THE LAST QUEEN - {Works of Spurius, Book I}

[Hidden]

Ϡ Xuan Jie | Inside of a bottle, one night after the attack

The jinni stretched languorously in his newfound home, inhaling the fresh dew from a stand of bamboo shoots he had planted just the other day.

The previous occupant had found this enclosed world too constricting, but the jinni had no such complaints. You simply had to know how to use the space. Admittedly, he had done some redecorating. The mountain was his, as was the river running below it, falling noisily into subterranean caves where even the jinni did not know how to follow. The sun and moon, which had always existed side-by-side in the domed sky, now circled the mountain to create a simple day-night cycle which the jinni rather liked. Other touches included the flowers which bent thoughtfully toward visitors when they spoke, and birds that could reply in any language to requests made of them. And of course his two Fu dogs, or lion dogs, who accompanied him wherever he went.

This was the jinni's world in a bottle. The bottle itself now sat upon a shelf in the Enchantress' chamber ^{[ed. note: How did it arrive there?]}, between phoenix's feather and Azog's Bane. The enchantress visited once or twice a week to converse with him and tell him of the happenings in the outside world, (she too knew the art of growing very small), and he repayed her by painting in the pupils of her little wooden doll.

Ϡ Royal Taster - Catherine | The Ivory Manse, three nights after the attack

The dreaded silence was slowly eating away at her mind as she awaited the Enchantress from speaking to whomever was at the door. Cathy's eyes went to the basin filled with ingredients. Despite being on guard around the woman full of magic, she felt herself get up off of her stool and quietly wandering over to it; something unseen pulling her over to it. Perhaps she was enchanted? It was rumored that witches and those whom practiced magic conducted it inside of a object of their choosing. Would spilling it be her death or not -- Cathy's attention was suddenly pulled away as she noticed a lone bottle on the shelf, abandoned in the Enchantress' mad grab for ingredients. Why had she left this one?

Cathy drew closer. It was made of a dark, green glass, so dusty Cathy could not make out the contents inside. She picked it up and reached out a hand to brush away the dust -- but at that very moment the Chamberlain Warlock himself stepped into their chambers, smiling darkly and demanding the return of ingredients. Her hands moving faster than her mind could follow, Cathy dropped the emerald bottle into her sash and hid it close to her body. She retreated to her stool and slouched there so as to disguise the strange bulge around her stomach.

What has gotten into 'ee, Cath'ee? she could hear Finnian's admonishing voice in her head, but she pushed it away. Her fey blood was running hot now, and this bottle -and whatever its contents- responded to that blood.

[librarian's note: We have returned to the chapter in question and could find no evidence for this passage; it must be a later addition]

Ϡ Xuan Jie | Inside of a bottle, Day of St. Ophelia's Ball

Events were happening in the outside world. Potent magic flowed around the mouth of the bottle, striking a resonant chord within. The bamboo shoots let out a sound like ten-thousand flutes blown by the wind. Xuan Jie decided it was time to come out. ^{[ed. note: doesn't somebody have to rub the bottle?]}

In a whirlwind of vermilion and verdigris, the jinni emerged from his bottle. He quickly grew in size from a woman's little finger to a full-grown man, though a bit short and stocky in form. His wild eyes raked the four walls of the enclosure, his tangled beard grew and spread in all directions. He was no longer in the Enchantress' chamber. Unfamiliar faces stared at him in slack-jawed amazement.

"I am Xuan Jie," he stated gruffly. "Whose magic is it that has disturbed my cave-heaven and drawn me into this veil of tears?" His fierce eyes settled at last on a young woman, clearly half-fey, and the boy interposing himself vainly between them. The jinni's thick eyebrows arched upward on his bald forehead. "Was it you, fairy child? What need have you of a genie?" ^{[ed. note: variant spelling?]} He reached out with one closed fist and one open palm, in the standard respectful greeting, but the lad mistook the gesture and rushed him.

"Stay away from my Cath'ee, ye demon!"

Quicker than crooked lightning, the jinni's hands reversed themselves, catching the younger boy at the wrist and elbow, and with a slight, almost unnoticeable shift of weight, the squat man sent the boy flying over his shoulder into... nothing.


In fact, he had thrown young Finnian into the bottle, where our story will follow him presently...

 

[Hidden]

Ϡ The Demon-Queen | Eve of St. Ophelia's Ball

"I apologize for the late intrusion, Your Majesty, but I've a question I must ask: Would you like to be free?"

A smile as cold and dark as the winter moon met the supercilious grin across from it.

"I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

"We haven't had the pleasure of a proper introduction since my incarnation," the Queen remarked, looking up into the Warlock's cowled face. She was wearing clothes for a change, a rather startling emerald green dress with gold filigree tracing delicate patterns across the bodice. She looked decked out for the ball, though that was not yet for another day. Perhaps she intended to sleep in it.

"Forgive me, Your Majesty, for pressing concerns kept me away," the Warlock responded, averting his gaze and hiding his right eye from her sight. "But I am here now, and utterly at your service." Modestly he held out his arm, and the Queen snaked her own around it. Together they walked from the throne room as though there were nothing to stop them--and as they passed through the doorway, the Queen was mildly surprised to feel that there was nothing, no hint of the magics that had previously secured her against her will. Impressive she thought, and hugged the warlock's arm a little tighter.

