5th Desire (cont’d)

Tully grabs some equipment and Marzipan and goes to silence the Judge. He’s fitted Marzipan’s mouth with a magic ring that shoots balls of lightning. That way, in case they chop off his hands, you’ll still have a means of defending yourself.

Gi and Calvus seven-league it to Manu Tenére, and Calvus heads off on his tour of the villages. Gi calls for Lætitia. Gi attempts to ignore the guards. Lætitia arrives with sleeping infant in a back-sling. Some pleasantries are exchanged. How can I help you? (She whispers. “We’re a little colicky.”) Gi describes the Judge problem, and the mystery of the disappearing town, and how it was decided she should come along and explain it to the priests. Explain? Why you had to make it disappear. The town? No, just some people—well, maybe the town. I’m not so clear. Tully did something. Tully killed them all? Let me explain; I forgot, Perdix isn’t at the covenant now, so you’re not up on everything. Perdix isn’t at the covenant? —Lætitia explains the contest to name her kid, which the drawing will be held this evening, so if you have any suggestions, the hat’s in the hall. So, says Gi, Judges, attacking. And one big Miller Judge, who’s been deputizing more Judges. And some of the magi went to deal with him. And Tully’s attack went very badly. The Judge had the entire village attack him so Tully had to kill them all. And Ishta wiped the memories of the survivors for the past two weeks. And Tully made the bodies disintegrate. But the priests who survived and fled to Nemus Animæ want an official report. So what’s the official report to deliver? Well, part of what you owe us for the flood is to deliver that message. Someone else will come up with it; you just need to say it prettily. Also, there’s a problem with the damaged crops. And a moon conspiracy. Big or little? says Lætitia. I don’t know. What sizes do they usually come in? Well, I can come along. That’s what you want me to do, right? After your kid is named, says Gi. Well, I can’t miss that. And Calvus is welcome to stay, too.

Circumcessor arrives and is brought up to speed; Gi tells him the Miller Judge is headed down the valley for Nemus Animæ. —Some discussion of travel arrangements for Lætitia and her child. Why’s the Judge on the move? asks Circumcessor. Um, well, says Gi, who explains about the deputized Judge. Gi also explains Tully’s plan to prevent the Judge from raising an army. So, the amnesiac refugees. You have some? I suppose that’s the work of someone in your covenant? I’m surprised Calvus hasn’t told you. That would be the first village Tully destroyed? He destroyed more than one? says Gi. That one, and the one where the Crow manifested. Perhaps he didn’t finish that one. Gi shrugs. Gi also explains about his odd encounter with Sol Media Nox. Really, says Circumsessor. Gi asks for access to Manu Tenére’s library, to find spells that prevent or protect against possession. Check under Somnex’ mattress, suggests Lætitia. You did get your name in, didn’t you? Not yet, says Circumsessor. This is your last chance, says Lætitia. I was thinking Claude. With an “AU” and not an “O,” right? I was thinking “AWE.” —Gi brings up the question of his contacts with Tansie. Too distracting? If you keep it to dire need, or once every ten days—and after dinner, says Circumsessor. Of course. But we do need a more direct form of covenant-to-covenant contact in the case of dire need. We have a mirror communicator that works very well for Bethelion, says Circumsessor. Could we pass on the notes to your Touccians? Ishta would be perfect for that, says Gi. —Some discussion of a suitable replacement for Mens. Who do we have in vim? asks Circumsessor.

Lætitia takes Gi to see Tansie, whose midday lecture is about to end.

Tully and Marzipan attempt to attack the Miller Judge, which is as futile as before; they are successful in surrounding him with about a half-mile of silence. But the spell is fixed in an ear-trumpet, so they have to keep pace with the Judge to keep him surrounded in silence. Palpebra suggests digging a big hole and burying the Judge to slow him up. Palpebra carries the trumpet while Tully heads back to the covenant for digging tools.

