The cadet who stands before this crimson tribunal is not dressed so bloody, but she is as just as grim. Her cadet uniform is somber blackness, unrelieved by gilt, and her blue eyes smolder with resentment and rage. She is a reluctant novitiate, and if her attitude was tinder, a simple spark would set her ablaze. At birth her mother held her aloft and promised her hand to the Alacrán knife, her heart to the Alacrán vow, and her life to the Alacrán loyalty. Compared to a birth-oath, what is free will? The cadet’s cheeks are round, still smooth: uncut. Though ordeals lie behind her which will keep her sleepless for many years to come, there’s one still ahead, the last and worst of them all.
“Do you understand the charge?” Colonel Haðraaða asks. In reference to his rank, yards of gilt tangle on his bat-wing sleeves. His wig is the larger than those of his subordinates: an elaborate confection consisting of three tiers of puffy crimson curls, a waist-length red plait, and a frothy scalp-lock studded with black angel feathers.
The cadet’s response is a small squeak of sullenness. “I do.”
Her eyes flicker sidewise, towards a pole flanking the long table. The long regimental flag droops below its finial, and scraps of color flutter along the length of the staff: bright red, faded yellow, oily black, bark brown. Scraps long and short, braided and looped, queued and rolled, knotted and tailed.
Not scraps, but scalps.
“Return here at dawn, with proof of your devotion to our duty, and you shall take your place among us,” the colonel says.
“I will,” the cadet says, and if there is a slight spin to her words, as though they mean something different to her than to those who sit before her, it’s hard to tell. She flickers her gaze away from the scalp-pole and dips downward, straight-backed, into a motion of respect, the wide pans of her skirts dipping gracefully with the motion. She bows her head slightly, respectfully, and when she looks up there is no trace of anger in her eyes.
She smiles. “I will.”
II. What Cheer!
So then sometime later, here’s a cadet where no cadet has any right, any leave, to be. Standing boldly in front of the What Cheer House, her tri-colored hair gleaming in the flickering gas lights. Out of uniform, but no mistaking that regulation hair: three fat braids, three bright colors: red as blood, black as death, gold as glory. Showing an atypical lack of respect for precedent, the cadet has ignored the obvious queue and achieved the top of the line through the sheer force of glare. Only a cadet, but one who has already learned the power of attitude.
“Do you have a pass?” the gothick at the front of the line asks sarcastically as the cadet draws nigh. “Are you absent without leave? South of the Slot is off limits to good little soldiers—”
The cadet turns around and looks with eyes as flat as rock. The gothick looks into those eyes, and his black lips snap shut. The gothick’s pallid partner takes his arm, and together they fade back into the throng, leaving the cadet in full possession of the front of the queue. But she has not breached all of the What Cheer House’s defenses. Another obstacle still stands between her and a feu de joie.
The majordomo stares down at the cadet from its lofty stork-leg height. It sniffles the air, peers through pink avian eyes. “No singles. Couples night.”
The cadet takes this news with no change of expression. Her gloved hand flips back a black leather revere, revealing the nestled swell of a small pistol. The butt of the weapon gleams slightly, a coldfire glow. A weapon no cadet should have, and which the majordomo recognizes by scent alone. But the majordomo is a denizen of the third order, whose sole function is to keep out those who need to be kept out, and it cannot be swayed by force, or at least not by the force of a flashy magickal firearm.
“Couples only,” the majordomo repeats. The line is pressing forward, hooting at the hold up. The cadet continues to stare, but now the gloved hand is straying towards percussive argument.
A voice intercedes. “We are together, majordomo.”
A dollymop has climbed out of the crowd and now clings to the cadet’s arm. Apparently the cadet has already learned the lesson of the Offensive−seize, retain, and exploit the initiative−because rather than protest the dollymop’s license, she forks over two sunny gold divas. The majordomo whisks the red velvet rope away.
