the dead of Il Aluk’s cell. She made a mental note to include Ilyano and Vhexus as she nodded in answer to the bard's query about Tao’s complaints about anti-bard prejudice.

She accepted Crow’s explanation of Tao’s reference to the student tavern without any physical or verbal moue, but it still gnawed at her. The lie in itself was fine- but why use it as grounds to attack her for an imaginary indiscretion? If van Rijn’s allies had caught Tao, why had they not used his information to contact Crow directly? Kill two birds with one stone? She put the discrepancy aside for the moment as Crow jokingly queried about Darkonese infantry. Smiling gently she shook her head. She had kept Poorgate's name and location as a matter of course, but hadn't considered the matter worth investigating. Her eyebrows raised slightly at Crow’s innovative idea that the undead brethren were using real outdated information. Now that’s clever… She made a mental note to pay better attention to such details and their potential use.

The bard’s embarrassment over the paper’s title made her smile. It didn't sound like one he would use; too dull and stuffy for the man he seemed to be. The concept sounded interesting...but why was Crow treating it so dismissively? An explanation immediately followed as well as his stated interests. Her eyes gleamed, unable to hide her curiosity over his views on these wonderful, esoteric matters.

Gertrude’s face went still at the mention of his examination the Initiate's face, containing her own frustration. At least you were able to be given the opportunity… She rallied quickly if not completely from this ongoing grudge, however, and at Crow’s comments on Hartly’s first paper, remarked, “Mixed company is not usually a problem at Fraternity meetings though, is it?” Again, the disparagement of the Fraternity’s standards; another mental note.

When the bard began to wonder aloud over Tao’s reasons, putting his finger on that persistent puzzle, Gertrude looked at him with wonder. You are bold, aren’t you? Whoever Tao and Crow were (and she had several theories), she believed now that they’d informed each other of the letters and coming meeting. Amid all her suspicions, one which never crossed her mind was the possibility that the letter was written by the man before her. “Do you know, Crow, this is what I have been asking myself all along…” An amused smile dawned and shone upon her face at his audacity, and she couldn’t help but admire it.

Then an answer flashed through her mind; her eyes widened and she was rendered momentarily mute by the possibility and its implications. She took a sip of tea to gain a little time, and rallied her senses into an attitude of consideration. Stupid, stupid woman- how could you have been so blind?!

Her hands joined, gently clasped, at the lip of the table, in plain sight. Her voice and manner were thoughtful while her pulse raced. “If I were to guess, I would assume that your friend wanted us to meet. Now that van Rijn is an added threat to you and your friends, Tao may have felt it necessary for you to come out of hiding…or to know someone who wasn’t. After all, it must be difficult for you to find out about the Fraternity’s latest meetings sometimes,” she gently rationalised. “Out of the loop himself, to borrow your phrase, Tao didn’t know who among the present brethren were loyalists or not.”

“Why did he consider me, despite his prejudices?… I could pretend that it was due to my intelligence, my charm, my fine demeanour. Indeed, I think I shall.” Her eyes danced with laughter, a welcome relief to her tension. “But if I look beyond my vanity, I would wager that it is simply because I bothered to contact you. Perhaps I was the only one to do so. Or perhaps my means of contact revealed my… inexperience. If his gamble were in error, he could trust you to… acquit yourself well with some explanation to soothe my ruffled feathers and excuse your friend.” Her voice was calm, the pauses minimal as her quick wits picked appropriate words and phrases. And really, if worse came to worst, who among the Fraternity would miss a female Zherisian? Idiot woman!

Now that the danger had been made bare, the scholar sat up straighter in her chair, ready to meet whatever might follow. “Fortunately, I am neither thin-skinned nor indiscrete.” She willed her hands to unclasp smoothly, without clenching, as she took up her nearly empty cup. “Does this theory of mine seem plausible to you?” She forced a slow, steady sip of her nearly empty cup, soothing her suddenly-dry throat.
His only real danger is if stupidity is contagious and lethal. In which case, we’re all dead…-Gertrude
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Rotipher of the FoS
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Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

The VRS spy’s intuition was certainly finding the professor a diverting challenge. Above and beyond the natural aptitudes to be expected in a sorceress – not that he’d acknowledged he knew her exact proclivities in Art; allowing her to believe he yet thought her a wizard would reassure her that “Brother” Crow was fallible – she’d clearly had ample practice at controlling her expressions and tone of voice. Thoughtfulness, solicitude, even light humor (at her own expense, no less: delightful!) were all impeccably reproduced, on this ever-so-camouflaged woman’s features … and she had seen through a minor prevarication or two of his own, along the way, the bard was positive of that.

Of course, no mundane ploy of hers – or his, for that matter – could alter the underlying postulates of physics. And no decently-bred matron of Paridon, her manners as impeccable as her façade, would tip a nigh-empty teacup that far up, to decant and thirstily imbibe its final dregs … not unless, that is, her throat had abruptly gone too dry to do otherwise.

(In truth, Crow-the-spy was no more infallible than “Brother” Crow. He honestly hadn’t considered this possibility, when contemplating how Kingsley might interpret events – even after nearly a decade of infiltration-work for Van Richten’s disciples, his own better nature occasionally blinded him to human villains’ taste for infighting – and he couldn’t suppress the brief flicker of a ruefully-grim smile, which her suddenly-apprehensive state brought to his lips.)

My word, madam, what a nasty, suspicious twist your thoughts have taken! I guess it’s not beginner’s luck, alone, that’s kept you alive in the viper’s nest to date. Honestly, am I really that intimidating – when I’m not trying to be, that is – and yourself, so quick to think the worst of others? Ah well, so much for civilized conversation; this is one corvid whose nails can pass for hawk’s talons, if needs must.

Not too obviously, of course – the Paridoner’d already proven herself more than capable of seeing through superficial pretenses; subtlety was the key, now, to letting her discern a second façade, beneath his surface-pose – the bard let a glimmer of tension become evident in his shoulders and jawline, even as he nodded ponderingly over Kingsley’s last spoken surmise. His hands rolled the magpie-headed cane’s shaft between his palms; he blinked distracting “sleepiness” from his eyes, let them grow distant for an instant before looking back at her.

“I… don’t know, professor,” he admitted cautiously. “Your explanation sounds plausible enough – by the Fathers, it’d be to our advantage to have at least one contact within the wider organization; ever since the other cells wrote ours off for dead, we’ve had precious-little news of the Fraternity’s survival, let alone its internal politics or progress – and the threat Van Rijn poses is grave enough to imperil us, too, even if our Slain ex-comrades aren’t – or aren’t yet – directly involved. That’s why I had to write to Tao, despite our falling-out after Corbil’s death, to tell him of the debacle at the Manoir: the old man deserved some warning, his reluctance to take action non-withstanding; and the brothers (Vhexus and Ilyano, I mean; they’re siblings in blood as well as initiation, and were recruited together) also needed to know … even if they’ll likely never accomplish anything more, for the brotherhood, than to be Tao’s lackeys and lapdogs.

“And a good thing I did, whatever the consequences, because they’d certainly never have learned the truth from the rest of the Fraternity, here in Darkon.”

Crow’s fingers tightened on the cane’s smooth wood, and remembered exasperation wrenched his pleasing, youthfully-disguised features into an ugly scowl. He spat his next words in indignant frustration, and let a rare flash of fury show in his fume-reddened eyes.

Damn Tao, for being right about those small-minded pedants at Brautslava! If they’d only listened – if they’d checked again, I’m sure they’d have found our names – I could have had help, all these past weeks, instead of searching half this overgrown behemoth of a kingdom, on my own. I’m sure Tao couldn’t have been right, about that part: surely our old Brethren in Il Aluk couldn’t have been leading us on, recruiting us as nothing more than errand-boys, when they'd approved four of our number for initiation in as many years. Corbil and I’d earned those rings, blast it, no matter what Tao’s envy makes him claim! But he really was right about those wizards, there at Brautslava: you’d think they had never even heard there’d been bards in the Slain cell, to judge by the manner of ‘reception’ their hirelings gave me!”

The bard’s gaze had veered from Kingsley's, to glare into the distance at unseen enemies, and his hands roughly twisted the walking-stick’s shaft, as if seeking outlet for his anger. A flash of the crow’s faux-talons, to let her see the capacity for rage in him. If the hidden agenda she’d seen fit to ascribe to Crow and “Tao” required that she believe him dangerous, he’d certainly not disavow the Paridoner of that notion!

But then, if Tao were to play the “bad inquisitor” in this next phase of melodrama, it was for Tao’s “reluctant protégé” to play the counterpart. Hence, his “accidental” exposure of “Brother” Crow’s own youthful gullibility – of course, she’d accept Tao’s belief that the Il Aluk cell had been exploiting the bards’ nomadic lifestyles and craving for knowledge, to secure their errand-running services in so far-flung a kingdom; if the first explanation she found plausible was one that cast Crow, himself, in the role of her own potential murderer (!), she would certainly expect such shameless exploitation of minor members from his erstwhile superiors – to gently seed the notion she might turn his alleged gullibility (and naivety? by the timeline he’d insinuated, he’d not have worked with the Il Aluk cell long enough to have seen much of the Brethren’s darker doings) to her advantage, by enlisting Crow’s own sympathies and rebelliousness to help deflect Tao’s hostility from her throat.

At his last words, the bard let the air from his lungs in a flustered huff, laid the cane flat on the table, raised a hand to rub his brow just above the hairline. The professor’d not yet remarked upon it, so likely hadn’t noticed the reddish bruise that peeked out slightly from under his curls – a genuine, albeit superficial souvenir of a minor roadside scuffle two days before, unrelated to the mission at hand; he’d opted not to heal it himself, as it nicely complemented the disheveled demeanor he’d been planning for this meeting, and its location underlying his hair made the contusion impossible to reproduce with makeup – but his own gesture drew her eye. Right on cue, Kingsley murmured concern and consolations as expected; even in fear for her life, the professor’s show of poise and politeness remained unruffled. He fielded her condolences with equal good grace, dismissing the lump as no bother: after all, he’d opted to save his meager healing-magics for self-defense, lest her letter lure him into a Slain ambush; he’d not have been so cavalier about it, were the damage or discomfort severe.

“Professor,” Crow replied, to her incredulous query about the Brautslava cell’s 'reception' and its relevance to his injury. “With security-fears rampant and my name long-stricken from the membership-rolls – or never even on them, Tao’d doubtless insist – I was lucky to make it off the campus, with only a bruise and a rekindling of my ankle’s old trouble, to show for the experience. Bloody hells, madam: given the traitor’s known recruitment-patterns, I’m surprised they didn’t try to spike me with cold iron, for a damned wolfwere! Even if Tao’s wholly mistaken about past anti-bard attitudes, this is no fit time for a musician to turn up, unannounced, on the doorstep of a strange Fraternity-cell, seeking aid or information.”

The VRS spy shook his black-curled head in disgusted vexation, laid his hands on the tablecloth, and idly picked at a loose thread with his well-trimmed fingernails. (Ideally, he should have bitten those to the quick, before this meeting – however it played out, his own state of agitated distraction needed to be convincing – but Crow pampered his hands with a devotion only another artiste could fully appreciate, and there were some sacrifices even he wasn’t prepared to make for the Society’s cause. Ankles were expendable, but playing Tiahn was the bard’s life.) Displacement behavior, or whatever the professor’s preferred psychology-term for his action might be: his thread-picking, a calculated clue to the turmoil supposedly stirred in him by the circumstances.

“So perhaps you’re right, that it’s a potential contact he sees in you, professor. Someone who’s demonstrated opposition to Van Rijn would be necessary – Tao’s paranoia about treachery makes that blustering, suspicion-ridden oaf Buchvold look credulous, and he actually assumed that I was a traitor for a moment, back at the Manoir! – so it would have to be one of the St. Ronges survivors. And the fact that you’re not Core-born, in this case, might even count in your favor: like too many Darkonians, Tao barely believes the rest of the Core is worthy of notice, let alone the more far-flung realms; he might presume that Paridon is too isolated – or, to be candid, too insignificant – for Van Rijn to bother recruiting renegades in such an outlying Fraternity-branch (no offense intended, madam: his views, not mine).

“Still, I never imagined Tao’d try to take advantage of you, of all people, when I wrote to him about that shameful debacle at Anthony’s, two months back! Granted, I did mention your presence – again, no offense intended, but I’d been frankly astonished to see one of the fair sex amongst we sigil-wearers: dropping your name seemed a handy counterargument to the old man’s conviction that the Fraternity leadership never makes exceptions to its customs, for candidates of genuine promise; one need only peruse one of Tao's rejected papers, to see why he really never earned a proper initiation, despite a decade of attempts – and what-little I could discern of your origins, in the brief time I had to observe you before chaos took hold. But I didn’t tell him anything more; indeed, madam, I had no more to tell of you, as you’ll recall we never did get the chance to converse that night.”

Crow took up the cane again, hung his head abashedly as he rolled its long-tailed magpie carving slowly between his palms.

“Now that we have been speaking, professor – now that you’ve shown such generous forbearance, in light of my rudeness and lack of frankness – and I think of how my little ‘test’, and tale of the Slain, must have distressed you so … truly, I regret that I did include your name in my message to Tao. It was thoughtless and improper of me, to drag you into matters that you admit to being ill-equipped to deal with – not that you should, by rights, be expected to have to deal with them; a scholar’s work shouldn’t be impeded by archaic bigotries or political gamesmanship, let alone base treachery or the menace of the undead! – and I’d truly regret seeing you come to any harm… from any source… over my unthinking lapse of discretion.”

The cane, spinning. His voice, growing softer. His eyes, still lowered, sheepish and sad.

“I … don’t care much for Tao’s decisions, sometimes. Initiated or not, he had been our teacher, and his leadership and caution kept us alive in the aftermath of the Requiem; just put up with his pretensions and his grumbling, and Tao's judgment and treatment of those he considers protégés are both fair enough. Paranoid and manipulative, but that’s precisely what we needed to survive the Shrouded Years … and I’ve never known the man to turn against anyone who’d honestly pledged his support or willingly looked out for our best interests, rarely though our little quintet found such allies, even before the Requiem.