Outside the throne room, Haloge was waiting.

"Oh isn't he just darling?" the Queen gushed, reaching out with her free hand to scratch the grown man beneath the chin. Rather than turn away, Haloge lifted his head in obvious pleasure, a thin trail of smoke escaping his nostrils. The Warlock snorted.

The Queen dropped her hand away. "Why are you wearing that stupid human suit?" she asked frankly. "Your natural form suits you much better."

"I could ask the same of you, My Queen," the dragon replied. The Queen inclined her head slightly.

"Enough of this," the Warlock interrupted. "Haloge, you know what you must do."

The Queen turned to him. "And what, precisely, are we doing?"

The Warlock gave her another one of his over-wide grins. "Well, your majesty, we are..."

(a) going to create a diversion with our friend Haloge here. In the chaos and slaughter, you and I will make our escape.

(b) on our way to visit an old friend of yours. The Black Knights sleeps in restless slumber below these castle walls. He will lead you to freedom... for a price.

(c) tracking down that witch Urganda and the rest of the conspirators who would seek to control you for their own ends. They will pay for their insolence.

(d) putting on these fake mustaches and vintage sunglasses I bought from the apothecary down the street. No one will recognize us!

(e) write your own escape plan here.

 

[Hidden]

Ϡ Finnian | Inside of a Bottle, Day of the Ball

"Nice... doggies?"

In truth, they much more closely resembled lions, but Finnian had no way of knowing; the last lions had disappeared from his native land during the time of Arnaud Dragonsbane, and even those mythological beasts had not been such as these. Massive heads framed by tightly curled manes, impossibly broad shoulders and chests. And their colors--one was a light, azure blue, the other a dark, dusky red, almost cinnamon. This is the one that held Finnian pinned under five-inch long claws.

Both lions glowered down at him, fangs bared, breathing through their nostrils with soft WHUFF WHUFF noises. With each exhalation, a slight mist appeared, curled in upon itself, and vanished. The claws of the one pressed firmly against four points on Finnian's leather jerkin, but none had thus far pierced his skin. Then the azure one, who was standing to the side, spoke.

"How are you called?"

"Uh...?" Finnian replied dumbly, his brain stubbornly refusing to understand the speech of an animal. The lion growled impatiently.

"How are you called?"

The question was underscored with a slight flexing of those four great claws, and this time Finnian's brain acquiesced.

"F... F... F... Finnian. Finnian Gulliver."

"And what business do you have in our cave-heaven, Finnian Gulliver?"

This question Finnian really didn't have an answer to; he didn't even know what a 'cave-heaven' was! But to avoid another brush with those claws, he ventured an answer.

"To... to protect... Cathee?"

The lions exchanged a look. "What is this 'Cathee?'" the azure one asked.

"She's my friend," Finnian responded, more certainly this time, though his heart harbored a doubt.

Now the cinnamon-colored one spoke. "Were you the one who cast the magic that disturbed our world?"

"What? Magic? No! No, I don't ken any-thing of magic! It musta been that ne'er-do-well, Bastion! He's of that ilk!" But again Finnian's heart betrayed him. Hadn't he seen a fire spring from Cathee's hands, an unbearably bright fire without flames?

The cinnamon-colored lion bent down and drew in a long, concentrated sniff. To Finnian, it felt as if every particle of his being were being inhaled into that sniff.

"He is telling the truth," the cinnamon one said to its companion. "There is not a trace of magic in him. Strange that he should have even been able to enter into our bottle."

Bottle? Finnian thought, confused. What're they on about? He looked around him. He had never seen a place like this before. He had never even imagined a place like this.

He was cushioned on a bed of flowers, and from his prone position they seemed to go on forever. A ways to his right stood a stand of tall, green stems, almost like very thin trees, that Finnian could not name. And directly above him the sky shone a brilliant, almost translucent, emerald green.

Green? Finnian's overworked brain protested. That's not right.

But it was no use denying it. The sky was a shade of green that Finnian had only ever seen on precious stones and treated glass. Impossibly twisted clouds hung like ornaments from the viridescent vault, but it was the sky itself that held Finnian's gaze. He felt that if he just looked long and hard enough, he would eventually be able to see through it to what lay on the other side.

"What shall we do with him?"

The question snapped Finnian out of his reverie. The two lions were conversing again, obviously about him.

"He cannot stay here," the cinnamon one was saying. "Unattuned as he is to the natural flow of chi, it would only bring disruption and harm."

"But we can hardly send him back the way he came," the azure one countered. "Only Xuan Jie has such power, and the sorceress."

There followed a long and, to Finnian at least, very uncomfortable silence. Finally, the cinnamon lion spoke again.

"We shall let the dragon decide."

"The wha-?" Finnian started to say, but was silenced when the giant paw lifted and those terrible jaws descended upon him...

...and picked him up with such startling gentleness that it took Finnian a few moments to realize he was again standing on his own two feet. Even now he barely stood at eye-level with the massive beasts beside him.

