Woe and Other Remedies By Michae Read online

  Woe and Other Remedies

  By Michael Anthony Ashley

  Dejanira’s banquets were always fatal, and this made Dejanira popular.The lords and ladies who had befriended her father, who had gone with him on hunts for excitement, had become cloy with Spectacle and Scandal. They were exhausted in their souls by the flaccidness of Thrill—faces rigid, loins gone col, hearts stirring to beat perhaps once a fortnight.

  But these same nobles, thin-boned and cruel-eyed, crossed leagues on the backs of their slaves to guest with Dejanira. For Dejanira offered up their very lives for amusement, and she did amuse magnificently.

  She hosted her first doom-elegance on the spring anniversary of her father’s death, the theme one of wilt and denudation. The surprise of the evening came in the form of naked rose stems entwined among the decorations. The thorns were poisoned, and those who went touching and who were pricked and who suffered from weak constitutions died. The rest were left in awe at the quickening in their breasts.

  The rumors ran and the clangor climbed, and after a torrent of appeals Dejanira held her second event some months after the first. The ballroom this time was dominated by a platform in its center, upon which posed a bare-chested man of uncertain race. Stretched before him was a long stone table crowded to one side with knives of emaciated edge, to the other with mounds of a violet fish. The scent of brine drifted across the hall as Dejanira introduced the evening’s sole repast: kanket mumai, netted from the waters of arcane shores, death to the diner if not cut with meticulous care.

  As the bare-chested stranger set to the fish with swift hands, a train of laced virgins entered the hall from a north-facing door and kissed him upon his body relentlessly. For as long as he worked the maidens engaged their seduction, until he cried out half-mad when the last plate left his table. One thousand guests dined that night. Some forced their slaves to taste first and were spurned. Of the rest, no less than one hundred fell with closed throats.

  Dejanira’s later innovation of a ballroom floor stretched over an ancient chasm, laid with false tiles woven of gossamer and vulture down, made her popular with Her Majesty, the Emperor’s mother.

  On a later occasion it was the Emperor himself who granted her use of the palace on Mt. Aian during the eleven years’ storm, where she arranged two thousand voluptuous chairs that had, from the backs, copper rods twining up and through the palace roof.

  As the years passed Dejanira’s contrivances became more malefic, her invitations less frequent. Yet still the nobles came at her call. They shed their viper-skin boredom simply because they knew not whence the doom would fall, and in not knowing they feared. And in fearing they were, but for moments, pleased to be alive.

  On the night of the Winter Solstice in the two-hundred-thirty-second year of the Emperor’s reign, Dejanira hosted what would be her final sublim massaker. The invitations, the first in nearly a decade, were delivered by wing in the clutches of naked eagles—the haughty messengers invading antechambers and startling doormen with magnificent predatory disdain, for what modern household maintained rookeries anymore?

  Lord Gama III the Fellh-Meyn, eldest and most surfeited of the dead duke’s old companions, was as ever first to neaten his mortal affairs for the event. He met with his legist to arrange his titles and assets, should Dejanira’s artistry claim his life; madecontracts with the Guild of Child Clothiers, where his suits were fashioned by slim and nimble fingers; and set his stable grooms to gather the strongest slaves from each of his fourteen estates, attiring them in matching leathern halters and manacles of redoubled wolfram.

  On the night before the event, he sat in his ancient chair mulling the work of Anticipation upon his veins and discovered it insufficient. The moonlit portraits of his forebears watched as he retired to his chambers with a throttling mask, a boy, and a basket of gnaw-mice, and employed the later evening in pursuit of revived sensation, as new sensation had long escaped his ability. The mask, of the three, proved most effectual.

  He woke to break his fast just after noon, the quicksilver cordial tasting of sleek icy nothing, and lay for a time recalling the delicious agony of the mask. The sensation was withered now but had served to speed the turn of Anticipation within his breast, so that here, on The Day, the climax of its work fell upon him.

  His heart beat a single beat—a heaving, shuddered deuce of blows against the soft of his ribs—and he clutched his sheets in ecstasy.

