♂ ILLUMINATED BOOK, kotaline's Phasmas

[kotaline]

Toure has not lingered while Hopkin was waking, and the lands of the True World have slowly shifted as the wagon moves him through the Wide World. Upon his transition, he wakes in a place full strange to his eyes, and more importantly, empty of the strange monster of a man whose assistance he seeks. Pained and frustrated, Hopkin returns to the laborious task of combing through the false and shifting fields of Auvinus, looking for the grotesque form of his former ally. It is long and diffcult work, but time in the True World passes more fluidly, unmarked by the rising or setting of the sun, and so Hopkin cannot tell how long he goes at it. Miles he walks through, yet feels no fatigue. This is the True World, and so it does not tire him.

Auvinus, though, does make him nervous, and if his hands shake and his feet hasten, it is because this land is an anomaly, just like his own Plagued form. Not quite true. Its imperfections eat away at him as much as they give him cause too fear, and the sooner he can leave, the better off he'll be.

He finds Toure in a group, much to his distress, the gaggle of grotesque Jawbone Men of Auvinus mill together frequently, and Toure is in the centre this time, his deformed hands at work on a manuscript quite unlike the stuff that Hopkin is made of. Were he Wickwright, Hopkin would ponder that- a grotesque man making an imperfect manuscript in the head of a book boy. He is not Wickwright, so it merely causes him irritation, a vague background buzzing at seeing a job that he loves done poorly. It is hardly Toure's fault. His hands are too twisted for the quill.

As Hopkin approaches, hesitantly, forever darting back when the other Auvinian Men turn, he sees the contents of the thing, Toure is writing out the same message which Hopkin conveyed to him to translate and staring at it in deep frustration. He seems to finish, sprinkling sand on it and tucking it somewhere safe to dry, eyeing his peers with reluctance and mustering up some sort of pluck. Before he can make his next move, however, Hopkin attracts his attention, waving frantically from his hiding place and summoning his quarry over by inches. Toure does not seem pleased to see him, and Hopkin finds it understandable. The last time they met, he was a Source with no answers, but now Wickwright has given him the words he needs.

"I have your value!" he hisses at Toure, then looks around again and insists, "Privately."

Toure shakes his head and replies to him thus: "If you know what value the men of Auvinus possess, you will tell it to all of them and not me alone." The men are looking up now, and, unobserved, Hopkin returns their gaze in anxious terror.

"I cannot. Let me say it to you, and you may pass on my truth." But now Toure picks him up, and Hopkin clings to his fingers, hissing "No, no, no!" like a kettle whistling shrill steam. Toure reaches down again and picks up that paper he had set to dry, still ink-damp and new. Ginger with both of them for one whose hands and form are so blasted, he returns to the convocation of grotesques which he came from, setting both things down by the fire whose light they work by. There is a shuffling, and the grotesques re-organize, forming a circle around the disruption. Hopkin cowers and cringes, and Toure looks down upon him from the center.

"Tell us our worth, for we have no reason to know why our forms are so gross and misaligned."

In his panic, Hopkin fears he cannot remember the words, but he is a book, Finch's book, and they come, Finch's words, rushing out of his mouth so fast that the shapes and forms flutter around the Auvinus men like the nervous birds which his writer is named for. "A-All false things," he begins, causing a murmur around the circle, "contain truth. All truths, no matter h-how perverted or c-c-orrupted will n-never lose that which was once true inside of them, eve-even though great calamity may alter th-their form. E-Every lie was something else once, a-and some must p-prove that they are that thing still." His voice, shaky, grew stronger, and he backed himself up against the manuscript while he spoke, grabbing its edge with a small metal hand. "A-all false things have truth within them. You have truth within you. A-And so does this note from the Wide World, but my falsehood is n-not compatible with it! I cannot decipher what it says, but the falsehoods which have poisoned your forms are the same which make this illegible. O-Only you can find the truth in this." He looked around the circle, quivering like a leaf.

"P-prove you are Jawbone Men still," he begs. "Turn this nonsensical missive to truth."

The world erupts into words, all crowding and pressing against Hopkin's skin, inundating the flat world as the Men of Auvinus begin to speak all at once. Letters fly every which way, and Hopkin himself, the Source from which all things here stem, can hardly make heads or tails of it. Toure pushes through and gives a short whistle, whose antiphonal notes drown out all for a few sharp seconds.

"This is the Source," he informs the assembly, "If we cannot take his word that our fortunes can yet be bettered without taking offense and refusing him, there is no hope for any of us here in Auvinus."

This seems to sober some of the men, and for all his low status within the Society, Toure stands as leader here, where the world is upside down. In Imisus or Mishkan or Shyregoad he would be of the lowest rank, a member of one of the youngest families of Bone. Here, it sets him apart as the least corrupted by Kingsley, and makes him capable as a Tadhg or a Feilim. He picks up the manuscript and holds it up for the crowd.

"This is Kingsley code," he continues, "And we know how to read it, though here in the True World, we do not remember so readily as we ought. Try to remember. Try to feel for the truth. Is this not the function of a Jawbone Man?"

Hours pass as the men gather round the message, maybe a day, maybe more. One by one, they overcome their reluctance, and with Toure egging them on, they begin to pull apart the lies of the nonsense message to prove their own private truths. Hopkin sits and watches, but not too long, for it is difficult to see so much untruth in the True World, to watch their blasted hands plucking at secret symbols. It sits uneasily with him, an itch he cannot scratch, and so he is restless as they decode, thinking longingly of the wagon and Wickwright. Even the Auvinus of the Wide World with its Obscuvians and hiding seems better to him now than this warped land he now waits in.  

