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 Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:47 am
Cogs of Brass and Bone Well, I’ll be honest: I have no idea what I’m doing with this. As I have never even crossed the 10k mark in my stories, I decided that I really must see whether I can work on a novel – no matter how dreadful the result. You’ve been warned, dear reader: you may find it preferable to turn to other stories.
The monster that I shall hopefully build is titled, for now, Cogs of Brass and Bone. Basically a trope-ridden pseudo-steampunk fantasy. I’m hoping for at least 50k by early August (beginning of school), though as I haven’t quite bothered to figure out anything past the first few chapters, success is doubtful indeed. Therefore I'm also including here a few short stories that I hope to finish -- sort of a backup, if you will.
You’re welcome to peek at my bumblings, and I’d certainly appreciate your comments..introduction.progress.about the novel.plan b.miscellaneous.
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Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:59 am
Novel (words):
5,637 // 50k
Stories (subject to change):
0 // 5
Updates
- June 1: Made this thread, partly.
- June 2: Posted Ch. 1
- June 12: Posted Ch. 2
.introduction.progress.about the novel.plan b.miscellaneous.
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Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:05 am
ChaptersChapter One.introduction.progress.about the novel.plan b.miscellaneous.
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Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:08 am
Short stories will be listed here. (I'm not the most organized of writers.).introduction.progress.about the novel.plan b.miscellaneous.
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Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:12 am
Playlists For Cogs:
~ Vernian Process: Behold the Machine, Rust (Part 1), Benedictus, The Elegance of Espionage, Revolt
~ Humanwine: Pique
~ DeVotchKa: Lunnaya Pogonka, Charlotte Mittnacht
~ Jacques Brel: Amsterdam
~ The Clockwork Quartet: The Doctor’s Wife, The Watchmaker’s Apprentice
~ Vagabond Opera: Manayunk
~ The Decemberists: Eli the Barrow Boy, The Engine Driver
~ Joan Baez: Donna Donna.introduction.progress.about the novel.plan b.miscellaneous.
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Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:16 am
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Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 3:59 pm
Chapter One They had loaded Senna down with packages and trinkets, so that she could hardly move without wrinkling a paper or clacking charms together. The strings and straps pressed against her shoulders and knotted over her waist, wound around her neck and crossed over her chest. She was glad enough for their warmth, if not their weight. The wind blew from the north, and despite the bright blossoms by the roadside and the budding cones on the pines, the afternoon air was as chill as a winter morning.
She already wore her heaviest clothes, a woolen dress, headscarf, and shawl. The ladies donned corseted dresses with billowing skirts in Orsacht, no matter the weather, if the few newspapers that had arrived from there were to be believed. With a sigh, she fingered the shawl's fringe. It had been woven by her great-grandmother with patterns of wheat and moons, and wearing it marked her as part of the town. By the morrow, it would reveal just how little she belonged in the city.
“You know I could help you with some of that,” Lom said, gesturing to packs that she bore. He hadn't looked at his younger sister's face since they had reached the station, but that was his way. As a child, he had refused to play in the barn, lest he meet an animal that was to be their supper.
Senna shook her head. “I'll be fine.” She would have to manage it all herself on the train, in addition to her own suitcases, now sitting on the ground. Watching the horizon for the engine's approach, she couldn't help but feel a thrill of excitement. For once she wouldn't be an onlooker. The train would pass by small towns such as her own, where dirty-footed children and farmers clustered to squint at the great clattering machine, and she would be inside of it, envied, in motion.
As she adjusted the position of a bag on her hips, she remembered the possible dangers. Most of the packages she carried had been addressed uncertainly, and the townspeople who entrusted her with them had looked at her with pleading eyes. They had tried sending letters through the mail, and had received no reply. They had taken the long ride to Siele, the nearest city, and sent telegrams, with no effect. They could never go into the city itself, so Senna was their last hope. There was some truth to the children's autumn-tale: most who went to Orsacht disappeared. To the prisons, workhouses, brothels, sewers, even, maybe, to wealth – nobody could know. Some old women said that the magic and the soul were one and the same, and that the great city's Engine could not take the one without the other.