"Come," the cinnamon colored lion said simply, "we shall take you there."

Seeing no alternative, Finnian fell in line between the two impossible creatures. Together, they walked toward the solitary mountain that dominated the landscape. As to what they found there, our next chapter will tell.

 

[Hidden]

Ϡ Finnian | Inside of a Bottle, Day of the Ball?

"So... you guys have names?" Finnian asked tentatively of the two man-sized cats walking on either side of him. Neither responded. They had proven perfectly capable of understanding and responding to human speech, but they didn't seem very inclined to talking. Much later, as the sun started to disappear behind the mountain, the azure one turned its head. "I am called Irritum Le'Nell Hsivat." That was all.

An equal space of time later, the cinnamon one Whuffed softly through its nose. "I am called Kivuli La'Nell Shujaa. I am, in matter of fact, female."

"Oh. Sorry," Finnian responded. They continued to walk in silence.

They walked that way for three days and three nights. At least, that's how Finnian measured it, based on the revolutions of the sun and the moon around the ever-present mountain. He had no idea how much time had passed in the outside world. They paused every once in awhile to rest, to eat, to relieve themselves, but less often than Finnian would have imagined. There was something in the air that sustained their bodies and kept their spirits light. Finnian could feel the flow of energy in his body.

Still, it was a very long walk. When they first started, Finnian had guessed it to be a half-day's march to the mountain. But size and space were deceptive here. The mountain seemed to recede into the distance even as they walked towards it. Then suddenly, at the break of the fourth day, the mountain loomed above them.

Strangely, it was not as large as it had seemed from a distance. The peak still arched above their heads so that Finnian had to crane his neck to see it, but it did not dominate the landscape as it had seemed to from so far away. A river ran along its base and disappeared with a great gurgling into caverns beneath. It was to the mouth of one of these caverns that his guides now led him. "Follow the river," the cinnamon colored one -Kivuli- instructed. "It will lead you to the dragon."

Finnian turned back nervously. "What if I get lost?"

The azure one -Irritum- shook its large head. "All rivers run to the sea."

"That wha--?" But both lions sat immobile now, as steadfast and silent as stone guardians. Finnian felt his question evaporate into the air. "Well, thank'ee for yer help," he said with a backwards wave, stepping into the cavern. "I think."

---

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Ten steps in, Finnian could no longer make out the silhouettes of the cats at the cave mouth. Twenty steps further, all light had vanished.

"Thank'ee for leading me into this dark, damp hole," Finnian said to no one. "Don't s'pose you coulda given me a light!"

But when he turned around, there was no question of going back. In the pitch black, the sound of roaring water seemed to come at him from all directions at once. It permeated his skull until it was no longer discernible from his own thoughts.

Eventually, a new light began to glow. It was not the light of the sun, but a mineral, earthy kind of light that emanated from the walls of the cave. Upon closer inspection, Finnian discovered luminescent crystals set within the rock. He pried one of these loose and held it aloft. It gave off just enough light to illuminate the ground at his feet, and in this feeble cone of light Finnian continued onwards.

He tried to keep track of his direction, but it was impossible in the twisting, dark passages under the mountain. Reality seemed to shift around him. Had he really just come from a place where the sun and moon shone together in a jade sky? Or was he still lying in the infirmary next to Cathee, recovering from that kitchen explosion months ago?^[1] Finnian's head hurt just thinking about it. Strange images flickered across the blank canvas of his mind, chasing each other and themselves--lions, dragons, genies in bottles, Cathee, Bastion, Cathee, Cathee.... "Where have ye sent me, Cath'ee?" he whimpered to himself, for he now knew he was truly lost.

"Stop. I've changed my mind! I want out," he cried to nobody. "I want out. I've changed my mind! Help!" He started moving in the direction he guessed to be upstream. "Help! Kivuli! Irritum! Help me! Cath'ee!" With this last name, his foot came down in the river, and Finnian plunged into the torrent. The light gem escaped from his hand, his head submerged under the water, and all was lost to darkness.

---

​

And then he was falling....

Where is Finnian, and where will he land? Tune in next week to "The Collected Works of Spurius" to find out!*

 

[Ordeith]

"Poem of Winter"
by Spurius

Long faded, now, is Autumn’s pageantry;
And grim November sheds its dusky cloak
To lay before December’s hasty course,
That royal feet should not be brushed with snow.
So brightly lit the way! So gaily clad
The trees with candles in their living boughs!
With feast and song, we light December’s path—
'Til January turns its wicked face,
And buries icy daggers in December's​

two syllables​

Suddenly, last winter—​

And murders gay December in its sleep
O February, thawing hearts—

The snow-laden wind
How violently it snuffs out
Creativity

Spoiler Show

Ϡ Queen Anastaise | Between Dream and Waking, in the lens of the Moon

Anastaise cupped her hands tightly to her breast, careful not to let a single drop of blood escape.
Her heart, splintered as it was, could at any moment spill out.

She was standing at a precipice, the edge of a crater so deep that its bottom could not be seen. Every piece of her heart fluttered at the sight. Yellow-white dust stirred at her nervous feet, floated lazily through the thinness of space, and settled as a stationary cloud over the slope of the crater. The Queen caught a pleasant aroma, rich and inviting. It smelled of old smoke, released from ancient earth that had been turned for the first time in years of undisturbed sleep.