[kotaline]

[Long did Hopkin wait for the false men of Auvinus to decode the Kingsley Code he brought them, but at last when they did, Toure declaimed it to him thus:

[T] FULL strange is this missive, even for an untruth,
For some symbols not even we could decipher,
And even upon the deciphering the message is full
Of great errors and falsehoods which seem irreconcilable to our minds.
MY desire to know of this note's origin is not great,
For it must be a place of greater confusion even than Auvinus,
And I would fain but wonder what the Source seeks in such places.
But speculation is not my task, and here is the truth of the note:

I have sought Tabarre everywhere, and it seems like he really has gone through with blank, as Sherbrooke warned you. We cannot let word escape to the North, or they will think he has become blank. Meet me in Thorn, and tell blank to look after him. We must decide his fate.

[T] THERE is little within this that makes good sense,
For the symbols I cannot grasp are all one and the same.
What are these gaps in the missive,
Tabarre has joined nobody, deceived nobody,
HERE is Sherbrooke, ignorant in this grotesque form,
Here am I, with no recollection of any warning made to me.
You said that the deciphering of this message would bring
Good truth to us and alleviate our corruption.
YET here I am, as twisted as I ever was, and no solution
But rather more tangled lies appear to have played out before me.
Are you so callous, O Source, as to dangle our salvation in front of us?
To mock our forms with the hope of our release from them?
WELL, Source or not, no more of this folly.
Get you from this place, and do not reappear!
Not with more messages of deceit and cruel tricks.
I will not tolerate more humiliation for we have already suffered in full.

FULL.

If Hopkin was shamed by the scoldings of Toure, he made no note of it, nor explanation, but rather repeated and repeated again the words which Toure had declaimed to him, frantically trying to memorize them. When Toure seemed about to lose his temper entirely at the callousness of the Source, he turned, and was shocked to see the Source vanish as easily as one might wake from a dream.]  

[kotaline]

"Thorn."

"Pardon?" Wickwright asks, and Hopkin wakes, looking blearily around the wagon. "Thorn," he repeats, not fully lucid to understand the statement himself- the transition between worlds is not easy nor pleasant in Auvinus. But by degrees, he regains his sense, and so too, the urgency of his message. "Wickwright Finch!" he exclaims, throwing himself from his hiding place and scrambling up onto his Grimm's shoulder by leaps and bounds uncharacteristic of his usual care. "I have sought Tabarre everywhere, and it seems like he really has gone through with blank, as Sherbrooke warned you. We cannot let word escape to the North, or they will think he has become blank. Meet me in Thorn, and tell blank to look after him. We must decide his fate."

Wickwright's uncomprehending stare results in prompting. "The note, Wickwright, I have discovered the truth of it."

"Hopkin, this land has run you senseless. There's even less chance that you could decipher that note than I."

"No, I am full of all the good sense you wrote in me and more, for within my pages were preserved stories of the men of Auvinus and from their knowledge I could hear the truth of that note. Listen!" And he recited it precisely again, entreating, "Were I run mad, would I not have so imagined meanings for the undecipherable symbols as well? We can find Toure if we turn back to Thorn, for we have passed by him and Gravesend, perhaps the only Jawbone Men who remain in Auvinus, as you have worried to me nightly."

"Hopkin, that language isn't sensible. You couldn't possibly have known it," reasons Wickwright. "I know what I wrote in you, and there was nothing of Kingsley code at all. What Finch Man would preserve a language that had no merit in it?"

"But you said it did! You said that even if we can't work out the meaning, every false thing must come from somewhere, and thought that you might discover it. You forget, Wickwright, that I am no longer a pure truth either, and in my corrupted state, I am yet able to fish truth out of falsehoods. Is this not my purpose, to illuminate? It is surely so, fr you have often said so, and thus I must fulfill that duty."

When Wickwright still hesitates, Hopkin blanches.

"Wickwright, you must trust me," he begs, "For I must prove that I am true."

There is no choice in the matter. Wickwright mutters under his breath, something that is perhaps not quite 'corpus bones' but just as rude. His book has innocently laid this trap, but nonetheless has trapped him all the same. "No Jawbone Man accepts a truth without evidence," he insists still. "You emerge from bone-knows-how deep a hibernation and shout a message. Where is the proof of your words?"

Hopkin hesitates, but can prove nothing. He cannot show Wickwright the men of Auvinus, though they are impure like the Wide World, they are yet unable to leave the True World they were written into. He picks up the note instead and stares at it, but it is still as indecipherable to him as it was the first time he saw it. He has memorized the contents, but cannot string the physical symbols and their meaning together. He lets out a frustrated, whistling whimper, and turns to Wickwright.

"Well?" Wickwright demands, "What means what?"

"I do not know," Hopkin admits, "I can only know the truth of it. But this I swear to you, it has been turned to truth!"

Wickwright massages his temples, and in the rattling wagon, Hopkin looks on, unable to provide evidence, helpless but obstinate. "Let me prove my truth," he repeats, begs. "What choice have we but to try? We are simply just wandering blindly as it is!"

Wickwright gets up and Hopkin grasps onto the fabric of his robe to keep his balance.

"Very well, Hopkin," He pulls out a sheet of parchment and a quill. "If you are so sure of your truth, we can manufacture evidence of our own."  

