Interlude 1d

::: {.subchapter .passing-notes} When the conversation has stalled and Marka has the space to think, she realizes what's left is not actually silence. There are sounds Marka hasn't heard outside of a music hall --- resonating plates and thrumming strings, energetic drumming. The timbre is off, like those in charge of the hall's acoustics had failed utterly. The blackbane is turning her head around, searching the room for an explanation. It's out of the way, nestled in one corner: a device that exposes a two-roll scroll (or what loooks like one), only with lines instead of text, and a needle running across those lines. Or one long line, rather, which snakes back and forth. Marka stands up to investigate. The material looks too thick and dark to be normal paper. Something vesper-made? Or a mundanity she'd never encountered? By the mechanics of the device, one roll is unfurling into the other, the needle dragging horizontally across the roll, back and forth. Looking closer at the line, she sees in it fine patterns. When Marka touches the needle, the sound stops. So the needle rubs against those patterns, and this becomes music somewhere inside the box? Marka rubs her own palps against her face. It's like talking, the box's needle-arm like a mechanical palp, and the not-scroll a very long pars stridens. While she fiddles with the box, Wik walks over. Without giving the box more than a moment's glance, the tallowbane hits a lever on the side, and the music dies. The box is still. Marka cocks her head at the other mantis. Wik says, "I dislike music." "Oh. I liked it." "Too cheerful --- I find it inappropriate." The tallowbane gestures back to the seating. The same high end style she'd seen downstairs, outside this parallel space. Pale red cushions on the abdominal rests, while the struts and supports were the white of the walls. Earlier, the bee trapped in hardened honey, Felme's gift, had been mindlessly dropped on the center table, far from the documents Wik had previously flipped. Feeling a pang of hunger, Marka reaches for it now, slender digits enwrapping. Her body heat means the substance melts minutely, and sticks. Wik stops her. "Don't eat that." "Why?" "It's cruel." Wik's cotton antennae fall down on either side of its head. "Would you eat a mantis?" There's a joke which almost feels perfectly set up. How would they have put it? Sultry, something like 'If there was enough passion --- or disappointment --- I might give a nibble.' Maybe they would have said it snappier, but really, it isn't Marka's kind of joke. Growing up under her father, anything approaching that kind of attitude would be crushed by his hard words. After she left, though --- in the Wardens --- she'd seen more of it. Often enough for it to creep into her thoughts here. If any part of her was tempted, Wik's ambiguity (it was shorter, but not that much shorter), makes the prospect precarious. And this all is hardly a chivalrous mode of thought. This is serious. After all this stress and arguing, her thoughts are fraying to thin ends so easily now. "Of course I wouldn't," she said. That is an embarrassing pause, but she hopes she speaks definitely enough to compensate. "Are bees any different? Bees farm, and their production of honey is delicate as any science. They had cities, before the third dominion." Marka frowns, her antennae curling up. "So they're like roaches, then. Not mantids." "I think you shouldn't eat roaches, either. They are like us." "What about vesperbats, then? They had had cities, too." "That is different. They are different." Because their blood is so useful? Marka throws her antennae back behind her head, and she waves her raptorial, as if swiping away this conversation. "This is all besides the point," she says. "I won't eat the bee. What are we going to do about Felme?" "Not much," the tallowbane says. "He has us dead to rights. This is his domain, and he will get what he wants." "Sure, but which oath?" She says this slow, at the same time reaching into her bag, grabbing more of the paper she'd written her Wardens report on. What Wik just said reminded her of what it had said earlier, something she'd registered but let go unremarked. On the paper, she writes quickly, sloppily. > said something about privacy? think he's listening? Marka slips Wik the paper. She affects stealth and passes it low, the table obscuring it from some angles. This feels silly, and probably pointless. "We choose the second option: take the debts. My plan was to destroy the gang without gross violence, by seizing their finances. We cannot do that under the first oath." Wik is writing, and it's unhurried and precise. When it returns the page, the new writing has a maleish neatness. > I cannot rule it out, and he's exactly the type to do so. > > What do you intend to keep private? One thing, mainly. And Marka can't put it politely. What approach has the best chance of getting an honest answer? It's