Superstition would not serve her in her new life, however. The wooden and cow's-bone charms tingling against her skin could do nothing, all in all, except provide another spark of current for the lights of Orsacht. She had almost felt guilty taking them, a thief, but her family and neighbors had insisted. They would protect her, or they would try, in the only way they knew how.
Warmest against her skin, wrapped near to her heart, was the pair that her father and mother had given. They were carved in the shapes of an eye and a hand, a prayer that God would see and bless her path. Senna thought of the precious magic they had given to the charms, and the pregnancy that had prevented her mother from accompanying her to the station. Beyond her own small hunger for a wider life, it was their struggle after the harsh last winter that drove her toward the city. “Lom?”
He cleared his throat. “Aye?”
“I reckon Ma needs her charm more than Orsacht does. A fifth child, there could be trouble.”
“Well,” he said, and shrugged, “you know she'd fret about you if you gave it back. Do more curse than blessing, it would.” For a moment, he paused. “She'd worry even more if you didn't write, Sen. We all would. Send word.”
She nodded. “I will, I promise. I'll send money, once I can.” She didn't mention the obvious, that she was unskilled in letters and that her mother was illiterate. Senna could manage something simple, and one of her schooled brothers could read it aloud.
“You know, you can always come back to Briv, if things don't work out.” His hands in his pockets, he looked down the train tracks. “They will, God bless. But if they don't, no matter what the city's taken out of you, you can come back home.”
It was difficult for Lom to talk about such things, she knew, and she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks. I know I can. And I'll visit, even if things do work.” Her words must have sounded hollow, after so many similar ones told by other departing sons and daughters. She remembered the one time that a neighbor's son did return home, perhaps a decade ago, when she was no more than seven. Some others her age had taunted him with foolish conjurings, and she hadn't been able to understand.
He smiled, but it faded in an instant. “Train's coming.”
“Oh.” Senna squinted through the trees to the empty tracks. She usually wouldn't have squandered energy on such things, sight or hearing, but she was tempted to do so now, considering that the ability would soon be gone. There was no need. A few seconds later, a whistle pierced the air, and a dark shape appeared in the distance.
Although the tracks passed by Briv, it was too small a town to merit a station. Never in her life had she seen a train, a behemoth of iron, stop for her. It rumbled closer, coughing foul smoke, and the track trembled under its weight. She dropped her hand from her brother's shoulder to pick up the suitcases and hunched forward to better bear her packs. This other town was not her own, she did not need to give it a parting glance, and she had that morning said her goodbyes to her old life. So she thought. She could not help but look back into the town square, the squat buildings hardly distinguishable from those in Briv. As she turned her attention again to the train, her gaze caught Lom's. He was the first to look away.
“Good luck, Sen,” he said. “Good luck, and God be with you.”
“And with you. With all of you.” The rumble of the train nearly drowned out her words. Waiting for it to come to a complete halt, she tightened her grip on the handles until her knuckles turned white and red.
The whistle sounded again, shrill as a scream, and a door on one of the cars slid open. A man in a brass-buttoned uniform leaned out and waved his hand. “All aboard,” he called, although Senna was the only passenger waiting at that station. Once she reached the door, he yanked the two suitcases from her hands “You've a ticket, eh?”
She had forgotten. Her cheeks flushed as she fished for it in her satchel. It was a crumpled thing, machine-made, sent weeks ago by Dr. Etrau with the letter confirming her employment. The man dropped her bags onto the floor, took the ticket, and stepped aside in the doorway. When she gripped the iron handles to haul herself up, she couldn't repress a shudder at their coldness. Only the coins and parts of tools had been made of metal in Briv. “Thank you kindly,” she managed, nodding her head, but he slammed the door shut without a glance at her.
It had been a ticket for the common cars, and she could only assume that she had landed in the correct place. The seats were threadbare, the people clad in outfits as simple as her own. A grizzled man sipped quietly at a flask. A girl around Senna's age pleaded with her misbehaving children. Although she had felt a gust of heat, coming from a strange vent in the wall, as she first stepped in, it dissipated as she made her way down the aisle.