[kotaline]

Many months ago, Coyotl Coyotl had delivered this message: that the postmen of this country were Obscuvian and no more reliable than treacherous spies. However, the Jawbone Men did not remain one of the few surviving pagan faiths in Panymium without a healthy distrust of frank and open communication, and had long ago put in place a system of code to keep their correspondence as private as it has to be to ensure that they remain unnoticed in the often turbulent sphere of Panymese faith. Whether their messenger is trustworthy or not, it will take him great ingenuity to discover the meaning behind an old mendicant's letter to his prodigal cousin in Thorn.

The reply is quick, and delivered by no human hand, but by a bird, a largish pigeon who struts back and forth on the sill of the wagon's sole window in the early morning mist until Wickwright frees it from its burden. It eyes him cannily in hopes of food, and he breaks his bread in half absentmindedly as he squints at its letter. Once he has decoded it however, he is all haste, rousing Hopkin and setting Tristram off for Thorn as fast as the weary old oxen can take them. The letter is a page long, but the meat of it is only three words of code.

"Come here- Toure."

Hopkin had been right, for even if the letter is a forgery, no forger could known that the letter addressed to Gravesend could be answered by Toure. Here was evidence enough for Wickwright, and, Hopkin thought a little bitterly, though he had got the message from Toure to begin with, only the word of a Jawbone Man would do the truth justice for his Grimm.  

[kotaline]

[The last fresh families to be welcomed into the sacred sanctum of the Society were all men who Kingsley and O'Neill did recruit during the great difficulty of the Conflict which looms long in the minds of bone men. Born into this strife, the families burned fast and bright, and when the feud died down, few remained. Of O'Neill's men, four families from ten recruited- Paxton, Symonis, Asplin, and Corby. Of Kingsley's men, but five of thirty, and only three remaining for more than but a single generation- Sherbrooke, Tabarre, and Toure. These men, traitors from their very induction found animosity on every side, and that even three remained spoke a great deal of their respective characters.

DARK Toure was an eager pupil,
Trailing Kingsley's inner sanctum with a passion
That betrayed the first flush of his youth.
When that inner sanctum fell,
HE was left betrayed amongst the ruins,
And would have fell also, but for Gravesend,
Who took him under his wing,
Gave him sound guidance, and taught him new ways,
FROM then on, he was known as Gravesend's raven,
A nut-brown clever pupil, bright eyed and keen,
Though wary of old treacheries and,
Eager as Gravesend to shore up the cracks,
Ever vigilant, and perhaps too harsh against radical men.
SHERBROOKE was no harsh raven, but a dove,
Soft and mild, his appeal to Kingsley had been in his trade,
For that soft man knew the language of beasts,
And could coax them biddable with whispers better than any Bunting.
WHEN that Kingsley's army fell,
O'Neill yet recognized the use of Sherbrooke, and sent for him,
Sherbrooke could not muster the courage to come,
Nor to leave the society he had bound himself to and break his word.
SO thus he fluttered, back and forth, protected by Tabarre
Coddled by Gravesend and, in this bower,
Nursed into the gentlest and most loyal of the Auvinian Jawbone Men,
Least despised and best valued for the ken of words of truth that moved even beasts.
TABARRE was a convert from another sect,
Pious but stingy, sardonic, and dry,
He sacrificed little but what he did do was for the benefit not of himself,
But the faith, and his goals were not selfish, though his wit was sharp.
HE came to Kingsley out of earnest belief,
And none but his beliefs could move him any which way.
No animosity from O'Neill's men would shake him,
And his wit was more than counter to their unkind barbs.
THESE three were all seasoned and disillusioned by war,
Their losses quashed youthful ideals but their faith,
Sorely shaken, was made all the stronger in the end,
And the bond between them was nigh unbreakable,
THOUGH more men of Auvinus did yet remain, earlier recruits,
Those from before conflict, who bore less of the burden of scorn.
These three were united and nursed by Gravesend,
Who saw wisdom in keeping the willing in his fold.
GRAVESEND, no harsh leader, but a pragmatist,
Quietly ameliorated the Auvinians' strife,
Seeking reconciliation with his faith and O'Neill,
His ministrations saved the faith in Auvinus.
THE last of Kingsley's inner sanctum to stay,
When Clarke and Dytel had cleaved their paths,
He could not follow, could not discard his faith with his ambitions,
Preferring to light a candle rather than to curse the dark.

DARK.]

 

[kotaline]

Wickwright does not find the Jawbone Men in Thorn, but they find him, eventually. A dark lad swoops down on him and leads him away, his permanently alert, with clever, bright eyes that remind Hopkin of nothing so much as a crow, and unnerve him. But this is Toure, though he looks little like his image in the True World. Here in the Wide World, falsehoods leave no physical deformity. Instead, he is a dark man, in his early thirties with short, soft hair. Gravesend's raven, as he is called, and a bird who can hopefully lead them to the truth of what happened in that empty house.

He does not speak, however, not of anything but trivial questions to his dear friend's "cousin," as the conceit of Wickwright's own coded letter put forth, until they are alone, at which point his expression darkens and he leans against a wall, biting his lip and looking at Wickwright as if now that they are alone, he isn't sure whether he should trust him after all. At last, he asks, "Did O'Neill send you after us?" hesitantly. Wickwright hesitates, attemping to find an answer for the question that is not a yes or a no. O'Neill has sent them, in a roundabout way, but not to deal with the crisis that appears to have been waiting for them in Thorn. But Toure grows impatient, and beckons again.

