Revel

Elena Sayanskya was smiling brightly. For the first time in what seemed like forever, the entire family was together, sitting down for dinner. There was her father Maarav, her mother Kaija, and her siblings: her big brother Nico, little brother Vadim, and baby sister Beatrix. Elena’s aunt Phaedra Yazova, her husband Darnell Yazov, and their daughter Irina, who was about Elena’s own age were also there. The nine of them were crowded in the room, but it was good. In all Elena’s fifteen years, only once or twice had the entire family managed to sit down at the same time. Someone was working, or someone was tired, or someone had already eaten, and almost always Elena’s aunt and uncle and cousin were managing their own affairs.

But the table was big enough for all of them, just as the house was. Indeed, the house could hold larger – it was the best the guildless could really afford, in places the paint flaking, or the boards creaking, but roomy and storied. If there were not a whole family, fully five working all the time now, they could not have managed.

What Elena liked best about having the whole family around was having an audience. Her parents called her their little actress, and she delighted in performances of voice, or slight of hand, in telling jokes and stories, and she was even learning to sing and dance, though those she did not indulge at the table. Some days she would go out to the market street and perform, and bring home a few zibs to help earn her keep. Soon enough, she would do it every day, and then play in taverns and pay her way in life, making all merry.

But her family’s smiles were the most precious, and thus she performed incessantly for them.

But her antics quieted when dinner was brought out. A great, covered pot was placed in the center of the table, the Toadpork stew inside.

But then the lid of the pot rattled.

Everyone fell silent, and simply stared at what was supposed to be their supper. It rattled again and then slowly, gracefully, it began to rise.

A slender hand with long fingers, gloved in red, pushed up the lid of the pot from below, and a very narrow arm covered in a black sleeve followed, gracefully ascending until its elbow was level with the rim of the pot. It turned, and let the lid down quietly to the side, then bent back on itself as if to pick something out of the pot. Then, as though the arm were lifting the rest of the bulk, the ascent continued.

What came next was a masked face. The mask was of some sort of cloth, linen-white with black and crimson splotches upon it that on one side vaguely suggested the possibility of a face, and it covered the figure’s head from all angles. About the narrow neck that next emerged was a great ruffled collar of bright crimson, starched to crisply stand out to the sides. Then came the body, which was also hideously narrow – indeed, if this could ever have been a human, how horrible that person would look, wearing his black, tailed coat with trailing ribbons in harlequin colors ending in bells that rang not. Its legs were also too long and skinny, and clothed in black pants with crisp creases, though the fabric was shabby. At last, the creature, no less that seven feet tall, stepped out of the apparently empty pot and onto the table, its shoes red spangled with many-colored bits of glass, toes curling upward in floppy spirals.

The family watched in horror as all this happened, and it bowed, and then reached to its belt and took up two items. One was a long, slender baton of black lacquered wood that it held gingerly with the tips of its outstretched fingers. The other, which it held in its palm, was a graven stone, in the shape of a skull engulfed in flames. Elena had never seen one before, but she recognized it as a Rakdos signet.

The Tall Man tapped the signet three times with the far tip of the baton, very swiftly, and that was the only sound that had been made since its ascent from the pot began. Then, with a sweeping motion, it gestured the baton at the nearest window, which was immediately dashed open with a resounding smash of splintering wood and breaking glass as a massive, hulking man strode in through it. The Tall Man gestured again, this time at the door, and it was hit with a great and resounding force. He raised his signet-holding hand and quavered, and a pounding on the door increased, until he swished his Baton towards it again and it was hit with another great strike. To the window he gestured, and a woman with stringy black hair and a sequined dress of red and crimson leapt through. He shook his hand at the window, and another man entered by it, this one lean but muscular, grinning with teeth filed to sharp points. Then, with many flourishes, he signaled the door again, and this time it was burst open, and four more strangers entered – a lean, emaciated man with no shirt who hunched and leered, a young woman with wild eyes dressed in a tight-fitting garment that covered her body from the ankles to the wrist to the throat, a man of average build who chortled and twitched continually, and finally pirouetted in a woman in a very short crimson skirt, sandles of black leather with straps that wound up to her thighs, and a very tight top of black silk with a plunging neck.