There were empty seats enough that she found relative privacy, though the cries of toddlers and the chatter of families prevented any true peace. The city would be just as bad, it was said, so many people that they lived on top of one another. Streets filled with a tumult of passerby and carriages. She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to imagine it, but the grinding of wheels below her jolted them open again. Lom still stood outside. Feeling a pang in her chest, she pressed a hand to the unfamiliar glass, and he raised his own.
The train picked up speed, not as smoothly as she had expected. She was caught between fear and exhilaration as it lurched forward – surely it could not derail? Her brother disappeared from sight, and the forest passed by her window in a blur of trunks and foliage. That morning's ride by horse drawn wagon, though it had carried with it more tearful goodbyes, had done little to prepare her for the finality of this feverish pace.
“Your name?”
It took her some seconds to realize that the conductor was addressing her. “Senna Ivrum,” she said, her voice weak. Perhaps she had failed to perform some essential step, some registration, and they would expel her at the next stop. Dr. Etrau might even have found a more suitable maid than a country rustic and canceled her ticket.
He nodded and held out a drawstring bag. “For you.”
Although uncertain of its origin, she accepted it. Her name was written on the attached envelope in a thin and oddly pointed script immediately recognizable as Dr. Etrau's. After the man had walked on, she started to pry it open, but as it was sealed with a most solid sort of glue, she had to tear off one side. The letter was rather short. She read it a few times over before she realized that her lack of understanding resulted from its odd content, and not her own deficient ability.
Dear Miss Ivrum,
Please do not open the parcel until you are in private. Contained within it is a certain pendant, which you must don before the train nears Orsacht. Conceal it carefully on your person, so that it touches skin but cannot be seen by any prying eyes. Perhaps these words perplex you, and for this I apologize – understand that it is for your own well-being that I insist upon these measures. I assure you that I shall explain all once you arrive, but for the moment, I pray you take my word, as both your employer and a man of honor. May your journey be safe and pleasant.
Yours sincerely,
J.E.
His instructions regarding the pendant reminded her of the charms she already wore, guarding against lies, illness, and the like. Such superstitious trinkets would be stripped of what little effect they held at the Orsacht border, their magic pulled into the great Engine along with her own. She wondered if he meant to make a fool of her. Although the scientist had provided enough information about himself and the living arrangements so as to convince her family of his offer's propriety, having never met the man, she had no understanding of his character. He might well have been the sort to play a joke on a girl new to the city.
Also strange was his signature in initials, as if he had hoped to leave his identity mysterious. J.E., Jamek Etrau. If only she knew whether his caution was serious, or merely another facet of a jest, then she could better decide whether to follow his instructions. She prodded at the drawstring bag with a finger, then sighed. In truth, she had no choice in the matter. She had advertised herself as a servant in the Orsacht newspapers, and he had hired her. To keep the job, she would have to obey his word. The letter and pendant might even be a test to that effect.
It seemed silly to fret on about the message without even seeing the object. She cast a glance around herself, wondering whether she could trust her fellow passengers to continue ignoring her. Finally she stood and made her way to the back of the car, where a wooden sign indicated the lavatory. She had little worry for her pile of belongings, stored under her seat and in a cupboard overhead, for she had left a charm amongst them that would alert her of attempted theft.
Crude phrases were carved on the door and toilet seat, and the space was terribly limited. Leaning against the door, she unknotted the bag's cords and reached her fingers through its mouth. They caught on something that she had not expected, a thin metal chain. When she drew the entire object out, she became even more surprised. It was an oddly shaped pendant, a wheel with spokes extending out of it, and made of joined wood and metal. Magic could only be worked on things that lived or had once lived, which included even the dirt but excluded metals, air, water, most stone, and other such materials. Whatever the pendant was, it could not be an ordinary charm.
She examined it for a minute or so, even invoking her own limited abilities. It didn't feel magical. While it might have some power lying dormant, such a possibility made no sense when that power would be depleted so soon. With a sigh, she clipped it around her right ankle, well hidden by her long skirts and boots. Most likely a joke or a test, then, but whether Dr. Etrau wanted a clown or a slave, he would not be disappointed.