"Come with me."

Wickwright obliges, and eventually the path leads to a small house in the outskirts of the city. Toure ducks in and announces his presence with a short, sharp rap on the doorframe, a distinctive noise that is surely not random, for an answering one of a slightly varied measure comes from the small partitioned room within, and then falls silent. The responding knock puts Toure at ease, and he announces, "We have a visitor from the North," a proclamation met with a slightly muted yelp. This does not seem to bother him and he sets about to work kindling a fire, which makes Hopkin squirm silently in his bag. Wickwright sits himself down by the hearth cautiously, but soon takes over from Toure, who moves with purpose, but whose hands are now noticeably shaking. There is a flash of what might be gratitude in Toure's dark eyes, and Wickwright pounces on the opportunity.

"How did you know me?"

"The last convocation I accompanied Gravesend."

"I didn't mark you there."

"Few did, but I was only recently years initiated. Perhaps seven years."

"Strewth, has it been so long?"

"Since we had a convocation so great as to give the men of Auvinus cause to be there? Yes, but I remember you, your eyes are the same Finch blue that the stories speak of." He lays out a pallet on the floor for Wickwright, blue, notices Hopkin, as he peeks through the bag. Finch blue. "And clever enough to solve any problem, and make them, too."

"Yes, well, I've made a few of them recently, and done less solving than I like." Hopkin squirms anxiously in the bag, and Wickwright leans on it, continuing, "As, it seems, have you."

"You found the note," Toure answers, "You know Kingsley code?"

"Nosiness is our mission," Wickwright replies airily.

Toure shifts uncomfortably, and Hopkin thinks that perhaps he wishes he had a bag to hide in too. One who skulks behind Gravesend at every opportunity cannot feel comfortable being subjected to a Finch's full attention, but Toure rallies admirably, and Hopkin feels put somewhat at ease when he does. "Then you'll know not all is well here." He glances back at the small partitioned area, waiting for a noise from it, and when there is only silence he turns back. "Gravesend is coming to seek a solution."

"It's a problem that leaves you with an extra pallet," noted Wickwright.

"Tabarre is lost."

"You suspect betrayal?" Wickwright's dark brows knit together.

Toure shrugs. "We're dealing with the cards he has dealt us."

"A bad hand?"

"No worse than usual," Toure replies sharply, "What choice have we?" He looks distracted, and elaborates. "We get no help from the rest of you."

"Sharp words, for a junior Jawbone Man."

"One of the only ones left in Auvinus now." his eyes flash in the firelight, and Wickwright drops the matter, turning his mind to other things.

"If Tabarre had betrayed you, what purpose would this serve?"

Toure stiffens and shrugs again, very slightly. "Did O'Neill send you? You never answered me, don't think I've forgotten."

"What answer will cause me to receive a slightly warmer welcome?" Wickwright jokes, setting the book bag on his borrowed palette.

"The true one," insists Toure. "I have no time for Finch's tricks."

"Me neither." Wickwright says, finding Toure's icy temper a headache to handle. Young Jawbone Men! Whether it was Tadhg trying to bargain, Yawley trying to impress, or Toure trying to defend, they were more trouble to deal with than they were worth. "O'Neill did not send me, and I did not decode the message."

Toure's brow furrows this time. "Then how-"

"A translation was provided to me," says Wickwright, "By an ally, which is a story that can wait for another time." A small and indignant noise came from his bag at the Obscuvian comment, which caused him to cough. "My business here involves nothing of your plight, until I came to Auvinus I was only tangentially aware of it. But I'm here now, and I have seen the empty houses, and if you need me, I will oblige. That's the duty of a Jawbone Man, of course, and doubly the duty of a Finch, as you reminded me earlier. But I must speak to Gravesend." He looks at the partitioned room, and Toure's gaze follows.

"He will return in three days' time," replies Toure, "Else he is captured or dead. Only Sherbrooke is in the partition. He's the last one besides me." His dark eyes study Wickwright with renewed suspicion, and perhaps curiosity. "What is your mission here, besides nosiness?"

"That is a matter which I cannot share. It is of matter only to Gravesend."

"And you can put it aside to aid us?"

"Rather, I think we can be mutually beneficial to each other."

Toure scoffs. "You're a Finch through and through. Always negotiating a better deal for yourself!"

"And what is a Toure to call a Finch avaricious?" asks Wickwright, not mean-spiritedly. "What is a Toure who will not leave a nest that is burning?"

Toure looks into the hearth and frowns for a moment. "The Northern men think I am a crow, like my former peers. I am Gravesend's raven though, and if O'Neill will not send help, I am a man who does not need favours from Gravesend to motivate me to provide one in return."

"A loyal bird indeed," says Wickwright, and Hopkin almost thinks him envious.  

[kotaline]

Sherbrooke sits between Wickwright and Toure, looking nervously at each of them in turn. He has not spoken since Wickwright had arrived, and while Toure was briefly frustrated, he hasn't yet challenged Sherbrooke about his silence particularly fiercely. Whatever issue weighs on Toure's mind, he is clearly in no mood to speak of it until he consults with Gravesend, and so though he converses politely, he speaks of little matter.. Sherbrooke is in no mood to speak of anything at all, and indeed, seems to attempt to ensure he is wherever Wickwright is not, although sometimes Wickwright feels his gaze from afar prickling the back of his neck.