“But his grudges run too deep, and his loyalty to the Fraternity was always contingent on his belief he’d weasel his way into its secrets, someday! If he’s finally given up all hope of that, knowing how much more exclusive and wary the organization’s likely to become, in the wake of Van Rijn’s betrayal … or if he’s lost faith in the Fraternity altogether, interpreting St. Ronges as evidence of its fallibility, and seeks information so he can decide if we four would be better off, breaking off what-little contact we - well, I mostly; none of the others has been to a meeting in years - still have, so the lich will never learn about us… I’m just not sure where he’d stop, that’s all. Not after Corbil, I’m not.”

Crow turned back to Kingsley, looked her in the eye, and let his own mist-gray eyes grow just a little bit wider than his superficial pose of honorable concern warranted.

The bard’s implied message was out there, now. Whatever her evident composure of body or voice, he saw recognition of his unspoken meaning in the Paridoner’s gaze: Tao knows we are meeting … he knows the knowledge he and I have entrusted to you makes you a threat to us … his plans won’t allow you to pass that knowledge on, should he opt for us to vanish from history and thus escape the Fraternity and Van Rijn, alike … if need be, he’ll give me no choice but to ensure your silence, for all our sakes …and if I must, I will do so, in the only foolproof way I know … even if I don’t want to

A tiny twitch, at the corner of the bard’s mouth, and a pleading look – there and gone in an instant – from deep within those enigmatic gray eyes. Please, professor, show me how to spare us both from that … tell me some way, some means, to dissuade Tao from giving me that order, here and now … help me not have to murder you, professor, because I’ve already had to kill one friend and Brother, who’d posed a threat through no fault of his own …

At least, Crow mused, from miles beneath the strata of his multi-layered pretense, give me cause to avoid having to knock you out, and reconstruct your memories of this little encounter, to better favor the required outcome. I will if I have to – the stakes of the game demand no less, I fear – but I’d sorely hate to have to win such a stimulating verbal duel by cheating, thus!

The bard broke eye-contact, looked over his shoulder to the sunlit dining-hall windows, feigned rubbing his eyes as if to stave off fast-rising waves of fatigue … or to wipe away his disgraceful lapse into sentimentality and compassion: feelings, which most Zherisians deemed unseemly to display in public, and the Fraternity deemed a weakness to possess at all.

(The Fraternity, yes. But did Professor Gertrude Kingsley feel the same, deep beneath the graciousness that masked her grudges, and the grudges that cloaked her soul…?

(Crow dearly hoped Milady Scalpel would permit him a fair opportunity to find out, in sparring-matches to come. The professor’s personality really was proving fascinating, as exquisite a puzzle to captivate the VRS spy’s attentions as the letter he’d scripted to snare her curiosity. And her eyes had lit up at his previous mention of that which lay “behind Shadow”, too; he simply had to speak with this woman – really talk, not just steer – some time when she wasn’t so damnably suspicious or afraid of him!

(The bard suddenly realized he’d not reminded himself to take notes about a single thing Kingsley’d said or revealed, this entire conversation. He didn’t have to: his attention was total, and he’d not soon forget an instant of this wonderful game.)

Not that her response to his “weakness” mattered, in practical terms. Whether she bought his pretense of reluctance, or not – whether she empathized with his quandary, or marked him for a spineless fool to vacillate, thusly – the professor’s own worst suspicions would leave her no choice, now that “Tao’s” threat, and her own need to placate and avert same, seemed both imminent and genuine to her. Still, the human mind’s drive to accept signs of merit (and, hence, a potential for mercy) in a possible assailant was powerful – Crow, himself, had had to knowingly suppress that natural prisoners’ fallacy in himself, in his recent confrontation with Buchvold – and could overrule logic’s skepticism on far flimsier evidence than the clues he’d presented to her, bit by bit. The bard hoped Kingsley’s mind wouldn’t prove resistant to that effect: he’d rather she thought well of him, for his future intrigues’ sake, as well as his long-stymied yen for theological discourse.

Waiting in silence, as if left drained of both will and words after his innuendo-conveyed warning and appeal, Crow toyed with the cane, blinked into the glare of the windows, and began counting off numbers in his head. In deference to Kingsley’s superb performance to date, he would respectfully trust her to deduce the way out, for herself … which, if she solved this final puzzle as he expected, would mean he wouldn’t actually need to see that wretched Tao letter, after all.

By his own estimate, he’d give it a count of thirty – no, twenty-five; this swift-fencing schoolmistress was a scalpel, after all! – before she put the pieces together, and suggested that perhaps it might now be her turn to set pen to paper….
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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Pamela
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Post by Pamela »

Gertrude saw her hypothesis confirmed in the bard’s regretful brief smile. Her nerves sang with tension as she awaited his answer- any answer. A denial could at least be interpreted and examined for any way out of this cul-de-sac.

She nodded slightly at his confirmation; at least it was out in the open. The hint of friction between Crow and Tao was a welcome ray of hope. A rational voice warned, Remember they are acting together. She heard it, but she needed the illusion of some escape, if only to give her mind some space to think and not be lost to fear.

She was suspicious at his outburst, as a Zherisian. When had he sought this verification of his status? It certainly couldn’t have been recent- the cell would have notified the elders about this unusual discrepancy, especially with treachery such a prevalent concern. What name had he offered? Would the Il Aluk brotherhood really have created false members? Why? How would other cells be able to recognize these dupes- and how would they be able to prevent brothers not in the know, from conveying confidential information? Was there something unusual about their rings? And if his ring was different from hers, he’d just explained a reason for the discrepancy. Again the glimmer of admiration as she struggled to wind her way through this verbal labyrinth. At least he was declaring there would be no record of bards in Il Aluk. That saved her the effort of one goose-chase.

She noted with some amusement the pointing out of the bruise and made the required condolences. She was very surprised when he related that he’d gained his injuries recently in Brautslava. Had he really done that? It would be easy enough to find out- there’d be missives sent out to every cell warning about this trespasser. They’d probably even deign to pass on that bit of gossip when she returned, the most excitement they’d probably have in weeks. Probably expect me to swoon at the news, she thought wryly. Weak if I did, callous if I didn’t, a no-win situation…

She noted the reference to Buchvold, wondering what had arisen there to spark the Borcan’s suspicion. How had it been resolved? The bard wouldn’t have offered up the name if he wasn’t sure of backing. Or would he? Tangles of words spun soft as silk… Listen for now… At the slurring of Paridon, she merely shrugged and murmured, “No offense taken.” After all, she had made the implication earlier.

She took his statement of surprise in stride; after all, he’d still gone along with the decision. A small resigned smile arose at the supposed cause for his mentioning her. An exotic animal, or circus freak…See the woman who can think like a man…Or almost, rather, wouldn’t want to go too far, after all… “Oh indeed I do recall. The dinner ended with quite a bang; even if we had spoken afterwards, we’d have been hard-pressed to speak of anything else,” she remarked lightly.

The professor heard his defense of the mentor thoughtfully. She returned his gaze, and then blinked a couple of times at its end, slightly smiling at the rare opportunity with such a handsome man. However old you really are, sir, you are certainly tempting, she thought with some amusement, before looking down at her wedding ring, still smiling. She followed his gaze, eyes softening at the brilliance which brightened the emptying room and her prospects.

She was surprised to find herself calming down as she listened. What Tao and Crow were she still wasn’t sure, but she didn’t have time now to deliberate. Crow wouldn’t wait forever for an answer, taking a prolonged silence as her means to seek retreat, or possibly help. She had already decided on her reaction when she’d first received Tao’s convoluted letter. More was being demanded now, and she would temper it to the best of her abilities, or at least try. She had heard his apology and his professed desire to not bring her to harm. That she did believe. It wouldn’t stop him from fulfilling Tao’s will if required. But as she'd observed earlier, if he had truly wished to bully her into submission, he could easily have met her outside during her walks to the church or the shrines, or the beaches she loved. That, she appreciated, and not merely for her own sake.

The question was what to say, and how. She turned to the bard, and spoke very softly but firmly. “Let me be blunt, Crow. I am, and intend to remain, a faithful member of the Fraternity. I will do my best to help fight against van Rijn, and to interrupt the creation of this Doomsday Device.”

She paused, considering her vows. How much could she safely offer, and would it be enough for her to walk away unscathed? Offer what you can, and worry about the haggling after. Her mind raced, as her words slowly flowed from her lips. “If I discover any information on his whereabouts, or plans, I will be more than happy to share it with you. I promise to keep your whereabouts and our acquaintance secret from this point on. I will be careful not to draw attention your way, since you have Tao and the other hiding brethren to think of.

Her tone grew firmer as she approached her own demand. “I of course wish this favour of confidentiality returned between your brethren. I do not want my name to be bandied about. I too have others to think of, and I will not see them endangered through my own errors of judgment and behavior.” Her index finger unconsciously caressed her wedding band. She suspected a verbal promise would not be enough, but she was damned if she was going to suggest more, like some simpering coward babbling for her life.
His only real danger is if stupidity is contagious and lethal. In which case, we’re all dead…-Gertrude
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Rotipher of the FoS
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Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

… eighteen … nineteen …

To Crow’s secret glee, Professor Kingsley’s quick wit and deft equivocation continued to surprise him. While her flashes of puzzlement, irritability and humor were growing ever-easier to discern, as prolonged contact granted the bard an increasing familiarity with the Paridoner’s deportment, her ultimate response (a full six seconds before he’d reckoned it, no less; he upgraded his evaluation of her merit, yet again) made not a whit of concession to intimidation or defeat. Bravo!

Still, he’d no doubt that success was in his grasp, provided his hand closed round it gently enough. Delicately, now – no haste, no new playing-pieces or emotional threads to deploy; he’d taken drama about as far as stolid Zherisian sensibilities would likely make allowance for, and reason would invariably be the clincher for so rationalistic a mind – to preserve such a tentative rapport as had been achieved, by admissions of mutual adversity and sympathy. Indeed, safest not to pursue the latter much further in future meetings, lest the empathy he’d so far achieved birth counterproductive complications: he’d not turned his eyes aside so swiftly as to miss the particular flavor of her smile, as their locked gazes parted, nor that it wasn’t her sigil-ring that the professor’s own eyes flicked down to, even as he looked away. Intriguing, but too commonplace an outcome, under such circumstances as these, to flatter him anymore … and really, even if such prospective entanglements had served his purposes, Crow wasn’t that sort of spy.

(Still, the bard had to admit, her husband was a lucky man. And, almost certainly, so far out of his depth that the krakens’ tentacles glowed blue in the darkness.)

“Madam,” he succinctly replied, upon her avowal of foremost loyalty to her organization. “I would expect no less, nor ask any more, of you.” He bowed slightly, more in the sober manner of the Balok-speaking nations than with the affected flair of Dementlieu and its imitators. “Rest assured, my own commitment to the Fraternity’s coming struggle is no less complete: I, too, know where my loyalties truly lie, and will stand by them as any member worthy of his signet would be obliged to ... no matter what Tao’s envy-tainted opinions might slanderously imply.” The bard let his thumb idly caress the viper-coiled ring he wore, with a habitual-seeming veneration that belied how recently Buchvold had lent him the distasteful prop. (Ugly thing, really; what overly-theatrical idiot had designed the Fraternity’s serpentine emblem, anyway?)

Continuing his façade in the same vein, Crow let gratitude – and, more-subtly conveyed, relief – reveal itself in his face and bearing, as Kingsley pledged to pass word to him as to their undead adversary’s activities and locale, whilst keeping silent about their acquaintance and his other doings. She expressed a willingness to deflect attention from him (though not, in so many words, his alleged “fellow survivors”; not the best strategic omission he’d encountered, by any means, but a clever sally for a neophyte), and asserted her own need to shield a third party as grounds for making their confidentiality two-way. A lucky man indeed, her spouse.

Oh, but you are bold and bristly, madam! You’re really going to make me ask you, aren’t you? Even knowing the stakes, your pride won't admit the slightest compromise. How I pity whichever pig-headed fools they were, whose chauvinism helped make you this way: I’m sure you’ve long since paid them back, a hundredfold and more, for their condescension.

“I’d not worry as to word of our acquaintance spreading unduly; save by your leave, I’d not tell another soul, and the brothers both follow Tao’s example in avoiding exposure with nigh-fanatical care. For that matter, it’s likely he hasn’t told Ilyano or Vhexus about his missive to you: admitting that he’s broken his silence to a stranger, after he’d ridden herd on us for so long about not admitting our survival to anyone – not even the brothers’ own parents, elsewhere in Darkon – might undermine his past arguments as to the necessity of our having remained 'dead', in the first place.”

Crow frowned pensively, then his weary eyes widened as if in epiphany. He sat up in a rush, face alight, and briskly smacked the tabletop in enthusiasm for his own realization. “Sun’s blood, that’s it! That’s what I’ve been too addled to think through, that’s nagged at me since you spoke of Tao’s letter earlier. The letter! It’s all the proof I need, to finally make the others see reason!”

The bard laid his palms on the tabletop, and leaned toward the professor, speaking with an intensity indicative that his thoughts had quite run away with him.

“Tao’s convinced himself that we can hide from the conflict ahead, that Van Rijn’s ire at the Fraternity will bypass those who don’t stand in direct opposition to his aims. But he’s wrong, to think the lich would overlook us, or that he can afford to pass the four of us by! Even if the Fraternity’s Slain members weren’t involved at the outset, we know for a fact that at least one of them was hunting us – first Corbil, then Tao and I, when the odem laid its trap – and that Il Aluk’s unspeakable master had a hand in the Manoir’s fall. What are the odds that the overlord of Necropolis wouldn’t have my Slain ex-brethren rooted out of hiding by the Unholy Order, and questioned as to whom among the living Fraternity yet pose a threat to Van Rijn’s plans, after the lich failed to annihilate the Manoir’s guests in one sweeping assault? They know we’re still alive, and could warn other branches of their complicity!