These seven, in addition to the Tall Man, assembled, the Tall Man bowed again, and replaced his signet and his baton.

This had become a Rakdos house party.

***

A moment later, the Tall Man made another signal, and then the Rakdos all, besides the Tall Man himself and the woman in the dress, who raised an ebon-black violin, took deep breaths, and began to sing as the Fiddler played their tune.

“O we’re the Rakdos Roustabouts, we’ve come to make your day!
We’ll light your life on fire now, and burn your cares away!
So scream a song into the sky, and laugh and play with us!
It’s all good fun, and those who die? They won’t be missing much!”

At this, Uncle Darnell broke from his seat and tried to bolt to the door, no doubt hoping to gain the exit before they had even realized he had moved. He was not, however, so lucky – the Dancer with the short skirt planted a kick clean to his face and knocked him back, and the Leering Man and the Laughing Man sprang upon him, and then the Rakdos sung again as they hoisted him up and shoved him back and forth

“Don’t go! Don’t go! Don’t run away, we’re ready for a game!
You’ll be the center of it all, and never be the same!
For our next act, we’ll need some help, we have to get a head!
Yours will do just fine, we think! It’s a shame that you’ll be dead!”

And to the jaunty music of the fiddle they wrestled Uncle Darnell into the kitchen, and Elena did not think to turn away when they took the big cleaver, nor even when they put his head on the board, but only when the strikes began to rain on the back of his neck did she tear her eyes away. As if to drown out the wet thumping and ragged screams, the Rakdos still in the dining room gave forth another verse.

“Our dark and merry escapade has only just begun!
Don’t push! Don’t crowd! You’ll get your chance to be our chosen one!
So stand and shout, it’s time to play with us, your dearest friends!
And now we’ll see which one of you the party will next rend!”

And they stood the family up, and stood them in a rough circle, with several of their own – the Brute, the Leering Man, the Laughing Man, and the Dancer – parts of the circle alongside. Then the Sharp-Toothed Man returned from the kitchen with Darnell’s severed head, entered the circle, and tossed it to Elena’s father, and then they began to sing.

“This is our game, the rules are plain, don’t ever drop the ball!
Just pass it on, quick as you can, as long as it won’t fall!
But don’t be slow, we’ll tell you why, this game’s our biggest hit!
When our song ends, who holds the head, that lucky one is it!”

The Fiddler began to play a madcap tune, its crazed pace adding to the frenzy of the circle. The severed head flew to and fro, to be caught and thrown again. The Rakdos laughed and relished it, but for Elena’s family, they were swift on the toss if only to get rid of that horrible burden. At times the Rakdos made trick throws, launching it high from under a leg, or turning their back to the rest of the ring before heaving it over their heads, but even the Brute was dexterous and swift, and scarce a man touched it for more than a second. Elena, for her part, simply rejected the awful thing roughly across the circle whenever it came to her hands. Faster and faster the fiddler player, until, at the crescendo of madness, she stopped abruptly.

Elena’s mother was left holding her brother-in-law’s severed head, a look stark terror spreading across her face.

“We’ve got a winner, proud and true! O most joyous of days!
We’ll all have fun, and everyone will play her as he may!
But don’t despair or pull your hair, we’ve many different games!
Just stand by, and don’t you dare cry, you’ll get your time of fame!”

And the Leering Man was upon her, and Elena’s brother Nico stepped in front of her, blocking her view as he reached out to Vadim and Irina as well, and pulled the little boy and their cousin to safely block the sight, then began to shuffle away, slowly

Two of the Rakdos, the Acrobat and the Dancer, stepped in front of them.