  Here and gone was the moment, but the valets who came at his bell and dressed him for travel made remark of the animation in their master’s face. And he climbed into his palanquin with a strange tension in his mouth. He thought it another palsy until a delve into his memories revealed it as, possibly, the beginnings of a smile.

  “And why not a smile?” he asked of the morning as he lashed his slaves into motion. For east of his manor, east of the river, east for thirty leagues and a mile, east and east and east was Dejanira’s design.

  Gama III passed his journey in primed imagination, reposing in the deep embrace of his couches. “You could die tonight,” he whispered to himself in erotic terror and moaned as his heart beat for the second time in a day.

  True to their breed, his slaves devoured the land with their strides. And at last, when the sky ahead had purpled in royal disdain, Gama III watched the four towers of Braugholm Castle come into view. He passed beneath the portcullis and noted lawns made beautiful by a powdering of frost, the glow of tongue-colored lantern light, chimeric sculptures, and giant pearlescent snails that glided to and fro across the stones. Their ghostly scrollwork tracks glimmered and shone in the pale of the broken moon.

  The procession of peers was well underway:

  Theye XXI the Muut-Vang-Hewg in her slim wheelhouse.

  Norcous the Vang-Voord-Roolk-Meyn-Hewg-Schteb dismounting his litter with a flourish of his cape.

  Vischer XVIII the Grynck-Fellh standing atop his carriage, bowing in greeting to Rodl V the Hewg-Voord-Roolk-Aynx.

  All were of his stature or lower, Gama III having timed his arrival with practiced care. He directed his slaves along the paths, sniffing critically at the incense on the breeze, and ordered a halt beside Witting IX the Fellh-Jarg. The younger man was a blood relative of notable proximity, and his palanquin—perhaps appropriate, perhaps unimaginative—was of a style resembling Gama III’s.

  “Health, cousin,” Gama III called.

  “Health,” Witting IX returned, and they met between their rows of slaves to greet each other with a kiss.

  “The work upon your frame is artistry, cousin,” Witting IX said of Gama III’s palanquin. “The lanterns gave it life as you passed through the gates. And those slaves of yours—Ysbaddaden, yes, judging by their down? As it happens, mine own are Offruum, close tribemates to your Ysbaddaden.” He gestured to one buck who wore a collar of bronze and stood towering, sleek with sweat, shoulders steaming.

  Gama III’s slaves saw the Offruum’s great high mane of hair, drifting about him like a feathered headdress, and bent themselves round in meekness. Annoyed, Gama III stirred a musk from his underarms to put a fright in them. This broke their attention and turned them back to upholding their poise. “A fine breed,” he admitted.

  “Fine indeed,” crowed Witting IX.

  The boast was irksome. But Gama III was eighty years the senior and beyond the need to brag over property. Instead he brandished his recent achievement. He smiled.

  Witting IX blinked twice in a frank display of surprise.

  “You should be proud,” Gama III said, his smile creeping wide. “But I must ad
mit, my thoughts are full of anticipation for the evening, with little energy to spare for projects so, mm, hobbyistic.”

  Witting IX refused to look a second time at Gama III’s mouth. “Of course you are correct,” he said in a tone coldly polite. “My time could be better spent.”

  “Spent, yes, but not wasted, for our host has appointed an hour for the start of this affair, and we had best see to our dress if we are to be timely.” Gama III kissed his cousin on the chill of his brow. “We will meet upon the path and make our entrance together.” And with a farewell he climbed to his palanquin, finally relaxing his face lest the ache in his jaw become a vex.

  Gama III dressed himself in scarlet, donning his custom turban—burnt-orange at the base and blending imperceptibly to an elegant pointed gold crown. To finish came the hereditary finger cymbals of the Fellh clan. These he fastened to his hand and stepped from his palanquin a living tribute to passions anticipated, a flame against the winter cold.