“But Vhexus and Ilyano … they didn’t believe me last year, when I warned them that the odem’s ambush couldn't just be a coincidence – that Tao was hiding his head in the sand, thinking it didn’t change everything, or that we could afford to remain isolated – because they’d been the old man’s lapdogs, even before we met, and he’d played them off Corbil and I, every time we argued against his orders. It was all we ‘birds’ could do, between the pair of us, to get the brothers to second-guess Tao’s judgment about anything; alone, I couldn’t even begin to shake his grip upon their leashes.

“But if that letter really does say so much about us – if it mentions how we survived, say, or where he or the brothers had hidden while I'd slipped in and out of Darkon, all through the Shrouded Years – then the fact that Tao passed such tales to someone outside of our little circle … to someone he’d never even met, by the Fathers … might actually break them free from their wretched cronyism and hero-worship! It’s their willpower that’s lacking, not their intelligence; if I can prove Tao’s fearful enough of Van Rijn to break his own vow of secrecy, I can finally get them to re-think the futility of remaining hidden – and, hence, helpless even to defend ourselves, let alone advance the Fraternity’s cause or our own understanding – in perpetuity! With that letter, I c–”

Crow’s words had spilled out faster and faster, his elegant musician’s hands clenching the table-rim in excitement. Then his face fell – his haggardly-guised features, becoming doubly weary with disappointment – and his voice cut off in mid-sentence.

“Oh, no. Oh, damn. You don’t have the letter, do you? You said you’d sent it away, for safekeeping – or was it that you’d burnt it? – because you travel unaccompanied. Dash it all, I’d thought… for a moment, I’d hoped I could… oh, bother.”

The bard propped his elbows wearily on the tabletop, raised a hand as if to rub his brow, then shifted its course to cover a tremendous yawn that commandeered his features. His bearing, which had grown ever-more-depleted as the conversation progressed, was finally surrendering to the exhaustion which tea and tension had only temporarily assuaged; his latest burst of verbal vigor would evidently be his last, this morning. His hand trembled, slightly, as he lowered it back to the table’s edge.

“Forgive me,” he murmured, looking back to the professor, his lips curving into a faint, wry smile at what had become an all-too-repetitious litany for this encounter. “Too many miles on too little rest can’t long be staved off by tea, alone … not even so fine a blend as the Riverview’s. Not to imply I’ve not savored our conversation, far more than the tea – indeed, savored it more than you’ll ever know, madam; faithfully keeping even the most vital of secrets does grow trying, without at least one confidante, and since Corbil I’ve shared only my own meager companionship – but if I’m not to disgrace myself before you even more thoroughly than I already have, by falling asleep in my seat, I fear we may have to reserve further discussion, and a solution to our respective concerns about Tao, for another time.”

Crow’s brow furrowed, and he frowned thoughtfully

“Unless… perhaps, another letter… if you wrote to all three of the others, and pledged what you’d said just now, about helping us… if you show Tao you’re a friend, and I show the brothers Tao may not be….”

The bard blinked blearily at Kingsley, a tentative plea for approval on his features.

“Do you think that might work, instead of showing the brothers Tao’s letter? If you wrote something I can take with me to meet them, so I’d have more than just my word to prove that Tao’s broken his, professor…?”
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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Pamela
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Post by Pamela »

Gertrude listened calmly, letting her eyebrows raise at the bard’s claim to a loyalty that superceded that to Tao. She grew puzzled by his excitement over that infernal letter, and did her best to contain her bafflement. What in the world is going on here?! When he asked about its location she automatically replied, “Safekeeping,” but was still too busy trying to disentangle herself from the latest verbal seine. In this state of distraction, she replied, “Please, Crow, it’s nothing to apologise about.” She then laughed lightly and nearly sincerely over the compliment; she had enjoyed the conversation, despite the danger. Even that seemed to be fading as he suggested delaying the solution.

Then the 'suggestion' of writing letters arose and she chided herself for her hopeful naivete. A very good actor indeed, bard… She listened to his request, and the state of confusion was back in place. “I think it might,” she replied. She brought her bag upon to her lap, then rested her hand on the handles. She didn’t care right now if she looked as if she were stalling. She needed to think, and he’d already won, and knew it.

She didn’t want to write the letters. But if she gave him Tao’s he could return and be back in a month- or that evening- saying it wasn’t enough. And then what would she do? Murder wasn’t her forte.

She was again puzzled by motive. From the beginning he’d demanded that letter. Perhaps this was all lies to simply get it back? But why? It suggested that they had been hiding, but no revelation of treachery. Considering what she’d read and heard about Tao, she hardly considered him a loss to the Fraternity.

Was it some odd test of loyalty to see what she’d do under pressure? That made her look up at the bard sharply. What if Crow and Tao really were members of the Fraternity, and sent with this cockamamie letter and story to see if she’d weaken like a woman and give in to blackmail? Give her reason to get suspicious- and heavens knows, a sheer idiot would have- and see what she’d do? She quickly went over her memory of the last half-hour and blanched. She’d been hinting at her skepticism and yet had encouraged the parley. Even offered to provide information. Oh bloody sun in the hells below…

You can talk your way around that. You did only mention information that related to van Rijn. Yes you offered to keep his little cabal secret, but what of it? Who’s to say you’d have not tried to find some way around it?

Yet still her mind was reeling, cagey. She was seeing traps everywhere, without any idea which ones were real or imaginary. What if she had given the letter immediately- what would have been the threat then? There had to be one!

You’re so sharp you can cut yourself. She suddenly smiled humourlessly, hearing the dry tone she’d inherited from her mother. And she’s right…

She found herself looking out the window, then smiled resignedly. She turned to Crow, and said, “My apologies. Crow…I did put the letter away for safe-keeping. But I only need to go to my room to fetch it.” She stared at him, uncaring of the lie, then thought, To hell with you… “Is that truly all you wanted? Or are you going to be returning later requiring further proof of ‘support’? If so, please, let us get it over with now and bring the matter into the open.” She blushed now, head high, ashamed at anger getting the better of her, but unable to let the shadow of blackmail loom in her imagination longer than necessary.
His only real danger is if stupidity is contagious and lethal. In which case, we’re all dead…-Gertrude
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Rotipher of the FoS
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Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

He had her. He had her! For all her natural perspicacity and composure – to say nothing of that damnable prickliness and pride, that’d driven her to fight like a lioness even when no doubt remained as to outcome – he’d finally lured the professor’s astute speculations into that debilitating trap of uncertainty which, for a time, left her powerless to choose the wiser path. Even if he’d openly told her the truth, then and there – and the contrariness in Crow couldn’t deny the prospect had a certain reckless appeal, like leaning over the edge of a thousand-foot cliff – the bard knew she’d not possibly dare to believe it.

And as always, when he’d cornered one whose presumed ‘crimes’ remained a matter of conjecture and association rather than direct observation, the part of Crow which – so he hoped – kept him somewhat better than his targets, was inclined to be merciful.

Dear madam, the spy sympathized, as Kingsley’s poised veneer crumbled at last and her mannerisms betrayed her awareness of her own defeat. If there’s one thing I did learn of your ulterior motives, from this little duel of play-actors, it’s that you simply don’t have it in you to be as great a monster as the rest. Not because you’re a woman – more fool, I, were I to share that folly with your superiors, given things I’ve witnessed in cabals less misogynistic than theirs! – but because you’re no sociopath, nor half so spiteful as you pretend. For all your canny suspicions, you still trust me far too easily for that.

Granted, your fate is your own to choose, madam … but I sorely hope you’ve the wit to realize that truth about yourself, and get out of this viper-pit, before the price of lingering becomes higher than you’ll find bearable to live with.

(It was a comforting thought, that Kingsley might yet be salvageable ... and not solely due to his dependency on her silence. Saving souls was hardly Crow’s primary concern – the idea, indeed, struck him as ironic, considering what he suspected and dared not think too deeply upon as to his own background – but he knew a great deal of how secret societies functioned, and how unforgiving those of a darker bent tended to be, towards neophytes whose troubled consciences belatedly rebelled against their circumstances. He couldn’t make up the professor’s mind for her, but if her discontent should ever come to demand it, the bard would do his level best to extricate her safely from her “brethren’s” serpent-coils.)

Genuine or not, of course, the professor’s spite wouldn’t let her concede, without delivering a parting riposte. Even as she emerged from her interlude of confusion into rueful resignation, she had to get one more ‘dig’ in on her adversary. It was an impulse the bard, himself, knew well: when she revealed she did have that wretched Tao letter close at hand – a deception of her own which, to Crow’s astonishment, she’d slipped past his own skepticism like a maestro – he nearly burst out laughing! Distracted by the conversation’s delightful intricacy and multi-layered textures, he’d missed that one completely. Bravo, indeed!

Luckily, he’d been following the professor’s lead in gazing out the window, and was yet in the process of turning sleepily back to her when the ironic humor struck. Crow masked the urge to chortle aloud with another feigned yawn, hid his face by rubbing his brow as if to force himself to keep alert a little longer. He suspected he’d muffed the pose, and she’d guess he was concealing some other expression – not that it mattered at this point; Kingsley was too perplexed and undecided to favor any one conclusion, lacking outside confirmation of some kind – so he let a flash of irritation show itself in his eyes and jawline, behind the drowsiness, as he faced her once more. By sheer luck, it might’ve been a good choice; as their eyes met, a blush of embarrassment at her own anger-birthed retort’s crassness colored the professor's cheeks. Charmed by the serendipity of this commonality of expression, Crow let his gray eyes flick sheepishly down and aside, as a counterpart to her flushed cheeks. While the Paridoner’s customary reserve and the façade of coy etiquette he’d cultivated for this meeting forbade any open statement of the sort, the convergence’s implied, spontaneous-seeming message was clear: We are much alike, you and I, and might yet work together where our agendas chance to coincide, for all that our respective loyalties have set us at odds, in this encounter.

Adjusting the cuffs of the silver-embroidered black velvet tailcoat which Buchvold (or, to be accurate, Buchvold’s nephew; the rangy Borcan’s own cuffs would have overhung the bard’s wrists by inches) had leant him, as if flustered by his gaffe and taking refuge in his vanity, Crow let the professor’s questions hang in the air for a few seconds. He furrowed his brow, as if thinking through the fog of weariness, to reinforce the impression that his wits were hampered by fatigue … also, should the professor’s honor run deep enough, to let her realize the irony of her calling for openness, after she – the self-proclaimed candid party in this dialogue – had admitted to deception regarding the Tao letter’s location.

Had I known how very possessive you’d be about that blasted letter, Milady Scalpel, I’d have presented less of my prospective backstory in the initial lure, and reserved far more of its ‘revelations’ for this meeting. Now that you are cooperating, however reluctantly at present, I don’t actually need the bloody thing at all! But I’ve confused you enough, as it is – no need to leave you totally at sea, especially not if you’re to fact-check my ‘history’ as I’d intended – so I’ll comply with your expectations for now, then give your doubts yet another twist or two before we part company, to keep your enquiries active, yet covert.

But I dearly hope, professor, that you’ll find it within yourself to forgive me for my deceptions, when you do catch on. I’d hate to have to use what you’re about to give me; while most of your fellow vipers aren’t worth a bent bonefang – a post-Upheaval bonefang, at that! – you seem like a person worth knowing, redeemable or not.

When he broke the tension with his response, of course, Crow let none of this speculation color his words or tone. No need to make it that obvious, that his backstory was as complete a fraud as it actually was; the more avenues of inquiry she discreetly probed, to uncover the discrepancies Buchvold’s commerce-oriented mind lacked the keen scholastic training to discern, the better.

It was, of course, largely due to situations like this that the bard favored personas several years his junior. With practiced ease, he played his trusty young-whip-caught-out-by-his-own-callow-overconfidence card. “B-beg pardon? You– You’re saying … you do have the letter, professor…? It’s here, at the hotel?” He blinked, shook his head, let a trace of outrage – and, more subtly, of betrayed pain, from the camouflaged tender heart he’d led her to think inclined him to shield her from Tao’s wrath – flick across his furrowed brow and weary eyes. His hand trembled, just a little, as he reclaimed the magpie-headed cane from the tabletop, gripped it like an anchor against his waxing exhaustion.

Speaking hesitantly, as if thinking aloud helped keep his mind clear, the VRS spy closed the trap. “Yes, yes of course I’ll need the letter … I can show the brothers, as I said, and end this cowardly exile of Tao’s now, while there’s still time for us to help the Fraternity … can check that it is Tao’s handwriting as well, and not another Slain trick … maybe figure out what his real intentions are, that the old man would never admit to my face … not unless I confront him with the proof, not just the brothers … no, wait, that’s not right….” Again, the bard rubbed his brow – a good thing he’d left the real bruise intact; had his cosmetics extended above his high-arched eyebrows today, he’d surely have spoiled it by now, with all this pretense of fatigue and perplexity – and blinked doubtfully at the Paridoner.

“If… if you’d not be offended, that I ask it, professor… perhaps it’s best if we cover both those possible needs, while we have this opportunity. I … I’m not sure how Tao would react, if I brought his own letter back to him – if he’d think it some ploy on your part, or even on mine for that matter – rather than your own promise to help us. I thought I knew how the old man would respond to my message about the Manoir, before, but … well, best to take as much care as we can, to ensure that he accepts your kind offer’s sincerity, before I – we – risk antagonizing him, going behind his back.

“Maybe… maybe it won’t be necessary, at that. I … owe Tao too much, all these years past, to do that to him without trying to convince him to end our exile – convince him, not force him – one more time, at least. Perhaps … perhaps your pledge of assistance will be enough to show him there are those we can risk trusting – those, who are willing to extend their own trust to us – within the Fraternity-proper.

“If … if it’s not too great an imposition to ask of you, professor.”