“I’m just taking the young ones upstairs,” he said worriedly, no doubt remembering their uncle’s fate “We’ll…. We’ll be back for the next game, just call us, right?”

The Dancer grinned, inclined herself towards the stairs, and motioned for Nico, Elena, Irina, and Vadim to follow.

***

The Dancer led them upstairs, and Nico opened the door to one of the bedrooms and ushered his younger siblings and cousin in, and began to enter himself, when the Dancer laid a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ve got a game for you.” She said, “It’s called Tin-Street Run.”

Elena had heard of such a thing – it was a sort of kissing game, the sort played by boys and girls Elena’s parents did not wish her to run with, but all the same there was no real terror in it. The very naming of the thing made Elena realize just how young the Dancer might be – was she even a whole year Elena’s senior? Certainly, she seemed younger than Nico and apparently thought in such a manner too.

Yet Nico’s face was ashen grey, and Elena knew very plainly why. It was not the name of Tin-Street Run, nor a thought that the Dancer was not comely (as but for the crazed glint in her eyes she was gorgeous enough to make Elena feel just the barest shred of envy), but that she was Rakdos, and everything she did was certain horror, and a fate worse than the nightmares that preceded it.

For a moment, Nico did not answer.

“Or,” the Dancer said, “I could find something we could all play.”

“No,” he said quickly, “No, I’ll come.” He turned to her, but then looked back into the room. “I’ll be back soon.”

The Dancer grinned.

“Not if you lose.” She said, and shut Elena, Vadim, and Irina in the room.

As soon as the three of them were alone, Elena began pacing the room like a caged beast. It was the room of Irina’s parents, and it was frustratingly bare There was nothing she could see to use as a weapon, and the window overlooked a dingy alley.

The window! Elena went to it, and opened it wide, then turned back to her family.

“One of use should go for help.” She said

“What?” Vadim asked

“After what happened to my father?” Irina asked

“Yes, even then.” Elena said, “They aren’t watching us now, one of us could get out, and find some help before we are all lost.”

“Whoever goes is dead if she is caught.” Irina said.

“Whoever stays is dead if this party lasts too long,” Elena retorted, “Or if the Rakdos take too much offense to the missing.”

Irina winced, and looked to the window.

“Okay,” she said, “Why don’t we all go?”

“Because,” said Elena, “Then they will surely kill everyone left behind. One of us is risk enough.”

“Then who?”

Elena looked down at herself. She would stay, she thought. She wasn’t afraid of these Rakdos the same way the others were, she could handle it, and survive by her wits until they got back. She looked to Irina. Irina was terrified, yes, but she was also a klutz. If she tried to climb from the window, down the drainpipe, across the lower roof and into the street she would fall, or if she didn’t she would make so much noise that her capture would be certain.

“Vadim.” Elena said, then turned to him, “It has to be you.”

“Me?” he protested, “But you’re older!”

“Yes,” said Elena, “Older and wiser, and more able to handle what the Rakdos do. Older and heavier, and more likely to make a lot of noise on the way out.”

Vadim stood for a moment, clearly frightened of the task ahead of him. Elena bent down to his level

“Please,” she said, “We’re all counting on you. You need to get the Azorius-“

“Mom said to never trust the Azorius!” He protested, “You said to never trust the Azorius!”

“I know, Vadiy, I know.” Elena replied, “But this is different. They’ll fight the Rakdos, they hate them more than they hate us. Please, hurry. We don’t know when they could come back.”

And Vadim stood up straight, and beat his breast as a salute.

“I’ll do my best!” he declared, and hurried to, through, and out the window.

Irina put her hands on her hips

“Now,” she said, “What about us? What do we do to not get killed before the Azorius arrive?”

Elena frowned, “We just have to do our best.” She said, “We play their games, and we win.”

“You say it like they aren’t all rigged against us!”

