Chapter 27 - Capture Shock

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I follow the Kommissar down the hallway, my violin at the ready.  "Should I play as we walk?"

The Kommissar considers this.  "...Yes, actually, that is a good idea."  It would be a compliment if there weren't such shock in his tone.  I sigh and set the violin under my chin in preparation to play.  "None of that Rhivendish drivel, though.  Surely you can think of something more suitable."

Behind me, Calyx tries to hide a chuckle.  He needs to watch that.  I might start to like him.

Hm.  Something Thelea detests enough to not look in on the Kommissar, but isn't Rhivendish?  That's a tall order.  I decide to play some of Unkie's favorite music - he and Thelea never got along well.  Daddy didn't like her much either, but his tastes run toward boring old music, and I want something upbeat.  Unkie likes modern stuff, fast stuff.  Besides, I think this is working just fine.  It evokes a pained sigh from the Kommissar, but he doesn't stop me, so I must've done something right.

Thus, my mood is light when he opens the heavy door ahead of us and leads me into a room that, from the outside, seems like any other room that I've been inside of here.  Once Calyx follows me in and the door closes, though... it seems a little creepy.

No, that's not it.  It's not just that it's scary - it just plain seems wrong.

It's enough that I accidentally make my bow jerk while playing - the discordant chord amplifies the wrongness in here even more.  I can't even say what it is, yet.  As the Kommissar turns toward me to inquire as to the reason for my sudden onset of incompetence, I take in my surroundings.  I really don't want to look around - something's telling me to just keep my eyes down and pretend I'm not here.  But as a Poet I pride myself on observation, and I'm so used to recording everything...

Of course, I say that about my observation, but I don't really hear the Kommissar as I look around the room.  Too much else is clawing my attention away from him.  This narrow hallway is so dark, even though the lighting is normal.  It just feels dark.  There's hooks along the walls - sharp, bare hooks.  Everything's clean at first glance, but I can see a rust-colored mark here and there, and I can smell the memory of blood.  The hooks aren't rusty, either - that's someone's failure to clean something.  Every now and then I see a black stain that can't be blood, and I wonder what it could be, and then I stop trying to wonder.  Something just feels wrong in here.  The hall curves as if it runs in a circle - but it looks like it bends and twists more than I know it does.  I know because I can see the corridor bending and shifting.  I can see the inner wall bulging, as if whatever this hallway is circling is trying to claw its way out of the room within.  I know it can't be real, though - I know I'm just seeing things.

And I know those things are there in some sense, but that most people probably wouldn't see them.  I should act normal.  I should act like all of this is normal.  But while I'm watching this, I can feel that presence again.  That huge, hulking presence, that was talking to me before.  It's closer now.  Whatever it is that's stalking me, it's closer.

My shoulder's being shaken.  I look up into the narrowed eyes and stern face of the Kommissar.  When he's got me aware enough to notice him, he slaps me.  His thin leather gloves add an interesting clap to the sensation.

I blink.  That man just hit me.  The thought, for some reason, calms me more than anything else.  It gives my mind dead, peaceful silence.  I nod to him.  It seems the proper thing to do - confirming that I understood him.  I resume playing.  He regards me for a moment, then shakes his head and steps away.  "Just keep playing, and stop getting silly about things that aren't your concern."

"Yes sir," I say in the calmest voice I've used in some time.

Calyx takes a step away from me, his movement slow, deliberate, and so subtle that the Kommissar pays no notice.

"There's nothing of importance in here now, at any rate.  All this work's been done already.  Come, there's a lot to do, preparations to make.  Time is short."  The Kommissar steps toward a door that's set into the inner wall.  It will open into whatever this hallway is circling.

I nod, still playing.  The music is fine, but it's a rote motion.  I don't really hear it.  I just hear a lovely silence, and my mind is perfectly calm.

Calyx, however, seems as nervous as ever as he readies to enter the room behind me.

"No more fuckups with the music," the Kommissar says as he opens the door.  As it opens, there's a rush of air outward - no, energy.  I can see it a little.  It's dark, and it brings to mind the smell of rotting meat even though it doesn't have any real smell to it.

It's been awhile since I percieved energy this well.  The last time... wasn't I still training?  I was very sleep deprived because I was studying hard for a big test.  It was pretty funny, because I was so hyper-aware that even Lute couldn't hide from me.  He hated that.  I crashed pretty hard after that exam, but the level of perception I had during that time was pretty neat.  Kind of dangerous, but neat.

I wonder why I'm getting it now?  Especially when I have the feeling that whatever is in this room, I should try to ignore as hard as possible.  At least, if I want to survive it.

But I'm so calm.  Isn't that a good thing?

The Kommissar steps in.  I follow, violin still playing.  Calyx follows behind me.  He makes the foolish mistake of closing the door behind him.  That cuts off all my perception of the hall behind us, forcing me to turn all my attention onto this room.