The bard’s tired demeanor had segued, even as he spoke, from young-whip-caught-out to young-protégé-torn-by-conflicting-loyalties, ending in young-pup-pleading-for-solution-to-dilemma. Until the professor could prove his pretense as such, he wasn’t about to put an end to his charade, nor to let her draw the issue of blackmail into the open … not when he’d already decided what manner of olive branch to toss her, in compensation for all of the unmerited distress and confusion he’d caused this worthy sparring-partner.

(Paying for her breakfast, of course, hardly counted. He hoped she’d forgive him for that minor ploy as well, should that particular gambit ever come to light.)

She had no actual choice, of course. Her own previous words had trapped her. And the gracious deportment that’d served her so well as a shield, throughout their conversational sparring, now utterly forbade an outright rejection of his request, for all that the anger she’d choked into submission clearly yearned to castigate him openly.

Ah, that staid Zherisian fixation on propriety! Any Core-born woman would hurl my lies back in my face at this stage, I daresay – hells, an Invidian would’ve likely smacked me for their impertinence, ten minutes ago! – but Milady Scalpel’s keen self-discipline won’t allow you that liberty. Small wonder, that I could never stand to remain in Paridon long enough to pick up your language, madam: I’d have gone mad in a month, trying to stay within such over-tight boundaries of formality.

It wasn’t really fair, taking advantage of the professor’s cultural conditioning as he had. But then, weren’t all his targets equally prey to such weaknesses, either inculcated with or consciously rebelling against propriety? Kingsley’s own mannerly conduct, in dealing with the hotel staff even as they’d conversed, had verified what he’d suspected since he’d observed her ordering her dinner at the Manoir: this dear lady could be vindictive if provoked and cruel if offended, yet her dignity was so inviolate, she couldn't be genuinely rude to save her life.

Which, he supposed, was a major counterargument against his similarity to the professor. Save as his work required him to cultivate – and steer – their opinions, for good or ill, the bard honestly didn’t give a damn what other people might think of him. It was one reason he never fell prey to temptation, when his assumed roles promised the opportunity to rise in the ranks of publicly-prestigious organizations like the Fraternity of Shadows: the respect of others – particularly stolen respect, obtained via his invariably-false pretenses – meant nothing to him; being able to view his face in the mirror – his real face – without (much) guilt was of far greater value than anyone’s accolades, even those of his VRS associates.

And at that thought, Crow realized he’d been absolutely right about what Kingsley’s true Achilles heel was. Yet even so, the professor was nodding, swallowing her retort, taking pen and paper from her carpetbag and setting ink to page. Propriety’s dictates, again.

The bard beamed gratefully at the Paridoner, yawned again as he leaned back away from the table. He propped his bad ankle on the empty chair opposite his own seat, and inspected the dappled-leaf motif of the Riverview’s blandly-elvish décor, as he left the professor to undertake her writing in privacy. Letting his eyelids droop, he feigned a semi-doze in his chair, as he listened in mild amusement to the scratching of Kingsley’s pen-nib across paper – a sudden pause, there, as she surreptitiously checked he wasn’t watching – and how the speed and pressure of her ink-strokes varied with her musings over how much – or, most importantly, how little – she could get away with committing to.

The VRS spy didn’t care which details she might carefully quibble her way around. This scholar’s wits were every bit as sharp as he’d expected, and he knew she’d shield herself (and her fortunate, overmatched spouse) as meticulously as she could – indeed, he rather hoped she’d succeed in that; feeling she’d salvaged an element of self-protection from this concession would avert her discomfort and shame – but the true scope of Crow’s deceit was yet unknown to Kingsley. In truth, any promise of information – even as innocuous as passing on the time and location of the next FoS meeting – would likely be a hanging offense, in the pitiless judgment of the Umbra … if the bard’s true identity as a spy (for whom, he’d quite readily die before admitting: the Fraternity might’ve been wounded after Van Rijn, but it could still wipe out the Van Richten Society in a month’s work, if it ever suspected how intrigue’s tables had been turned; even now, Crow’s variously-signed missives to the twins told them nothing of Lord Balfour’s true affinities, lest the girls’ indiscretion invite the dangers the bard courted, solely for himself, upon allies unprepared to face or to flee the wizards’ wrath) were ever uncovered.

Which, conveniently, gave Kingsley as strong a motive as Buchvold’s – indeed, perhaps even stronger; the Borcan had only his own neck to protect, not a spouse’s – to conceal Crow’s imposture from her own brethren, in the event she did uncover clinching proof the bard was no member. Even if the Umbra didn’t execute her outright, the Paridoner’s future in the brotherhood would be over – her professional career also, in all likelihood, given the FoS’s stranglehold upon the upper echelons of academe – and her reputation … the very Achilles heel that’d marked Kingsley as Crow’s second choice of corroborating witness, her own status as a female Initiate being sufficiently fragile that the mere insinuation of such a security-lapse would ruin her … would suffer, worst of all.

It was, of course, possible she’d turn up nothing. He and the Borcan had done their level best, in concocting the "Il Aluk survivor" pretense and in weaving enough complexity into it to muddy the waters for anyone who might question its validity. But so long as Crow held her hostage to this new letter – not that he’d ever really use it against her: feigned extortion lay within his moral compass; engineering the execution of someone whose true evil he still had his doubts about certainly wasn’t – the professor would have no choice but to suppress whatever she’d uncovered, or (better yet) try to bargain it away for her own letter’s return. Crow hoped she’d be daring enough to attempt the latter – certainly, her conduct today suggested that she wasn’t one to quail from confrontation – as he looked forward to the prospect of dueling this opponent again, but without the need for quite so many layers of prevarication. How might his real personality (such as it was) fare against hers, absent his pose of youthful irreverence or her ever-so-courteous veneer…?

But that hopeful expectation – to say nothing of his personal yen to converse on matters of a spiritual bent – would never be fulfilled, if she left his company bearing too bitter a grudge. So as Kingsley continued to write, the bard “roused” himself from his affected doze, as if waked by a sudden thought, and retrieved his ever-present notebook and steel-nib pen – an exceptionally fine one, no less – from his oversized greatcoat’s pocket. He flipped several pages past his last set of shorthand notes, to ensure no pen-impressions of previous writings would be present on his letter, and squinted as he scribbled in the sloppiest of the six distinct styles of handwriting – six Mordentish styles, that is; the other major alphabets allowed him fewer options, as he used these rather less frequently in his forgeries – he’d trained himself to employ off-the-cuff:

“Compatriots-In-Hiding,

Fiddler’s cousin tunes in G, 2/4 agogic. This trustworthy woman, Professor Gertrude Kingsley, offers her very generous promise of most valuable contact with the honorable Brethren. She is experienced and extremely accommodating, and much too valuable an information-source and ally to risk forfeiting to highly-dubious suspicions. Full responsibility for her discretion and oversight is mine, so actions contrary to her welfare are firmly discouraged. Rubato brusco in C, fourth passage.”


The coding-phrases were nonsense, of course, and the phrasing a tad clumsy – the better to come off as less-flowery than the Tao letter – but straight-out statements without any hint of cryptic subtext would have seemed far more suspicious. And if the professor were painstaking enough in her research-habits to look up “agogic” in the dictionary, she’d surely see enough duplicity on a second read-through to keep her intrigued ... if, perhaps, a bit miffed as to his continued scorn towards her inexperience.

Hearing the professor’s own pen-strokes cease, the bard ‘signed’ his brief note not with a signature – even if it was an alias, “Crow” was the nearest thing to a true identity as the amnesiac VRS agent had, so he avoided signing by that name if he could – but with a quick-drawn silhouette of a bird, wings spread and half-bent in that looming “mantled” pose so typical of his avian namesakes.

Turning back to Kingsley, the bard blinked sleepily at her, nodded to his own impromptu note and to her completed letter, and grinned meekly, in slight embarrassment.

“I fear my brain’s already half-asleep, professor, for it only occurred to me as you were writing that I’d rather be leaving you in the lurch, without any proof we’d come to terms peaceably, if I took Tao’s letter as well as your own. Could be that Tao might drop by to see you himself, or send the brothers to do so, while I’m off trying to track him down on the other end of Darkon! Not sure how he’d find you, but then, we’re not sure how he’d really learned of your own queries, either … and if he and I missed each other, you’ve have no way to convince him you’d not done me some ill, be it for your own behalf or that of our Slain ex-brethren. Daft notion, I realize it – I’m sure you, madam, sincerely mean my old ‘compatriots’ and I no harm – but it’s just the kind of poppycock Tao tends to harp upon when he’s jumping at shadows … and I guess I’m damn near tired enough to think of such ridiculous prospects myself, all but dozing off as you were writing, and so forth.”

Crow passed his own note to the professor, with a dismissive comment that she needn’t be concerned about the coding-phrases he’d added “to prove it’s really my message”, and accepted her missive to ‘Tao’ in exchange. Squinting at the Paridoner’s graceful, petite lettering, he mutely mouthed something indecorous, then fished a slim leather case from his vest pocket, and briskly donned the wire-frame spectacles – his own, not a prop, and yet another reason he’d never taken to wizard-magic, for all that he could normally bull his way unaided through script less delicately-written than Kingsley’s – it contained.

Seated, thusly – peering through reading-glasses at a professor’s dense writings, hair ill-kempt and eyelids drooping wearily, with one leg idly propped and an occasional yawn masked politely by his free hand – the youthfully-guised bard resembled nothing so much as one of Kingsley’s own students, left bleary after a night’s undisciplined “cramming” for exams, and now fighting to remain conscious long enough to actually take them.

(He bloody well ought to look that way: he'd practiced it in his hotel-room's mirror long enough.)
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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Pamela
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Post by Pamela »

Gertrude caught the bard’s irritation, so quickly hidden by his yawn, and blushed lightly at her display of pique. She had lost; what was the point of acting like a child over it? Yet she was still glad to have managed some show of frustration on his part, guessing its cause to be the deception over the letter. Even that left a bitter taste in her mouth, as she began to rue lying about it in the first place. Well, it was done, and there was no point in dwelling any longer in ‘what if’. What was important, and possibly dangerous, was ‘now what’.

The blush returned at his reference to her caught-out lie, but was soon gone as resignation returned at the idea of writing her letter. The professor nodded as if in agreement, but it was merely show; she had no idea anymore as to what was true or not, having lost her way in the labyrinth of words. As she listened to his excuses for its necessity, she was considering what she would write, and how much he would let her get away with. “Of course,” she replied quietly at his ‘request’. Opening her carpet bag, she retrieved pen and paper, and bottle of ink, and putting her teacup to her right, lay down her materials and began to write slowly, carefully and cleanly her offer of friendship and avowal of determination to defeat van Rijn. It was not an easy process; she had never liked writing with anyone watching, and the bard was doing well to pretend to be too sleepy to notice what he’d traveled miles and days to receive in the first place.

She was puzzling over a sentence when Crow began to do his own writing. Her heart sank, wondering if this was a form of gloating: was he writing the Fraternity a cover-letter for a package which would include her betrayal? She tried not to let her mind dwell on the horrid thought, and forced herself to bring her writing to its conclusion. She looked up mutely, expressionless, unsure as to what would happen but only praying that she would be able to maintain her calm in defeat.

She listened in disbelief as he presented his letter, handing hers over numbly. She stopped herself from looking at it; if it were some cruel joke she didn’t trust herself to respond well, and if it were not… “Thank you,” she murmured, not trusting herself to say more. Her fingers rested lightly on the bottom of his letter unwilling/not daring to put it into her bag until the bard had finished reading her own. She was ready to write again if required, and expected to. She already knew which parts she would add to her second, and hopefully last copy.

As he read, she was reminded of the university: her husband reading student’s papers or his correspondence. Nostalgia seized her, made her ache. Oh Rupert, what have I done… Please, please let this go no further than myself.

It was almost a physical effort not to gape when he put aside his spectacles, and folded the letter before slipping it into some hidden pocket in his tailcoat. She couldn’t even register his comments, so flabberghasted was she, and mutely rose from her seat, nodding as she registered that he was suggesting they go upstairs to fetch the letter before he retired for a few hours. That’s it? she thought blankly as she slipped his letter into her bag, and automatically rose up to help the bard out of his seat once more before walking at his side out of the dining room and up the stairs.

He must be waiting till we’re in private, and not wishing to make any more of a public scene, she tried to convince herself. But she still couldn’t contain a sudden wave of hope at the prospect that perhaps this wasn’t a Fraternity ruse. She matched his pace up the stairs, letting him have the banister to support himself and to spare himself any embarrassment of needing her physical support.
His only real danger is if stupidity is contagious and lethal. In which case, we’re all dead…-Gertrude
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Rotipher of the FoS
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Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

By his third swift skimming of her letter – first for plain content, then for mood, lastly for innuendo and doubletalk – Crow was feeling just a bit proud of Professor Kingsley. The superficial words she’d penned were polite, pleasant, and respectful, yet she’d skillfully pruned her actual commitment to “Tao’s” interests to the slimmest margin she must have expected to pass the bard’s muster. Oh, it was easily enough to ruin her future prospects with the Fraternity, should the real extent of her security-breach be uncovered – for sun’s sake, even the admission she’d accommodated the VRS spy so far as to scribe him a letter, at all, would likely suffice, for that! – but the leery Paridoner’d couched her concession-cum-confession in the vaguest of possible terms, tying herself down only to those few specifics (secrecy for the “Brothers-in-Exile” and the sharing of progress reports on the search for Van Rijn) she’d yet committed to, earlier in their conversation. Moreover, by his second reading, the bard was quite convinced she’d anticipated the disclosure of the missive’s damning contents to her Fraternity superiors… and was weighing her words to minimize not only her own culpability, in the eyes of any prospective FoS investigation, but her faraway husband’s, as well.

Gold star on your essay, Milady Scalpel: nice to confirm you’ve sufficient savvy that I won’t need to spell out the prospect of blackmail to your face, if and when circumstances demand it. Extortion’s too vital a tool for me to spurn using, but it’s hardly my stratagem of choice; extortionist is one role that rather chafes on my conscience, at least when I’m forced to act out the part for people I actually respect.