The What Cheer House is a class establishment, no rundown gin-joint or blind tiger. No hanky-panky here, no jimcrackerie, or faldera. Behave or be gone is the motto of the What Cheer staff, and if you are unable to do the first, the staff is more than happy to help you with the second. Dance à La Duo is the What Cheer House’s signature night, and the ballroom is crowded with duos engaged in vigorous dancing. Huge fans whirl high above, and the tall windows are open, letting in a bit of a fresh sea breeze, but the music is sprightly and the crowd of couples thick, so the ballroom is more than a bit warm.
The dollymop continues to cling to her companion’s arm. She’s learned strategy of her own: don’t let go. The dolly has been standing outside for two hours trying to find a suitable mark, and she’s going to grip promise as long as she can. A cloakroom servitor divests her of her heavily beaded pelerine and offers to check the cadet’s fringed leather jacket, which offer is waved away.
“You will excuse me now, madama,” the cadet says once they have traversed the foyer and achieved the edge of the Salon Grande. The What Cheer House is done up à la tropical, so our mismatched couple look out over a riot of potted plants and creeping jungle vines, into a clearing where couples hop about like popping corn.
“You are in a hurry?” the dolly asks. Cadets are usually broke, it is true, but this cadet had handed over the ticket price without a backwards glance, and the dollymop, ever professional, smells that her purse is not yet empty.
“I have an appointment, madama.”
“But you’d not have gotten in if not for me. Surely that is worth a little drink?” The dollymop sweeps her feathery fan dangerously close to the cadet’s face. She is fluttering the fan-sign for you are a darling dear and I like you, but apparently fan sign is not on the curriculum at Bennica Barracks, for the cadet is being studiously blank to the flattery.
“I am your servant then,” the cadet says, still politely. Another reason for the dollymop to hold fast; cadets are almost always perfectly well mannered, for at Bennica politeness is enforced with the lash. As not all her clients are gently behaved, it’s a pleasant novelty. The cadet is looking upward, slightly, and the dollymop realizes that the sharp gaze is trained upon her coiffure. Her hair, black as ink and curling as rose petals, is her best feature, and tonight, thick braids trained into an elaborate high sculpture, it looks particularly fabulous. Of course, such splendor is not entirely natural, but even the Goddess Califa was not above improving nature, and why should the dollymop not follow her example?
“I admire your hair very much, madama,” the cadet says.
“You do me a kindness,” says the dollymop, smiling at the compliment, for now she thinks that she knows the cadet’s ticket. It’s one she has punched before, and, all things considered, a fairly painless peccadillo. She’s done worse.
The music crescendos to a halt, and the dancers quit bobbing. The brief silence that follows explodes into a thunder of clapping hands and chattering voices. Then a stampede for the refreshment fountain. Suddenly there is quite a herd between the dollymop and her drink.
The cadet, however, is up to the challenge; all sharp elbows and stomping feet, and not above slashing spurs if necessity requires it. Their progress is marked by torn skirts and ominous grumbling, but eventually they achieve the refreshment fountain rising glittering high above the pushing crowd. Champagne imperial spills from golden dolphin heads into a long golden trough. The cadet grabs at a glass as it floats by and fills it, then, grip tightening, turns and forces her way back to easy air. The dollymop and her drink are steered towards a palm tree growing out of a red velvet couch. Before our polly can protest, or flutter, or just come straight out with her fee, she is sitting on the sofa,
glass in hand—the cadet has left a red lip print on the back of her glove and gone. So much for compliments. So much for lonely soldiers. The dollymop sighs, swigs her champagne imperial and fluffs her cleavage. She has no idea what she has just escaped.
The band, hidden behind a screen of potted orange trees, needs no pause, being completely comprised of aural elementals who get their juice from the jolting of the dancers, but the dancers themselves, being mere flesh, must rest and recover. Hence the supper interval. The main floor is left a forlorn field marred only by the detritus of dancing—stray ribbands, lost collar buttons, crushed flowers, dropped gloves. The cadet like an arrow flies across this field, through an elaborate mirrored hall, scattered with intimate tables and intimate diners, and into the gambling rooms beyond.