  With his bucks arrayed at his heels he walked the glittering snail arabesque to meet his cousin upon the main path near the doors. They awaited their introductions then entered the circular hall. The space was immense, chandeliers hanging heavy and ornate from chains that seemed infinite, the ceiling itself beyond reach of the light. The walls were decorated in primitive tribal art—the clubs and spears of the slave tribes—and curved away into the distance, the room a great circle with tall doors at four-points. A ring of a table dominated the floor, cleverly without head or foot, with seating for thousands and enough room from the seatbacks to the walls for every noble’s slaves to stand in waiting behind him. Gama III could imagine the hall when full resembling from above a wheel with long spokes. Just now, with many of the guests drifting here and there, greeting each other, gossiping, taking measure, moving on, he guessed it three-quarters full.

  He and Witting IX found their places at table before making the social rounds. Gama III’s flamboyant attire proved popular, his smile a positive sensation. He brandished it at every opportunity, doing his ardent best to rouse Anticipation. I have seen what you will see, it told. I have known Thrill.

  Soon the servants began announcing the single-clanned: Dancre the Hewg, Embein X the Schteb, and eldest of all, Anda the Aynx who had consumed years enough in her march through life to outnumber the combined age of any three peers. They were newcomers to the fêtes, like many others. And even in their presence, the likes of Gama III and Witting IX, as veterans, enjoyed a certain prestige. Anda herself aimed a raven-eyed gaze for Gama III’s regard. He dipped his head with precision.

  She approached in her immaculate walk. “May I have your ear, young lord?” she asked.

  “It is yours,” he said, “of course and always.”

  The nearby peers excused themselves with deference, and quickly she and he were in a bubble of privacy. She gave courteous inquiries into land, health, and rumor. Then—

  “You have displayed great quality with your achievement,” she declared of his smile. “Indeed, I find you worthy of your reputation.”

  “Reputation is a greedy thing and can grow larger than its worth,” said Gama III with care.

  “It is told that the lord of Fellh and Meyn is both a gourmet of fashionable pursuits and an instigator of the same. He is capable in extinct tongues. His compositions are eloquent. His dedication to protocol and his study of the Void and its dooms are both known and discussed even in the society of my lands. Further, his physiognomy and mentality have endured in steadfast health since the Third Dynasty of Saffraan II the Voord, a suggestion that the finest blood of both his superlative clans feeds his substance.”

  Gama III pressed a finger to his lip in the display of small-to-temperate embarrassment. “I must succumb to humility, lady of Aynx, and protest such a reputation. For what lone soul could play host to this panoply of qualities? None but the very exemplar of magnificence.”

  “But an exemplar of magnificence is precisely the man for my purposes.”

  “Purposes? Does the lady require some deed of me?”

  “The lady wishes a new heir, and an heir, as the dooms which form our realities have declared, requires a sire. Tell me, young lord, how fares your gonad?”

  Gama III had heretofore maintained a low-strummed pleasure at Anda’s attentions, the greater part of his focus alert to any shift in atmosphere that would signal the beginning of Dejanira’s plot. Anda now commanded him whole.

  He held himself with care in every particle. “I am a twain lord,” he said. “For one of your purity, would our mingling not be, in direct terms, a dilution?”

  “Do you know of my sons?” asked Anda. “Grippe, liver slough, dementia of seven sorts, bonebarbs, even a plague of the tissues our clan surgeons have yet to classify. My daughters have fared little better. Two of them, at the least, are yet living, though in such states of decay as to hardly be worth the distinction. Simply, and quite obviously, new blood is required.”

  “And so you would produce a three-clanned heir? I apologize, lady of Aynx, but my confusion remains.”

  “What matters the seed that sprouts the heir? Purity has always been a matter of record, not of blood. And you would of course be compensated,” said Anda. “First and of greatest immediacy, with my friendship. But furthermore, unfettered access to the Aynx libraries, a seat on the Council of Far Astronomers—at which one of my clan sits ever as chair—and first pick for thirty seasons from the Mellenmuhg Distillery.”

  Her breath shifted here to carry an alluring sweetness. “And to accompany the expression of your seed, my thinkers have devised a cunning tonic. It is not well known. In truth I have kept its existence secret. But for your charity I will authorize its use so that your... effort will be accompanied by notable stimulations.”

  “What manner of stimulations—” Gama III began.