“They were tossing the head around just like we were.” She remarked, “If we’d known to always throw it to one of them, we might have seen what happens.”

“The Fiddler would have kept playing.”

“Maybe,” Elena admitted, “But I don’t think she was looking. They don’t just want to kill us, Irina, they want to have their fun. There’s no point if they rig it completely. We… we can draw it out as long as it takes.”

Irina sat down on the bed and looked away from Elena, and wouldn’t say anything more to her. Elena began pacing again, and didn’t stop until the door opened some time later, perhaps as much as an hour

Half into the room stepped the Tall Man, that strange leader of the Rakdos troupe. He bowed at the waist to them, and gestured with his gloved hands to the hallway past, as his masked face looked at both the girls intently. As always, he was silent, but Elena could feel the intensity of his presence, the undeniable need his simple gesture evoked.

Elena left the room, past the Tall Man, Irina just behind. She could only hope Vadim was swift.

It was time for another game.

***

The rooms downstairs had been turned into a gorehouse. Red stains were everywhere, soot, and broken furniture. Elena looked quickly to see who she could spy. The Fiddler, the Brute, the Sharp-Toothed Man, the Laughing Man, the Acrobat, and the Leering Man were all there, and of course the Tall Man just behind them. The Dancer was missing, but neither was Nico there: apparently they were still playing her game. At least, that was what Elena hoped.

Of Elena’s family, most that she had left behind were still there, alive if ashen-faced and horror-stricken: Her father and Irina’s mother seemed unharmed, and thusfar Beatrix had not been removed from her cradle.

Of her mother, though, Elena saw no clear trace. She was neither there, nor anything Elena could place as her body, but a flayed skin hung from one of the ceiling beams as a banner, painted with the emblem of Rakdos in blood, and the gore that stained all seemed too much to have come entirely from the corpse of uncle Darnell.

Yet Elena did not slow, or lose her strength – somehow, it still felt unreal, like she was in a nightmare from which she would soon wake. So while she knew what the scene portended, both for what had happened and what would probably happen to her, she entered it without flinching.

Irina, however, stopped and vomited at the base of the stairs, to which the Laughing Man laughed ever louder, and several of the others joined in. Elena tried not to look. Even if the blood and horror had not twisted her gut, the sight of what she heard might do it, and then the reality of this all would strike her.

The Leering Man was staring at her. Leering at her. Elena thought of him as that because he always had a leering look about him , but now she felt unclean beneath the gaze. She looked away, and focused on the Brute, the Acrobat, and her father.

The Brute, of all the Rakdos, was not smiling. The man might have been part ogre for all he looked like one, his height short only of that of the Tall Man, and his great, broad frame bound with heaps of muscles that rippled just beneath his tight black shirt and crimson suspenders. His hair was thick and matted, oil-black, moustache curled upward and beard great and long.

The Acrobat, on the other hand, was small and lissome. Her tight, single-piece garment was strange, like a second skin she wore in honor to her guild. Her blonde hair was tight up in a bun, and she stretched when at rest. Elena thought of her as the Acrobat because of that, and how she walked on the tips of her toes, as if always ready to spring into a display of dexterity, speed, and strength.

As for her father, Elena pitied him at that moment. How much ruin and heartache had Nico spared her and Irina, not to mention Vadim and himself, by taking them upstairs? His eyes were hopeless, his face grey and impassive, and he moved little and made no sound.

The Tall Man stepped up, and began to conduct again, for the Rakdos to sing.

“The time has come for our new game, of skill and daring-do!
Two shall face off, but at what art? That choice we leave to you!
The strong choose strength, the swift choose speed, Wise? Creativity!
But in each test, but one can win, the other feeds our spree!”

And at that they came, and shoved Elena’s father forward, and he stumbled up, not rousing from his stupor. To this, the Brute stepped up

“So,” said the Brute in his deep, booming voice, “What’s the game, little man?”

Elena’s father was silent.