Cameron’s in the library, studying the daisy drawing he was given. There are three tiers of petals, one with seven, one with 12, and one with 32—the three moon cycles. He’s switched the position of two of his fingernails. He’s painted them different patterns to make sure he can keep track.

Ishta and Sonata both are down in the pool room. Ishta’s naked and has let down her hair and turned off her parma, so her skin is glowing glass. She’s looking for moon symbols in the pool room that match the symbols on her lantern. She doesn’t find any. She starts putting symbols on the columns. Sonata watches. She asks Ishta to explain what symbols she’s added already.

Cameron’s working on a spell to protect him from mind control, in the form of a tattoo ringing his head under his blue hair.

A people-mover arrives from the covenant, with a packet of tiny bundles of cloth and a note reading: Dear Ishta, stack with plenty of space, love, Perdix.

Lætitia draws a name from a hat. (Calvus has returned in time. No one attacked him; no one renounced the Prince; he told the one person who had Fuck the Prince written on their roof that they needed to clean it up before he came back.) The name is Aurelius, suggested by a guard.

Cameron has set up his link to Nishoba so that he can hear what Nishoba is doing. Then he writes a separate spell to induce a sneezing fit in Nishoba while he’s nearby. Nishoba sneezes; Cameron is pleased, then tries the experiment again, only this time casts the spell inside an anti-mind control protection spell to see if it can make it out. Nishoba almost sneezes a few times, but doesn’t execute. Cameron decides the protection isn’t strong enough.

Lætitia arranges for a wet nurse and leaves Aurelius with Somnex. She departs with Gi and Calvus. Before they leave, a pigeon arrives at Manu Tenére from a young, Picardian female Cristoferean lecturer (with a mild background in necromancy) at Bethelion, writing a letter of inquiry for the open position.

Nil and Lhimpat are about halfway through the Judge code. Nil’s put a wooden panel over her window.

Nishoba goes looking for Cameron. How do we fend off a Judge? We turn his brain into a pig’s, says Cameron. But this one has withstood every attack we’ve thrown at him, so I bet you’re wondering how we do it in a non-Cholæic fashion. Nishoba nods. Can we work with it, or do we merely do its bidding? We’ve made it work for us before, says Nishoba. We should try something. I think it’ll have to be Ndapé. That gets fed to the Judge? says Cameron. Well, that’s the spearhead. Maybe we should bring up some water and do something ceremonial. Okay. Should we get Ndapé? Yes, says Cameron. Do you know what your mom’s doing down there? Sorry, your parens? says Nishoba. Am I my parens’ keeper? says Cameron. If you’re smart, yeah. Well, she’s down there now. She’s down there all the time, says Nishoba. You think we should wait till she isn’t, to get some water? Well, she has been tolerant of that sort of thing. Let’s find our third wheel and go see. You know where he is? —Strangely, Nishoba does, as does Cameron: he’s down by the pool. Huh. (“Oh, my parens wants me to knock myself unconscious if I encounter the Judge,” says Nishoba. “I could help you with that,” says Cameron.) —Some discussion of the water-connection, and whether it overrides parma, or acts as a Cholæic arcane connection in any fashion. Cameron casts a spell to change Ndapé’s eyes to violet, to test it; did you turn everybody’s eyes to violet? asks Nishoba. No, says Cameron. Why? Because your eyes are violet. Really violet.

