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It is the Fury’s honest truth, all told, that even the most pious and morally upstanding church mouse in all Ishgard is susceptible to temptation when they can convince themselves no one will see.
Take Stephanivien, for example, and Artoirel. Normally they were on vaguely friendly terms, one High House heir to another. Each understood implicitly that they were expected to marry fertiile women and produce legitimate heirs for their respective Houses, and each accepted as much. Give them each a flimsy half-mask and some fancy-dress clothes, though, and they rebelled against their separate fates: they became downright flirtatious, even sneaking away for clandestine trysts all their own. No heirs to see here, no sir! Only a stylized basilisk in an emerald mask and a duellist bleeding rubies.
Everyone could tell, of course, that Artoirel was the duellist — he didn’t even bother to hide the House Fortemps crest pin on his ascot! — and Stephanivien was the clockwork basilisk. No one was fooled or deceived. But they pretended as much, of course, because who wasn’t playing the same game?
There was Charlemend de Durendaire, setting aside his grief for his long-lost son just long enough to don a costume and forget his sorrows for an evening, apparently costumed as some sort of octopus. He was deep in conversation (and a rather suggestive one, to all appearances) with the Widow de Bourbagne, whose mask suggested a wild coeurl. Lord Speaker de Borel drew his illicit Auri lover into his lap, just a little too close for propriety, and never mind his family history, never mind that she sported horns and a tail even out of disguise, never mind the folks who called him dragonfucker behind his back. And what of the Leveilleur twins, attending in their capacity as House Fortemps wards? Both costumed all in swan-feather white, they were indistinguishable except by which was dragging a taciturn and charmingly-costumed Estinien around the room, arm in arm. The solitary twin, by contrast, seemed to have her eye on one of the Dzemaels’ house musicians, a pretty cellist costumed as some sort of songbird.
Sicard sneered at the hypocrisy of it all, and Emmanellain knew he was right. Nevertheless, he sympathized; he couldn’t help it. Perfection was a heavy burden to bear, and the once-annual masquerade gave them the gift of anonymity, however illusory. It allowed them to be bold.
And Sicard could sneer all he liked, but what besides a mask could have got him in the front door?
He was tragically aware of it, too, judging by the way his eyes darted around the room, sizing up the scene. “This ain’t gonna work,” he whispered anxiously. “They’ll be able to tell at a glance I’m not one of ‘em. I don’t fit in this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It suits you wonderfully.” He gestured up and down at Sicard’s costume: white frock coat studded with seed pearls, lacy red cravat like a spray of arterial blood at his throat, and an alabaster mask inlaid with rubies. His boots were polished atrociraptor, scarcely worn, and high enough to soften the uniquely Ishgardian taper of the trousers. And then there was the jewelry: moonstones for his ears, rings with red stones, and a silver pin shaped into a dagger to keep the lace bunched at his throat. “I’ll grant that animals are the fashion this year, but even when murder victims were trendy, there’s not a one who pulled it off half so well as you.”
“Oh, I make a convincin’ murder victim, do I? That’s bloody comfortin’.” Sicard shook his head. “Ain’t what I mean, though. ‘S more like . . . well, the fine lace, an’ the leathers, an’ fancy rocks an’ all. I trade in this stuff, mate. I know the cost of it all. ‘S too rich for my blood.”
Emmanellain waved his concerns away. “That money was spent before I even met you. And Dora adjusted the fit for free.”
“I reckon it’s a lot easier to make these fancy togs fit me than to make me fit them,” said Sicard. “You can dress up a pirate in a prince’s clothes, but he ain’t no less a pirate in ‘em. I don’t know how to be anythin’ else, don’t know how to make nice wi’ this horde. Who the hells do I think I am, comin’ to one o’ their parties?”
“The lover of a High House Scion,” said Emmanellain decisively.
“An’ if that’s so respectable, how come I can’t even go to one o’ your fancy balls ‘less there’s masks to conceal who you brought?”
A troubled look settled on Emmanellain’s face. “Sicard . . . you know I . . . ” He gestured helplessly, as if he could thereby express all the contradictions and complications of his position.
Sicard shook his head. “Never mind. Ain’t complainin’ — bold o’ me to whine ‘bout not fittin’ in ‘mongst the nobles, an’ then complain you don’t treat me like one of ‘em when I ain’t.”
“I’m bored to tears of nobles,” said Emmanellain. “You’re more attractive than ten of them put together.”