And even if your studies didn’t interest me, you’ve more than earned that by now, madam … not least, because so many of your brethren would have striven to shift blame to their spouses rather than away, were the Fraternity’s ranks far more egalitarian and their own better halves, available as scapegoats. Have to make a note to shield Mr. Kingsley from the consequences as well, should fortune turn against me and the “information-bombs” I’ve laid as a failsafe – the ones that’d have everyone from the Kargat to the Circle to the bloody Newsbill tracking down both Erik Van Rijn and the Fraternity of Shadows – be triggered by my prolonged disappearance.

(Sorry, Buchvold, but there’s far higher principles at stake than any “pledge of secrecy” one of us might’ve forced or foisted on the other. And I know for a fact that you wouldn’t spurn such tactics, in my position, given how you’d so-recently coerced that fellow Hawke! If this is the mission that does bring me down at last, then I’ll damn well be taking your snake-pit organization’s scrupulous public veneer down with me. Destroying the FoS isn’t on my agenda – despicable as it is, there are far worse hobbies with which so many amoral arcanists could be occupying their spare time – but I’ve learnt more than enough to sabotage quite a few of its ongoing plans from beyond the grave … not to mention tarnishing your little club's image, in the eyes of all those who respect virtue more than dry academic credentials, and thus, discrediting the narcissistic ideologies your brethren advocate, to the “unenlightened” world’s relief.)

No concern of yours, madam; even the parts of those “bombs” that are true have left your name strictly out of the picture. Consider it my salute to you, for saving civilians at the Manoir … and for a duel well-fought! It may be amateur hour still, but I think that hour’s closing bell has at least begun to toll.

Welcome to my world, Gertrude Kingsley. Wish I could promise you this first brush with intrigue’s the costliest you’ll ever face … but even I can’t lie about everything.

The endgame, in confrontations such as these, was usually an anticlimax for Crow – the invigorating rush of success, abating far too quickly for his tastes, forfeit to the too-familiar tedium of steering his opponent’s disappointment and soothing any resentments that threatened to flare into retaliation – and seeing the scalpel-lady numbly concede to his closing requests was anything but an exception. In truth, the resolute professor’s subdued passivity in the wake of her loss was jarring, even alarming: so far as the bard was coming to understand her, it wasn’t at all like Kingsley, to be so docile! Was she expecting him to kick her, now that she was down…? It was certainly plausible, especially if she’d endured as much open contempt from her peers as seemed likely, or if her past dealings with fellow Brothers had taught her to expect such pointless, gloating abuse. Thankfully, his prior conduct and statements (both in person and as “Tao”) were consistent with a personality less at ease with his own capacity for cruelty than were most of his alleged “fellow members”. He didn’t have to rub her downfall in her face, merely to uphold his façade; indeed, offering no such overt ridicule might aid his pretense, disavowing the notion this might all be some ghastly vipers’ trick.

Had fooling Kingsley alone been his objective, the bard could have let matters rest, then and there. Indeed, part of him – the same part that sorely hoped they’d someday discuss topics that had nothing to do with the wretched Fraternity – wished he could have done that very thing, easing off on the pressure and granting the bewildered scholar a chance to recoup her lost peace of mind. But then again, if Crow had wanted solely to deceive her, he’d never have included the other, fictional bards in his account: a lone survivor, hunted by the Slain and desperate for contacts in the wake of Van Rijn’s rebellion, would have been enough, if having her probe his faux-history's credibility – and then keep his real secret from the FoS, if and when she uncovered it; of course, a less-fastidious spy could have silenced her with ease, but the Van Richten Society wasn't the sort of group to harbor murderers ... and the bard wasn't the sort of man who could assassinate as inoffensive a "member" as this, merely to guard his own skin – wasn’t the true, veiled purpose of this elaborate exercise.

Instead, he’d needed to invent allies for himself – allies, unrelated to both the VRS and the true Fraternity – who could confide in her his alleged origins and motives, and whose best of interests he could claim to be serving. That gave him common ground with the professor – the very person who’d taken the lead in evacuating civilians from the Manoir, hence someone who comprehended such concern for others’ welfare – as well as another party to blame it on, should his mission’s future demands chance to set them at cross-purposes. Most importantly, it meant that, in her mind, her letter – and thus, her future – would be in the hands of men who did care for Crow’s well-being (for so the Tao letter revealed), and yet, by the bard’s words and hints today, cared nothing for the Fraternity’s safety, and less than nothing for her own. By bringing “Tao” into the picture, he had ensured that if she learned the truth, she’d not dare betray his identity to her FoS superiors, in hopes he’d be killed quickly and the incriminating letter never found. Not now that Kingsley felt Tao – or rather, whomever the bard was really taking his orders from, who had adopted the Darkonian theater-owner’s name; that “they” might be him would seem too good to be true, now that he’d seeded the notion his was not a solo endeavor – was really out there, and would doubtless ruin her, in retaliation for his protege's – or agent’s – disclosure.

Of course, “Tao” didn’t have her letter safely in his keeping, yet. And the professor had already demonstrated that she could fool Crow with her own lies, if she really needed to! He had only Kingsley’s word and her careless seating-preferences to go by, to prove she was truly as ineffectual at battle-magic as she’d claimed; that she’d reportedly displayed no such aptitudes at the Manoir meant little, as many magics which could fell a breathing man were useless against the animated corpses she’d confronted in October.

Nine chances in ten, he’d give it, that the precaution was unnecessary. Still, the VRS spy preferred to pick his risks for himself, and not sitting at windowside tables barely scratched the surface of his tradecraft. He’d ascended barely half-a-dozen steps when he suddenly “remembered” leaving his mist-gray greatcoat behind in the dining hall; an embarrassed, pleading glance from fume-reddened eyes sent the ever-courteous Paridoner back to fetch it. Aided by the banister and his magpie-crowned cane, he’d limped his way up enough additional steps, by the time she returned, that she didn’t try to catch up and drape it over the bard’s shoulders, but merely carried the voluminous coat folded in her arms.

No sociopath in you, madam … but as I’d noted, your husband is a lucky man. So just in case his continued good fortune might predicate, in your mind, upon my taking a terminal tumble down these stairs – be it by magic or a well-timed shove – it’s best for both of us if your hands remain fully occupied with my coat, just now. Neither offense nor blame intended; it’s my training talking, not my opinion of your honor or temperament.

(Sometimes, the bard truly hated the manner in which his infiltration-work had taught him to think, over the years. At least, he tried to believe that it was only his work, which had caused him to think that way.)

Only rank amateurs gave away that they knew what they weren’t supposed to. Preparing to be “astonished” that her hotel suite was directly across the upstairs hall from his own – he’d been lucky that one was unoccupied, at the time he’d checked in last night; bribing an incumbent tenant to swap rooms would have been easy enough, but the resulting noise and bother could have alerted Kingsley – Crow paused at the top of the steps, as if unsure of his direction, and waited for the professor to join him.

That his room lay directly across from hers was important. Had it been further up or down the hall, she might have seen the subtle hand-gesture he directed toward his own suite-door’s peephole, as he stood at her doorway – his back turned politely, in deference to prim Zherisian mores as to the sacrosanct privacy of a lady’s bedchamber – and awaited the Tao letter’s handover. Not his usual chord-strums on air or plucking of imaginary strings, but a theatrical gesture, by which stagehands at operatic performances mutely signaled to the cast from off-stage.

This particular gesture’s meaning was: “Not yet”.
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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Post by Pamela »

When Crow paused on the steps, she turned warily to meet his eyes, wondering what was now the problem. She looked puzzled by his silent plea, following his glance back to the dining room…and the coat which still hung on his chair. She lightly clucked her tongue at her own thoughtlessness, murmuring, “I’ll fetch it- don’t concern yourself about it.”

Returning into the dining room, she was still wondering. Was this yet another ploy, or perhaps some test of her honesty? She suddenly smiled to herself, shaking her head. I believe it’s time to rest our mind of further twists and turns, don’t you think? She pursed her lips to contain her sudden mirth at the image of her frantically searching his pockets like some street rat, racing out the door when she found the desired valuable which guaranteed her survival one more day. She turned back to the staircase, surprised not to find the bard watching her. She took some hope in the thought of his potential trust, while warning herself that it could still be a test.

She was soon by his side, though she did her best to slow her pace so as not to make him feel self-conscious or any need to hurry himself. Not that she was concerned for his welfare, of course; it was a courtesy, and there was no need to sacrifice her principles any further than she needed to, even in a fit of pique. And perhaps, if there was still an out in all this… She lay the thought aside. Hope could invite desperation, and she needed to brace herself for the worst, not pleading like some pretty skirt for her life. Another wry smile as she thought, Or seduce him with my wiles. She knew she was a handsome woman for her age- but hardly the prime material for a bodice ripper.

These flashes of humour were her mind- and culture’s- way of dealing with stress, and she began to find her mental footing once more. True, she was still in danger, but she wasn’t dead…and hadn’t this morning taught her that she’d been in danger all this time without being fully awake to the fact? No more room or time for such complacency.

She looked suspiciously at the bard when he halted outside her door…and then realised it was not her room that he was looking at. Her eyebrows raised with amusement as well as wonder at his audacity, while he pretended to be completely oblivious to the fact. If this was a coincidence she would eat her hat, as the phrase went. “If you’ll excuse me,” she quietly said, and entered her room, closing the door most of the way. Standing behind it, she approached her bedstand, and lay the carpetbag down.

She opened it up, and unzipped a side pocket, filled with many bits of seeming litter- wadded up notes, a crumpled up and soiled handkerchief- keeping an eye on her companion’s movements. The bottom of the pocket was crudely sewn together, and she tore the seams, breaking the sloppy stitches, and touching upon another opening.

This contained several books and papers- more than the professor would ever have been able to easily carry. Fortunately, Gertrude maintained her belongings with a neat and orderly system, and quickly found the letter. She then began to move around her room, taking her time over drawers, opening some loudly and others quietly. None of it was likely to fool the bard, but if she were to engage in this kind of game, she may as well do it whole-heartedly. After taking a brief peek behind the curtains, stroking the sill with the paper in hand, she finally returned to the door, and opened it.

“Here is the letter, Crow. Do you require some assistance to your room?” she asked, gesturing to the greatcoat she had picked up once more from her bed as she returned to the hall.
His only real danger is if stupidity is contagious and lethal. In which case, we’re all dead…-Gertrude
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Rotipher of the FoS
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Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

The bard directed another covert gesture toward his room – a mimed count-of-three, this time – as Kingsley’s brisk footsteps approached, her “rummaging” evidently complete. Hardly a convincing ruse on her part, as it predicated on the assumption that so orderly an intellect could conceivably forget where such a document was hidden, but he doubted if the scholar seriously expected to fool him. Still, the fact she’d made the effort proved her enthusiasm for the game was returning, to obscure the letter’s place of concealment with a feigned search: a good sign, that.

Resilient as well as gifted … and learning fast, too! My, how quickly they grow up…

The bard turned as her half-shut door swung wide, blinked at the letter in her hand, then beamed gratefully at the Paridoner. Undiminished by his makeup and unobscured by his usual affected flippancy, the spy’s rarely-seen look of honest delight lit up the room. He let genuine pleasure at the professor’s renewed spirits (for he really had felt a bit worried for her, a few moments ago) color his “guileless” smile, both to facilitate her recovery of nerve, and to banish any betraying vestige of smugness from his gratified expression.

Had Kingsley been anything but a Paridoner, Crow would have most likely hugged her then and there, or at least clapped her on the shoulder in celebratory camaraderie. Acting the over-effusive rascal was a motif he’d honed to perfection, and a tried-and-true excuse to break through others’ reserve. There was a time and a place for everything, however, and not every audience appreciated the “exuberant, impetuous bard” cliché. Respecting this woman as he’d come to, the spy wouldn’t thus contravene Kingsley’s dignity now, even though it would’ve prolonged her perturbed state to his own tactical advantage.

Of course, a little perturbation, stirred up via less-intrusive means, couldn’t hurt. As the bard reached out to deftly accept the proffered envelope and its contents, he kept his gray eyes fixed genially on hers, and let a smidgeon more warmth – not heat, not with the age-difference he’d implied, but warmth most certainly – cross his grateful aspect. And if his fingertips brushed the back of her hand for a fraction of a breath longer than was strictly necessary, as he grasped the letter, it wasn’t nearly long enough to press or decide the matter … but they had brushed across skin, nonetheless.

(This particular ploy was not, not would ever be, any more than that. The bard, too, had his loyalties. Still, if her musings downstairs had run as he suspected, if only in passing, it would help to keep this morning’s tête-à-tête in her thoughts.)

Barely a second, it took, before he broke the spell. If she were sure, the effect would be spoilt; speculation, if only idle or self-mocking, was its sole intention. The spy let his gaze drop low, as if humbled by her courtesy, and self-effacingly murmured: “Such kindness, in the face of all the bother I’ve been … Madam, you are far too good to me, and far more patient than any man rightly deserves, who’s caused you such vexation.”

“Yet … if that patience might hold true, a little longer…?” Crow let his hand tremble a bit in weariness – in truth, no difficult ruse; he really was well behind on his rest, though operating on minimal sleep was business-as-usual for the dream-plagued VRS agent – as he tucked the Tao letter into his vest pocket, then leaned heavily on the doorframe’s support and pointed with his cane to the chamber across the hall.

Seeming equally unsurprised by the request for further aid, or by the “coincidence” of his room’s proximity – A quick study indeed, Crow mused; I daresay we two really are much alike! – the professor gathered up his greatcoat, then followed him into the hallway. The dark-curled spy fumbled briefly with his room-key out of ostensible sleep-deprived muzziness, buying just a little more time; then he drew back the bolt and entered, gesturing vaguely at the coat-hooks beside the far wall’s window.