  But at that moment, from each of the four towers, clear and sonorous bells pealed the hour. Anda the Aynx turned her gaze at the sound. “We will continue,” she said. “If we survive.”

  Gama III felt his blood gorge and throb. “If we survive,” he replied.

  Her nostrils flared erotically. Then she swept away.

  On rang the bells, and the guests, as if released from fetters, dispersed to take their seats. And here we are, Gama III thought. The table was full, the moment at hand. Anticipation moved as a wild fondle from seat to seat, bowel to bowel, quivers begetting moans and hoarse whispers, emotion stretching jaws with violence. Gama III felt another heartbeat and clutched his hands as the shudder passed through him, turned to his cousin when he was able, offered congratulations with a touch on the sleeve, for Witting IX stared off into the distance, new color burning in his cheeks.

  Gama III was swollen with feelings, and driven by those feelings he began to chant. Silver met crystal as he chimed his finger cymbals—thumb to leechfinger, the universal tone of admiration—and he cried out a single word: daufryd. His peers heard, and they too gave voice. Daufryd was repeated from this pair of blue lips then that, daufryd from a hand of voices, a score, a century. Daufryd, called Gama III, called Witting IX, called the single-clanned and the thirteened, called their echoes from the pale marble floor, the far walls, the rafters lost in shadow. It was a word left to them from Old High Istvael, a word whose meaning was beyond any one phrase in any of the eleven modern tongues. Daufryd, daufryd—at its most intense the mélange of terror, anticipation, and pride when regarding a noble death; but also a moment of abrupt awe for fate; or the ambivalence of mortality; or the ache between uncertainty and prescience; or perhaps simply the tension of the in-between. Here tonight, thrumming along the castle’s inner bones, it meant “we are ready.” Stun us, thrill us, slay us, please us—we are ready. Daufryd, daufryd, daufryd.

  As noble blood stirred to life, thousands of chilled scentless breaths grew hot. The dining hall warmed like the atmosphere upon an a
utumn dawn and chased the cold from Gama III’s skin. Perspiration sprouted in its wake, the humors of his very flesh. His nose took hold of the metallic tang. His fingers traced against the slick. He rose to his feet. He rang his cymbals. He called daufryd! in a voice grown thick.

  On and on he goaded the chant as he and his peers gazed left and right, looking for Dejanira. He was not alone in standing. He was not alone in searching. Smiles were in abundance as the welcome for their host reached its crescendo, for now would come her entrance, the artist sweeping into the midst of her art as she had so many times before, in memory, in legend, in rumor, her father’s nobility bequeathed to the poise of her spine, her own genius seething in her violet stare. All knew what came next.

  Daufryd!

  Daufryd.

  Daufryd...

  So wild was Anticipation that they chanted until the bells rang again. And in the echo of the new hour, the hall fell silent. The hall grew cold. Some who were standing reclaimed their seats, chairs barking against the marble. Others drifted into councils to decide the graveness of this slight upon dignity. Where was Dejanira? asked the rising murmur. Where was the repast? Where was the theater? Where was Thrill, whose caress they’d traveled the lands to feel hot upon their organs, when Discontent had for so long, and now on this very occasion, made its seat within their breasts? The hour stretched on without reply.

  “Disgraceful noise and furor,” declared Arfest VIII the Roolk-Vang. The ancient lord sat to Gama III’s left, half his visage sagging pendulously in the slack of a decades-old palsy. “Better an oblivion than such embarrassment.”

  “We are delayed,” replied Gama III, “nothing more, certainly. Perhaps of a part with our host’s design.”

  And though the clay-faced decrepit spoke beyond his standing, he had scraped bare a truth. About the hall, many a noble eye had taken the cant of irritation, lids down hooded, gazes aimless in disdain. And though the lords and ladies had gathered in their coteries, notably alone were Pellawurt XII, Witting IX, and Baliz—the veterans, the survivors, those who had spread the tales, had stirred Anticipation, had roused the gathering to folly. And Gama III realized there was no better word. Folly. For only in the throes of a beautiful threat had the raising of voices and the flushing of jaws become acceptable. And for an hour, without peril of any sort, they had excited themselves like fools. Fools! Someone must suffer.