I don't even react at first.  It feels like something inside me jumps forward and looks around before I can get the first glimpse.  I get the impression of a lot of small things narrowing their eyes at me and sharpening their weapons.  I hear snatches of strange voices.  I'm aware of the Kommissar next to me - he's speaking again, and I don't hear.  I just keep playing.

There's a low counter in the middle of the room.  Work tables, or something like that.  There's someone strapped to it - light hair, short stature, snub nose.  Elijah?  That's Elijah alright.  I dated him for a little bit, I'd know him at a glance.  The freckles are a dead giveaway.  Didn't he go missing awhile back, though?

It's when I see the Kommissar walk up to him that I realize I'm seeing something that must have happened in the past - because the Kommissar is standing right next to me right now, and I'm pretty sure he can't be in two places at once.  Yes, Daddy can do that, but the Kommissar isn't Daddy.

"Just sit over here and keep playing," he says, and leads me over to the table where I see another, not-much-younger, Kommissar standing over Elijah.  Elijah spits in the past-Kommissar's face, hitting him right in that short streak of white hair that mars the black.

The past-Kommissar punches Elijah in the chest so hard that the rest of Elijah's body twitches upward in recoil.  He's too strapped down to do more than that.  I watch the past-Kommissar go on to slap the specter of Elijah as I'm directed to sit right up on the counter.  I try to do so naturally, as if I'm not watching something happening behind me on the counter.  I try not to pay attention to the twinge I feel from sitting here.  Something nasty's being kept in the cabinets below me, I can sense it.  I can't stop sensing things, that's the real problem.  I can hear Elijah cry out now, which he must have done... months ago?  No, it's been three years since we saw him last.  What I'm seeing and hearing probably happened then.

It's a little sad, getting that confirmation that someone who was your friend really did die, and didn't just run off to one of the islands to form his own tiny nation.  I'm distracted from it by seeing my brother hanging up on the wall, from more hooks hung up along it.  I'm very proud of myself.  I don't jump or scream at all.  I just do the slow ID check.  Gerude.  That's definitely Gerude.

Gerude's hair is short right now, though, and he and Gerald have both been pretty good at staying alive in the recent years.  That definitely looks like Gerude, though.  No... more like Daddy.  Too short, though, and Daddy wouldn't be caught dead here, in the most literal sense of that statement.

Now that I think about it, he looks like a brother, but he doesn't look like any brother I know.  I see a past-Kommissar beside him, though, sneering up at him.  This past-Kommissar is definitely younger.  There's not even that little white streak in his hair.  How long ago was this?  Long enough that Lettie was still around?  Gerude and Gerald weren't around back then.  That was a long, long time ago.  Daddy's an old guy, after all, and he doesn't age like most people do.

Is that one of my brothers from back then?  One of them from the first batch, as we in the family sometimes call it?  Both of them died, both assassinated.  One more reason for Daddy not to talk about Lettie.  Nobody ever told me that one of them's bodies got dragged away to Lyiannethe by the Kommissar.

Maybe nobody ever knew.

Tithonus was the one whose Mom was from Lyiannethe.  Unkie nicknamed him Theo for reasons that were hilarious mostly only to himself.  The other, Calaphar, was part of an alliance to expand Crux Radia's empire.  I have a hunch that this one is Calaphar, because he doesn't look one bit Xaillyndessen.  His features have a more familiar Radian cast.

It's kind of weird, seeing him hang up there.  Dead.  It really is like looking at Gerald or Gerude.  I never knew this brother, but now that I can see him... I miss him.  Not in the way that I miss Elijah now that I know he's dead... it's a little different.

No, it's a different feeling entirely.  Sort of like anger.  Like that righteous fury I get when I catch Jhe h'Lete sneaking out of his bedroom when he promised he'd rest.  I watch the past-Kommissar pull my dead brother's body down to the floor, give it a kick, and then carry it over.  He lays it onto the countertop behind me, where I saw Elijah there only a moment ago.  But now the Elijah vision is gone, and I can see my brother instead.  I can see the dusty tips of his boots right behind me.

The past-Kommissar looks over Calaphar, straps down his body, and turns around to face something that stands against the far wall.  The present-Kommissar just happens to be standing in that exact place.

It's like an altar.  There are hooks and chains hung above it and along it, and from them are suspended weapons.

Arms.

Then he looks back at my brother, and I jump.  Thankfully present-Kommissar isn't paying attention, and Calyx isn't someone I'm worried about.

Calaphar moves.  He moves because he was still alive whenever this happened.  The past-Kommissar, when he sees this, grins.  He grins wide.  Are you having fun, or is it scary, this far away from home and from your Daddy?

Calaphar doesn't dignify him with a response.  He looks so much like Daddy now, so stern.