Gruyère, she realized, and laughed. Memories of a bygone banquet mingled with the sing-song of a childhood rhyme, and Anastaise could not contain her laughter at it all. The past seemed lucid to her now, arranged in its proper order. She was not a girl in a frock anymore — but all the same she could remember being one, and she could remember singing a peasant rhyme that declared the Moon to be made of cheese. She could remember the cheeses sampled at special feasts, and the fine cheeses brought to her by wealthy men seeking the crown's patronage. Among them was a delicious crumbly cheese called "Gruyère."

Memories came to her clearly, without pain or confusion, and so the Queen laughed joyfully. The pieces of her heart leapt in unison.

YOU ARE GLAD, BECAUSE YOU ARE NEARLY WHOLE AGAIN, said the Moon. Her voice rumbled through the peaks and craters and valleys, quavered through every rock and crumb. When it reached the cloud of moon-dust, it rose to a squeak as each tiny particle vibrated. I AM HAPPY FOR YOU, DAUGHTER, she said, FOR I TOO ENJOY BEING FULL AND WHOLE.

"My thanks," Anastaise chuckled. "You know my soul and body better than anyone else, Mother Moon. But now I know myself second-best."

INDEED. The Moon raised a laugh of her own, and the mountains shook with it. When she finished, all was silent until she spoke again. BUT NOW THAT WE HAVE SHARED THIS TIME OF LAUGHTER, WE MUST SEE TO THOSE WHO NOW CANNOT LAUGH, AS YOU COULD NOT LAUGH.

For one joyful moment, the Queen had forgotten the mysterious weeping that led her to Mother Moon — if only because she could no longer hear it. The sound of another person's sorrow had guided her from blindness to darkness to sight, creeping within earshot whenever her own senses were about to turn her astray. Now at last she had reached the edge of the world, beyond which the heavenly bodies warred to expand their empty domains. She would not find the weeping person here. She could go no farther.

She knew this, and Mother Moon already knew that she would know.

"You mean to show me this sorry person, then," the Queen said, "or lead me to their side? You sent their voice to me, as when you reflect the Sun to us at night." Anastaise could not conceive of who the faceless mourner might be, or why their grief could wrest her back from death. Even with her memory stitched and whole, she could not give a name or a face to that voice.

JUST SO, replied the Moon. COME AND SEE THEM, AS YOU MUST. I SHALL LEND YOU MY EYE. At this, the pit of the crater was split vertically, and the fissure peeled back to unveil the brilliant gleam of Mother Moon's eye. It was a kindly eye, surrounded by wrinkles and the dust of old-age sleep. Anastaise stepped inside, careful to avoid the sensitive corners of her great mother's eyelid; and when she was inside, she was reflected outward like the pale-gold sunlight seen at night.

She saw what the eye saw. Where it looked, she was manifest.

____________________________________________________​

The Queen saw the roiling Southern Sea, black as tar, with angry white froth at its edges. She walked amid the ruins of a high courtyard that overlooked the waves. A man's screams, a girl's triumphant cries echoed back to her. Somewhere the voice of Legion stirred as well.

She saw mature shadows wrap around the ruin, and on the southern horizon she saw many black limbs — claws, hooks, wings, hoofs, hands. A Great Beast was beckoning to Legion, and it responded.

The eye turned, and she saw, elsewhere, a bubbling mountain stream. Large Eastern reeds swayed gently, never far enough to touch or make noise. Empty, however, was the patch of grass where a person was clearly meant to sit, and the surrounding flowers were decidedly confused. Animal tracks crossed hither and thither, a testament to their impatience.

Looking outward, past the miniature sky, she saw a row of rumpled beds. The white sheets looked yellowish in the candlelight — but moonlight from a window revealed that these were fresh stains, not a trick of the fire. Standing where she was, she could hear another girl; she had a snap of brimstone in her voice, much like the long-lost girl from the castle.

She saw another darkness there, one that belonged to the gnarled wood of Faerie glens. It nestled between the tapestries and the wall, as if it could hide amid the ordinary shadows of the Ivory Manse.

Then she saw, far away in the Royal Cemetery, a light that should not have been.
It flickered with uncertainty, to the sound of little bells tinkling.

The Queen let it flicker and tend to its secrets. Its mission was much like her own, she realized, and she had no right to interfere. Instead she followed the squares of window-framed moonlight to the throne room. The throne itself was hidden somewhere beneath a monstrously fat frog, horned and wicked, that sat upon it. Before the dais, a dead man delivered what sounded like a rousing sermon — though she could not be certain, for he was speaking a dead language.

Quickly the sound grew tiresome, and she left the hideous creatures to their farce.

From there the Moon's eye scrolled wide, to the ancient forest beyond the Royal Demesne. Anastaise peered down, so far down that she needed to squint. When at last she spotted the Faerie clearing, she found herself in the midst of a thousand armed men, fierce and sorrowful. At their head was the last serving captain of Fort Londe — Edgar, the Queen recalled. Curiously, he wore a scrap of parti-colored cloth knotted on a chain around his neck, but he paid it no mind. His dead eyes were fixed ahead in rapt attention, upon the mossy ruin of a church that had lain undisturbed since Dragonsbane's fall.