“An’ for my part, I think it’s sexy, bein’ your dirty li’l secret,” said Sicard. “Jus’ . . . y’know, so long as you’re sure.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more certain of — oh!” Emmanellain startled as Sicard pressed in close, his hands sliding underneath Emmanellain’s antelope-skin capelet to touch his chest through his light silk shirt. They stood face to face, mouths separated by a fraction of an ilm, a moment’s teasing before they closed the distance. Their masks clicked together gently, affectionately. Emmanellain wanted to melt right into him. “Mmm, careful there,” he murmured. “We’re about to be in polite company, you know. Don’t get me too worked up.”
Sicard studied him shrewdly. “Or what?”
“Or . . . or you’ll have to take decisive action to amend the problem before we can make our appearance.”
“Decisive action, is it?”Sicard snorted. “You gonna make me?”
“Do you really intend to refuse?”
“Fuck no, mate.” Sicard laughed as though he was trying — and failing — to keep a straight face. “Just tryin’ to map out where we stand.”
“Preferably we don’t,” said Emmanellain. “You know I much prefer you on your back.”
“Might have to settle for me on my knees, mate, or we’ll be makin’ a scandal of ourselves, showin’ up late an’ all in disarray.”
He was right, of course, though it galled Emmanellain on a number of different levels. What was even the point of being the most disappointing of three Fortemps sons if he couldn’t show up for balls, freshly-fucked and looking the part, with his pirate lover in tow?
They made their entrance without the usual fanfare of being announced as a guest; the Dzemaels had broken with that tradition years ago, at least for this one ball in particular. If costumes provided the guests with delicious anonymity, none wanted to risk having a name matched to their mask so soon. Sicard led them straight to the punch bowl — predictably, really. “I’d happily fight down a damn leviathan stone sober, but if you want me to face your phalanx of Ishgardian aristocrats, I’m gonna need a bit o’ liquid courage.” He smiled, but Emmanellain knew he was only half joking.
Taking up his own liquid courage, taking a steady gulp, he spoke up. “You know . . . there’s . . . well, there’s this one fantasy I’ve always sort of had, you know, about these sorts of parties.”
Sicard cocked his head. “Tell me.”
“Well, I used to think about how much I would love to go to one of these High House parties and just . . . sneak away from all the dancing and finger foods and polite conversation. You know, with someone attractive. Sneak away and . . . uh, have some fun.”
“You mean fuck,” Sicard said boldly. “You mean get each other off.”
“Shhh! Not so loud! But yes, that’s what I mean.”
“At a High House party. All them noble families, the lot of them, just waitin’ to catch you in a compromisin’ position, an’ you sneakin’ away to get your rocks off.”
Emmanellain nodded hesitantly, red-faced and abashed. “I know. It’s a terrible idea. We could get in so much trouble if we got caught.”
“An’ be the talk o’ the whole town, too. Never live it down.”
“Artoirel might literally run me through with a sword. An actual sword!”
“An’ who could blame ‘im?” A pause. “We’re still gonna do it though, yeah?”
Emmanellain grinned. “You know, I rather suspect we shall.”
“Thought you might.”
“A house with as many hiding places as this one? I daresay we’ll be doing it more than once before the night is through.”
- - - - - -
There was no place in all of Ishgard as well-suited for mysteries and intrigues as Dzemael Manor, and there was no single room in the manor as suitable as the library. The rich mahogany and walnut shelves housed a veritable banquet of knowledge on all things occult and arcane. It was where Janneqinard de Durendaire encountered his first books on the art of divination, and where Jandelaine, convalescing in his father’s home during a bout of sickliness, had undertaken the study of glamours.
Of course, it was also the site of the High House scions’ first awakenings to some of life’s more prosaic mysteries, the ones Ishgardian Orthodoxy had long preferred to conceal and condemn.
It was that recollection that drove Emmanellain to lead Sicard straight there at the earliest opportunity.
The room was empty so early in the evening, but the lamps were lit, and a fire crackled at the grate in anticipation of future use as the night wore on. The flickering glow was cheerful, even homey, in the immediate area it lit, but it cast foreboding shadows along the far wall. Emmanellain cast a wary look at the floor-to-ceiling shelves on the back wall, but passed them by without stopping. He fixed his eyes on an interior wall covered with several hanging tapestries, each depicting luridly violent war scenes: Dravanians and Elezen locked in their endless bloody battle, woven and embellished stitch by scarlet stitch.
They didn’t interest Sicard much, and he found himself wandering back towards the fireplace. Absently he picked up a light crystal bottle from the end table, examined the amber liquid within. Some sort of spirit, he guessed at first, but no: the texture was all wrong, slick and slightly viscous.