While sitting to break bread with them, his wily old mind ranges far and wide, trying to get a feel for the circumstances. Toure's problem may be to his advantage. Clearly it isn't an issue that he is quite willing to let reach the ears of O'Neill unfiltered. It's possible that it could be leverage, and with Hopkin weighing heavily on his mind and in his bag, any scrap of leverage to give him an advantage in a part of the Society that he hasn't seen for decades is useful.

"Sherbrooke, you were Tabarre's partner, right?"

Sherbrooke nearly drops his trencher and blinks rapidly. Stuffing the trencher in his mouth, he excuses himself and runs outside with a speed and fervor that Wickwright can't help but wish he could inspire in people more often. Toure, apparently unperturbed by this behaviour, answers for him.

"Yes. Sherbrooke and Tabarre have always been partners."

So this information, at least, he can know. "How does Sherbrooke feel about losing him?" he coaxes. Toure simply shrugs. A dead end. Nevertheless, Wickwright persists, "Aren't you at all concerned about his behaviour?"

"He's shy," Toure offers. Wickwright nearly snorts into his drink, but Toure sticks with the somewhat unlikely excuse, straight-faced and straight-backed and sopping up his stew intently.

"A crippling debilitation in his case, it would seem," Wickwright retorts, and picks at his food, but lets his mind wander outside, where Sherbrooke is tending to Tristram. Toure is closed tight as a mussel, but Sherbrooke closes himself like a child, running away from the possibility that he might betray anything rather than risking to speak. Of course Sherbrooke would know what happened to his partner, and Toure has chosen to deal with him in the same way that Wickwright deals with Hopkin, let him keep his secrets in whatever way he can manage and try to cover up his mistakes for him.

To find out anything, he has to let Toure's guard slip. At this rate it might just be easier to wait for Gravesend and see what happens. When he gets up and stretches, he asks, "Well, never let it be said that a Finch is a burden. What work have you for me to do?"

"We can handle the work," Toure insists. "We're younger and stronger," he hesitates, and suggests, almost wistfully "Perhaps you could work on your book, Finch? It must be almost finished by now."

Wickwright hesitates, but reaches into Hopkin's book bag, and Hopkin squeaks, almost thinking Wickwright is going to pull him out and reveal everything all at once. Instead, Wickwright pulls out some loose sheets of parchment, and begins to lay out pages like he used to, before Hopkin was a Plague, before things were complicated. Toure is watching, but his hackles are lowered. In fact, he almost seems childishly delighted.

"What story are you writing?" he demands, tending to the hearth as a pretence for staying near and watching.

Wickwright pauses now, since he hadn't got a damn story in mind to begin with, and asks, "Why don't you tell me one?"

"I'm no storyteller," Toure replies, half-smirking at the thought of the idea. "Tabarre-"

There is is, for just a moment, and then Toure shuts up tighter than ever, the brief moment of camaraderie stifled. "Far be it for the stories of the men of Auvinus to disrupt your own work, Finch." he amends, and gets up, going to do the more strenuous chores required of strong, young men.  

[kotaline]

"Little Source!"

Hopkin startles in the dream world in Auvinus as a familiar voice pierces the nonsense noises of its inhabitants. His head swings around to seek the speaker, and alights upon Finch, hiding behind a twisted log. He opens his mouth to cry out, but Finch raises a spindly finger to his lips, looking around apprehensively before darting to where Hopkin sits. "Finch!" hisses the Source at last. "What are you doing here?"

Finch shrugs expansively at the weird wasteland. "It was not my decision to come to this place, Source," he explains. "I merely found that my feet had lead me here."

"That is nonsensical," Hopkin asserts emphatically, "Do not become so nonsensical as this place."

"I shall endeavour not to," Finch agrees with mock-gravity, and looks around. "Corpus bones, this part of the world is a ruin. What misery the men of Auvinus suffer in! I am glad to be Imisese and whole."

Hopkin hugs his knees and admits, "I promised to find a way to make them whole again, but I do not know how."

Taken aback, Finch replies, "By the bone, what gave you cause to make a promise such as that? Those men have been warped since the ink first shaped them, and their forms are bound into the parchment sky. Will you unwrite the world to save them? It is impossible."

Hopkin shakes his head, running a metal finger along the knotwork design of the roots of the flat tree he has taken shelter under. "Yet I feel they must have some truth to them, or what would they be doing here in the True World, Finch? I would not make a promise that I was certain I could not fulfil no matter how badly I needed the help of the men of Auvinus. I am the Source, and if I misrepresent the truth, what use am I?"

"What use are any of us in this place, Source? This may be the True World, as you claim, but any truth in this place became entangled in itself long ago. It cannot be undone. You are the Source, but you are not the Scribe, and what the Scribe has writ upon these pages cannot be undone by a force so passive as yourself. You preserve what is true. You cannot help what is broken."

"I must be able to." Hopkin wrings his hands, the metallic noise almost pleasant sounding for its familiarity in the True World's strange Auvinus. "If I cannot fulfil the oath, I will have lied."

Finch runs a hand through his hair, biting his lip. Leaping up into the tree's branches, Hopkin hears him rustling, a few flat leaves and letters falling with his movements. He returns momentarily, shaking onomatopoeia out of one ear and staring distractedly in the distance. "The men of Auvinus are two pages north of us. What makes you think that they can be saved, Source? What do you expect me to do about it?"

"Finch always has a plan," Hopkin claims hopefully, "And the men of Auvinus can find truth yet in coded lies." He expounds upon the events which led Wickwright and himself to Thorn, and pauses, begging, "There must be truth in them. I will have lied, Finch."