She heard the sound of weeping from within.

____________________________________________________​

Ϡ Queen Anastaise | The Green Chapel, beyond the reach of men and angels

The Faerie grove, owing to its nature, was blanketed in perfect silence. No wind stirred, no stray leaf rustled or fell. Birds and animals were nowhere to be seen — and the dead men, true to their nature, did not compensate for their absence. A curtain of silence was closed tightly around that space, as it had been for hundreds of years before the founding of the old monastery. It was the perfect backdrop for the performance of a woman's sorrow.

There was no mistaking the sound; nothing, not even the moss-eaten walls, could mask it.
In the unnatural silence of Fae magic and bodiless shades, every blurred syllable of the stranger's grieving could be heard.

Anastaise winced at the sound. It was hoarse and undignified, carrying on as if no one else were present to hear. In choking, halting breaths, the person inside the chapel ruins divulged her secret shame to the world — proclaimed her pain and woe as if it were a hymn to be sung. The Queen felt a shame of her own, simply for overhearing this awful row. She felt that she was trespassing upon the site of a murder, eavesdropping on the relatives of the victim as they stumbled upon the corpse. Worse still was the certain knowledge that she needed to confront this unknown woman, and, in doing so, interrupt her grief.

She offered a moment of observant silence, then started toward the chapel. She broke the ranks of ghostly soldiers. No sooner did she pass the first threshold than her heart, still in pieces, lurched painfully inside her. The shock traveled through her blood vessels, into her limbs. Knees buckling, arms useless at her sides, she fell. What is this...? Anastaise gasped, confused, her throat constricting from the spastic overflow of blood. Am I to be led this far, only to fall here?

Behind her, a man's boot brushed softly against the thick moss carpet.
With some effort, Anastaise turned about and lifted her head.

He was rail-thin, draped in the ratty remains of a blue-grey surcoat. The chain beneath it was corroded through, dangling in thin shreds that jingled lightly when he breathed. He breathed very heavily. His face was filthy and dark, smeared with sweat and dirt and black rain from the Southern Sea. Anastaise could see blood in his beard, places where it had snagged or torn from his cheeks.

Looking between the gnarls of that old beggar's beard, which spilled neglectfully onto his chest, she saw a crescent moon in the threadbare embroidery of his surcoat.

"Sir Bertand," she gasped. Tears welled in her eyes, and through the tears she saw him more clearly. His eyes had been plucked, his mouth was sealed. His ears were stopped, his nose was plugged. His arms were pinned to his sides, and his legs had been maimed. He breathed heavily because his lungs were full of blood. He was half-starved because his stomach had been taken from him. His heart had been torn away, and buried deep in a dark place.

The man who had once been Bertrand did not try to speak, but reached out blindly with his broken fingers. When Anastaise clasped that rough, bony hand, the pieces of her heart came together. Warmth pulsed through her body, and the pain ebbed away. She was alive again. With her own strength, daring not to pull on the knight's crooked old arm, she stood up.

"Go," he rasped at last, "go forward. Go back. Go south."

Anastaise stepped forward, back to the land of the living. South, she echoed. We must go south.

 

[Professor Ven]

The full moon hung over the dark sky like a pallid, weeping face in within the great abyss of death's embrace.

Black and red blood was splattered across the purple and green outfit of the ancient, monstrous Jester, as he emerged from the forest's once denying boughs, no sight of a weapon upon his person. The nine bells in his hat tinkled their terrifying melody with each footstep, as Gibyr Witticus trudged down the road, towards the imposing and vast minaret, with the monastery around it being of more recent construction - that is to say, at least a few centuries old, the minaret itself possibly of an age beyond count.

He entered the gateway, which lay open, free of guards. With a snap of his gloved fingers, the ancient iron gates clanged shut of their own accord, the iron-bark bar setting itself into the niche behind them. Stopping for a moment, the malevolent being brushed his shoulders, and then continued walking.

He opened the main door into the minaret without difficulty, pushing aside what ivy there was to reveal the name of the place itself: the Library.

As Gibyr Witticus entered, he was met by a scholar in a grey robe, whose hood remained up - and carried a candle for light. As it turned out, the minaret was vastly larger on the inside, though this did not phase the ancient Jester. He uttered a single word to the monk . . .

_____________________________

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Spoiler Show

J. Ordeith,
​

You will note this transcription as being true and the following letters I have placed alongside it in regards to our most recent visitor to the Library. It was most adamant at seeing the text Spurius, however I hadthegreatidea to provide him with a copy of Reinehaart's Flamedark Tales, in order to placate it. As ever, Betrand is worried of more visitors (and who else holds the Library and its portents more precious than he), though I am of the mind that there will be none others who come here. I will continue to transcribe this Being's tales with precision accuracy, and send them for your approval and comparison to other texts and translations which revolve around Spurius.
​

​

​

Humbly,​

​

Brother Regulus​

 

[KingdomKey]

Ϡ Cathy | Inside a small room. Time skip? Training.