While they took pride in their inn’s reputation, the Riverview’s owners weren’t eager to antagonize their xenophobic neighbors by being too accommodating to outsiders. The compromise they seem to have settled upon was lodgings that were comfortable, yet stingy of luxuries by ‘big-city’ standards. Aside from the presence of two padded chairs, not one soft- and one hard-seated as in Kingsley’s own room – a concession to infirmity the bard had but grudgingly accepted, so he could put his foot up whilst sitting – the Paridoner would find Crow’s quarters little different from others in the hotel. The familiar shape of the guitar-case he’d gone to such lengths to shield from breakage at the Manoir sat propped upright at the foot of his bed, and a modest traveler’s suitcase that had plainly seen better days rested by the wardrobe. The room’s disused appearance hinted he’d not occupied it long enough to unpack, or hadn’t bothered doing so. Or, possibly, that he might have tucked his belongings out of view intentionally, to conceal their lack of quality: few career musicians could boast such affluence as the average FoS recruit could lay claim to, and it was altogether plausible that Crow’s present outfit, however stylish, might constitute the only respectable set of clothing he owned.

Preceding the professor into the chamber, the bard sank in ill-hid relief onto the bedside, and began gingerly massaging his weakened limb’s calf through his trouser-leg. As the professor crossed the room to hang up his greatcoat – a trifle hesitantly, perhaps, but with the clear intention not to appear intimidated by the confined quarters – Crow slipped the Tao letter’s envelope from his pocket, squinted closely at the address, but paused on the brink of drawing its foolscap contents from within. He shook his head dismissively, and cast the envelope aside onto the bedside table.

“Better not … not while I’m in this state, at least,” he muttered aloud. “The address’s handwriting does seem familiar – it could be Tao’s, if he still favors the same block-letter script in his cover-text – but I’m not nearly so alert as to be certain, now. Best wait until I’ve rested up, to read it through: we never did rule out the Slain as suspects, altogether, and leaping to conclusions and missing details won’t help us.”

The bard turned back to the professor, perhaps to ask her opinion on this, then winced at the brightness flooding in through the room’s solitary window. The upstairs hallway had been dimly-lit, after the sunrise glare of the dining room, and time’s passage had now brought said sun’s rays streaming directly into his chamber. Shading dog-tired eyes with a sigil-ringed palm, Crow again let sheepishness tinge his speech:

“Dash it, that won’t do. Expect I’ll have to call for a chambermaid to seal those shutters; leaning out of a window’s a bit risky, on this dratted leg. Rest assured, madam, you’d no cause to apologize to me for any dearth of battle-prowess at the Manoir: until it’s mended itself properly – at least, as properly as it ever gets – I’ll be accounted no great athlete, myself!”

With this self-demeaning remark, the bard began to rise, as if to return to the hallway to summon a servant’s help. A moment’s clumsy fumbling with his cane was all it took; again, Milady Scalpel’s nigh-compulsive courtesy took hold. Dismissing any need for outside aid, the Paridoner checked the window herself, confirmed that its diaphanous elven-style curtains were too thin to block out glare entirely, then endeavored in vain to reach the wide-flung shutters. Lacking a hooked pole or whatever other implement the hotel-staff no doubt used for this purpose, Kingsley drew one of the padded chairs to the window-side and clambered atop it, to extend her outward reach. Her body’s tension was palpable in such a vulnerable position, though she surely knew any potential physical peril was long past.

Not wishing to worry her as her own hands’ possible mischief had concerned him on the stairs, Crow remained perched sedately on the bedside. He shook his head yet again, and peevishly scoffed again at himself, both to seed another clue and to assure her he’d not budged an inch. “Ah, madam, how useless a creature I must seem, in your reckoning. To impose on your graciousness so heavily and so often, with so little reciprocation on my part! And I’ve quite smothered you in discourse upon my problems and history, while neglecting to enquire as to your own studies or interests; truly, I’ve no doubt I’ve deprived myself of ample education and insights, to have squandered such an opportunity to learn of your own telling achievements. A poor credit to the Fraternity I am, in my present state … and no tribute to my bardic brethren, either: I daresay, poor Corbil would’ve never let me hear the end of it, so boorish and unpracticed have my manners become, of late!”

Kingsley had the first shutter sealed fast now, and was working on the second. The room’s light grew dimmer as the glare was cut off. Without rising from his seat or conspicuously shifting his posture, the bard set his cane’s end against the half-open chamber door, then gave a gentle push with the magpie-capped stick’s padded tip, so his door swung closed simultaneously with the second shutter’s fastening. The Riverview’s doorways were almost soundless – having no personal experience of “sleep”, the elven owners had perhaps overdone their efforts to keep resting humans and the like from being disturbed in the night – and the timing ensured no separate shift in light-level would betray the door’s closure.

Voice now waxing nostalgic, Crow continued nattering sleepily from the bed, his stream-of-consciousness chatter uninterrupted by his covert act. “Corbil … now, he was the real champion diplomat among us; he could charm the pelt off a Kargat werewolf and set it to chasing its own tail, not ours! Spoken or composed, his words were always chosen perfectly; a cappella isn’t my mode of preference, but I’d gladly sing his lyrics, any day. Even his paper for the Fraternity was an engaging read, and scholastic treatises – if you’ll pardon me this nigh-heretical opinion, professor – aren’t wholly my cup of tea, at least so far as their entertainment value’s concerned.”

The professor was drawing the curtains now, muting the light-level even further. The bard set his cane aside, and fished a couple of items – a black silken handkerchief and a copper coin from the change she’s given him downstairs – out of his pockets. He laid the former beside him on the bedspread, and casually set the latter to “somersaulting” across the back of his knuckles: a minor finger-exercise common to stage prestidigitators, which he and other instrumentalists employed to keep their digits strong and limber.

“Ah, madam, if it were in my power to save but one of our writings from Il Aluk’s fall, it would be his compositions, not that silly Ambient Zeitgeist scrawling of mine. No small wonder, that Tao should envy Corbil’s pen as deeply as my belated rank: a man so poor an essayist as to send his own treatises abroad for critique, like Tao resorted to, ought to realize it’s not prejudice that’s impeding his advancement! Yet another ironic cruelty of this world – perhaps, of any world – that creative genius be forgotten by history while the efforts of mediocre talents persist. He’d tried to re-scribe his work later, of course – tried for years – but after the Requiem’s horrors, my ‘cousin’s’ creative fires never burned so brightly again. Another reason to despise the traitor and his goals, for me: part of Corbil died in the first Doomsday Device’s wake, for all his flesh escaped it.”

The bard was “jumping” the coin between one pair of spread fingers and the next, now, as he heard Kingsley step down from the chair. Best if she were standing firmly on the floorboards, for this; were her suspicions as conflicted as he guessed, this next gambit would startle her.

“So, for all my friend’s exquisite gifts, it’s Tao’s wretched hack-work that yet survives, if anything remains from our days as Initiates! Korolyn … Toroyan … Charyan – some moniker like that, I think it was; no one should be expected to keep track of bloody Borcan nobles, their toy titles rise and fall so fast; Rodrigo-something, I’m pretty sure of that – that sorry soul in Levkarest, might still have some copies, assuming he didn’t have the good taste to burn them. He’s the one the old man took to sending drafts of his papers to, for peer review ... no doubt, in hopes a foreign Brother might mistake his ghastly authorship for flawed translation! Oh, Tao told himself it was because the wizards of our own cell looked down upon we bards, or (hah!) were exploiting us as decoys to draw off Kargat attentions, but truth be told, the man would’ve fared no better with the examiners if he was an illusionist: ‘Master Thespian’ or not, Dzungaria Tao can’t write scholarly prose to save his life.”

The spy sighed aloud, and rubbed his brow ruefully, not even looking at Kingsley. His free hand kept toying with the copper piece, the warn assula’s patina too dense to gleam as he idly flipped and caught the coin. Both hands in plain view for this bit, Crow-my-lad: she’s a scalpel, and the obvious explanation for this little trick wouldn’t escape her musings for long…

“And there I go again, harping upon my problems! Really, professor, I’m not normally so self-absorbed or insensitive to guests, truly I’m not. Please, you really must allow me to make it up to you some time: I swear, I’ll not so much as mention bloody Tao, if you’ll but grant me the opportunity to do you some favor or kindness in recompense! If not here and now, then in future, consider my services at your disposal, if ever you might benefit from the assistance of a still-loyal Brother-in-Exile … or a bard, however meagerly-talented … or a friend, if so-oafish a clod as I might yet aspire to so-grand a privilege.”

Crow stifled another yawn, and squinted again at the now-sealed window.

“Blast it, it’s still too bright to sleep in here… ah well, with the shutters closed, your own generous efforts on my behalf needn’t be wasted, madam. ‘Line of effect’, and all, as you wizards put it.

“Cogito ergo creo.”

The bard’s thumb brushed the serpent-sigiled ring which he had no rightful claim to wear or invoke … and the room was plunged into darkness.
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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Post by Pamela »

Gertrude shook her head at the effusive apologies, smiling gently but also oddly, slightly amused. The little game in the bedroom had restored her sense of humour, and with it, her equilibrium. Whatever followed, she had no idea, but she would cope as best as she could. “I am only going to be studying this morning, Crow; a few minutes is nothing,” she replied, wondering what latest twist the bard was planning. He was like a stage magician- patter smooth and charming, sudden surprises and even frights, leaving the audience bewildered and perhaps a little suspicious… She was sure there was another trick, but what it was, she had no clue, and was on edge with waiting. But the other problem was that there was something in his demeanour which suggested that in the end he was no more dangerous- and she couldn’t afford to let that charm blind her to real danger, despite whatever intuition was suggesting.

She nodded politely at his decision to postpone examining the letter, unsure why he wanted to go over it with her. She was sure that Tao had already discussed whatever the letter contained. At his disparaging remark on his injury, and attempt to rise, Gertrude approached, shaking her head, and helped him to resume his seat. “Nonsense, Crow,” she remarked as she pulled over a chair to deal with the shutters herself. “Accidents befall everyone, and I’m sure you’d still be able to hold yourself in combat better than I could, whole and healthy, even now.” She tsked the idea of calling for help, even while wondering what the point of this little game was. Push her out the window? Hardly his style, and she’d jump off the damned chair before letting him get across the room to do it. Again she shook her head at the melodramatic possibilities, but she was beginning to feel like the magician’s assistant, called to be ready to wave her hand at the latest illusion.

She laughed lightly at his effusive apologies, as she carefully moved the blinds closed. “For heaven’s sake, Crow, please let’s lay aside the morning’s misunderstandings. I’m sure there’ll be time enough for me to inundate you with my long, dry history.” She turned to smile to assure him, but also to be able to keep an eye on him as she spoke. “My writings are not buried in some long lost tomb, though there are scores of students who have earnestly wished it, I’m sure. And as for your bardic friends, I can sign an affidavit assuring them that you haven’t committed the cardinal sin of boring me. And that surely must be the primary commandment.” She turned back to her chore, adding, “A shame that it doesn’t hold for professors, really…”

She listened to his chatter, frowning a little in concentration as she finished the chore, nodding and smiling at various points during Crow’s continuing exposition, while still listening for any movement or approach. She stepped off the chair with some relief, but looked around with a critical eye. Direct sunlight was still slipping in the cracks around the shutters, and she shrugged with amused resignation. As the bard made the coin dance between his fingers, she smiled a little, recalling her earlier thoughts. Now you see it, now you don’t, she thought as she moved across the room. Again she pooh-poohed his apologies, while assuring him there would be time in the future for them to talk, even as she felt the assurance of standing by the door once more. She smiled as her hands came upon the handle, and prepared to tell the bard not to bother to stand for she could see her way out, when she heard the familiar chant and overwhelming darkness surrounded her.

She cursed herself silently even as she involuntarily gasped, and began to turn the handle, ready to escape to the sanctuary of the hall if this should prove to be an attack. Ta-daa, she thought incongruously. “Crow,” she said, hoping her tone betrayed nothing but dry humour, “I know you’re anxious to sleep but do you mind waiting to dim the lights, so to speak, until I’ve actually left the room?”
His only real danger is if stupidity is contagious and lethal. In which case, we’re all dead…-Gertrude
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Rotipher of the FoS
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Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

Crow’d been chuckling inwardly, in pleased appreciativeness, all through the buildup to his latest little “surprise”. Her prior sense of humor was certainly recovered, as deadpan and self-effacing as before – the bard had to admit, he’d quite overdone the latter aspect of his pose, himself; he couldn't help it, watching her field his many apologies with her own solicitous banter was just too much fun! – and their unspoken, mutual understanding that this was all a show, present since he’d hinted about Tao’s possibly-malign agenda, was definitely rooting itself in her expectations. The slight smile of recognition which his coin-play had evoked only confirmed this: she’d accepted that their little breakfast-table drama was a scripted exercise, engineered for her testing and enlightenment, rather than the immediate threat she’d feared. This presumption was useful to the VRS spy on two levels, firstly as it placed him in the role of actor, not choreographer – whether on the stage or in "the long con", the best lead players took direction from those out-of-view; that he'd engineered the entire scene as a solo artist would be accounted an even more remote possibility – and secondly, because it would, in time, give her another reason to pursue the leads he’d “idly” dropped.

Self-protection was a motive, granted, but would abate as a priority once the danger she now dreaded – be it from Tao-as-exile or Tao-as-Fraternity-internal-affairs – failed to materialize. Crow might’ve had it in him to prolong the illusion that such threats existed, before he’d spoken with her … but not now, not after he’d met her face to face. The professor’d not lost their duel on every front, in truth; she’d yielded up a tactical advantage, yet unknowingly gained important strategic ground, in winning over the spy’s direct interest. Kingsley was too fascinating: too complex a puzzle for his empathetic “people sense” to try to decrypt; too gifted in her own poses and prevarications – sun’s blood, she’d actually bamboozled him, about the letter’s location! Him! – for Crow to forfeit the opportunity to observe this woman on more amicable terms. No longer was it enough to satisfy the bard, that she fact-check his backstory’s credibility or vouch for his status as a member under threat of her own disgrace: he now truly wanted the Paridoner’s friendship, not her fear.