“Come on, now! Don’t be shy!”

“Whatever.” Maarav muttered, “You pick.”

“I’d choose the arm wrestle, best out of three.” The Brute declared, “Sure you don’t have a better idea?”

Maarav only shrugged.

“Well then,” the brute declared, “Let’s go.”

And they sat down opposite each other at the table, and clasped their hands, elbows down on the wood, Elena watching her father go through the motions halfheartedly. Sure enough, as soon as “Go!” was declared, his hand was flat to the table

“You can do better than that.” The Brute said, “We’ll call that a warm-up. At least give it your all, man!”

And they wrestled a second time, and this time for a few seconds there was resistance.

“That’s more like it!” cheered the Brute, “But you’re gonna have to do a lot better if you want to win.”

Elena saw her father lean forward. Some life had come back into him through the context, and Elena was left only wishing that it had happened before the form, in Arm Wrestling, was decided. The third bout, second real, came and Maraav struggled for a good time against his mighty foe. But, at last, the all he gave, gave out. Elena saw her father’s arm twisted down to the table with a sickening snap.

“That’s game.” The Brute said. Then he grasped Elena’s father, dragged him onto the table, and began to hum as he broke bones and Maraav’s screams filled the air. Soon, though, there was a very great snap as the Brute smashed Maarav over his knee, and only whimpers remained to be drowned out by cheering and laughing.

The Rakdos drew together again, and this time Elena found herself in the center, as they clearly wanted another go, her father having given such a poor showing as some muttered.

The Acrobat began to stride forward to be Elena’s opponent, but the Leering Man made a sudden leap to the center, marking himself as her foe.

“Yes!” he hissed, speaking very quickly, “Yes-yes. Oooh, you’re a pretty one. Very limber, yeah, yeah? Gonna have a good contest, gonna be a good prize you are, huh? Huh! Whatchya want? Huh? What is it? C’mon, name it! Name the contest so I can take the prize.”

Elena was a moment taken aback by the panting, practically slobbering man, and had to recover to quick thoughts. Whatever she challenged him to, he was confident, and with that look in his eyes she would rather her father’s fate than lose to him. But he was a man grown, and Elena barely a woman if at all, so she could not pick anything that tested their strengths, and for agility he seemed uncoordinated, even spastic, while Elena was spry and young... but he was also fast, his every twitching movement difficult for her eye to track. There had to be something else, and the Rakdos seemed to be growing impatient.

“Well, well?” he said, “Wrestle like the old man? Wrestle like the ones up stairs? Say it! Come on! Say it!”

Elena’s eyes found her salvation.

“Fiddle!” she called, “We… we will have a contest of music.” She could play a little, and was learning to play will, but if she was lucky the Leering Man would not be able to play at all. And then she thought to appease her captors, and put the rules in their cadence of rhyme.

“We each shall play, and all must say which fiddle has played best!
And to the winner accolades, the loser can’t protest!”

The Rakdos cheered, and the Fiddler stepped forward and handed her fiddle to the Leering man. He rested it on his shoulder, placed the bow upon the string, and then started to play.

The Leering Man’s tune was chaotic, discordant… but competent. He could play the fiddle, even if not well, and that alone made Elena’s heart sink, for no doubt what he played would be tuned to the Rakdos ear.

At length, sweating and never having stopped leering at Elena, the Leering Man finished, and the fiddle was passed to her.

Elena at first could not think of what to play, and began with simple scales. But soon, her bow was flying across the strings, and no one song came across, but new music, a medly of what she heard and what she imagined. Elena had never played in that way before, without music in front of her, straight from her heart, but never did she stumble or strike a bad note, simply playing as her muscles and unconscious mind demanded. Her song went on, into new movements, and she was blind to her audience and the world as it accelerated to a grand crescendo.