A few decorative plates sat before her on a desk in a neat and tidy row. Each platter containing a small meal laced with poison she must detect, before the poison worked it's way through her system and killed her. The antidote within arms reach was the only thing that'd keep her alive. This wouldn't be the first time she done this, but she was wary of a certain pair of golden eyes looking her way or seeking her out from the shadows and screwing up her concentration. A soft sigh drew her attention, making her look up at her mentor sitting across the desk from her.

"Child, you should be able to detect each lethal poison without tasting it."

Cathy scowled, leaning forward and banging her fists on the desk; manners be damned as the dishes rattled on the desk and dangerously teeter totted neared the edges. "This wasn't what I meant by training! I know how to do this already!" Her raised voice didn't even get a rise out of her mentor whom she met briefly in the Ivory Manse kitchen, eating nothing more than apple and sitting on a stool, waiting on her to find him with a curious expression on his face. He looked ordinary, twice her age with brown hair and a dark complexion with one eye covered by an eye patch with something mechanical inside of it. How he got into the castle was beyond her.

"What you learn is for me to decide," He said evenly, taking each dish and setting them aside under her watchful eyes. "Eva sent me. That's all I can share with you. If you ask the right questions, I'll indulge you." Then he set down a goblet before her, which she never seen before and knew it wasn't from within the castle. The contents inside the cup looked like it came from a fallen star. "Do you remember the tales of the Fey?"

There are Summer and Winter Courts. High Faeries rule both. Some have rules and riddles to trick humans or their enemies into a life of hell of their own making. Never eat or drink something faerie made or they'll gobble you up beneath the earth and never let you go. Some are powerful, majestic, and cruel. While others will abide by different rules, giving a life time to humans they choose. Not all of them look human. Something called glamour. Iron is suppose to hurt them. And they cannot lie.

"I do." Cathy cleared her throat, "And I'm positive that I shouldn't drink whatever is in that cup." When it was clear he wasn't going to ask her anything else, she watched him drink it in one gulp and let out a satisfying moan. "Am I from the Summer Court? Is Eva not from either one?"

"Smart girl, you're from the Summer Court and far away from home."

It took a moment for his words to sink in before Cathy stifled a cry of surprise, covering her mouth with a hand and held back her tears. No longer was she an orphanage girl with no home. How she wound up in the Ivory Manse and portrayed as a human baffled her -- making her thoughts stir as she gazed at the fey before her with a cocky smile on his face. Then it dawned on her. "You didn't answer my question about Eva. Am I right or wrong?"

"Ask a different question." He said, his face turning back into an expressionless one.

"How long am I going to have to put up with you? What happened to your eye?" Cathy asked heatedly, unable to keep her temper from rising with half assed answers and felt the sudden urge to hurt the man put in charge of her. A small part of her felt guilty, when she knew he didn't deserve it -- but this wasn't the time for guilt, when the castle wasn't right, a demon queen is in charge, Bastian seeking her out and posing as a threat to Finny.

"However long it takes for you to smarten up, Girl." He replied, snapping the goblet in half and looking away from her -- the tips of his ears red with a twitching cheek that made his lip curl in a smile of anger and bitterness. "And you may call me Lucien. I didn't want to agree to this task, but looks like neither of us has a choice until the terms are met."

If Cathy wasn't already confused, she was now. In her mind, she experimented in saying his name before pondering what terms he made and with who. Then as if lightning had struck in the depths of her mind, she asked decidedly, "What can you tell me or be allowed to show me, Lucien?" Something she said made the man before her stir, whipping his head around to look at her with surprise or perhaps relief with a grin that reached his ears. Almost unnatural.

"And now we're getting somewhere." Lucien purred, standing up and taking her hand in the blink of an eye. "When you come back, you'll be someone else entirely."

"What if I don't want to change into someone else?" Cathy said softly, allowing him to take her away -- leading her through secret tunnels and passageways. Her thoughts drifting to Finnian and what that could mean for the both of them. "I like being me."

Lucien didn't look at her as he kept going until a bright light shone through an opening in an wall, covered by moss and vines. The scent of rain mixed in with the earthy smell of dirt was a welcoming one, which meant they weren't inside the castle anymore and were headed somewhere else. Lucien parted the moss and vines to reveal a pair of horse huffing and pawing at the dirt.

"You'll have to decide when the time comes, what becomes of you." He said at last, halting and climbing into the straddle of a horse. "For now, let us go beyond the wall and into faerie land."

Something ominous to come.
What could Lucien mean?
Will Bastian make his move? ​

 

[Ordeith]

Ϡ Marutia | The Green Chapel, four— seven? nights after the attack​

She was crushed by the dread certainty of the monk's words, crushed as if the ancient stone chapel had fallen upon her head.

The theft of the Queen's body was a horror beyond horrors, and the usurpation of her throne was a death blow to the centuries-old peace of her ancestors. Transient, earthly concerns. Neither of these could compare to the ruin of Anastaise's immortal soul. I have destroyed her utterly, Marutia realized. I have ferried her soul to Hell, or to someplace far worse.

