quix0te
Joined: 15 Jul 2014
Posts: 7
|
 Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 3:31 am Post subject: Chapter 1, Finland, V 1.1 |
 |
|
I really liked the idea of having the exposition unfold at the dinner party instead of leading up to it. Then, as I wrote, I realized I have very minimal experience with dinner parties.
See how this structure works compared to the other one.
Turku, Finland
Simon stared at the hand. He knew the hand belonged to him, but it seemed like a small creature stranded and lost at the end of his arm. Deja Vu meant a feeling of familiarity after experiencing something new. The French needed to make a word for when something felt strange, even though it was completely familiar. He directed the hand to pick up a roll from the table. It followed his instructions, it sat at the end of his arm, QED, it must be his. He felt like the punchline of an off-color joke from one of Jakob's bordellos, which ended with a strange child crying out “Father!”.
“She asked you a question Simon.” Jakob's voice intruded into Simon's reverie. Simon's employer pointed across the table at Wilhemina Geil, a lean, windburned woman with long hair the color of weak tea, and too-intense hazel eyes. Simon barely understood how he found himself in this situation, helping Jakob woo his betrothed. Simon remembered Jakob's father, Gunther, magnate and chief metallomancer of Krupps Metalworks, waving a black-iron finger at Jakob. “Give the girl a fairy tale if she wants a fairy tale!” Gunther had barked, referring to Wilhemina's total rejection of Jakob and the engagement after spending a week with him in Frankfurt. Simon felt her assessments of Jakob as “selfish” and “loutish” were spot on, but the accusations of being “immature” and “spendthrift” seemed off the mark. The Geil family compelled their second daughter to give Jakob one more week, this time in Finland. Simon didn't see why Jakob needed his help win over a girl who studied world through a pane of ice.
“You are English, not German.” She repeated in stilted german. “Why does an Englishman serve Germany's foremost munitions manufacturer?” Wilhemina's hazel eyes seemed to slice down into him, a disinterested vivisectionist cataloging the mess of his mind. Simon wondered if Wilhemina carried any of the Finnish Witchcraft rumored to protect the Geils in this cold, hard land. From what Jakob said on the train to Finland, the Krupps certainly hoped so, so that they too might gain its benefit. Tonight, however, Simon hoped fervently that Wilhemina could see only his nervous countenance.
“They hired me out of the Doceo Magicka, the school of magic where I trained as a metallomancer. There are only so many companies that can afford a full-time metallomancer, so I leapt at the opportunity to join a company of such stature.” After a moment passed with with no response from Wilhemina, Simon's eyes returned to his stew and he hoped Wilhemina would move on from the topic and him as well. On those rare occasions when he recalled the Doceo Magicka, the memories unearthed years of torment and arduous mental labor, punctuated by occasional kindnesses from the teachers. He arrived at the magic school years after the other students, his aptitudes discovered by a foreman at the factory where he worked, alongside his mother. Simon's first classes held boys three and four years his junior and mostly the sons of mages themselves. Separated by a gulf of age and class, they teased him mercilessly, and just as he felt caught up, the teachers moved him to another group of boys he didn't know, and the cycle started over. Simon didn't study with students his own age until his last year, and even then he struggled to catch up with them.
“Aren't ye afraid ye'll find yuirself making guns and shells to kill yuir friends back home?” The fourth member of their dinner, party, Wilhemina's bodyguard and maidservant Annot, leaned forward earnestly. Her accent marked her as a Scot, and if Wilhemina seemed a lanky birch, carved from the ice of her homeland, with a cool disposition and pale skin, then Annot reminded Simon most of a dancing flame. Her green eyes always glinted with humor, tonight from behind a few locks of hair that managed to break free of the tight braid that bound their fellows. Her short, stocky form seemed continuously vibrating with barely restrained laughter. Her eyes showed no humor this time, her question clearly heartfelt. No doubt she felt seriously about the death of her countrymen.
“When the Krupps hired me, Gunther Krupps, Jakob, and I each accepted a geas. My geas bound me so that if I shared Krupps trade secrets, tried to harm a member of the family or stole from the company, I would suffer a terrible death over a period of a day. Their geas prevented them from having me killed or sending me into danger needlessly. My geas also carried a clause that if Germany and England found themselves on opposite sides of the battlefield, my employment would end and I would travel to Mexico City until hostilities ended.” A few moments of consideration showed on Annots face, before it settled into acceptance of the answer. Simon suspected that the English, for their part, hoped to learn a few secrets from him after his service, if not by his own admission, then by studying the techniques he learned at Kruppenfirma.