The gambling rooms are darker, and hazy with smoke, and here no one has bothered to rest during the interval because the people hunched over the green baize tables do not dance. Some of them don’t eat and some of them don’t even sleep. Some haven’t been out of this room in years, and these you can tell by their pallor and shaky hands. For them, the outside world is null and void, the only real existence is in this small dark room: the roll of the dice, the flip of the cards, the rattle of the ball. The lights in the gambling room are purposely low to hide expression, exhaustion, and tears.
The cadet has not come here to play a game, but rather to interrupt one. In one corner of the room, a cluster of backs lean over a long table, and it is to this table that the cadet marches and it is one of these backs, tall and sheathed in black leather, that the cadet pokes with a short stubby finger. Three pokes, each one harder than the last, are required before the back becomes a front, topped by an annoyed face which breaks into a grin.
“I was going to break that pokey finger, but now I haven’t the heart,” Kanacheta says. “I had never thought to see you here. Ready to play?”
The cadet ignores the question. “I need to speak with you. Can you come away?”
“Ayah. I’m at the top of the mark, and feeling fresh. I should stop while I still have to spend. Let me buy you a drink. I am flush.”
“Privately.”
Kanacheta is easy; it’s one of his many charms. “All right then. Let us piss.”
The pisser continues the tropical motif—there is no urinal, only a meandering stream, and for the potty dainty a few holes screened in by lush bougainvillea. Kanacheta is not potty dainty. He steps to the edge of the stream and begins to splash mightily. The cadet shifts gaze oblique left and studies a palm tree.
Kanacheta waits until they are alone in the pisser and then says amiably: “South of the Slot is off limits to cadets, Tiny Doom. Aren’t you taking a risk?”
“Don’t call me that,” the cadet says, annoyed. She has moved away from the stream, so as not to get splashed, and is holding her hands underneath a flowing waterfall. “Ayah, normally so it is, but tonight I may go where I please.”
“Well, Lieutenant Haðraaða, why is that?”
She replies with a statement that is not an answer. “I need a Glamour. A good strong one.”
A monkey dressed in a green top hat and a spangly purple vest swings down on a vine to offer the cadet a mint, which she waves away. Another monkey tosses a hot towel at Kanacheta. “What for?”
“To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent,” says the cadet, waving away a powder puffy monkey. Also not an answer, but Kanacheta’s an adept and used to reading meaning from a glimmer of light, from the taste of the wind, from the most oblique of obliqueness. He knows what she means.
“A Glamour is simple. What kind do you want?”
“A kind to make me look other than I am. A disguise.”
“Still easy, although, if I recall correctly, that’s also forbidden.” Kanacheta tosses the towel upward, where it is caught, and accepts a mint. “Only rangers are allowed to use magick, particularly as a disguise. I thought your rangering days were over.”
“I was never a ranger. I cannot be a ranger,” the cadet says bitterly. The rangers are the secret spies of the army, and they are full of sportive magickal tricks, tricks forbidden to the army’s other regiments. The cadet served one summer as a ranger, and she would have liked to continue so. Under the aegis of their colonel, Nyana Keegan, she might just possibly have done so. But Nyana Keegan died in a duel with the colonel of the Redlegs Regiment, and without her pull, the cadet is stuck. “Hardhands will not so allow, bastard.”
Kanacheta does not pursue her comment; it is a topic best avoided, because the cadet’s tongue can be as pointy as her finger. He’s been poked enough for one night. Anyway, he doesn’t care if the cadet is up to something; he likes causing trouble and he can smell trouble all over the cadet, as thick as gun-oil on a new rifle. What fun!
“A Glamour I can do. And what then?”
The cadet grins, and Kanacheta, who has looked into the very depths of the Abyss itself, and seen exactly what snippy little nasties live here, shudders. He likes her better when she frowns.