They arrive; Ndapé’s watching Ishta wander about, naked. —Some discussion of nudity as a magical technique, and how it works better with the pool; Ndapé reveals it would be unwise for him to drop his parma. Tully used to do that to me, too, says Ishta; Cameron complains to Sonata that once more he is not receiving the training of his peers. Well, I could attack you if you drop your parma, says Sonata. Heck, I could hook you up, says Ndapé. Actually, would you? says Sonata, and then, no, we are not Derlethians. But we are Diaspora... —Some discussion as to whether they are a Trio, and what Calvus might think of that, and how perhaps they’d better not be so free with that term. Nishoba is given a brief history of Trios within the Order. The Trio takes their measures of water, and agree to meet by the lake in half an hour or so. Ishta returns to her lab. On the way, she meets Lætitia and Gi. How wonderful to see you! says Lætitia. —Some discussion of the hurricane, and the baby, and who the father is, which Lætitia won’t reveal. (“Don’t worry, it’s not you,” says Lætitia; “Well, duh, I mean, two women,” says Ishta. Gi goggles at that.) But the whole Eleanoréan connection? Oh, no no no no no, says Lætitia. Au naturel, says Gi. Would you mind entertaining Lætitia for a bit while I go speak with Sonata? says Gi. Lætitia titters.

Lætitia sees Ndapé walking past with a pitcher, and summons him over; she asks if it’s from the pool, and Ndapé tells her these things shouldn’t be spoken of openly; he congratulates her on her son, and Ishta’s distressed to learn he knew what she didn’t. It’s a testament to your industry in your lab, says Ndapé, who takes his leave.

Ishta finds a note from Nil on her lab door. She has her guard tell Nil he’ll meet with her, but there are conditions, and she needs to summon Nishoba. She and Lætitia head into her labs.

Nil tells the guard he can’t leave his chambers, so she must meet him there; there will be refreshments. He’s exhausted. Lhimpat’s fingers are all different colors. Nil won’t let her leave his chambers, either. Oh, and if you see Gi on the way, says Nil, tell him I’m here.

Calvus heads to the Scarecrow King after visiting the orphanage.

Gi shows up at Nil’s door; Nil’s feverishly paranoid about the Judge and the sky and leaving his rooms. The hallways have windows, says Nil. So if you can defuse such a connection—well, I’d like to leave at some point in the next five years. I don’t know if it only connects me with this Judge or if it’s a lifelong blemish. Gi fetches food and books and keeps Nil company.

Tully and Palpebra dig a big hole and bury the Judge. How long does it take to get out of this thing? says Tully. The last time it happened to me, it took me a day and a half. They decide to turn the dirt around the Judge into diamond, so Tully calls on Ishta, who’s entertaining Lætitia. Ishta sighs; Tully, who’s seven-leagued his way back, knocks on her door. Lætitia makes herself comfortable. Tully and Ishta discuss tactics; Tully decides to do steel and not glass or diamond, since dirt to steel is easier, so.

Nil and Gi dicuss the prospects of war between the Order-backed Prince and the moon-backed King. Either we need to get out or establish eight more covenants in the next year, says Nil. Why didn’t he move earlier? says Gi. It’s probably not been worth it to him, says Nil. —Nil notices the Judge is not on the map and starts to freak; Gi tries to calm him.

Tully turns the surface of the earth over the Judge to steel. They dig a trench around the cap and start to turn the disturbed earth into a steel wall going down into the ground. Palpebra calls Nil on the shell Nil gave him to try and find out why the Judge isn’t on the map. Palpebra sends Hans back to the Judge’s barn to get some blankets or something else the Judge has touched so Nil has a chance to have a connection to the Judge. Gi tries to get Nil to sleep until Hans gets back. Tully starts destroying the trees that grow through the steel plate.