Finally, Elena finished, her arms heavy, heart thundering in her chest. She looked up, gave a small curtsey, and the Rakdos cheered for her. At once, they fell upon the Leering Man, who squirmed and fought as they cast him onto the table, and brought forth pliers and hooks and placed them to his skin.

They waited there, and looked to Elena.

“I think I won.” She said, and gave a small nod. Trying to bend the rules for one of the Rakdos was not something she would do.

The Leering Man wouldn’t be leering at her or anyone else ever again.

***

The Dancer returned right as the other Rakdos were tearing out the Leering Man’s eyes. As she passed Elena, Elena spoke to her.

“Where is Nico?” she said “Will… will he be back?”

“You never know the first time with Bloodlilly.” The Dancer said with a smile, “He’ll wake up or her won’t. Very fitting for such an enjoyable draw.”

And she twirled away, gracefully landing in a chair beside where the others worked on the Leering Man and his remains, leaving Elena sick at heart, for she had heard of Bloodlilly as a very dangerous drug, one that provided fantastic dreams but could kill even if its user woke. And knowing the Rakdos, the dose was probably intended for one used to the stuff.

The Rakdos finished with the Leering Man, his blood and bones scattered, his skin in tattered strips. They came to Elena with one strip, and laid it around her shoulders. It made Elena shiver, but she did not dare reject the trophy.

Then began the riot.

The Rakdos sang and laughed, but not as one. Only the Tall Man was silent and impassive. The rest filled the bloody room with noise and movement, and Elena lost sight of Irina, and was only able to focus again when the Sharp-Toothed Man emerged from the kitchen and served all from a plate of steaming meat. Elena did not know that her stomach could take real food, but she was feeling hungry and weak, and thus took a good bit of it for herself and tried to eat. It was good meat, and from the taste probably the Toadpork that had been intended for the stew, though the flavoring was not of her mother’s design. Elena ignored the strangeness. The Rakdos could sing, and dance, and play instruments as well as murder and commit mayhem, they might be able to cook as well.

Finally, Phaedra, her aunt, was dragged to the front. The Acrobat was juggling daggers, and the Brute and the Laughing Man started to position her against the wall.

“The baby!” She screamed “Take the baby! She’ll be a smaller target!”

The Rakdos looked to the Tall Man, evidently their leader. Halfheartedly, those involved in wrestling with Phaedra sang their reply.

“You’ll scream and beg and plead with us to take the coward’s way!
But just this once we’ll hear you out for merriment so gay!
So play along one round with us, the game you’ve set you’ll see!
Miss her by an inch or so, or a loser you will be!”

And they let Phaedra go, and took up Beatrix and pinned her to the wall by her swaddling clothes, and then began to take their turns throwing knives at the babe as Elena watched in horror. The blades impacted and stuck off to the side of the ear, or below the babe’s form, and each of the Rakdos involved took two turns, and threw unerringly, and then declared it to be Phaedra’s turn.

Trembling, the woman threw her first dagger, which bounced off the wall about a foot from Beatrix. To this, the Rakdos groaned, and cajoled her that it had to be closer. Phaedra took up the second blade, tried to aim as well as she could, and then threw.

If there were an adult standing in that place, the difference between the good throw and the failure might have been a flesh wound – painful, but far from lethal. But for the babe, it struck the core, and there could be no doubt that Phaedra had dealt Beatrix a mortal blow. And that, for once, had not been the object of the game.

As the Rakdos descended upon Phaedra, Elena realized she was alone with them. But where was Irina? And how could Elena escape alive?

She needed some peace, and she needed a weapon. The Rakdos were focused on the screaming, struggling Phaedra, and thus Elena slipped into the kitchen.

Elena was not prepared for what she found there. The stove was lit, with sooty handprints all around it on the gore-caked floor. Bones were strewn everywhere, and what had once been a lovely part of home was now even more monstrous for the main room, as the terrible thing suggested a purpose.

And the most terrible sight was Irina. She was staked to the cutting board, her chest opened up, most of her skin flayed. But Irina was still alive, weakly, piteously pawing at the air.