III. A Glamour
A little later incense drifts hazily in the closed air of the narrow room. They are sitting on the floor, on the flat mattress that is the room’s only furniture—Kanacheta is sitting, that is. The cadet lies with her head in his lap, and his long fingers explore the planes of her face. She wiggles. She does not like to be touched, which is to say that she is finding his touch to be very soothing and calm and she does not want to be soothing and calm, not tonight. Also, she does not like to be touched.
Kanacheta observes: “You are grinding your teeth.”
“Yo muerdo,” she says. I bite: the motto of the Alacráns.
I thought you were going to refuse them.”
“I cannot refuse them. But perhaps they can refuse me.”
“How so?”
“If I fail their ordeal . . .”
“How so?”
The cadet looks upward; from this perspective Kanacheta’s chin looks a wee bit weak, and his eyebrows lowering. “He who lives will see,” she quotes.
Kanacheta continues his stroking. Somewhere far away he is humming, and the puffball cat, sitting couchant upon our cadet’s tum (compressing a quart of café con leche against her bladder) joins in with a steady bass purr. The incense is sweet and druggy, as lulling as the flickering green candlelight, and despite the grinding of her teeth, the cadet is starting to slither into a little dream of coziness. She doesn’t notice when the hum turns into Gramatica, the language of magick; her lashes don’t flutter, her breathing hardly murmurs, but her little white teeth suddenly stop clenching a dull ache into her head and her jaw goes slack. Kanacheta’s patient massage has smoothed away her edges, and she is asleep.
Kanacheta’s Gramatica is slow and slurry, and his sounds are thick as his intent. The words flow like molasses, intertwine with the incense smoke, tickle the cat’s quivering pink nose. Some magicians speak Gramatica like crashing thunder, and each word sparks fire out of the Æyther, but Kanacheta likes to bend around the edges of the Current, likes to slide along its supple length, silent and subtle. He cares little for flashy effect, so his magick is quiet, but it is concentrated and intense. The edges of the room have blurred in the darkness; shadows move sinuously on the wall, most thrown by the candles, but not all.
After a long time, the candle sputters into itself and the shadows on the high white walls extinguish. Kanacheta’s invocation, which has lingered on the air, although he has long since gone silent, fades. Into this stillness, the cadet’s eyes open and she says: “I haven’t got all night—”
He bends over her, smoothing a wayward fall of golden braid from her face. “Kiss me.”
“What?” She recoils, though she can’t go far, trapped against the barrier of his body.
“To seal the sigil.”
She grimaces, and puckers pink lips, fishily.
Their lips meet briefly. There is no heat. Just a soft pressure and the thin press of flesh against flesh.
“Χηαiο
jαθε,” he says. The Word sparks like a firefly. It makes the candlelight seem dim and insignificant.
“Am I done?”
Kanacheta turns, reaching an arm into darkness, handing her a mirror. She elbows up on his lap, not too carefully, and peers into the silver circle. She sees herself as she always has: round face and pouty lips. That horrible tri-colored hair. Squinty blue glare which has grown more glare-y at the sight of her unchanged reflection. “But I am no different!”
“To you perhaps, but not to everyone else.”
“What will they see?”
“What they expect to. The sigil clouds their perceptions.”
“How long will the Glamour last?”
“Till moonrise. After then, you shall be, to everyone, yourself again. But until then, I’ll warrant your own mother shall not recognize you.”
The cadet touches her fingers to her lips. Her nails are ragged, the cuticles raw.
“It’s not my mother I wish to fool,” she says. “It’s my darling husband.”
IV. The Redlegs
Meanwhile, elsewhere: the Redlegs cannot claim to the be oldest regiment in the Army of Califa. Nor can they claim to be the smallest, the meanest, or even the most decorated. Still, they must have a special point of regimental pride, and so, casting about within the Tide of Attributes for a suitable distinguishing trait, they chose two characteristics which they practiced until perfect. And by these characteristics they have ever since been known: Loudness and Drunkenness.
Prophecies, Libels & Dreams Page 15