“A geas for your employment contract?” Wilhemina spoke, dispassionately as always, “that seems rather like using an axe to kill an ant.” Silently, Simon agreed. A geas laid all parties under an enchantment to honor their oaths. Created using the blood of all signatories, it carried severe penalties if the signatory broke the oath. In Simon's case, breaking the geas would result in all digestion in his body stopping. Threat of death by starvation made him loyal to the Krupps indeed.
Jakob smiled. “Consider it a measure of Simon's value to us.” He smiled grandly to his associate.
Simon forced himself to smile back and reply “I always remind him of my value when we discuss my wages”. Though he laughed along with the rest of the table, a familiar bitterness welled up. When Kruppenfirma first hired him, the shock at his starting salary nearly brought him to joyous tears. Eight pounds and thirty pence a week, minus the three pounds a week the school took, still more than doubled what his mother earned as a bookkeeper for the factory. He dreamed of designing engines, automotons, and, yes, guns for the Krupps. Instead Simon spent spent most days as a glorified butler and aide de camp to Jakob. They spent weeks at a stretch traveling far-flung lands, selling rifles, artillery, or the newer 'automatic' weapons, that frightened Simon with their insane rate of fire. He no longer read newspapers, afraid of hearing of a massacre or lopsided battle in a country they sold weapons to. In his mind, Simon considered his title, “Assistant to Hell's Head Of Sales”.
The dinner continued, the focus shifting away from Simon. He struggled to support Jakob's clumsy attempts at courtship. Wilhemina received the unsubtle flattery and too-gauche boasting with equal disinterest. Before Wilhemina, Jakob's romantic involvements with women could be divided into women who threw themselves at him in hopes of securing some of the Krupps fortune and the 'ladies of night' with whom he spent many evenings. In short, Jakob had no experience in being pursuer rather than the pursued. Despite Simon's attempts at light conversation, the diners fell quiet frequently. To magnify the discomfort of the dead silence, Jakob had rented the entire Dream Tree restaurant, so there were no other diners to fill the void.
During one of these long silences, Annot pointed at Jakob's clockwork hand and asked, “All the lads I know have grand stories for their wounds. Is there a story to go with that?” An hour into the dinner, Annot's wineglass had been refilled twice already. After she spoke, Jakob's expression told her the enormity of her mistake. “Or perhaps thats only Scotsmen....” She said after an uncomfortable minute had passed with no response from Jakob.
Finally, Jakob growled. “All mages pay a price for their gift.” He shook the brass limb for effect. “Metallomancers pay for their powers in flesh.” After saying this, he focused on the trout in front of him.
The silence returned, if anything more leaden than before. Then Wilhemina reached across the table and laid one of her long, delicate hands on Jakob's brass prosthesis. “If I am to be your wife, I would know the trials you face so I might find a way to mitigate them somewhat. Failing that, I can at least hold your hand, whether it is flesh or brass, and be by your side for them.”
Jakob's head rose, and he stared, a little dumbstruck, into Wilhemina's eyes. Finally he spoke, softly, and more tentatively than Simon could ever remember. “The Romans knew it as 'Tithe Manibus', or the offering of the hand, but different metallomancers offer different parts. Some make more than one offering. It starts as a feeling, that a part of your body has become a stranger to you. Then that part grows to be repellent, like the buzzing of an insect in your ear, or an unpleasant smell. Finally, a hand, arm, or even leg has become so odious that you are compelled to remove it entirely.”
A moment passed and Wilhemina looked over at Simon, her expression not of horror or disgust, but sympathy. “Have you made this... Hand offering?” She pointed to his two hands. During Jakob's response, the feeling of disassociation from his hand felt even more acute. Simon shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but he felt his face grow hot, and no words came out.
“Simon came into his power late,” Jakob spoke up, “and some people simply wield less power, so they need not pay the price.” He smiled with a mixture of sympathy and smugness. Simon felt the heat in his face become the pressure of anger. After six years at Jakob's side, Simon knew Jakob had greater knowledge, but he had gained that knowledge along with his rocking horses and toy balls, watching his father and brother work and later teach him. Simon felt that his power might be greater than Jakob's, he simply lacked the older, more established metallomancer's experience in directing it.
Goaded thus, Simon finally responded. “Part of my contract allows me to stop working if I feel my desire to... tithe... grow too acute. Jakob's terms have no such clause, and the person over him drives him mercilessly. Among some metallomancers, metal limbs are even seen as a mark of status.”
Annot nodded. “Aye. Fightin' men feel similarly. Not about losing arms or legs, so much as bearing scars. They show them to one another and share the stories that go with this burn or that cut. Some even think of the scars as being memorials to friends that paid a higher price.” She pointed at her forearm and spoke in a deeper voice, “Aye. I caught a piece of shrapnel, but MacKeegan took the whole shell. Lets have a dram for MacKeegan.”