not something she can calculate. And there's really only one approach Marka can ever marshal: the straight and direct. The underlying suspicions weren't that, however. It was as circuitous and unsteady line of reasoning --- a guess, more than anything. But it held a glimmer of logic. Felme'd mentioned the Golden Lady --- a renegade who'd popped up a while ago, caused some trouble, left some spellbrands and haruspices dead, and then disappeared, apparently never captured or even fought. If one could evade capture, and avoided combat instead of overpowering -- what skillset was most suited to that? > are you the Golden ~~Lady~~ Genderless? Wik gives her a look. A moment passes where the closest it has to facial expression is the wax slowly sliding down its face. > No.I am not. Marka sighs relief first of all. Wik is making no motion to kill her for knowing too much. But the blackbane has thought harder than this, and Wik is a master of disguise --- and by implication, adept at deception. She wanted more than words. > could oaths be ~~amm~~ amended w/ that? A moment, and before she lets go of the note back, she adds: > i know it sounds paranoid. but something strange is going on, and i > dont want another spear at my back Marka's writing is bigger than Wik's and by now she's just above the page's bottom, cramping in the last few words, her downward strokes going off the page. She wipes ink off the stone table. A second page is passed to Wik along with a used one, but the tallowbane instead just writes on the back of the first. > It is paranoid. And Felme will respect that. So if it shall give you > peace of mind, we can ask. > > You should say something aloud, by the way. Unless you do not mind it > being fully obvious to any listeners what's going on. "Um, can you repeat that? Sorry, I may have zoned out a bit." "I'll be swearing the second oath. You should too, otherwise you cannot assist me." "I'll ask how much debt they're in. And uh, what if they couldn't pay it anyway? Are we just going to get saddled with a shitty debt and nothing to show for it?" > and... whats down in the catacombs? why was that part of your plan? i > dont think its necessary "Felme is a reasonable man. There will be a forgiveness clause." > Because I have no interest in getting the Wentalel guard or the > Wardens involved. And actually entering with their approval was not in > consideration until you became my accomplice. "Okay," Marka says. She writes: > felme said theres something down there. it sounds... dangerous The response: > If you insist on having your activity recorded and questioned later, > sure, we can see if your status is enough to grant us access to the > sewers. "Are these concerns more than just stalling?" Wik asks, and it's probably not all for show. "I am not amused by endless discussion and litigation. I would rather we just do it." "I guess," Marka says. She looks again at the page. There wasn't much to respond with than a mere 'okay,' which seemed a bit pointless. Oh! She writes, > one of us should eat the paper or something. keep felme from reading > it Wik reads this with a glance, and twirls an antennae dismissively. It raises a foreleg. Around the digits, there's an orifice. It puckers and discharges oil mixed with air, which comes out as a spray. Wik throws out the other foreleg, rubbing two special surfaces together, and three sparks dextrously fly off and two hit the oiled page. It goes up in flame, though sparing the stone table. The tallowbane walks to the door, and pauses there. When Marka does not protest, it leaves and she's behind it. "-- deadline can be extended. Once. This is not generosity --- I understand the business with Osfe took you unawares. It surprised us all. But once. I hope this teaches you caution." "I --" "Quiet. Save it for when we don't have an audience." The male looks up. Even after threatening their lives, Marka sees a secretary in Felme before she sees a cunning vesperbane. "I presume you've come to a decision?" The mantis he was speaking to --- a figure in a tattered black cloak, hooded and billowing, is scurrying off. Marka watches them leave. "Don't mind them. Just business --- there's more in this city than concerns you." "Sorry if I have to look twice at every shadow now." Felme only nods with a vague mhmm. "I believe you already suspect our choice," Wik says. "Ah, how convenient," is Felme's response. "For all that our kind are born killers and subjugators, I confess I trust a vesperbane's word more than the commonry." "There is one caveat," Wik says. It loooks to Marka. She realizes she has to say it. "Vesperbanes have veritanyms, right? It's how the Wardens verify renegade kills. Especially when facing one that can, uh. Disguise herself." She sees Felme flick open a raptorial, surely meaning 'get on with it'. "Wik and I have just met today. There's a worry --- you mentioned a dangerous renegade is in the area. The Golden Lady? First reports