The archangel felt a snapping of a thread that ran from heaven to her body on Earth. Everything slackened — her limbs, her posture, her gaze, her breath, her thoughts. Her failure was a paralyzing wound. All of Marutia's heavenly wisdom fell useless before the simple, terrible fact that humankind had lost its brightest light. She tried to maintain her dignity as she wept, but it was such a dishonest farce that she abandoned it at once, despite the fact that it was well within her willpower. (awkward alliteration; fix this?) Marutia wailed and cried, clawed her eyes and tore at her hair. To the utter disgust of the part of her soul that remained forever aloof, she allowed herself to be rent apart by mortal grief.

O God, she prayed, remove me from my seat of honor by Your side. Let me be cast among the lowest of the low...

Time slipped away like an eel into water-weeds, and the Moon made its nightly arc across the sky. The Aedif Scriptorium was designed in such a way that natural light, be it from the Sun or the Moon, would always illuminate most of the room (is this possible?). Soon enough the moonlight crept around the building, from the north-facing windows to the east-facing windows. When at last it spilled through the westernmost windows, and fell upon Marutia's broken form, something happened.

The pale shaft of light shimmered, wavered. It coalesced into the shape of gave rise to an silhouette outline of a woman
Where it fell, it revealed the shadowy folds of a gown that was not there NO.
It quavered to the sound of a woman's voice — singing, beckoning

SHORT VERSION: The queen came back.
—Write and polish later​

Addendum. Fiercely they embraced, and though their bodies did not touch — and, indeed, would never touch 'til the demon usurper meet her end — their souls met across that abyssal canyon which separates the living from the dead. Just as when two lovers share a heartbeat as they lie abed, so too did the Queen and her guardian angel feel one another in the entangling of their spirits. A wrenching nostalgia, a feeble joy, an object of obsession and the sincere hope to reclaim it. A singular desire smoldered in their minds, full of righteous anger that would not be quenched.

____________________________________________________________​

Ϡ Captain Edgar | Yard of the Green Chapel, the night of the Queen's awakening

(Note 6/1. The entire passage appears to have been removed by a pen knife or some similarly unsuitable instrument. Before shelving this mostly archived volume, we will endeavor to locate the missing pages within the substantial body of work ascribed to Spurius' The Last Queen. Any further search will be conducted in the midst of transcribing other works of Spurius.)

____________________________________________________________​

My diligent librarians—

A chill winter gives way to a fetid spring, and now summer once again raises its lazy head. Short the year, long the day! However, if all passes according to plan, I expect to walk through our Library's doors before the first week of June is out. There I shall remain for a long time, as I should. My latest adventures, and the texts that I managed to recover in the meanwhile, are too numerous to describe in this brief space. Once I have reviewed your work thus far, you will hear of them all.

For the present, I urge you to take heed of the seasons. This singular weather — a hot, damp summer, giving rise to all manner of unwelcome rot — is eerily similar to that described in the first drafts of The Last Queen. (Please double-check the sigils against moisture and mold.) Though we often work with texts of considerable magical potency, I cannot suppress a certain dread at the prospect of our own world falling under the influence of Spurius. Perhaps he or she was forgotten for reasons greater than we surmised at first. We will discuss this at greater length upon my return.

Regulus: I receive your message with the deepest gratitude. Please keep the disturbance contained, as you have done so well thus far; I shall make this situation my top priority upon my return. Any recorded statements would be treasured greatly, but not at risk to yourself or the others. I trust your judgment.

— J. Ordeith​

 

[Ordeith]

(Note 6/28. After a search spanning many weeks, we have recovered only the following incomplete draft of the missing passage meant to conclude the first book of Spurius's The Last Queen. It is scarcely more than a page of notes and half-starts, with little to suggest the contents of the final version, if such a thing exists. Nevertheless, the timeline presented herein is largely accurate to one particular continuation of the story. As such, it may prove useful in dating and categorizing certain branches of Spurius's work within this particular novel. Read with discretion.)​

Ϡ Captain Edgar | Yard of the Green Chapel, the night of the Queen's awakening

A host of hollow men was now gathered outside the Green Chapel, standing at rest beneath the creaking brooding overgrowth of the faerie wood. The moon reigned high over the night sky, and the wayward souls gathered beneath it emitted tiny lights of their own, like grains of luminescent dust shaved off from that grand heavenly body, flickering as they lay upon the earth. Keep this!!!

The soldiers were equal in death — equally indistinct, equally empty of themselves, to the point that none could recall even his name. Class and division surely meant nothing to these shades, yet nonetheless they stood at rapt attention, in rank and file, before the ruined chapel threshold. What meager will they retained was fixed upon a singular idea, that someone of great importance was somewhere in front of them. That lingering (lasting?) thought spurred Edgar

In earthly Purgatory, wand'ring long
Betwixt the broken stones, the brooding trees,
The men and women of the Fort await
Reunion with the Mater Matria. ​

that singular goal, the all-important idea that a person worthy of respect was somewhere in their presence,
and that a gesture of respect is owed.

When flesh is shed, and stinging arrows rot
Beneath the nameless graves, a thought alone
Remains.​

Clinging to the memory of rank and file, lines and legions (?), they bound their wills to that final act of respect acknowledgement of their queen, Goddess rest her soul. There they would stand in final salute, until their last spiritual vestiges expire. (Awkward, overly florid. Revise.)