“Who is this taskmaster that drives you to such a degree?” Wilhemina asked, “Surely you could talk to your father about a lighter workload...” She stopped as Jakob laughed.
“Simon refers to my father when he speaks of a slavedriving martinet.” Jakob explained, “But Simon is wrong. When I... gave up my hand, I could see a little sadness in my father's eyes. The loss didn't make him proud. He loves his sons and would not wish them harm more than any father.”
“He may not command you to enchant metal from the time you rise until you collapse in bed, but he dangles his approval in front of you and your brothers like a man dangling a ham hock in front of a hungry dog.” Simon argued. As he spoke, Simon realized that he would pay for his pique later, but Gunther's treatment of his sons disgusted Simon. “The three of you kill yourselves to impress him however you can, so that perhaps one day he will designate you the Head of Kruppenfirma. Of his four limbs, Varick still has only the one leg to call his own.”
Jakob made a quelling motion. “Varick possesses the wits of a schnauzer. He drives himself to destruction because he realizes this and hopes to impress father with his efforts. Let us speak of other things.” For the remainder of the evening, it felt as though a dam had broken. Conversation flowed more easily, and Simon sensed the moment of vulnerability had warmed Wilhemina to Jakob. He still irritated her occasionally, such as when he offered a plate to Hans, his bodyguard standing ready by the door. Hans would not eat until Simon returned to the safety of the hotel. It bordered on cruel for Jakob to tease him with the delicious food he could see and smell.
Simon considered Hans the closest thing he had to a friend. Beyond a feeling of solidarity against Jakob’s ridicule, Simon appreciated Hans for training him to fight. Three years before, during one of Jakob's training sessions with Hans, Jakob grew frustrated. “Simon! Leave that!” Jakob had commanded, pulling Simon away from an engineering problem. “Join us here, you could stand to learn a thing or two as well.” The training turned into almost exactly what he’d feared, Jakob having yet another venue for abusing him, only physically this time. Just as in school, Simon lagged years behind Jakob in training. Simon eventually discovered he had two advantages. Jakob came late to the lessons and ended them as soon as he could find a pretext, never practicing outside of the lessons. Simon hoped to someday defend himself against Jakob. Simon followed the lessons attentively and practiced the skills every day. From the lessons a friendship grew, and Simon learned of Hans's sister and younger brother, and his dream of opening a tavern on his uncle's hostel with the money he saved from his job.
After beating Jakob in fencing a third time, Simon found himself attending to duties while Jakob took his lessons. Even so, Hans continued to teach Simon on nights when they found themselves with no diversions and Jakob disappeared to a brothel, gambling house, or dance hall.
Two hours after their arrival, the quartet sat among dirty desert plates. Jakob stood up, and Simon felt a twinge of anxiety as Jakob raised his glass. His sixth glass of wine, Simon worried what might come out of the tipsy German to derail a train that now seemed to be humming forward. “A toast. To second chances. I came here like an explorer facing darkest Africa, and I have found riches beyond my dreams.” After each of them drank, Jakob reached over and pulled Simon to his feet. Simon stood paralyzed, unsure what to say. He didn’t want to praise Jakob’s future bride too strongly, for fear of appearing forward, yet apparently he was expected to say something kind.
He raised his glass of rhiesling, “It has been some time since I was in the presence of two such lovely and gracious ladies, but if it is five years until the next time, I will have this memory to sustain me.” The other three laughed, and drank with him.
“Very pretty Simon. Perhaps we should move you from our metallomancy department to our sales department. You shape words with greater skill than you do steel.” Jakob laughed at his own back-handed compliment.
“You mean we are not the sales branch of Kruppenfirma?” Simon teased back, his face warming with irritation. Jakob bristled a little at the joke. Simon knew Jakob worried about how little of the ‘real work’ of Krupps father gave him. Varick and Gustav worked in Germany, perfecting new designs with Papi Gunther. His father ‘exiled’ Jakob to sales, sending him abroad frequently.
Jakob opened his mouth to insult Simon, his face reddening, but at the last moment, he thought of his future bride across the table. He forced a smile, though his eyes were like coals of anger. “Jah Simon, and tonight we are attempting to convince this beautiful lady to make a lifetime purchase of one slightly travel-worn German, with an English friend included in the deal.”
Simon bowed in his seat. “I am honored to be included as an incentive on your purchase Sir.”
Wilhemina arched an eyebrow, “So the two of you are comedians. Not a skill we have great need of in Finland. Do you have any other skills?”
Jakob smiled. “Also, milady, I am a florist.” He took a silver fork under the table and concentrated on it, tugging and pulling.