And yet, his mission remained a priority. He needed her to probe the faux-history he and Buchvold had concocted, before he dared use it in front of members he'd not already maneuvered into positions where they dared not expose him for a fraud. Luckily, she’d already accepted the role he’d stepped into – that of the showman or comedian or street prestidigitator; a rare treat, in truth, to be able to bring his performer’s patter and technique into his true line of work! – and she still believed in Tao’s threat, if no longer strongly in his own. Kingsley’s trust could be won, now, with another gesture or two of good faith on his part … and yet she’d still look into his background, with an eye perhaps not as unsympathetic, but every bit as curious and keen.

The bard’s forte was music, not legerdemain, but he’d been a “drop-in” member at Club l’Artiste since investigating the resident stage magicians' covert activities six years ago. And it didn’t take much contact with prestidigitators to learn that a mind like the professor’s simply couldn’t resist peeking backstage, to discover how a trick really worked.

Speaking of tricks, Crow quipped mentally, and took hidden steps to restore light to his quarters, even as he audibly smacked himself on the forehead at Kingsley’s chastisement. “Beg pardon, professor,” he remarked, dispensing with flowery apologies for the nonce, as the room’s illumination returned to its previous modest level. As they both blinked in the restored semi-light, she could see how his free hand now clutched the handkerchief – some disc-shaped object, of equal size to the coin he’d been fiddling with moments ago, tautly wrapped in its black silk – even as his other hand slid from his brow to cover his sheepish grimace of embarrassment.

“Guess I really am more tired than even I suspected,” he murmured meekly. “You claim I’ve not been boring, madam, and I’m thankful for that, but being stupid isn’t exactly a mark of distinction, either. Why, I almost let the darkness fall after you’d opened the door, for all the Riverview to witness it! So much for my own pretensions to ‘security-consciousness’…

“That does it: as enjoyable as it’s been to speak with you, professor, I really must get some rest. Perhaps, if you’ll put up with me again, we might discuss these matters further over dinner – no need to decide now, by any means: I’ll freely extend the invitation, but leave it entirely up to your discretion whether to accept; just slip me a note if you don’t see me, whatever you choose – but for now, I’ll save face and let you depart before I make still-worse a fool of myself.”

(That the professor herself had been on the brink of the very lapse he’d named – the click of the half-turned door-handle had been audible in the darkness, as had her startled gasp – he deigned not to mention. She had, after all, stopped herself from opening the door, even if flight had been her first instinctive reaction. He didn’t even glance at her hands, clutched round the door-handle … though he knew that she knew that he knew they were there. Let her wonder…)

The bard laid the wrapped coin on the bedside table, securely knotting the handkerchief so the fabric couldn’t fall away and expose its contents, then reclaimed his cane and stood to escort Kingsley out, despite her protestations. “No, really, I’m quite capable of this, at least,” he insisted, to silence her objections by making the courtesy a matter for his own pride, rather than one of obligation. The Paridoner might indignantly spurn chivalry, but she’d certainly understand the need to prove oneself no less able than others.

Not for nothing had Crow left his ankle un-mended for this meeting. Humiliating as his infirmity was, it too was a ploy of sorts … and a test of Kingsley’s character, innocuously hidden among the more obvious tests he'd pressed upon her.

And she’d passed his real tests, with flying colors. That was the truly remarkable thing. The bard held not the slightest hope of Buchvold – the Borcan was supercilious amorality personified, so far as Crow could discern; even under the unorthodox circumstances of the “arrangement” he’d engineered, the VRS spy doubted he could budge the man’s cold callousness even an inch away from the abyss – but this marvelously-guarded, artful woman’s nature might yet be turned to better aspirations, given the right motivations and guidance. The bard’s work was onerous in more ways than one: to associate so closely with villains, great and petty, took its toll upon the well-cloaked reservoir of tenderness he walled off from the world, that expressed itself in solitude through his privately-played music, and in his solicitude toward such things (like fine instruments or animals) as could never betray his confidences. Yet it renewed his psychological endurance, that he might continue to stomach evil’s necessary proximity, each time he found one like Kingsley, whose path to perdition was not yet irrevocably laid.

Saving the world from darkness should, in theory, be its own reward. For conventional members of the Van Richten Society, that was enough. But Crow lived in a world of personalities, not abstractions – if he did his part to rid the Land of evil monsters, it was because of their evil, not their monstrousness; he’d feel no lesser revulsion and no greater pity for a rampaging human psychopath than a ravening werewolf, were the destruction they wrought of equal magnitude – and this, far more than his conscience or methods, made him fundamentally different from both the Fraternity and his own well-intentioned, yet often overly-simplistic Society. He couldn’t take it for granted that his adversaries were beyond saving; he had to find out for himself – to get into their heads – repellant though that chore often was. And when he found one who wasn’t past redemption, he couldn’t ignore the fact.

He couldn’t choose for Kingsley, but he could damn well ensure she saw the Fraternity of Shadows for what it really was, and could thus make her decision to remain a part of it or not with open eyes, before his mission’s end.

The bard’s tradecraft was exceptional, but even he wasn’t infallible. He couldn’t help but let a slight chuckle slip out – a mellow, melodious sound – as he belatedly realized that he still didn’t know what the professor’s hidden agenda, if any, might be! It was, of course, possible she didn’t have one – that her motives for joining the FoS had been completely transparent, and all she sought from membership was knowledge – but Crow wasn’t about to believe anything about the Lady Scalpel could be that straightforward. Not until he’d got to know her better, under more civil circumstances … not until he’d won her trust.

Now, as he escorted the Paridoner out of his chamber, one of those cheeky, spontaneous impulses that had led him to cadge an autograph from Erik Van Rijn, back at the Manoir, struck him. Crow quashed it, but it was a near thing; the enigma of this scholar’s hidden nature really was getting to him, perhaps more profoundly than he’d realized.

As they parted company in the hallway, Kingsley was already bidding him farewell, with the same faultless Zherisian courtesy he’d once thought stuffy, but was swiftly learning to appreciate. “Madam,” he replied, in words of perfect sincerity, “it has been a pleasure and a privilege for myself also, however unsatisfactory the events that may have necessitated our meeting. Rest assured, the next time you might grant me an audience, I shall do my utmost to be less cryptic and more accommodating of your wishes, rather than vice versa. Know, too, that I’ll endeavor to bone up on your writings at the first opportunity, so that we might correct today’s inequitable choice of topics for discussion, and leave my sordid history and quandries properly buried in the past.”

The bard grasped his door’s outer handle with his left hand, to support himself as he propped the magpie-headed cane against the wall, then extended his now-empty right out to the Paridoner, whilst bowing in the best approximation of a Dementlieuse gentleman’s adieu he could manage on his game leg. With reluctant caution – declare forgiveness for his previous misbehavior though she might, she’d not forgotten his earlier trick with the healing-spell – Kingsley permitted the spy’s hand to gently enfold her fingertips. Their slight stiffness, as he bobbed his head over her hand, warned him not to even think about kissing it; he merely drew it near to his lips, murmured “Professor…” in the mild tones of courtesy, and rose again, releasing her fingers as chastely – yet as tenderly, also – as he’d grasped them.

(Again, let her wonder…)

That’s when the impulse struck again, more fully-formed and insistent and edge-of-the-cliff enticing than ever. This time, Crow couldn’t even begin to stop himself: tradecraft be damned; she’d fought back like a tigress, she’d fooled him, she’d earned this!

She was turning, to return to her room and doubtless reflect upon their encounter; had she moved with greater haste (not possible; it would've been rude), she’d have been gone before he could speak. That would have been safer, would have been saner, than the occurance that followed … but the sudden compulsion to return the trust he'd been asking of her - real trust, of real secrets - seized him too rapidly, in too insidious a rush to fend off, and he called out once more:

“And … professor? The next time we might meet…?”

Kingsley reversed her turn and faced him once more, her bearing a little apprehensive, though her features remained as composed as ever. She’d have been astounded, no doubt, if she knew that the VRS spy’s own expression – a hesitant look of diffidence, of confession even, that seemed at once less exaggerated and more real than all his feigned remorse or confiding or embarrassment downstairs – was the one such aspect he’d exposed to her, this day, that wasn’t contrived or intentionally-displayed.

She didn’t trust this man or his facial expressions, nor should she. But perhaps she’d caught something odd in his voice, because a glimmer of new uncertainty betrayed itself in her eyes.

The bard’s own Mist-gray gaze flicked from side to side, as if chary of onlookers, and he pulled his door shut tighter behind him as he leaned in close to the Paridoner’s ear. All evidence agreed that they were alone, completely alone and unobserved, yet his final words – words, from a man who wove his sentences into nets to snare the unwary; who spun lies shamelessly and could persuade vampires to place bids on the sun – were whispered, like a secret fearfully disclosed in the strictest of confidence … or in intimacy … or, perhaps, in shame.

Call me ‘Pavel’.”

And then Crow was stepping back, face turned away so their eyes would not, could not, meet at such a moment … and then he was scooping up his cane in one suddenly-shaky hand and wrenching the door ajar in the other … and then he was shutting his chamber's door behind him, with an anxious haste that belied the audacity no more than a bare handful of souls had ever seen him lacking.

And then he was gone.
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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Pamela
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Post by Pamela »

Blink.

The tiny act seemed to release Gertrude from her astonishment and she looked away from Crow- Pavel’s?!- door towards her own. What utter cheek, was her first thought. Yet a smile was destroying her attempt at a moue, and she could feel her cheeks’ warmth. She released the handle of her door, deciding that a breath of fresh air and some distance from the roué might be sensible. A hand rose to cover her embarrassed smile as she shook her head, and murmured in Zherisian topped with a Mordentish phrase, “Blessed sun, Rupert, I do believe I am turning into a femme fatale.” She was unable to contain her pleased amusement and walked towards the staircase, laughing lightly.

She glided down the stairs, her face shining, standing tall. Vanity, thy name is woman, she chided herself, but her eyes sparkled nonetheless. Another trickle of laughter as she imagined too clearly how Rupert was going to milk this incident for all that it was worth; for she would tell him, when she saw him. That sobered her up- not the act of telling, but the realization that she would have to be careful about what she wrote in her correspondence to him from now on. She grew thoughtful as she realised that Crow was a member of the Fraternity- or at least had a ring whose powers had been revealed to him. Enough conspiracy theories for now. Gather the proofs and see what they add up to without preconceptions to colour them too much.

She had already written Rupert about both Crow and Serd’s correspondence- mere hints of contact, nothing more. Do I tell him about these meetings? She had always shared her knowledge, counting on him to see the errors in her logic, or to perceive insights she’d been blind to. But did she dare to risk involving him? Something to think about… She put the matter aside for the moment; the profesor wouldn’t be returning home till the spring.

She took a seat in one of the inn’s chairs, and opening her carpetbag, pulled out pen, paper and ink as she composed her note.

Dear Crow,

I would be glad to accept your invitation to supper. Please leave a note with the desk; any time is convenient. Until then, a good day, and wishes that you were able to rest well and recuperate.

Sincerely,
Kingsley


She approached the innkeeper, asking that the note be relayed to the bard. She then went outside, and stood in the sunlight, taking a deep breath, admiring the landscape.

Pavel… She was well aware that the name could be another alibi or pseudonym. But the bard’s uncharacteristic haste as he fled to his room… If it was an act, it was the finest she’d ever seen. As long as he doesn’t start sending me mash notes, we’ll be fine, she thought with some humour and caution. She liked the bard, and was relieved and honoured at the possibility that she might have been granted an intimacy- and thus, an offer of trust. She knew that she was a woman who was usually good at gaining such gifts- mainly because she was careful not to abuse them. Her success in her livelihood was dependent on her reputation for respectful tact with her savvy contacts and a fair presentation of their beliefs. If she had gained some leeway, some sense of sympathy, she'd be relieved.

She would learn what she could about Crow, to protect herself if she had to. But she planned no pre-emptive strikes. Not yet. And hopefully, not ever. Charming dinner companions are hard to come by, she thought wryly as she began her leisurely walk to the church.
His only real danger is if stupidity is contagious and lethal. In which case, we’re all dead…-Gertrude
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Rotipher of the FoS
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Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

Stupid, STUPID, STUPID!!! What insanity, by all bloody perdition, goaded you into telling her THAT!?!

The bard wanted to scream. He wanted to pound his fool head against the walls and tear his quarters to pieces. He wanted to curl up on the bed, Tiahn’s case clutched tight against his chest, till he’d calmed enough to grasp the guitar with gentleness and play until the world melted away. More than anything else, he wanted – as he’d always wanted – the power to roll back time, be it by an instant or an hour or an eternity, and take back the callow bungling and blindness and bad judgment he’d sworn over and over he’d never succumb to again.

He wanted to do all these things. Had it still been in him to pray, Crow would’ve thanked divine providence that circumstances barred him from doing so.

“Well, that w— ”

The grumbled words ushered from behind him. The bard didn’t glance up from where he crouched at the entrance, his trim frame leaning heavily upon the door he’d shouldered closed in harried haste. He did extend a cautionary finger, in pre-emptive bid for silence, and pressed his ear flat against the door’s fine-carven paneling, as if listening for telltale murmurs in the hallway. The gesture was reflexive, the spy’s attentive posture assumed without any conscious calculation: his training, immeasurably affronted by his gaffe, had seized de facto control over his actions – sustaining his pretense, by sheer force of habit, for his unseen “guest’s” benefit – while his mind reeled.

Sun’s grace, what she knows… what I’ve done, the risk! How could I still be so bloody idiotic, even now; even knowing the circumstances… the lives at stake…? If it’s true, if it really is as grave an admission as she’ll suspect it is… if I’ve given over my real name to the vipers’ hands…

The spy was too appalled at his own blunder to articulate its dire and staggering implications, not even in his thoughts.

Why, oh why, had he done that…?