Finch puffs his cheeks and breathes out an ornate, inky scrawl. "We will see," he says, "if something comes up. But even I cannot swear to you that we can change what is written."  

[kotaline]

the golden mendicant

 

[kotaline]

"We can no longer wait," insists Hopkin to Finch, anxiously shrugging in the direction of the Men of Auvinus. "How can you make a plan to fulfill my promise if you do not hear their words?"

"What good are false words?" retorts Finch. "I wish you would let me leave this place, Source. I feel no good will come of this."

"There is truth in them," Hopkin insists.

"How can you know that?" Finch demands.

"Wickwright has told me it is so," Hopkin insists, and Finch clicks his tongue.

"Well, there's no use in arguing with Wickwright Finch," he decides, and picks Hopkin up.

"What are you doing, Finch," Hopkin asks nervously, clinging onto his finger.

"We are going to speak to the Men of Auvinus," he retorts. "As you requested!"

"Can you not do it alone?" Hopkin wails, still quite unnerved by the congregation, but Finch merely laughs.

"If I must be stuck in Auvinus, I will not speak to these men alone. You are the one who has told me they have truth, and so you must be the one who meets them with me." Hopkin wails quietly as Finch leads him forward, but the fear that he will have lied to Toure is greater than his fear of untruths, and so the best he can do is scurry up Finch's arm, hoping to hide in his hood. Finch plucks him back and he squirms, but it is too late, for Toure sees them now and his face is darker than usual even for Gravesend's raven.

"What business has Finch in the land of Auvinus?" he demands, but his stance is uncertain and self conscious, his most warped features he attempts to hide as if shielding part will cause Finch might not notice the grotesqueness of the whole. Finch raises an eyebrow, a gesture characteristic of Wickwright that makes Hopkin feel more at ease.

"I am sent by the Source," he replies, "To help find a way to meet his claim that you men might yet be cured."

The look which Toure gives Hopkin is withering, but he cannot escape Finch's hold. "The Source has said so before with no result," Toure asserts, and the Men of Auvinus buzz in agreement around them. "If he lies, what trust can we put in Finch?"

"I did not lie!" Hopkin says at last, stopping his attempt to make a getaway and standing up indignantly on Finch's palm. "There is truth in you!"

Finch shrugs. "Even I do not believe the Source, but if he says so, I will try to find a cure for you."

"Finch always has a plan," Hopkin insists. "I only know you can be cured, but I do not know how. He will make a way for you."

Toure looks from Hopkin up to Finch. "You do not think he is telling the truth, though."

"The Source cannot lie," Finch replies, scratching his head, "But to me it seems that if there is truth in you it must be hidden deep indeed. I know your stories better than any man not among you, and I do not believe that any Finch plan can undo the mess which you have tangled yourselves in."

Hopkin shakes his head. "This is a truth which I know. Wickwright Finch has told me it, and I cannot explain what I do not fully comprehend, but if he says so, it must be so."

"Well, all Finches are better than one Finch, at least," Finch affirms with a grin. "The Men of Auvinus do not terrify me, for I know their secrets and stories." He sits, and motions for the whole group to sit, which they do reluctantly, Toure first.

"Tell me," says Finch, enjoying being the center of attention despite himself, "Your truths."  

[kotaline]

When Gravesend returns, he is soft and tired, slumped shoulders supporting a weary man. However, when Toure and Sherbrooke greet him, he smiles, thin and tight-lipped, but genuinely glad. If O'Neill is the king that the Jawbone Men do not have, Gravesend is the father for his southern, fledgling chicks. Hopkin, who has only seen the twisted and deformed Gravesend in the flat world, watches him with some trepidation. The Gravesend in the Wide World and the Gravesend he knows are completely different animals, but he thinks now that he sees this Gravesend that he could detect some of his cares and troubles in the twists of the flat world Gravesend's face. He also feels a strange sort of lurch in the core of his being- envy, maybe. Surely the Southern Jawbone Men are false as he is, and as little worthy of love, but Wickwright has never looked at him in such a way.

Toure insists that Gravesend rest, and he acquiesces somewhat reluctantly. Whatever he thinks of Wickwright's presence there, he makes no sign of it, but retires to sleep, the partition in the room is not quite thick enough to drown out his genuine and grateful snores. When he wakes, Toure insists, they will consult, and then they will hear Wickwright's business. Wickwright seems ill-pleased by this, but there's little he can do but to accept. Toure is young, but he is adamant, in possession of the kind of quiet fire that makes men in other religions saints. In the Society, where there are no saints, no martyrs, and, supposedly, no status quo, it does little more than ruffle a Finch's feathers.

Hopkin, too, is anxious, for he has not yet uncovered the secrets of the True World's Auvinus, and does no know if these men have enough truth left within them to trust. He and Finch had worked hard at it all through the night, sorting through the broken Auvinian stories to prise some truth from them, but it was a difficult task, and Finch had sworn, saying that truth could, after all, be mined best from the Wide World, which he could not reach. Hopkin had only left because he had been ordered to- to find more truth that they might use to, in Finch's words, "at least fix their damn crooked mouths." He did not know whether Toure and Gravesend's confidences would reveal any such truth, and as for Sherbrooke, he still avoided Wickwright as if he was the Plague, rather than Hopkin. In the face of such obstacles, and the possibility that he will have failed his own word, he cannot help but wring his hands, and the small noise grates at the edge of his Grimm's hearing.