I'm going to show you something, you privileged little half-Chetharian boy.  I'm going to show you someone that nobody else has seen yet.  You'll be the first.  Isn't that grand?  He unsheathes a weapon, pulling it from behind him, from midair.  It's a black thing, a polearm made of shadow and nothing else.

"You're wearing that tune out," says the present-Kommissar.  I nod, and switch to a different song, the motions automatic.  I try not to think about the Kommissar too much, because then I'll want to attack him, and that probably won't end well.  Best to just not be noticed.  Besides, the past-Kommissar is a little distracting.  He's stabbing that polearm into my brother's body.

No, not into.  Around.  The polearm ends in a two-pronged fork.  It looks a lot like Diyn, in fact, except Diyn has three tines, and this thing is a wrong thing, a dark imitator.  One tine rests on each side of Calaphar's chest, right under his arms.

Then my brother's eyes widen, then he coughs up something black, and then he just ceases to be.  Just like that.  The vision ends.

The music keeps playing, and I can hear it now.  It's faster.  I've increased the tempo automatically - maybe because my heart is racing.  I've lost whatever calm  had about me earlier.  If someone so much as tapped me now, I'd scream.  I try to distract myself by watching what the present-Kommissar is doing.  He's wrapped up in his work and pays me no mind, whereas Calyx is keeping his distance from me, but watching me closely.

The Arms hung up around the altar-like cabinet draw my attention again.  I've never seen Arms so ill-cared-for - certainly not caked with rust like that.  If an Armed neglected their Arms like that, the Arms would kill them for it.  I'm not sure how the Kommissar is in the presence of so many Arms without them striking out at him.  I'm pretty sure he isn't even supposed to have them - Arms usually go to Daddy when their Armed die.  Maybe they don't when they get vanished off like Calaphar was?

My stomach clenches.  Katherine's body... I didn't see it anywhere, but Thelea said that she was dead.  Did the Kommissar...

That bastard.

I clench down on the hate and try to stuff it down before it turns into rage.  Unfortunately, that's a little hard, because I've not exactly been short on rage lately.  Wherever I've been stuffing it all is starting to get full.  It doesn't help that I'm looking at him right now.

"We're almost done, Calyx.  Nearly there.  Come have a look."  The Kommissar sounds exceedingly smug.  I can't see what he's working with, though.  "The Treaty was almost enough to do it."

Calyx steps forward, somewhat hesitantly.  He pauses beside me, seems to think something over, and then gestures for me to follow him.  I'm a little surprised, considering how standoffish of me he's been so far.  I follow him, though.  Looking at him makes me less angry, at least, because he isn't the Kommissar.  "Really, now?  It's gained some structural integrity, then?"  He stops about four paces away.  I stop just to the side of him, and one step back.

The Kommissar lets out a bark of a laugh.  "Structure it already had, enough to function as a blade on its own.  Now though... now I think it's getting beyond that."  He's still turned towards his work.

"Really?  Let me see?"  Calyx's tone is just a bit wheedling, but I bet the Kommissar enjoys a bit of simpering up to him.

"No.  Too soon.  It's not quite done yet.  We'll need one more, maybe.  The Treaty did help a little, I think... but did less for it than I thought.  Perhaps this time I didn't catch her Arms.  They do slip away sometimes, you know.  Ah, well.  A shame that Akribastes we have isn't Armed, but aren't they a dime a dozen?  An opportunity will open up soon, I'm sure."  The Kommissar chuckles.  He's speaking like I'm not even in the room.  He takes a step back, hands on his hips.  He's only a few strides away.  I could stab him with the violin bow.

I'm not sure who's talking.  I'm starting to get pretty confused.  Maybe all of the stress is getting to me, because I swear the Arms above the altar are moving, twitching, on their hooks.  Then the Kommissar reaches up and strokes one, and a sliver of black glides along the blade where his palm touches it.  The fact that the Arms don't cut his hand is, for some reason, like a slap in the face to me.  I try to stuff the rage down.  Have I run out of room for it yet?

Calyx sees my expression, then steps away from me just a little bit.

"We'll be there soon, Calyx.  Now that I don't need to worry about Thelea spying on my research, things should go even fast--"

The Kommissar stops speaking.  I realize it's because I've dropped my violin.  I couldn't say why.  I just can't play anymore.  Maybe because I've had it.  Maybe because I'm too scared.  Because now I can feel that beast behind me, stalking me again.  I can practically feel its breath on my neck.

There's a blink of time passing that I just miss, and I hear some sort of clapping noise, and it's a couple of seconds before I feel the sting on my face.  Compared to the beast, it's beyond my notice, but I figure out that the Kommissar just slapped me.

"Lazy girl."  He looks down on me with disdain, impatient.  "Come now.  You've got no other choice than to serve, no matter what problems you may have with this operation.  Pick it up and play."

