DRAFT so don't be a-reading unless you're particularly keen on grammatical errors.
The Blooded pride themselves on their shiny spy networks, but the All Seeing Eye is nothing compared to some of the back-stabbing manoeuvres that occur in my neighbourhood. I know for a fact Jester is a spy for Songs of Reminiscence and my chef (talented as it is) is seriously in debt somehow to Scorpus. It's quite fun really, I have a couple of people who watch the neighbours, but generally it is not an area I have been very interested in: other people are generally so dull.
However, even in one's day to day life information does occasionally come one's way. Deep secrets are seldom handed across, but a clue here and there, a bit of reading, a couple of loom-induced migraines later and information - like the bronze faction disinterest in protecting Fakharu's wife - come to light. This sort of information is far rarer, but more useful than which of your neighbours hates you. My work in the West and dealings with the Convention of Natural Disasters (or 'How not to accidentally destroy the world with lava') threw up one such clue recently. A secret I doubt many senior viziers know and I have it. No evidence, but I don't need evidence for what I am using it for.
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What does it really mean to be inside fate? There are various entities that surely deserve to be outside fate, that one feels Fate should refuse to hold. Then again, if Takezo could see me now he would probably feel I should be among them.
Opening up the basket at her feet, with an expression of deep distaste, Pyramid carefully lifts the contents out and, resting against the edge of a branch for leverage, cuts its throat. She throws the choking body of the baby onto the muddy ground in front of her. The ground is marshy, but it does not look deep, even so, the twitching body is soon enveloped in mud.
Pyramid moves higher up the tree branch, away from the blood, and waits, not feeling as nonchalant as she would like to. A girlish giggle makes her turn.
"I thought you would send the child back to the surface".
The giggle sounds again and the attractive adolescent girl, looking like some sort of earth nymph tilts her head to the side, "not after what you did to it: it needed a cuddle."
"Well thank you for speaking to me."
"I don't have to. I wanted to know who was giving mummy presents. Did you bring anything for me?"
Knowing full well the creature has no existence apart from a puppet of it's 'mother', Pyramid places a broach on the tree and takes a few steps back, "that was owned, so it is said, by Ahtalak the Gold's second, most loved wife."
"Well it certainly wasn't, but I like tacky things so I'll keep it anyway".
Pyramid winches slightly, but tries to remain impassive.
The figure slowly wraps a few strands of frondy hair around her finger, before chewing on it thoughtfully. Her teeth are little spikes. "Soooo, what do you want. You're not even trying to disguise yourself Spinning Pyramid so it must be important."
"Hardly, I would insult your intelligence with a disguise." Or arouse your interest, " I want to arrange a trade in information."
"Boooring!"
"...In secrets."
"Secrets? I like those, especially the rude ones."
Think cruel ones. The grotesque girlish voice was beginning to annoy Pyramid. "It is a serious secret and yet it makes me laugh."
"What do you want to know, ask for your secret first."
"I want to know where I can find a gemstone of immortality."
"You got a little boyfriend?"
"I just owe someone a favour."
"Like a party: do people have favours at parties in heaven? Does Luna give you each a kiss?"
Oh for the sake of all the little dragons. Still, I would prefer not to have to talk to 'mummy'. "Mother Bog knows so many things, she must know where I can find a lost stone, a hidden one, or one being used by someone unworthy."
"A lost one? Isn't a very big favour if you wont stabby stabby the friend of a friend."
"True, but my secret is a really good one."
"If we like your secret we might tell you."
"You will swear?"
"We are far too polite for that."
"Promise then?"
"What did you promise that baby's mother: you're a nasty bitch".
"Well I'm sure I can find someone else who would like to hear my secret."
"Mummy says she promises only secrets that are as good as your secret, but you must stop being mean to me."
"Well then."
So that's how Mother Bog came to know that an ancient lunar lived on the Blessed Isle in secret. Some few knew she was there, but not how to find her, stop her, or even communicate with her. She used a shape-shifter ability to eat another being's fate long ago and had been hiding there ever since. This alone interested my listener, but did not enthral.
However when I told her that the being she had taken the place of was a Gem-Lord and one of the mountains in the Imperial range held a lunar at its heart, she was interested. When I went on to tell her that the lunar was affecting the strength of one of the major dragon lines to the West (the only way I had ever found this out), but we still could not tell which mountain she was, Mother Bog actually laughed.
"Mummy says do you want a manse in the West, because there aren't very many earth manses there."
"The West would be adequate." The horrible old marsh knows I'm looking for the stone for Fakharu, bugger!
"Well then you had better be quick. There is such a place, but it will fall soon, very soon. The chaos eels already crush it with their empty gills and it is sinking."
"Pardon my question, but it is known that you are wise and knowledgeable: a great collector of secrets and lost things. However, it is not said that you scry on the other side of Creation: how do you know that destruction is so imminent?"
"Mummy thinks you are mean so we will leave."
"Wait. Please tell me how to find this place and anything else I should know."
"What else do you have to tell us?
"Nothing. Well...the Solars are exalting in large numbers again."
"Yes. They are warm."
"But some of them...or something like them possibly is exalting from the underworld."
"Yes. We have seen Thorns. We played with all the children there."
"I see. Some of the returning Solars are also exalting from Malfeas. That is new information."
"It is new here. Mummy says would you like to lie with me, people sometimes want that."
"Please, you are very lovely, but I am in need of information about the gem."
"Oh alright, I wanted to keep it, but mummy says I must learn to share now there is a new baby to cuddle: here you are."
The girl held out her long, delicate hand a moment, but then it started to bubble. Her body shuddered and parts lost form as the clear stone cracked into mud. She stood still again moments later, her eyes wonky now, her jaw distended. In her hand sat a black gem, it gleamed in her palm. A feeling like hunger began to grow inside Pyramid and it was not something she liked.
"This is the stone I want?"
"Worthless if its bed is squashed."
"You are giving me this?"
"Next time you bring mummy a child, make it one from your body, not some slave's pup."
Pyramid looked icily at the figure a second, but her eyes were drawn back down to the subtle, twinkling stone. She stopped herself snatching it up, long enough to find out where the manse was. Holding the stone she did begin to get a sense of the Wyld pressing in on its power somehow. Not scrying, merely that this hearthstone forced you to become part of it, as it became part of you.
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