The Trio is discussing the best plan for testing the pool-water. Perhaps trying to ward Gi’s summer-lab, and then attacking it? Ndapé suggests rather an abandoned house in the lower town. As they turn to leave, a monkey appears, chittering; some discussion of whether monkeys talk, and whether Gætani worship monkeys (“You do know the Monkey visited this covenant, right?” says Nishoba). —Off to the lower town! The monkey follows them, but stops at the wall into town. —The Trio discovers they selected pitchers of an appropriate color: white porcelain, green glass, red clay. Ndapé must then circle the building 4 times, as Nishoba circles 3 times, as Cameron circles once. They do so. Nothing suggests itself to them when they’re done. It starts to rain, lightly. They realize they’re inside the circle, despite their efforts to end up outside; they head into the shed. There’s boxes and crates and a half unpacked wagon. Cameron looks for a bowl and finds a nice one in a crate, and they pour their water into the bowl. (In the covenant, the Finger wakes up, feeling curiously at ease for the first time in days; a fleeting memory of his Great Aunt, and her fruit service; the bowls are still packed away somewhere, as there’s no room in the rooms for all their things.) —The bowl has four signs: one for each moon, plus the King. They realize a fourth must be added to their Trio to make a full set to confront the Judge; that fourth should clearly be the Finger. But Murry is also a protector of the covenant; Murry could also be ennobled, baptised, and that might serve as their attempt to bend the magic to their will. They make the sign of the King on the wall, pour out the water, and pack the bowl away, leaving their pitchers by the walls without the King-sign.

Ndapé stops by Lætitia’s rooms on his way back, and tells her the name of the Cristoférian she was asking about (Mortem Obiratrix); he then asks himself in, and then asks if they need to keep speaking.

6th Desire

Towards dawn, the Judge can be heard pounding on the steel cap. Tully has invented a device that he can skid along the steel to peer down and see what’s under, and they’ve been skating about looking for the Judge. The booming knocks announce the Judge’s location. The steel is denting up under the power of the Judge’s Miller glove. Tully and Palpebra talk tactics. Palpebra makes a hole in the steel near the pounding, so Tully can reach the dirt with his jerry-rigged device. The pounding’s stopped. The ground is trembling. Tully’s started the device working, but it takes a minute and a half to do its thing; the Miller glove bursts out of the earth and grabs the device, levering the Judge up and out; he gets his face free as the spell finishes. Lightning blasts from the sky, striking the steel plate, and starts to hit repeatedly, cracking the steel and trying to hit Tully and Marzipan, destroying the plate and cracking the Judge free. The forest about them starts to smolder. Up in the sky, Palpebra’s team is dodging lightning bolts. The Judge stalks after Tully, catching lighting from the sky with his glove and flinging it at Tully, until a wall of lightning jacobs-ladders between them, and the Judge, howling silently under Tully’s spell, turns and heads back toward the covenant. Shrugging, Tully and Marzipan follow.

Gi goes to Calvus’ rooms to catch him up on the Judge. The Here has told Gi that if negotiations are sped up, the Here will deny the Judge the land. Gi wants to borrow Calvus’ boots to go and negotiate with the Here. —Gi then heads up to Nil’s rooms; so you want to go talk to the Pool? asks Gi. Yeah, sure, says Nil, exhausted.

Tully wakes up Ishta with a mighty ping. He warns her the Judge is fifty miles away and will be on the covenant in two days. They need to prepare to manipulate his environment. Come up with something to blot out the sky above him. Get ready! Call a council meeting!

Sonata is surprised to see Nil and Gi arrive at the Pool. They’re there to negotiate between the Pool and the Here. What does the Here want? says Sonata. To complete negotiations with the Pool, says Gi. I suppose it’s the case that not many influences not already in here, says Sonata. And the Here has already been here once, says Gi, who takes up a mouthful of water so the two of them might speak. One of the children appears in the water, splashing about, noticing Lhimpat and playing near her, shaping itself to look like her. —All three of them (Calvus, Nil, and Gi) must go, taking water. They tell Sonata they’ll be back in 12 hours. Should we call Perdix back? asks Sonata. Yes, says Gi. All right. And Lætitia could help—she’s a weather-sorcerer; she could turn back the lightning. And word needs to be gotten to Tully and Palpebra—I’ll send Ndapé to assist them, says Calvus. And could you get some blood from the Judge we killed? asks Gi. Of course, says Calvus. —Sonata decides to go in person to fetch Perdix and Ilba. (“Did we just leave the covenant empty except for Ishta and Lætitia?”)

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“If by pretty much you mean no, then yes.”