After she pushed open the door and returned to her seat, she found herself unable to dismiss the strange letter so easily. She did not know what she would do if Dr. Etrau turned out to be an unsuitable employer. The servant was a class of the cities, and she had little understanding of the rules that would govern her labor. Watching the scenery pass by, she tried to console herself again with the wonders that she would find in Orsacht, incredible machines and towering buildings, but the strings that still tied the charms to her felt more and more like bindings.
The train made a few more stops at the larger towns they passed. At one of them an older woman entered the car and paused near Senna's seat. She had hoped to keep her solitude, on this journey between a place where everyone knew her and another where no one would care to, but she was not so far away from Briv that she had lost her respect for her elders. “Good day, aunt.”
The woman gave the girl an appraising glance before easing herself onto the seat. “Good day. Terrible cold for spring, though, isn't it?”
“It sure is.” She touched a hand to the glass to feel the chill.
“Hurts my bones, it does. Now, where's a girl like you going?”
Her question made Senna stiffen with dread. Surely most people on the train were headed to the great city, but she had heard enough from some of her more conservative neighbors to guess what direction the conversation would lead. “To Orsacht, aunt.”
“Orsacht.” The word sounded like a curse in her mouth. “I'm getting off in Riveg, myself – I just couldn't imagine. Couldn't imagine.” She shook her head and pulled a tangle of handspun yarn out of a satchel. “You're so young, dearie. It's too much for anyone to give up.”
Although she murmured vague apology, Senna almost could have laughed. Of all the things she was leaving behind, magic was the least worrisome. All it ever had ever helped her do was till a stubborn patch of soil, repair a burned stew, quiet a spooked horse. Little conveniences for a dull life.
Even as the woman began to knit, she kept a disapproving look leveled at her. “A girl could get into trouble, in such a place. Why, the stories one hears. It's a refuge of sinners, that city, and what God's Eye sees there, His Tongue and Hand condemn.”
“If so, I beg mercy.” She touched her own left palm, lips, and right eye in the sign of the Knowable Trinity, but could not conceal a trace of impatience in her tone. While the Tongue, the Holy Book, connected the forces of magic to the Unknowable center, the Heart, nothing in it said that to transfer and combine magic was a sin. As for the Hand, surely God would not smite a city by allowing it unsurpassed production and profit.
With a shake of her head, the woman turned her attention to the yarn. The clacking of her bone needles blended into the clamor of the train, and outside the window, the sun dimmed and lowered in the sky. Senna propped her head against the window to watch the mountains pass. She had thought that sleep would be impossible in such a jolting means of travel, but she had retired late and risen early that morning, and she closed her eyes imagining the brilliant lights of the city.
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Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 4:23 pm
[mossblossums] Blossoms.
[...lest he meet an animal that was to serve as supper] Was to be served as? I know what you're saying and it works, but it feels off.
I like it so far. Definitely curious about the city, and the senses...definitely an interesting world you've set up here.
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Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 4:32 pm
Thanks! I'll take your advice.
But I'm afraid the senses aren't important at all, so perhaps I ought to change that. The magic system works on anything organic; Lom was just increasing his hearing ability for the moment.
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Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 4:51 pm
I really like it so far. It's really well thought-out, and I like Senna already. :3
I'll be keeping an eye on this.
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Psychotic Maniacal Sanity Captain
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Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:02 pm
I'm glad to hear that you think so -- I've been a bit worried whether Senna is at all interesting. And thanks!
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Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 8:34 pm
Chapter Two She woke to darkness and the squeal of slowing gears. For a fearful moment she could not remember where she was, and grasped at her parents’ charms. A glimpse of stars outside her window, the press of her spine against the seat, helped her to shake away her confusion.
“Approaching Gurim Street Station,” a disembodied voice spoke from above. “Last stop before Orsacht. Approaching Gurim Street Station.”
The old woman was gone, having departed one of the earlier stops, but the car was filled with people destined for the city. They shared something in their postures, the tensing of their shoulders, the grip of fingers on the arms of the seats. The border was approaching. Senna felt an urge to do something, one last bloom of magic before it disappeared. She told herself that she was being ridiculous, but after the Gurim stop was made and the train rolled on, she noticed others doing so. Flickering lights glowed on the tips of fingers. Wood carved itself, and cloth unraveled and knit up.