When was he – was he?! – EVER going to damn well learn…?

How many more betrayals – how many more deaths – to teach him, of all people, that the trust he inveigled and profited from in others could NEVER be returned in kind…?

It was the pressure, it had to be: the pressure, and the mockery by which he'd always coped with it. The bard well knew this facet of his own conduct – his reckless impulses to tease; to take chances; to gamble his life or a mission’s success upon theatrics or petty mischief – and he usually considered these erratic urgings as much blessing as curse: predictability was a dire bane of fugitives or practitioners of espionage, and Crow’s work routinely cast him in both these roles, making his impetuous deviations from any planned course worthwhile for the surprises they afforded. Spontaneity reaped its own benefits, at times – filching Mr. Hawke’s contract from Buchvold had been a recent “gamble” of that sort, which had won the ranger his liberty and the bard, an avenue to re-engagement – and he considered such fortuitous gains to be an equitable compensation for past troubles his wild streak had admittedly led him into. Taking his work too seriously could lead only to depression and discouragement, a morbid spiral he’d seen too many others fall prey to, who’d professed to serve the underdog-cause of justice; in a sense, keeping his own spirits up was as vital a knack for the VRS agent’s repertoire as keeping his artful fingers limber or his makeup, unmarred.

(Besides, at least in Crow’s understanding, his stubborn refusal to let the oppressive grimness of the world extinguish his spunky impertinence was the most telling insult, to the despised forces which fostered that grimness, he could devise! Let the Fraternity’s academics strain their intellect, pursuing coldly-utilitarian means of deciphering the “watchers’” handiwork; the bard was an artist, not an analyst, and his concept of “creation” was a far more intuitive and personal one than theirs. It was the feel of others’ compositions, not their structure, that told him the most about the pieces’ originators. If the Land of Mists was, indeed, the bastards’ magnum opus, then the emotions expressed through their artistry had wholly failed to impress Crow. Disdaining the quality of their performance, he never passed up a chance to be the ill-tuned note, the flubbed cue, the jagged glaze-crack that spoils the finished masterwork’s pristine veneer. He might not be able to hurt the Dark Powers, but he could damn well heckle them at every turn, by the jarring incongruity of his sass and impudence and brazen contempt for the morbid melodramas they instigated, as bitingly as only an entertainer knew how.)

But deny it though he might, this mission was different, on so many levels, than the spy's usual fare. He’d not had so many potential innocent deaths riding on a mission’s success, since the holocaust that consumed Il Aluk – damn them, damn them ALL for preserving those plans! – nor had he been forced to penetrate an organization that boasted such formidable members, equipped with so-potent an array of magic, without the advance “seeding” of his assumed identity’s credentials. “Brother” Crow hadn’t been meant to last longer than the few hours it should have taken, to raid the St. Ronges cell’s book-stacks; now, the flimsy persona he'd donned for the Manoir had been kept in play for months, his faux-history barely written, never mind substantiated! He needed the FoS’s aid, in this – a dependency that galled him, given his miserable opinion of the vipers’ collective merits – yet he couldn’t risk getting so closely-involved with the cabal’s despicable activities, that his conscience rebelled against his participation. The bard’s VRS allies, although vastly more palatable, honestly weren’t up to the challenge that confronted him now; unless and until Crow’s own failure triggered his prepared information-bombs’ dispatch – a recourse of last resort – he had to keep his own well-meaning, overmatched Society out of the crossfire.

And then, there was the ongoing business with Buchvold, which hadn’t progressed wholly as either man had predicted or planned. That member, too, knew far more about him – even if it was far less than the Borcan believed – than the VRS spy felt comfortable to have anyone know, let alone an adversary! And now, just as he thought he’d executed a successful move to reduce his exposure, he’d broken with every rule of his trade, out of some rash craving for equitability in his dealings with Kingsley … or, possibly, for some modicum of genuineness to the goodwill he yet hoped to earn from her.

Unseen in the farthest corner of Crow’s quarters, the baritone speaker fidgeted, impatient. In the hallway, dulcet voice muffled by the door’s paneling, the professor uttered another of her self-effacing jests, her chuckles liquid and light. Operating without thought, like a construct heeding pre-imbued commands, the bard extended a cupped palm to the waiting man, fingertips crooked beseechingly, even as his lips curled in a self-derisive grimace at the sole fragment of Mordentish in the scholar’s overheard remark. The expression was just as automatic as the gesture; his thoughts ranged too far afield – too far inward, also – to properly evaluate the Paridoner’s reaction: not quite, not yet.

Was his subconscious, perhaps, trying to tell Crow he’d gone too long, without confiding in anyone…? It had been ten years – ten long, lonely, maddening years – and he had yet to uncover the truth of his forgotten past, by any mundane means of investigation. Yes, the bard had his theories (some of which provided colorful subject-matter for his nightmares), but it was the uncertainty, the not knowing for sure, that frustrated him the most. Without concrete evidence, he’d merely be guessing … just as he’d been guessing – and hoping and longing and dreading – for the past decade. And the only possible source he was sure could yet offer him the tangible proof his curiosity and self-doubt demanded, Crow feared and was forbidden to seek out.

Had he been certain, he could have corrected this new error, could have justified erasing those final, fateful seconds from the Paridoner’s mind. Not all the bard’s familiarity with amnesia was first-hand: the covert use of such effects was indispensable in protecting his false identities, whilst keeping his own hands safely unsoiled by chance witnesses’ blood. Few who led lives of intrigue could claim as clean a record as the VRS agent’s, and he owed a good deal of that to judicious application of his own memory-altering spells! But because he knew by direct experience that repressing past events didn’t erase their psychological impact – he’d awakened too many times, disheveled sheets drenched in the sweat of fury or cheeks glistening with tears, to believe otherwise – Crow was leery of resorting to such tampering, in the absence of dire necessity. That was the real irony, that he could have excused such intervention quite easily to himself, were he positive the information he’d absurdly let slip posed a valid threat to his mission, and the countless innocent lives that hung in the balance. But he honestly wasn’t sure enough.

He didn’t know if he’d given Kingsley his real name. That was the galling thing. It was just an educated guess, like everything else he’d deduced or imagined his life might’ve been, before he’d awoken in Mortigny. ‘Pavel’ was merely the bard’s most-recent hypothesis; he’d considered and discarded dozens of such prospective “real” names, over the years! He had fixated upon ‘Pavel’, of late, because he felt something undefinably-meaningful when he heard the name … something which, unlike most titles that sparked a gut-level reaction in Crow (that of the Borcan Sef’s infamous clan, amongst them), he couldn’t attribute to any wider historical or artistic or literary significance. But for all he knew, ‘Pavel’ might just as easily be the name of a close friend, or a father or brother – sun’s blood, even a child, lost to his memory! – as his own.

(No… not a brother’s name. Somehow, he was certain of that much. Maddening, again, that the ever-so-glib bard couldn’t explain or articulate how come he was so sure.)

Mortigny. He’d be going back there soon, to ponder, to try to remember. To think it all through yet again, from the beginning: the elixir … the envelopes … all the elaborate precautions that must have been taken, to guarantee his safety and compliance and ignorance. And to think, again, about the choice he’d made then, in his unsuspecting, amnesiac bewilderment – the instructions he’d consented to heed, sealed directives penned in his own natural, uncontrived handwriting – before he comprehended what an accomplished liar he truly was … or just how much his pre-amnesiac self must’ve had, or needed, to hide.

Perhaps it was high time he reconsidered the pledge he’d sworn to himself… his former self, whose unrevealed motives for erasing his own history Crow had long since ceased to trust.

(Trust, after all, required faith. And the bard’s faith – in so many things – was fragile: a precious, brittle thing, to be guarded against further breakage by never, ever exposing it to risk. The dark-curled musician would not let naïveté or misplaced faith contribute to still more tragedy, still more beauty sullied and destroyed … not from trust, not from him, not again.)

Never trust. Never confide, never credence, never pray. Trusting in others was suicide, a fool’s invitation to betrayal; trusting in him was fatal to others, be it by his foes’ hands or his own folly or the bastards’ petulant spite. At least in his own mind, Crow’s careless admission – his foolhardy, forbidden plea for real intimacy, however platonic or falsely-claimed – had endangered Kingsley’s life, not merely his mission or his own safety. That outcome, too, was at odds with anything he would have consciously intended: the VRS spy deeply appreciated the professor’s unflappable poise and courage, admiring her perceptiveness and tenacity.

He liked her, dash it all. And there, too, was irony, malicious and embittering … for in Crow’s experience, those people he liked were the very ones the Land’s faceless creators seemed to delight in corrupting or harrying or annihilating before his eyes.

She might not believe, the bard consoled himself, as the other drew near and his training dragged his attentions back to the world of tangible threats and objectives. She’s not the neophyte she appears to be – not socially – and she’ll doubt each and every word you’ve said today. And she’s still bound to silence by her own worries – that lucky spouse she’s protecting, whom she truly does seem to cherish – so even if ‘Pavel’ is more than a mere theory, she’ll hardly go running to her superiors with that information now … not after keeping mum about that bogus “Tao” letter, for weeks! You’ve left that woman flustered and frazzled and fascinated, too – even your error would’ve contributed to that, perhaps the last most of all – so she’ll need time to take in all that you’ve given her: could be, she won’t even succeed in separating wheat from chaff, maybe-truth from certainly-fiction, at all.

If this little faux pas does come back to haunt you, Crow-my-lad, it’ll be by a more-subtle pathway than the obvious one – she'd deeply disappoint you, if she tried anything less than subtle – and any such threat will take some time to coalesce. For now, let it lie; she’ll surely do the same, fastidiously-straitlaced Zherisian that she is! Better, in fact, to let her get on with doing so from a distance, in case her parting words weren’t entirely dismissive self-mockery: this business was quite complicated enough, before your mistake.

Calm her, coax her, let her disregard ‘Pavel’ as a heartsick buffoon’s folly or yet another lie within a sea of them … whatever best soothes her indignation or tickles her hidden, never-requited matron’s fancies, in correspondence to follow. But don’t, for sun’s sake, let Madam Gertrude Kingsley any closer to your real secrets – not even if you do succeed in winning her friendship – for her protection as much as your mission’s.

His “guest’s” stiff footsteps and closer proximity were helping to rouse the bard from his interlude of covert self-reflection, as did the weightiness of the metallic disc which was pressed into his outstretched palm. Not yet turning, Crow straightened from his door-side crouch, palmed the heavy coin and held it cupped to his ear, listening, now, with strict concentration. The second man cleared his throat, his limited margin of patience swiftly running out; setting aside his cane, the spy executed another stagehands’ gesture with his free hand, to caution his “partner” to wait just a few moments longer.

With the mental equivalent of a throwing-away gesture, the bard set aside the issue of his own incorrigible lapse, and focused on what the coin – its gold, just a tad warmer than mere contact with human skin warranted: a quirk of his own magic, by which he ensured he’d not mistake it for un-spelled currency held in the same pouch – had to tell him.

Laughter, chirpy and imperfectly-restrained. Kingsley was chortling to herself, seemingly in spite of herself, as she returned to her r– no, not her room, not with those background noises. Easily picking out the familiar sounds of the hotel’s lobby, then the main doors’ creaks, then the quaint and rustic rhythms of village life, Crow traced the professor’s progress outside, his discerning musician's ear filtering out the extraneous clinks from the contents of her coin-purse. Yet another imposition upon her courtesy, to have slipped her a sensor-coin when she’d made change for him ... but he’d not known enough of the Lady Scalpel, at the outset, to risk leaving her unmonitored. Their meeting could have unfolded quite differently, after all, and if she’d gone running to her FoS superiors immediately, he’d have had to intercept her tattling! As it was, his scrying-spell would expire in hours, leaving the scholar in possession of an ordinary Darkonian gold piece, and none the wiser as to his audio-scrutiny.

(Thinking back to their conversation’s unvoiced subtext, Crow was abruptly grateful that the coin-linking spell only conveyed sound … and only sounds of sufficient volume, at that. The other man, as he’d so-recently pondered, knew far too much already....)

Ah well, the bard mused sardonically, as he “vanished” the receiver-Skull in another petty display of legerdemain. It’s not as if he’d have discerned that little skirmish’s real parry-and-thrust, even if he'd been sitting at the same table! Sledgehammers just aren’t prone to true subtlety, however entertaining it might be, watching them make the effort.

The VRS spy turned at last, leaned casually against the doorframe, and smirked smugly at his less-than-amicable “partner”. All visible indications of the last minutes’ dismay were banished in an instant from Crow’s fine features, by the irrepressible reemergence of his trusty “impudent pup” demeanor.

(Another stupid act, perhaps – irritating the Borcan now only ensured he’d be saddled with more scutt-work, later on – but at least it was stupidity which the bard could engage in on purpose, not out of any uncontrolled whim or subconscious longing for company. And it had, after all, been Buchvold’s idea for the bard to remain in-character as “Brother” Crow – smart-mouthed remarks and all – at every opportunity, including when the pair were alone, “for practice”.

(Even if it had taken the spy three days’ coy steering, to give the illusionist that idea….)

“So,” he quipped, as he tipped a cheeky wink to the man who’d had him pounded black and blue scarcely a month previously. “Think that one’ll be staying till the final encore, when she attends her free evening at the Sommet…?”
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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Moral Machivelli
Rat Blinder
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Post by Moral Machivelli »

"Possible" Replies the Invisable Borcan" But I would not place money on it
She will, as you have no doubt guessed, gone away with a deep suspicion, but it mearly lacks any firm path."

"All the same, The ring affair might well arouse some Ideas. I am still far from convinved that it was wise"

OOC A definet sence motive on Crow at the point he came back in (Buchvold Does not trust the man One Bit. Since He has been distracted, and buchvold would have been playing close attention, he stands a chance.(I figure the Bard and the Borcan have Both got their respective skills maxed.) Total sence motive Check 29
(Crow will probably have a penalty of about 5 due to distraction)
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