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Part 1 (Preview, unchecked) The blade cut through her flesh, while her veins still pumped the blood from and to the heart. Her face was covered with her long black hair, and the staring eyes saw nothing, no more, never again. The blood stopped pulsing as her heart fell on the floor. Streams of life covered the bed and the ruby beauty shimmered in the pale light of Lukarna. Lukarna, the only witness of the murder, the only face that saw the murderer and lived, but never spoke. She hid her face behind a veil of clouds above Ildritz, and saw no more. He lit a small oil lamp in the darkness. The room was dressed in gore, and her naked body lay upon the bed, dead. She had opened her breast to the world, and her womb (?) was free to flee. As if it would go anywhere, entangled in the bowls that still tied it to the woman’s body. Her limbs were ready to embrace him, to welcome him, wide were her arms, spread her legs, the body still pale as Lukarnas face, although the blood ran down the limbs like spring drizzle... Then the lamplight fell upon her hand, and lit up something she held. He bent over to her hand, touched it like he never had before, tender, and soft. He displaced her fingers, still soft and smooth, already getting colder. In the palm (?) of her hand lay a shiny stone, red like her blood it was, lively in the lamplight, like it pulsed with life. He took the stone - it must be the largest Karfunk he had ever seen. Fascinated, he took the stone and put it in his vest. Then, he turned to the door and walked out of the room, leaving the place dark and lifeless. Ildritz, a big big city, a larger than life town, the centre of the Universe, the Pearl on the Nordan, the place dreams fled to. Thousands of people lived in the city, and died there. The pulse of life ran through Ildritz’ streets, from and to the heart of the city: the Imperial Palace. Around this Palace the city circled with its colourful districts. The pretty streets of merchants and mongers, the alleys of the craftsmen, the lanes of the noblemen. The Nordan River ran through the city like a silver serpentine, and the hills in the northeast guarded the city like a child. Only on the edges of the town were the edges of life. The Kungsfelthan south of the city smelled bad and didn’t look much better. Daylight didn’t do the place much good, and what the night brought there - nobody wanted to know. It was better if the Kungsfelthan were shrouded in mists, like it often was, so the Ildritzer citizens would forget about the sick abdomen of the most beautiful city in Daleth. And forget, they did. In the fancy gardens of the Glassgarden district, on the terraces on the upstream Nordan bank, in the salons and guest houses, they listened to the minstrels, drank they drinks, and forgot. They celebrated life, but did not know why. They dreamt of a luxury life, although they only needed to grab it, for it was right in front of them. If only they hadn’t forgotten it all. Like a tale from a long time ago, the tiding (?) of the murder washed upon the shore of consciousness. The story was twisted on its way from the Kungsfelthan to the Glassgardens, retold by many tongues, wrapped in lies and liberties. “Have you heard it?” the young man asked his companion. “A girl was murdered near the White Temple of the Kungsfelthan. Her body was ripped to pieces and her blood dripped through the ceiling of the room beneath it.” “Have you heard it?” asked the companion his landlord, “A woman was killed in the Kungsfelthan, the parts of her ripped body lay all around the room, and the blood has splashed high up, up to the ceiling.” “Have you heard it?” asked the landlord his wife, “A young female of the Kungsfelthan has been killed. The murderer hasn’t been found yet. We’d better close the shutters tight for the night.” “Have you heard it?” asked his wife the next day, after a night of many nightmares and little sleep, to her neighbour... And so the story hit the city in her pretty face, and shook her up, woke her up from oblivion, ripped her quiet dreams. But the Glassgardens “Tuijon Dreams” tavern still sparkled with the juvenile beauty of the Ildritzer artists, the young lovers, the ones that enjoyed life nevertheless. “What’s another dead woman in the Kungsfelthan?” they said to each other, and shrugged their shoulders. They poured another drink, and leaned back in the haze of the Tuijon, the arms of the treacherous drink tender around their bodies. A well-known musician stood up from the crowd. “I want you to listen to a song I wrote. It is about a theft that has happened just a few days ago.” He sat down again, at the harpsichord, and tuned it with a