It was colder still, this far north and in such early morning. With a deep breath, she summoned warmth to herself. As soon as it spread throughout her, she regretted it, for such a spell could become more stifling than comforting if its wielder's attention lay elsewhere. That, more than anything she had yet seen in the train or from her window, reminded her why she was leaving it behind. What use was a life spent focusing one's mind wholly on mundanities?
The car fell into silence as the border neared, save for a crying child and his mother, frantically shushing him. Senna stared down at her lap so as not to see fear on any other faces, or reveal it on her own.
There was a moment when the train's rhythm faltered, a lapse as shocking as a skipped heartbeat. Then, drawing its power from the city's lines rather than its boiler, it continued on. As much as she would have liked to ignore it, Senna found herself trying to calculate how many cars had crossed the line, how close her own was drawing.
She did not wonder long, for within a minute of the engine's change, her fellow passengers' magickings disappeared. The charms that she wore turned still and cold, empty of all power. Gasps and moans rose up across the car. She noticed no change within herself, then realized that she had stopped trying to keep herself warm moments before. Evidently some part of her didn't want to feel the sudden lack, the loss of what had always been hers.
No more magic, so peacefully channeled into work and craft; no more improved senses or slight protection. Senna inhaled, exhaled, and touched her parents' dead charms. The city lay before them all, the magnificent reward of their sacrifices. Through the window, however, came a different sight – ramshackle buildings and filthy, huddled folk, staring with malice at their progress. It unsettled her, to be sure, and she recalled the warnings she had so easily disregarded. When she leaned closer to the window, squinting ahead, she could glimpse a more promising sight. There stood the towers, ablaze with gold and in such great numbers that she could not see the streets.
She settled back into her seat, and after a moment's hesitation, began undoing her charms. Perhaps it was a mistake to look at them again before she setting them in her satchel, but she felt the need to remember whose hands had carved each one. While the city was great, it was not to be her own; she would share all of its gifts with her family as they had shared theirs with her.
After placing the last charm away, she reached without thinking to her ankle. The pendant's cool metal reminded her of Dr. Etrau's letter, and she frowned. It was strange business, but at least she would have her answer soon enough. The train was slowing, its passengers chattering with relief or nerves as they gathered their belongings.
“Approaching South Orsacht Station. Repeat, approaching South Orsacht Station.”
Senna repeated the station's name in her mind, almost disbelieving it. This was the one. She struggled to pull on the rest of her bags and packages and watched the chaos and marvels of the streets outside give way to the brick walls of the train station.
The train braked in the center of an enormous hall, crossed by tracks and filled by a churning mass of people. Senna's eyes widened as she took it all in. Why, such a crowd could nearly equal Briv's entire population. It was hard to imagine how a city could function with so many people, much less how she would find Dr. Etrau amongst them.
After the door opened, she filed with the other passengers down the length of the car and out into the station. She meant not to gape, but it was difficult not to. The vast domed ceiling, strung with artificial lights and crystals; the rumble of trains as they slid in and out of tunnels; and above all, the people – ragged derelicts, gentlemen in tailored suits, and everyone in between – amazed and frightened her. As Around her raged cultured conversation, barked commands, filthy laughter, an indecipherable cacophany, Briv seemed part of another world.
With a relieved sigh, she noticed the number posted above the platform she stood upon. Dr. Etrau was to meet her in this very place, and she need do nothing but wait and watch. His prior letter had described him as a tall man, spectacled, somewhat balding, with sable hair and beard. She bit her lip as she scanned the crowd. Nobody seemed to match his description, but then, there were so many people in flux. She only hoped that he would find her, a farm girl with the baggage for a new life, before a thief or beggar did.
Others jostled her, and a few mean-faced children laughed as they passed. Having only seen a few pocketwatches in her life, she was unfamiliar with telling time by machine, but she kept her gaze fixed on the grand clock upon the wall. Its span was greater than the heights of two men. The more revolutions that the smallest hand made, and the further along the middle hand moved, the more dread built in Senna's gut. Surely he couldn't have forgotten about her? He was a man of science, and probably engaged in all manner of important projects, but human too. He might have overslept.