I realize here's no room left for the rage anymore.  Then the beast charges me.  I don't know how the Kommissar or Calyx haven't noticed it.  It's the biggest, most fearsome beast in the world, and however scary the Kommissar is, he really doesn't compare to it.  In the few moments I have left before I'm sure the beast is going to catch me, I decide I'd better run forward and maybe get the Kommissar between me and it.  I charge.

The Kommissar looks at me again, and his eyes widen.  He's gotten pretty damn pale for some reason, so he must see what's chasing me too.  Maybe he'll get out of the way, then.  No, he looks like he's drawing a weapon--

--too late, though, because there's a knife in his gut before he can even start.  A knife below the gut, now, a knife in his chest, down in the crotch in what my brothers call the unfair-points area.  That's a lot of knives, isn't it?  No, it's the same knife, over and over.  My knife.

Garnet.  She tells it to me in a sweet voice, then sweeps toward my own chest.  I dodge her in a motion that helps me elude the Kommissar's counter with a half-formed black blade.  He tries for that one strike, right before he collapses.  His weapon vanishes.  Garnet swings down to stab him in the back.  Crisanto follows her.  Crisanto is the other knife.  I barely have time to note their appearance before I realize that I can still sense the beast I felt stalking me.  It's no longer charging me.  It's in my hands.  It's my Arms.

There's a tiny surge of joy before they start attacking me.  I was warned about this.  This is why we're supposed to activate in the Armed Hall.  Daddy's there to guide us.

No... Jhe h'Akribastes.  The Judge.  Not just Daddy.

Armed go pop when they activate in the wild.  It happened a lot in Audiva Rocale, before Daddy-- before the Judge was allowed to send scouts in to find potential Armed before they killed themselves, and any unlucky bystanders, off.  Arms are cranky when they awaken, and untrained Armed don't survive that crankiness.

I'm about to go pop.  I try to set Garnet upon Crisanto before she can put a hole in my throat, which meets with mixed success.  I get bled, but I think I can survive it.  Crisanto's counter is something I almost sprain my wrist dodging, though.  I try as hard as I can to hold onto the girls--

--right, you're about as mentally gendered as Lyric and I are, then.  The reply doesn't make Crisanto try to cut me any less, but she... he?  It seems mollified.

I know if I drop them, I'm going to die.  Arms can fire or cut on their own.  At least when I'm holding them, I can partially control where they're Aiming at.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose this fight, though.  I'm starting to see it from three perspectives at once, and that's really throwing off which one of us I should be rooting for.  Also, the only advice Camden gave me about Arms awakening was that it was like teaching a horse to obey a rider.  Considering my experience with horses, I don't think that advice is going to be useful here.

Then something attacks me, and it's not my Arms.  It's a black thing that comes from one of those rusty Arms hanging up from above the altar thing.  It flies at me, a black knife like the black polearm the Kommissar wielded.  We fend it off.  Another one sweeps to trip me, and then gut me, but between Garnet and Crisanto and I we can handle it.  There's a lot of them, though.  And the Kommissar is still twitching.

We decide to fix that.  It takes some more blood, and some more cutting, but none of us really mind.  Once he slumps down, the black Arms that attacked us melt into proper shadows.

I just stand there, dripping with blood that is mostly not mine.  Garnet and Crisanto are quiet and limp.  I think we're all three tired, and are in general agreement that we'll let all three of ourselves live.

Crisanto snorts.  For now.

It takes me a moment to recognize Diyn's voice.  I don't remember the last time he ever spoke to me - non-initiated Armed don't hear him that often.

No.  Crisanto sounds very ashamed of that answer.  Sorry.

But we had a lot of other things to kill!  Garnet's riding statement sounds like a six-year-old making an excuse for not cleaning her room.

I blink.

Try not to be as stupid about it as your Father.  His tone doesn't hold much hope for that.  Apparently I am supposed to tell you that there is help coming along.  If you need help, you're not much of an Armed, though.

I bite my lip.  We killed off the Kommissar.  Wow, I'm so calm.  I still feel like I'm going to pop, but I'm speaking so calmly.  Weird.  But I could use some help not throwing up on my shoes right now.

I look down at the Kommissar's body.  There's not much to see that isn't bloody.  So many ragged holes.  I look down at my Arms, to get a clear look at them for the first time.

Garnet is a dark blade, a wide stiletto knife that reminds me of Lute's throwing knives.  Her color matches her name.  Crisanto is a golden sickle of a knife.  They're both very pretty.

I haven't seen Calyx since I charged the Kommissar.  I can't tell if he's even still in the room.  I look around to check, but when my Arms perk up in attention to hunt down more prey, my stomach finally throws in the towel and decides to divest itself of its contents.  I'm probably safe, I've just got to get out of here.  I've got to go somewhere and scream.  Maybe pass out.  Maybe be alert for the help that's coming.

I puke again.

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