few brute hammerings. Then, he let the sounds smoothly flow from the instrument, and like Tuijon it soothed the crowd. Silently, they listened to the musician, as he started to sing. A Karfunk has been ripped A Karfunk has been ripped From the womb of life Her shiny red body Was ripped from my life And I wonder If I will ever see her again As the blade cut through Cut cruelly through her coat It also cut my throat It was taken, it was taken It was taken out of my life Where will she be now? The curse of her theft Will follow, will follow Will follow the thief Follow him to the stars. He hit the last dreadful tones of the harpsichord, then closed the instrument. He stood up, and a mild applause rose from the crowd. He walked towards the bar, and sat on a stool there, looking at his own face in the mirror opposing the room. He saw someone sit down beside him, ordering another drink. “It wasn’t one of your best songs,” the man next to the musician said. “Probably not,” the musician answered. “But it was the truth.” He emptied his fireberry wine in one go and ordered another one. “Say, Erois, what has happened to you? You drink too much, and you’re singing silly songs. What’s wrong?” The musician stared at his neighbour in the mirror. The room was somewhat misshaped in the mirror, its tiny cracks and flaws made it look like the beholder had drunk too much, which was probably so all the same. “I heard this story,” Erois said, “Someone had been into the Imperial Palace. Unnoticed, this person roamed the rooms of the royal family. The Emperor, sound asleep, the Empress, the princes and princesses, nobody noticed a thing. The Palace is quiet as ever, not even the dogs wake up. And yet, in the early morning, as the Housekeeper goes through the rooms, it is noticed the Splinter Karfunk is gone. It had been stolen in the night, out of the room next to the chambers of Princess Hazleis. Nobody noticed, and there is no trace of the theft. The stone is gone, nobody knows where to search. It is a clueless mystery where it is.” “So? The stone is gone, the Emperor has loads more of jewellery on his fingers alone. What has it to do with you?” Erois looked in the mirror again. He sighed. “I am quite fond of the little princess, all right? And that’s not all: they say the Karfunk is cursed. The rightful owner will die within a year if the stone is taken from him. Or her, in this case.” His companion grinned and shook his head. “You romantic jerk. The princess is way out of reach, and a cursed Karfunk, well I don’t know, but it does sound a little ridiculous, does it?” Erois stood up from his stool and paid the bartender. “You will see, this theft will have some bloody tail.” Then, he left the “Tuijon Dreams”. The nights looked darker in the Kungsfelthan. As if the stench dropped a curtain between the night sky and the poor buildings. The streets, mostly unlit unless by one of the many small fires, were muddy, but no one was sure where the mud ended and the shit began. Some said, the shit began right outside the Southern Door of Ildritz. The shit surely has hit the sluts that lingered on the roadsides. Their bodies, thin and tanned from poverty, were on sale. Life was cheap in the Kungsfelthan, and death was for free. He sat in his sober room, his little oil lamp on the table, next to it a bottle of Tuijon, and in his right hand a half empty glass of the brew. In his other hand, he held the Karfunk. It was still red, but the pulse was out of it. Even the dancing of the flame on the tip of the wick didn’t bring the life back in the Karfunk. It’s many edges, it’s half darkened core, it’s shiny facets, it wasn’t what it had been the night he killed. The life... had... gone... His eyes focused on the stone again, sleepy and drunk as he was. An idea had just occurred to him. What if...? He could try it. He poured himself another glass of the Tuijon. The bitter, pure drink went smooth through his throat. The bitter taste of life. It was different in the city, where the Tuijon and life were sweeter. The cheap dirt they had on sale in the Kungsfelthan... it darkened... his mind. Then he stood up, and knocked the chair over as he did so. Life, the bitter life in the Kungsfelthan, was cheap. Very cheap. He went out of his room, closed the door, and went down the stairs. He left the building by the back door, and walked quickly through the alley that somehow wrinkled through the dark night. He saw the woman as she turned around the corner, just moving the shades of the night a little. He followed her, around the corner, and through another alley, over a muddy square just in front of the White Temple, and then into yet another alley. He sighed as he closed in on her. He was