When she recalled his latest message, another possibility presented itself. As with the pendant, this long wait might be a means of testing her. Perhaps he wished only to hire a girl with some manner of sense, the ability to reason her way out of a difficult situation. Although she hoped that her employer would not be so heartless on her first day in the city, at least half an hour had passed, and it seemed that she had little choice but to make her own way to his apartment.
“Godwatch,” Senna whispered, and then started through the chaos of the station, but it was like navigating through a strange river. She had no knowledge of the currents, and so was pushed from side to side, unable to reach the gates out. In desperation, she grabbed at the arm of a uniformed man. “Pardon, sir,” she said, “but I'm looking for –”
He jerked his arm away, glared at her, and continued on.
Though shocked by his rudeness, she reached a less densely packed section of the station and fell into the throng of people headed out of its doors. As they edged forward she pulled her employment letter from her satchel and read over the address given: Room No. 28, Haverik Boardinghouse, 103 Warptrunk Street.
She breathed more easily outside, although it was not so much less crowded than indoors. There was something in the bruised opulence of the station that had come to seem almost tawdry. Under the dim glows of the eastern sky and tall iron lamps, she searched for some means of transportation or direction. She had some money, Orsachtian paper gires that Dr. Etrau had sent, as well as her own coins, tucked into her left boot.
While some people entered their own carriages, and many more set out on foot, there seemed to be coaches for hire as well. Less finely wrought than the individual ones, they had logos on their doors and drivers with badges on their liveries. At first she missed her chances to secure one as she watched how the deals were made, but within a few minutes she noticed one idling by the roadside. With one nervous glance beyond it – how dangerous the streets here seemed, filled by all manner of vehicles and pedestrians – she approached and raised a hand. “Pardon, is this for hire?”
The driver squinted at her. “You got money?”
“Yes,” she said, uncertain whether to pull it out. She hadn't seen any others paying before entering the coaches.
“How much?”
She had hoped not to lose the gires so soon, since they would come out of her first wages. “About sixty tamblens, sir.” The coins were accepted throughout the land, although the paper money was more valued in Orsacht.
After a moment's pause, he gestured behind himself. “Get in, then.”
She opened the door and pulled herself inside, careful not to drop anything. Even the coaches here, with solid rooves and plush seats, were grander than anything she had seen in Briv. Unwilling to stain the floor, she checked her boots for mud.
“I don't have all day, girl. Where to?”
“Oh, pardon.” She found the letter again, and read the address aloud. With the slap of a whip on the horse's back, they started forward. The familiar motion soothed Senna after the journey by train, and she edged closer to the window. It seemed inconceivable that anyone could find his way through such a labyrinth of streets, vast identical buildings, and rushing traffic. While she guessed some structures to be tenement buildings or factories, having heard them described, she could not fathom others. What use could be the thick wires that threaded overhead, attached to poles, or the great gilded domes that gleamed in the distance?
From the plain and industrial neighborhood that surrounded the station, they passed into streets with grand and ornamented buildings. Remembering the driver's earlier brusqueness, Senna repressed the urge to ask about the change. She noticed peeling paint and sloping railings beneath the decorative architecture, but such details hardly affected her wonder.
The building they stopped in front of was four stories high, with balconies on each and a sign with rusting iron letters. Haverik Boardinghouse. For a moment Senna gazed up at it, imagining her life in such a place.
“That'll be forty-five.”
She turned toward the driver's voice. “Forty-five tamblens?” Although she had known that money in the city was spent more freely than money in the town, it seemed a steep price. When the driver didn't bother to reply, she was forced to dig the coins out of her boot and hand them through the front screen.
As soon as she stepped out of the coach, it rattled away, leaving her to face the building herself. It wasn't so much the strange surroundings that she feared then, rather the possibility of a disastrous meeting. If Dr. Etrau was cruel-spirited, or not altogether sane, then she would have nowhere else to turn. Nothing could be discovered through loitering, however. She opened the door and walked inside, grateful for the rush of warmth.