“What flower is it you’re pulling at there milord? Is it long stemmed?” Annot joked, with a scampish grin. Wilhemina actually smiled at the joke, and Simon couldn’t help but smirk at Jakob being the butt of her brazen crudeness.
A moment later, Jakob lifted up a fine, thin, silver rose, shaped from the silver of the fork. “For milady.” He said, presenting it to Wilhemina.
Annot gasped and leapt to her feet next to her mistress. All eyes at the table turned to her, curious to hear what part of this statement had startled her, only to draw back as Annot drew her cutlass and one of her pistols. “Danger milady! Danger comes!” Wilhemina rose, casting nervously for the foretold threat. “Which direction?” The lady asked. Jakob and Simon only looked at Annot bemusedly, wondering what this was about.
“What does your lady know?” Hans asked, appearing next to Annot from across the room in a whoosh and a rat-a-tat of footsteps. His rapier and main gauche gleamed in his hands, pointed near the Scottish girl, but not directly at her. Not yet. In addition to superlative skill with a blade, Gunther required his bodyguards to accept an enchantment that allowed them to move far faster than a normal man. Now Hans moved protectively to Jakob.
“She has some faerie blood. It gives her second sight.” Wilhemina began. As the words left her mouth, Hans staggered backward, and a window shattered, along with the ‘crack’ of a gunshot. Two enormous gray wolves crashed through the window, smashing the glass further. The wolves seemed unconcerned about the cuts the glass made on their paws. The Manikkos, who owned the Dream Birch, appeared from the kitchen. Vilho wielded a meat cleaver in one hand, and Konsta bore a long carving knife, but both froze at the sight of the wolves. From there, the room descended into pandemonium.
Annot grabbed Wilhemina, and pulled her to the ground. “Someone is shooting from outside!” She said. Jakob dived from his chair to the floor, drawing his saber, while Simon crawled over to Hans, whose lifeblood fountained out of his throat in a widening pool of dark crimson. Simon reflected on the horrible luck of the shot. Like all three of them, Hans wore an enchanted shirt of mail under his jacket which would have stopped any bullet. The shirts offered poor protection against the teeth of wolves on legs or throats, however. “He is done for!” Said Jakob, “Grab his weapons and stand with me!”, he rose behind one of the thick wooden pillars that braced the dining room. Another shot rang out, creating a groove on the pillar Jakob stood behind, and clipping Vilho Manikkos on the arm.
A third wolf bounded through the broken window, and a flurry of shots from Annot’s pistol intercepted it, catching it in the head and chest. The wolf stumbled to the ground in the dining room, before crawling off behind the tables and chairs that offered shelter to its fellows. Only after it disappeared did Simon notice how little blood trailed behind it. From outside, an unearthly howl resonated through the window and the walls. A moment later the three wolves echoed the howl from their cover, filling the dining room with a sound that weakened Simon’s legs and resolve. He found himself hoping for a quick death if only to stop the fear.
Konta braced one arm under Vilhos and together they fled back into the kitchen. “Good idea.” Annot suggested. “We can get clear of our sniper. The kitchen offers fewer windows and more cover.” Annot pointed after Konsta. “Weave as you run.” She added as an afterthought, “I'll stay while you get to safety.”
Jakob opened his mouth to argue, and then reason or cowardice silenced him. “Thank you” he said, and bolted for the kitchen, staggering as he traveled, as if drunk. Even so, a bullet grazed his left arm as he went through the kitchen door. Simon grabbed the rapier and main gauche from the ground next to Hans. The warmth in the grips managed to shake Simon a bit more, as he thought of Hans growing cold forever. Two wolves lunged out of cover, and were met with gunfire from Annot. They staggered but continued forward, as though they faced a stiff wind and not lead bullets. One launched itself at her through the air, and the other lunged at her legs. Simon tried to watch as he too wobbled in a sprint for the kitchen entrance. He didn’t see exactly how, but he saw that Annot somehow evade both wolves while slashing with her cutlass. It too seemed to have minimal effect.
In the kitchen Jakob waited with steel drawn. Blood dripped down his wounded arm onto the floor. On one side of the kitchen icy air blew in through an open door, and footsteps lead out where Konta and Vilhos had fled. They turned as Wilhemina charged into the kitchen, seeing her tumble as a shot rang out. Jakob dived to grab her, pulling her out of the line of fire. Another shot rang out, and Jakob grunted, but by good fortune, the bullet had impacted on a part of his shoulder covered by the mail vest.
Wilhemina did not share the good fortune, however. As she tried to stand, her legs gave out. With a small shriek of horror, Annot pointed at a spreading stain on Wilhemina's belly. |
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