now so close he could smell her perfume of smoked Aelçim and cheap beer. She turned around, surprised, as she heard his footsteps on the uneven bricks. She peeked out in the dark, and in the blink of an eye, she saw a customer. She needed a customer. Her landlord wanted rent, her stomach wanted food, her mind wanted another haze (?) of the Tuijon. “Can I help you?” she asked with her harsh voice. She flapped her dress in a more revealing mode. He said nothing, nodded in silence. Blood was pumping through his body. He needed her. It was all he could think about. He needed her... “That will be ten Skilliggs,” she said, and held up both her hands. “But just one go and no extras.” She glanced at him. “Ains taihunda skilliggs,” she said then. He hesitated just a little. Ten skilliggs was a lot of money for him, but then he realised she wouldn’t live to cash it anyway. He nodded again, and followed her winking hand. He felt excited and caressed the knife that he held under his cloak. He felt alive, and his other hand reached out for the Karfunk in his vest. It was if the pulsing in his veins enlarged his senses, as if he could see better in the dark, and really felt the world around him. She opened the door of a low roofed shed. In the far corner was a bed. The room was more or less decorated with stuff from the Kungsfelthan markets, dead cheap, nearly broken, but shiny with a fake taste of luxury. The heavy smell of Aelçim beat up his senses, and held the sour stench of the latrine away. She lit a candle. She looked older than he had expected. She glanced at him and undressed, smiling the smile of the unhappy and the wanting. He felt nothing but need now. The need for her life, for her blood. The Karfunk was heavy in his vest, strong in his mind. “Ten skilliggs extra if you give me an extra,” he said. She hesitated now, half undressed. “What do you want?” she asked, uncertain if she wouldn’t frighten him away. She needed him badly. “I want you to lay naked on the bed, blindfolded, and then I’ll take you.” Blindfolded or not, the motions would be the same. She had heard stranger wishes. And another ten skilliggs would cover many of her expenses. “All right,” she said, and gave him her scarf to blindfold her. She undressed, and stood naked in front of him, her back turned at him. Her bony shoulders were nearly fleshless, her neck thin as a dried twig. Her skin was pale and dirty; on her left shoulder she had a faded tattoo of a flower of some sort. He blindfolded her, took the light from her eyes earlier than he had imagined. She stroked her breasts, and sighed as he tied the scarf. She needed him. He laid her on the bed, spread her legs, took his knife and ripped her up from cunt to chin. Her body cramped as the knife cut her for the first time, but she didn’t live to relax from the sharp caress. Her inside twisted out of her body, and he watched how the life fled from her veins. He took the Karfunk and drenched it in her blood, in her fading life. He saw it lived up, started pulsing again. Yes, it was as he expected. He rubbed the Karfunk in the remnants of the woman, rubbed it against her heart, then against her uterus. He noticed the life that was once there, he had taken two lives, the Karfunk shined as it never had before. He took the knife and freed the unborn child from its bond with the mother. It was a little girl. He beheaded her with one stroke of his knife, then threw the body on the bed and soaked his hands in the blood. Life. It was so cheap, in the Kungsfelthan. Had the first murder caused a commotion, the second one just frightened the whole of the city. Guards walked the streets more than before, children were kept inside, nobody went out unaccompanied. Newspapers covered the story in more blood than there was to be found on the place of murder, and rumours crawled through the city like rats. The Kungsfelthan girls were scared more than all others. They had known the murdered girls, they could have been murdered too. People were afraid of the Kungsfelthan now, and avoided it, mostly in the night. The girls were hungry and thirsty, longing for their joys. They shared a pipe of Aelçin among each other, leaning over the fire pot to catch some warmth in the cold night. Their thing faces lit up in the darkness, the deep eyes big and frightened. If a customer turned up, they looked at him. Was it a smell of danger they sensed in the air? But in the end, they would go with him, because they needed him, and they needed the stuff his money could buy them. But the parties in the Glassgardens went on as if nothing happened. The Kungsfelthan were on the other side of town, and let’s face it, how many guards were in between? Related topics: |