______________________________________________________


The wayward soul belonging once to Edgar of Fort Londe, having at one time worn his likeness and answered to his name, stood at rapt attention before the inner threshold of the Green Chapel. Its hollow eyes, set in an ethereal face which shone outward like a ghastly silver beacon, communicated only a desperate hunger — but for what, no living person could divine.



Edgar stood amid hollow men, upon hallowed ground. He could no longer feel himself — the substance of himself — within, but rather in s

some external place?​

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[Here the ink is smudged past legibility.]—from which poured a greater light than all the others, greater by virtue of its warmth as well as its brilliance. Edgar edged closer to it, pulled forward only by the agonizing emptiness within himself. The consumptive hunger of death, which had reduced him to a shade, became a will independent of any lingering thought or memory. It was a desire that overpowered any sense of self remaining to him, and likewise any sense of self-preservation — the desire to live again!

Out from the chapel threshold poured all the lost sensations of life and being alive — the sparkle of a living man's eyes, the heat of a living man's skin. Color, too, bled back into the world, and what a rich bounty of color it was! For the first moment since his death, Edgar saw greens and browns, the mottled white of chapel stone, the purple teardrop petals of faerie wildflowers, the searing gold of fireflies drifting in the blue-stained blackness of the midnight sky. It assaulted his soul with such beauty and feeling that he cried aloud, feebly. He felt the fabric of his soul unravel as he crawled toward that all-redeeming light.

Yet as his ghostly limbs dissipated in the throes of such ecstasy, his eyes remained fixed upon his goal. A mother's embrace, a voice whispered to him. A place to rest. The shade of Captain Edgar waged its final battle its most dire battle upon that short stretch of ground, fighting to know t

And at last, pain — a blinding, stinging pain, like staring itno the Sun! He and the other shades
The chorus of ghostly cries would be terrible to hear, were it not for the joy so resoundant(?) in their tones​

He rose, then, as a living man — a soul, sans corpore, yet restored to life and memory. (Does this make sense?)
And in that current of borrowed moonlight, he beheld the Queen.

She wore a gown lacking any frills or ornamentation, yet resplendent in the way its phantom fabric trapped the nighttime lights. When she moved, it rippled slowly and fluidly, as if the Moon were shining through deep water. Behind her stood the guardian angel of the royal family, in full battle dress. She shadowed Her Majesty's movements like a faithful dancing partner.

"My queen," Edgar croaked, the rawness of his voice feeling as real to him as if he had a body. Hastily he dropped to one knee. For a man who had spent an untold time floating listlessly through the aether, the sensation of hard stone beneath him was a joy indeed. (Rephrase this.)

Queen Anastaise, first of her name, laughed and bade him rise. "Come, sir," she said, "be glad. God has blessed us with a second chance, and we have seized it." She placed her hand upon his face, and at once Edgar could see in Her Majesty's expression the same childlike delight that gripped his soul. Comfort and joy shone from her face, and hope rang true in her voice. "I do so hope that my good captain, and all of his men," here she gestured to the ghosts assembled in the yard, "will seize it with us."

At a nod of assent from the Queen, Edgar turned to face the soldiers who had died under his command. They stood whole in scattered ranks before him, with clear eyes and lucid features. A whisper hung over them, so fragile that none dared speak it fully — the notion that all might not be lost. The captain, too, was paralyzed with hope and fear, until he felt the archangel's eyes upon him. The day is lost to you, soldier, he felt her say, so seize the night. Edgar set his jaw, drew his sword, and saluted his phantom garrison. Their reverie broken by the phantom sound of drawn steel, they saluted back.

"Knights and soldiers of Fort Londe," he cried, "defenders of the Ivory Manse and Her Majesty's city of Drakenburg! To formation!" Boots stomped in unison. Weapons were drawn and brought to position. Edgar surveyed their ranks with pride. Here, without a fort to defend, the garrison had become an army. He knelt again before the Queen, the pommel of his sword raised in deference to her. "We salute Your Majesty," he said. "We are, ever and always, Queen's Men."

The silence of that cursed forest could not contain their resounding cries, "Queen's Men! Queen's Men! Goddess save the Queen!"

The lone monk of the Green Chapel wept for joy, praising the Almighty in heaven and the Queen on earth.
Feeble though he was, his part in the coming war would be great indeed.

No person, living or dead, would forget the war which began that night.

End of first book.​

 

[Ordeith]

End of the First Draft.
__________________________________________

Here ends the first incomplete draft of Spurius' The Last Queen, as best we can restore it.
The remainder of our recovered manuscripts, with a few notable exceptions,
are of a decidedly later date. As we prepare to translate and compile what
we believe to be the author's second draft, I urge my diligent librarians
to seek out any outliers among the working sample of manuscripts, and
decipher what secrets they hold. There is a beating heart buried
somewhere within this first volume of Spurius, a kernel of truth
that has suffered silence for too long.

Help me, as ever you do, to return dead voices to speak among the living.

Begin now our first Interlude.​