Elena went over to her. “Irina!” she hissed.

“Elena…” Irina moaned, “What…”

“Shh,” Elena said, “Don’t talk. We just need – need to keep you alive until the Azorius get here.”

“They aren’t coming.” Irina said, “Vadim, he was… he was.” She nearly choked on her words, “He was in the oven. They took him out before.” Irina began to cry, whether from new pain at the exertion of speech or at the remembrance, Elena did not know.

“I had to watch them carve the roast.” She said, and Elena remembered the not-quite-toadpork she had been served, and how she had enjoyed the flavor. She was sickened, stricken with the experience, and yet she did not vomit, only realize in horror what she had done, and how she should have known.

“Please,” Irina said, “You have to do something for me. You have to get us out of here.”

Elena looked over her cousin. Irina was dying, even if she could not see it herself. She would be done with the moment she stood, at the very least. Elena could tear the pins out, and free her cousin, and let Irina die an agonizing death…

Or she could do something about it.

Elena needed a weapon, and sure enough the kitchen had them in great abundance. She took up a sharp-pointed carving knife, and thought on how to employ it. Swiftly, so her courage would not fail, she went to Irina, and quickly spoke.

“I’m sorry!” she said, and drove the blade into her cousin’s heart.

The tremor of impact spread up Elena’s arms, the violent squelch of the lethal strike filled her ears, and Elena smiled. She had done a good thing. She had saved her cousin from more torment. She had done a good thing. That was what she told herself.

Slowly, giddy energy bubbling through her, Elena reclaimed the knife. It had another use, yes, more to do.

The Tall Man

The Tall Man lead the troupe. The Tall Man was the reason the Rakdos were here. The Tall Man was why she was holding a knife covered in her cousin’s life blood. The Tall Man was why her mother was dead, her father was dead, everyone she had cared about, one way or another or soon enough!

Quietly, Elena re-entered the main room. Her vision was hazy, but its focus was clear. Her joy bubbled up when she saw the Tall Man, back turned to her, and the other Rakdos with their backs to the Tall Man. She crept up to him, and then she struck, slashing at the back of his thighs, and when he lowered himself from the blow, she began to attack his back, looking for something vital in the impossibly narrow frame. And as she struck, from her mouth issued her own new take on the rhymes of childhood and counting-out.

“Ele-na-Sayan-sky-Had-A-Knife-Stabbed-The-Tall-Man-Took-His-Life-He-Fell-Down-And-Would-Not-Wake-How-Many-Stab-Wounds-Did-It-Take? ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! FIVE! SIX! SEVEN! EIGHT! NINE! TEN! ELEVEN! TWELVE! THIRTEEN!”

After the count of thirteen, Elena’s strength failed her, but it did not matter – the Tall Man was long dead before her… and the Rakdos had been counting with her since four. She looked up, and through the manic energy filling her mind she realized how outnumbered she was, and surrounded.

“Encore!” the Dancer cheered, “Encore!”

“Encore!” echoed the others, save the Laughing Man who simply tittered ever louder and more wildly.

They wanted a show? Well, Elena would give them a show. She sat herself on the end of the long table and drew up the body of the Tall Man onto her knee, an arm around his shoulders so she could flop about his arm and nod his head like a dummy.

“It’s wonderful to be here tonight, with such a generous audience!” she proclaimed, and then turned to the still-masked head of the Tall Man, “Isn’t that right, Lanky?”

She nodded his head.

“Why don’t you say hello, Lanky?”

And with that, she waved his arm up, and the floppy member struck him in the head, to which the Rakdos all laughed.

“Lanky!” Elena moaned in a mocking tone. Then she leaned closer, and spoke out of the side of her mouth in a ridculus voice.

“Sorry Elena, I just got carried away waving for all the nice people!”

