{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/a6",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/a6",
  "publishedAt": "2021-06-09T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: subchapter\nI. {#a6-1}\n\n\"Marka? Wake up.\"\n\nShe isn't asleep. She is laying down, letting her legs relax, mind\nwandering free after so many actions, so many decisions. Objectively,\nofficial missions from the wardens had taxed her more --- but she hadn't\ncome to Wentalel for a mission, and she deserves this moment of rest.\n\nShe expresses this all with a dignified, \"Huhmphf.\"\n\n\"I have soldier pills,\" the botherer is saying. \"I think you need them.\nUnless you'd rather sleep down here tonight?\"\n\n\"No,\" she says, meeting the tallowbane's skeptical eyes. After a few\nattempts, she stands. \"No.We have to get out of here.\"\n\n\"Very well. Here.\"\n\nThis 'pill' is more of a greasy rind. The center is a core of red fat,\nthe shell made to be digested quickly.\n\n\"What are we gonna do about the --- the two...?\" Marka asks, her palps\nflinching from specifics. She'd think about it later. \"Will we bury\nthem? Attend their spirits?\"\n\n\"There's nothing to bury,\" it replies. \"And souls, spirits, it's just\nmysticism. You know that. Mindless, lifeless waste enervate.\"\n\n\"I guess.\" Marka stretches, working her joints, readying up her relaxed\nmuscles.\n\nWik points at the... remains of the two. It says,\"We should retrieve\ntheir antennae-bands, though. You can confirm the kill with the\nWardens.\"\n\nMarka nods, glancing at Wik's hanging around its neck. A vesperbane's\nantennae-band is fancy cloth sporting a plate of amalgam metal. Each is\nstamped with the insignia of the bane's stronghold alliegiance. It's not\njust a symbolic bit of engraving, though. Enervate circuits twist\nthroughout every one. Hunter-banes all learn a certain umbral technique\nto check whether an antennae-band's countenanced, and to whom. Of\ncourse, defects don't want to be identitified, and Marka has heard\ncertain rumors: of techniques that tracked, or even a technique, which\nif cast, could make a band explode --- but it has to be uniquely signed\nby an overscourge.\n\nStill, having a unique 'I am a vesperbane, be afraid' signal is useful,\nand antennae-bands did that. Thus, you have the tradition among\ndefecting banes, of scratching across the antennae-band's insignia with\na knife or endowed claw, distrupting the circuits in the thin plate.\n\n\"Did you get a look at the Golden Lady's band? I was --- distracted,\"\nMarka says, crossing the courtyard back to Wik. She carries Essi's\nantennae band. It feels heavy.\n\n\"Yes. It was an old symbol for 'dream.' Not canonical, to my knowledge.\"\n\n\"What is the Dream?\" Marka asks. \"I was raised Welkinist.\" And kept a\nforeleg's distance from heretical modernity --- as much as one could, in\na Panthecan city.\n\n\"I could tell.\" Wik places Angwi's band in its bag, and then Essi's.\n\"Well, then this is one blind mantis asking another about color. But to\nmy understanding, the Dream is... equality. An end to all hierarchy. All\nneeds met. For every kind and creature.\" Wik meets Marka's eyes. Its\nface seemed to be slipping, dripping more than usual now, after\neverything. It continues, \"All the power and potential the vespers hold,\nfor what? Mantids to kill and bind each other? Reduce everything to a\nstatic, bloody stalemate?\" Wik runs a dactyl between an antenna, its\ntendrils still unbound and wriggling. \"I sympathize with the sentiments,\nif not the mysticism.\"\n\n\"So, making everyone exactly the same? Removing any reason to strive or\nbetter ourselves?\"\n\nWik closes both raptorials, and lowers them. \"It's not my belief,\nMarka.\"\n\n\"I just thought there'd be more to it. More than what every city nymph\nhears in the mandated lectures.\"\n\n\"Perhaps there is. Neither of us are --- can be --- syndics.\"\n\n\"Or night-prophets. They obviously have something to do with the Dream.\"\nMarka looks at the tallowbane, cocks her head. \"Why do you think the\nLady being one explains everything?\"\n\n\"Night-prophets are, hm, I had dismissed them as mysticism, until now.\nBut annulling an oath is hard to fake,\" it says. \"That is, if it\nhappened. We should check --- but you are too inept, in that regard.\"\n\n\"Sorry.\"\n\n\"Nothing for it. I do not doubt much of it still is mysticism.\nRegardless, night-prophets, according to the most sober sources, are\nmanipulators of arete, where most vesperbanes, even spellbrands, and\neven haruspices, are subjects to it. Bear in mind, historically, the\nDream as a movement is a reaction to the overwelming hegemony of the\nclans in the wake of state after tyrannical state collapsing. Any true\nbeliever in the Dream would hate clans. And there's a tendency to...\nsentientize vespers, project mantid-like minds onto them, and then see\noaths as something imposing.\"\n\nMarka nods. A early part of her wardens instruction was cutting through\nthe myths and superstition about vespers. Think of them like machines.\nHer father had supported her and her siblings by doing work with a\npunch-card loom, and sometimes as punishment, he had her work it. So\nwhen Marka learned to mold endowments, the practice held some\nfamilarity. Vespers followed precise instructions executed mindlessly.