Wickwright is still pretending to write his book, for, having started pages already, he sees no reason not to finish a story entire. He has nothing better to do, in truth, and the exercise is calming to him after having gone so long without it. He knows too well that Hopkin is a burden, but seldom has cause to reflect just how much working on his book meant to him- there is a pang in his chest as fierce as if he was piercing his heart with his quill.

With Toure watching over Gravesend, Sherbooke is left unguarded, and approaches Wickwright hesitantly, coltish and shy. Wickwright begins to notice his movements at the edge of his perception, but doesn't make signs of having marked it, letting Sherbrooke come slowly and quietly. When at last Sherbrooke is close enough to spy over his shoulder, he speaks at last, asking, "What story do you work on, brother?" same as Toure did those days ago. Now Wickwright has an answer, having begun to draft it already.

"An Imisese story taught to me in my youth. The story of Finch and the Holy Man."

Sherbrooke sighs. "A good story."

Wickwright murmurs his assent, then is given pause. Here is a thread to tug, and he niggles at it gently as possible, so as not to cause alarm. "You've heard many Finch stories?" he asks innocently, and Sherbrooke nods.

"For certain. Finch is very popular in Auvinus, since you came here those decades ago! The last Northern Jawbone Man we've seen for many years, and clever enough to solve any problem."

"Have you no such stories to tell from Auvinian tradition?" Wickwright asks with some amusement. "Surely you cannot all be dense, or you would not have made so fierce rivals when Kingsley was a man in power."

Sherbrooke shakes his head. "Clarke, but he left with Kingsley. It isn't so good to hear stories of a clever man who has abandoned your sect! Much better to speak of Finch, who might yet spread his wings through Auvinus again one day."

"Strewth, from how you speak, it sounds like my return was prophesied by a higher power. Who kept all these stories?"

Sherbrooke laughs. "Tabarre, he would talk about Finch's stories for ages. He was always talking about how you'd save us." For a moment, he looks frightened, as if he has betrayed something Toure had not intended him to, and very likely he had, but Wickwright is quick and Toure is not, and he quickly smooths over his anxieties.

"Is that all? Well, it's a relief to me, by the bone."

Sherbrooke relaxes and Wickwright goes back to writing. He thinks of Tabarre, the teller of Finch stories who is now vanished, while he does, feeling the foreboding sense that once again, without even being present to orchestrate it, trouble has come on a Finch's wing.  

[kotaline]

"Toure," says Wickwright, as the dark young man emerges from where Gravesend is resting, "Will he speak to me?"

"He will," Toure replies, "But only on the condition that you tell him who translated his note."

Wickwright grins, "I think that can be managed," he assents, and he is led into the partition. Sherbrooke follows nervously, shepherded in by Toure.

The inside of the partition is still dark, but lit by a feeble candle, which illuminates Gravesend's tired face. "Finch," he greets, "It's good to see you again."

"Many years have passed," Wickwright agrees, "You've seen much, I imagine, in Auvinus."

"And you," Gravesend replies, "Have been keeping secrets in Auvinus, if you know a man who knows Kingsley code." He looks at Wickwright, half hopeful, and Wickwright realizes what he's thinking with a pang.

"My translator is no man you are missing. I'm hiding no Tabarre away in my wagon."

If Gravesend looks disappointed, in the dim light, Sherbrooke positively deflates. "We are missing many men, if not Tabarre...?"

"No man translated my note." Wickwright insists, and reaches into his bag, pulling out Hopkin, whose mouth clamps shut tight as he clings silently to Wickwright's hand. Gravesend lifts the candle and peers at him, then turns to Wickwright in confusion. "A Plague...?"

"The Book of Traditions." Wickwright announces carefully. "My contribution, and my translator."

"Hopkin," adds Hopkin, feeling his insides turn as Wickwright refers to him by a title he has not now been called for years. "A boy, book, and Plague."

"But you were working on the Book of Traditions while you were here! I saw you!" Toure insists, bewildered. "This can't be-"

"You assumed I was, but I never affirmed or denied it."

"But you're far too old to make a new contribution!"

"I am his contribution still!" Hopkin exclaims.

"And he knows Kingsley Code? When not even you do?"

"I sopke to the Men of Auvinus! From the stories," insists Hopkin, bewildered that these false men will not even speak to him. He turns to Toure. "I spoke to Toure! He translated it for me!" To his dismay, Toure blanches, as he did from Toure in the True World. Here, in the Wide World, he is the monster, and the realization makes him clench his small metal fists tightly in frustration. "Did I not pull truth from lies," he asks, his small, tinny voice rising. "Did I not illuminate that which was obscure? Did I not do exactly as I ought to as a book?" Now Wickwright is trying to close his hand over him, but he pushes the interfering fingers aside.

"I did!" he insists hotly. "And still, you look at me as if I was nothing but a Plague!"

"Finch," Gravesend pleads. "A Plague from a Jawbone book is far too obvious. We're a secret sect. A pagan faith. If the Obscuvians or the Panymisians discover us, we'll be persecuted by both."

"We're persecuted already, by the bone!" Wickwright retorts. "Would you lose Finch as well as all the men of Auvinus? This is my contribution. He must be, and that is why I come. To gather your support. O'Neill has called a meeting to discuss Hopkin, and everyone must be present for it."

He sees Gravesend's expression flicker. "Everyone?"