The Rakdos laughed again, and Elena’s act continued. The act of impressions and comedy was brief, and then at their hooting demands for more, she sang, and danced, and played the fiddle again, then went back to humor and making more of a foolish puppet out of the remains of the Tall Man. Hours passed, and somewhere Elena Sayanskya forgot that she was performing for her life. Instead, she was simply performing for her audience, and they were loving every minute of it.

And when at last exhaustion began to cause the party to wind down, the Rakdos surrounded Elena. The Dancer and Fiddler, who had been closest and kindest to Elena the whole night took something from the moldering body of the Tall Man and, holding it together, took Elena’s hand and pressed the thing into it.

Elena looked. It was the Tall Man’s Rakdos signet.

No, it was her Rakdos signet now!

Elena raised the signet, and hollered her approval. And the Brute lifted her up on his shoulders, and cheering and laughing and screaming, the troupe melted into the night.



I don't have too much to say about this one. It was unpleasant to write (but not as difficult to do the camerawork as Savagery, oddly), and I do hope it stands different from the others so far. That's something I'm really having to work on in this big list: how to follow the themes through the lenses of the guilds and not come up with the same story. Overall, I think I've got a vision of that, but stories are different than outlines, whatever the case may be.

This is, certainly, the bloodiest story written or planned, but I don't think it's the darkest -- Elena is allowed more struggles and more wins due to the nature of the piece, and you might honestly question whether her ending is tragic because of what's lead up to it or triumphant in spite of that.

As for that, I do hope I set it up decently well -- I knew where I was going from scene one, and it's no accident that Elena was looking to move into "street performer" as her profession. I'm not going to make any definitive "Word of God" as to the actions of the Rakdos, because I think it's beneficial to have them capricious and random, but amidst all the other possibilities (The Rakdos struck because it was such a big gathering. The Rakdos struck because this was being treated as rare and special. The Rakdos struck because they happened to be passing by. The Rakdos struck because the pot made a convenient portal. The Rakdos struck for no reason at all, it was total chance...) is the possibility that this was one big hazing for Elena from the start. I neither support nor deny that interpretation, but it occurred to me in the latter half and I thought it was interesting.

Sorry, Tevish, but I can't do this today, or possibly for the next several days. I've been putting off grading for too long, and I need to catch up before Wednesday. I will get to this, and Phantoms, when I can, but just as a fair warning, it might be a while.

In pgf 23 you say, "....

Jk

I started on this and its great. It even has the soundtrack from Beetlejuice!

Weird. Its just been a beetlejuice kind of day. It all started when I was putting the pick-axe to 8 generations of horse sod. It looked and felt like the scene where they dig up beetlegeis' grave in the plastic model.

This story feels like the third act of Beetlejuice meets Killer Clowns from Outer Space. Absurd yet horrifying. Viewing the Rakdos troop from an outsider's perspective strengthens the story's sense of horror. I would be curious, however, to see this from the perspective of one of the Rakdos. However, I understand that prying into one of their minds might make the story all the harder to write. I say this because I imagine that this approach would involve an exploration into what brought the performer into the Cult, and given that this piece's grotesqueness made it a tough one to see to completion, you'd have your work cut out for you.

Oh, man.

Pro Tip: Do not read all of these in a row.

That said, this one is good, Tevish. Really, really good. I think it's the best of the bunch, by far -- and this is a good bunch of stories.

And, frankly, I think the story benefits from the fact that it doesn't really try to establish the events here as part of a larger, more meaningful context. It just lets the horror wash over you, without trying to rope that horror to the larger theme. And it's a strange thing to find yourself rooting for Elena, even as you know exactly what path this is going to set her down -- or, for that matter, what path she may already have been on, in one way or another.

Anyway, like I said, this is really superb, in a terrifying, horrifying, rubbernecking sort of way. I think it's one of the best pieces you've done, Tevish.

Thanks for sharing!

This is certainly my favourite of my cycle so far. It is really, really good.