\n\nWik is still talking. \"Spellbrands, of course, peddle oaths, and, while\nharuspices are less inclined, they appoint themselves speakers for\nvespers, often in the way soothsayers are speakers for tea leaves.\" Wik\npauses to stretch its palps, relax them. Then, \"So, it's clear why and\nhow a supposed night-prophet could strip a clan of everything that makes\nit a clan. And you can easily imagine one objecting to spellbrands and\nharuspices ideologically. Or perhaps they were just the first likely to\ncomprehend her presence and --- whatever it is she's doing. Does that\ncover everything?\"\n\nMarka nods. \"What is she doing, do you think? Any guesses?\"\n\nAfter a moment, Wik shakes its head. There's a texture to the silence --\nWik no longer meeting her eye --- that Marka is too tired to analyze. Not\ntired enough to miss it though, huh.\n\n\"An easy way to find out, I guess,\" she says when Wik doesn't reply, \"is\ngoing to meet her. But then we might miss the percipient. And I should\nreport all this to the wardens.\" She sighs, then scratches her palps\nwith a dactyl, then stops. She doesn't like the taste of it.\n\nWik makes a bland affirmative sound.\n\n\"E'yama's last breath,\" she mutters. \"Decisions, so many decisions.\nToday's had more of them than all last month. We're stuck at the bottom\nof a buried ruin, and apparently I've two different people above\nexpecting to meet me tonight.\"\n\n\"You are a busy lady,\" Wik says. Something about the phrasing prickles\nher, but she's not sure.\n\n\"Hm,\" she sounds, as much with her spiracles as her twitching palps.\n\"There's no telling how much of what Alunyene's said is true. And the\nWatching Lord --- they sound ruthless and evil. Do you think they have\nsomething to do with what was wrong with Ress?\" Wik doesn't respond, so\nMarka continues thinking aloud. \"Still, if they're telling the truth,\nwhat if they are up to something that'll save lives? At the same time,\na percipient. Who wants to meet with me. That feels important? 'Where\nI was supposed to be' is surely the Church of Blue Welkin. And those\nanswers... I--you understand why finally learning what was up with my\nmother is so tempting? I told you the story.\" Marka breaths in. \"That's\nnot all. Could we go back to Felme's? The courtesan --- he wanted to meet\nme tonight, and he seems to know things. I want to go everywhere.\nBut I have only one body.\"\n\n\"I get the impression,\" Wik starts, \"from you telling me all of this,\nthat you expect me to accompany you, whichever you pick.\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Why would I?\"\n\n\"Why wouldn't you? You have to get the sense something important is\nhappening, right?\"\n\n\"That's exactly it.\" Wik turns away from Marka, now regarding the\ncourtyard. \"Tell me, Marka,\" it starts with the tone of rhetorical\ninquiry, \"how many mavericks have you met today?\"\n\n\"Felme, Angwi, Essi... you? Unless you still count as a Stewart somehow.\nSo, three or four?\"\n\n\"How many of them are dead?\"\n\nThe conversation lurches here. Part of it is the reminder --- mantids\nthey'd seen, talked with, are dead, killed, and the death's presence\nseemed to linger with them. Part of it is Marka seeing Wik's game.\n\n\"Essi's been here for a few months at best. And Angwi? I'd be surprised\nwith a personality and methodology like that, if she could last a year,\nor three at most. Particularly when her very endowments spread from its\nusers being killed. A malign incentive for vespers if there ever were\none.\" Wik pauses, long enough it could have said 'but I digress'. It\ngives another look over the courtyard, then continues. \"What happened\ntoday was extreme, but it was extreme in a very unexceptional way.\nVesperbanes die everyday. But contrast those two with myself. I've been\nhere for years. How do I do it? I stay away from big plays. And this\nhas every indication of being a big play. I'm already too close, far\ncloser than I'd like or need to be.\"\n\n\"Then what's one more step?\"\n\n\"My work here is done, Marka. I appreciate your help greatly. And more\nthan simply being compentent, you were a good mantis, one I at times\neven enjoyed working beside. But I won't walk beside you into the\ninferno when it's not necessary.\"\n\nMarka's tarsi tighten, digging into the ground beneath her. It hurt.\nShe's grappled with Wik's betrayal, and reminded herself of the good in\nthe tallowbane, at length bringing herself to continue working with it.\n\nFacing this --- the only word for it was rejection --- she realizes; it\nwas never her decision to make.\n\n\"I suppose in the wardens, you grew used to bonds you'd die for, rather\nthan mercenary partnerships.\"\n\nShe shakes her head. \"It's not like that. The best of us, sure, are\nlucky enough to have consistent teams. The rest have assignments that\ncan vary with the mission. The Wardens aren't mere mercenaries. But we\nare mercenaries.\"\n\n\"Ah. I concede the point.\"\n\nMarka gives the tallowbane another look. Her brain's not entirely slow\nwith exhaustion, and she latches on to something it had said. \"Wait.\nEarlier. Did you say years? Didn't you tell me you were countena",
  "title": "Interlude 1f"
}