The parlor was empty, strewn with a few chairs and couches with wrinkled velvet cloth. Uncertain, she stood on the threshold and wondered where next to turn. The room number meant nothing to her. To her relief, after a few minutes' worry, a middle-aged woman emerged from a door in the back and walked up to her. “Do you need any help, miss?” The woman's shrewd tone belied her kind words, and her gaze took in Senna's country clothes and many packages. “If you're looking for a room, I'd suggest you try elsewhere. Rates here start at fifty gires a month.”
Senna flushed. “Actually, I'm to be Dr. Etrau's new maid. Senna Ivrum. Might I ask where to find his room?”
The landlady's eyebrows rose. “Jamek? Well, thank the saint. He's immaculate with his machines, but as for common things like dishes, he's quite the eternal bachelor.” She pointed to an odd door at the side of the room. “There's the elevator. Take it to the second floor, and he's room twenty-eight –” With another glance at the girl, she amended, “Or take that door to the stairs, if you're not used to the elevator.”
Wondering what an elevator was, and what saint the woman had meant, Senna still smiled. “Thank you, aunt.”
A wry smile touched her lips. “Mistress.”
“Pardon?”
“It's 'mistress' here in Orsacht, Senna.” She turned away, then added, “Oh, and see if you can't get your new boss to come downstairs once in a while. He's been working on some new project and neglecting mealtimes.”
With a nod, Senna walked toward the stairs. It was clear that she had much to learn before she could pass in Orsacht society, but she felt grateful to the landlady for her frankness. Perhaps the learning would not be so difficult if others were willing to instruct her.
The design of the stairwell startled her, as she had only known crude ladders in a town where the highest buildings had two stories, but looking upon the sturdy beams and railings, she soon lost her fear of its collapse and started up. It did not so much as tremble beneath her step. Entering the second floor hallway, she was faced with a row of doors, each crowned by a brass numeral. She found number twenty-eight at the end of the hallway, and after a minute's hesitation, she knocked her fist against the wood.
Another minute passed without reply. She tried again. “Dr. Etrau?” Her voice was perhaps too soft for his hearing, but it was still just after dawn, and she did not wish to wake any other boarders. “Dr. Etrau?”
There was some sort of button and perforated metal plate to the side of the door, possibly for speaking into, but Senna could not take the risk. Instead she knocked again, this time somewhat harder.
She supposed that she might ask the landlady for a key, if it came to it. In desperation, she tried the doorknob. It was locked, but seemed flimsy, moving in her grip. She frowned and tried again, gently, and this time, with a grating noise, it turned all the way. Struck with the realization that she might have broken it, she quickly let go.
Yet if she had ruined it already, there was nothing to be done except pay for the damage. With a sigh, she opened the door a crack. “Dr. Etrau, this is Senna Ivrum. Pardon, but I'll be coming in now, unless you object.” She doubted that he was inside, but surely he would not fault her too harshly for leaving the exposure of the hallway. She would stay only in the front parlor and wait for his return, or his awakening.
The parlor's decoration was very fine, but in such a small amount that the overall picture was austere. Senna could not see any of the mess that the landlady had hinted at, though of course this was only one room. Except – she peered more intently at a dark stain on the wood, near the door into the rest of the apartment, and her breath caught. After farm life, she was no stranger to blood.
A faint but nauseating scent in the air struck her, and recalling the landlady's comment, she felt dread rise like bile in her throat. She thought grimly of the other doors she had feared to enter. None compared to the one that she faced now. She placed a hand upon the wood, then slid it down to the cold metal handle and tightened her fingers around it. After taking a single deep breath, she pulled.
A tall man, spectacled, somewhat balding, with sable hair and beard, was prone upon the floor, and dark blood coated his ravaged neck.
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Psychotic Maniacal Sanity Captain
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 3:26 am
Oh my, oh my. :3
I love where this is going. I love the detail, and the description of the city. : D I also like the development of plot. I look forward to more! Again... ninja Haha.
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Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 12:03 pm
I like the last bursts of magic paragraph. And the one where they all lose it.
[As Around her raged...part of another world.] As Around? Sounds like you smooshed together some opening words.
Holy s**t. Oh man. This is--this is gonna get even more interesting than I had initially thought, isn't it?
Can't wait for more--please deliver! I'll be patient, though, don't worry. wink
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