"I know what happened to Tabarre, or I think I do," Wickwright says earnestly. "He tried to fix your problems, right? The ones you've been hiding from. Sherbrooke says he told nothing but Finch stories. Did he try to act like a Finch?"

"He infiltrated the Obscuvians," Sherbrooke says proudly, "He's going to get our brothers back," and Toure hushes him.

"You didn't ask him to, and you don't know what to do, and you know what O'Neill will do, but we can keep Tabarre in the Society if we can allow Hopkin in the Society, surely. Don't you think it's time for change, Gravesend?"

Gravesend shakes his head. "You sound like Kingsley," he murmurs grimly.

Hopkin feels Wickwright's knuckle twitch as he stands in the palm of his hand, and his own small fingers tighten around Wickwright's thumb uncertainly. He looks up at his Grimm, but cannot make out his face in this half-darkness. The voice he hears retort is earnest, however, and he relaxes silently.

"I'm just a Finch. I've caused trouble for you without meaning to, but I can fix it, if you just help me fix this."

"If O'Neill doesn't believe it's true, how could we even argue?" Toure demands. "We're barely allowed our seats as it is, merely for being lead astray once!"

"You must argue," insists Hopkin, standing up, and nearly losing his balance as Wickwright's hand shifts beneath him. "How will you prove you have truth if you hide here forever? Are you not the last three Jawbone Men in Auvinus? If you know yourselves to be true men, you must show that you are true."

"Your words are fit for a book, but we'd be showing you are true," Toure points out peevishly.

"The truth of the Book of Traditions is tied to the truth of the Men of Auvinus," Wickwright replies levelly. "It's the first such tome since the Conflict to collect your stories. Would you let the Northern Men slight it?"

Sherbrooke steps forward, and in the candlelight, his face is pale, nervous, and shiny. "I'm a true man," he insists, "And I know Tabarre is, and Tabarre says Finch is." He gulps, but gives Gravesend and Toure a challenging look. "I'm not as smart as Tabarre, but he was sick of waiting and hiding, and so am I, and even a little fellow like that book knows that it isn't any good! And I'm not going to show up to that meeting and just let them ask where Tabarre is and strike him from the Society!" He turns back to Hopkin and scowls. "You have to be a true book. You're Finch's book."

Gravesend shakes his head, but Sherbrooke interrupts. "I'll defend Tabarre's truths! We have to, he isn't here to do it!"

"For Tabarre, we'll support you, then," Gravesend agrees, and Toure, dark-faced, but loyal, assents with a stiff nod, while Sherbrooke steps back, relieved. He waves them away, and they file out, as Wickwright deposits Hopkin back into his bag. As he does so, Gravesend leans forward, and addresses him earnestly.

"Finch," he says, "You've been there for us, so I'll return the favour. But be careful that your own truths don't become blinded by your ambitions."

"All I want is to make sure the Finch family is preserved," Wickwright says, giving Gravesend a wan smile. "Is it not noble to struggle against death?"  

[kotaline]

Hopkin stumbles through the Dream World until he finds Finch, sitting amongst the Auvinian Jawbone Men and speaking with them amiably. "Finch!" he calls, and Finch scoops him up swiftly. "Book boy!" he announces. "Do the Southern Jawbone Men not look better? I quite like this one." He pats the shoulder of something that looks not-unentirely like Tabarre.

Hopkin pauses to look and catch his breath and sees that yes, the men of Auvinus are less twisted, less horrifying, but only just a few of them.

"We've made progress," Toure says impatiently, "But tell us how to fix ourselves for good! What have you learned in the True World?"

Hopkin squirms uncomfortably, "Well, I have learned that Sherbrooke, Toure, Gravesend, and Tabarre are all noble and true men!" And it is true, these four are far less twisted than their fellows, who still look as twisted and misshapen as ever they did. But still, their forms are warped, if not as much as before, and Toure seems dissatisfied with their progress.

"But only us? And if we are true, why are we not whole?"

Hopkin wrings his hands. "Well, you were still in the Conflict," he suggests quietly, "Were you not?"

"So we will never be whole?" demands Toure, "And these men," he jabs his slightly-less-clawlike hand at the rest of the Auvinian men, "They will never be whole at all?"

"Your stories are simply incomplete," begs Hopkin, "It is so difficult to discern the truth from them!"

"Because none of you have ever bothered to tell them!" He glares at Finch, who raises his hands. "If we have been true all this time, the fault for our condition lies in you!" The twisted Jawbone Men around him murmured their discontent.

"But you are fixed, Toure," Says Finch, in an attempt to ameliorate him, "And some of your peers. Surely you should be glad that there's hope!"

"Hope? How can I feel grateful when our improved condition only proves that our miserable state was inflicted upon us by the whims of the men of the north?"

"Now, no one is saying that," laughs Finch nervously, brushing aside some of Toure's angry words, which are aggressively bumping against the side of his face.

"If the information the Source has found is why only we are cured, that is the truth of the matter. If only we are cured, it's nothing you've done to cure us, and everything you've done to damn us! What use are you?"

Finch's face turns dark. "You try my patience," he says, but at that moment, the world turns and shakes, and Hopkin feels a sickening lurch. "Source!" calls Finch, while the men of Auvinus gibber around him. But Hopkin is gone, and the world is dissolving, re-forming into a hermit's cave, a child's bower, a cliff by the sea, and a land of bones.

Hopkin awakes in Helios, gasping and clutching at a head full of turmoil.  

[kotaline]

the golden morsel

 

[kotaline]

holy men and holey hats