“Oi, Emmanellain!” he called, voice pitched library-quiet. “This is oil, ain’t it? What’s the logic of havin’ bottles of oil in a library?”
Emmanellain reddened very slightly at the tips of his ears. “Not traditional for most balls, I’ll grant, but All Saints’ Wake is different. A little bit more . . . risqué. The upper classes refuse to acknowledge the necessity, but the servants began to leave them out to ease the guests’, ah, intimate encounters. No one can tell them to stop because they’d have to admit they noticed the oils and worked out what they were used for.”
“Bloody Ishgard,” Sicard muttered, and returned the bottle to its original spot.
Emmanellain ignored him, and rapped one of the panelled walls with his knuckles, producing a dull thud. “That doesn’t sound right,” he mused. “Was it the third tapestry or the fourth? Must’ve been the fourth, I guess, which would put the latch . . . right here.”
“What’re you —?” The creak of rusty hinges cut off the end of Sicard’s question. He watched the wall open into a dark alcove lined with barely-perceptible stone shelves, as well as a few wooden book racks and a matching armoire.
Emmanellain lighted a lantern perched on a nearby table, careful to seal the storm glass, and gestured towards the dim opening. “They’ve got these all over the castle — secret rooms and passages everywhere,” he explained. “But I think you’ll quickly see why this one’s a favourite amongst us spoiled, shiftless noblemen.”
The doorway was narrow, but high; Emmanellain could have touched the hidden lintel at a stretch, but Sicard would probably have to jump for it. The walls were bare stone, but warm somehow — a trick of aetheric something-or-other, Sicard reckoned. There were stone shelves straight ahead, and wood ones to his left, but on his right . . .
“Llymlaen’s tits, mate, is that Halone?”
There hung on the wall a triptych of paintings, lovingly rendered in hyperrealistic detail. In one, a nude woman writhed, ecstatic, in the arms of a great wyrm, whose silver tongue lolled and lingered between her parted legs. Another depicted a stern-looking man in clerical robes, tearing open the dress of a penitent to reveal her lithe body, his intent obvious. But it was the central image that caught Sicard’s attention, and Emmanellain’s: the Fury herself, unmistakeable, radiant in the aftermath of battle. She wore her traditional golden helm and gold boots to the thigh, nothing else. Her spear was planted firmly against the ground, and she gripped it one-handed like a stripper’s pole. Her powerful thighs glistened wetly, like the paint was freshly applied, and the sheen drew the viewer’s eye as she lowered herself defiantly down onto the pommel of her foe’s sword in an act of domination. Her mouth was frozen wide-open, screaming her triumph and ecstasy to the cerulean sky.
Sicard glanced sideways at Emmanellain, standing open-mouthed and wide-eyed with shock. “Guessin’ that ain’t church-approved artwork,” he said dryly.
“Not hardly!” said Emmanellain. “It’s outright blasphemous, is what it is. The Church would probably burn them if they knew. Which is probably why they’re keeping it hidden away here. It’s new, though; it wasn’t here last time I snuck in. That would’ve been ages ago, though; I would’ve been maybe seventeen or eighteen at most.”
Sicard strolled over to the bookshelf. The books in here were clearly cheaper than the ones in the main library, with paper spines, less elegantly bound. He selected one, sifted through the pages. “This is . . . gods. They make this kind o’ stuff in Ishgard? I mean, the pictures alone . . .” He held up the book, opened to a random illustration, for Emmanelain’s inspection. “You can’t tell me that ain’t obscene.”
Emmanellain blushed. “You and I do that all the time.”
“Aye,” said Sicard. “That’s how I know it’s obscene.” He picked out another book at random and flipped through. This one didn’t have any pictures; the text was so vivid, they were scarcely needed. “Hmm. I think I’m gettin’ the sense o’ why you an’ your noble friends were so interested in this collection.”
“Ishgard is rather secretive about its vices,” acknowledged Emmanellain. “But as you may have noticed, we do have them. I daresay someone has been amassing this collection for quite some time — and I daresay it’s been highly educational and rather formative for several generations of the aristocracy, even before my own time. I thought it would be an ideal place for us to — ”
Sicard’s head shot up like a fox scenting prey. “Quiet. Someone’s comin’.” He shoved the book guiltily back onto the shelf.
Emmanellain froze; he could hear voices in the library, quite close to the hidden door. And if his ears could be trusted . . . “Artoirel!” The rosy blush that had highlighted his features since he discovered the recently-installed triptych turned to an anxious pallour. “Oh, he’s going to kill me! And you! And then me again!”
“Dunno why he’d kill you twice,” said Sicard. “I’m the filthy pirate takin’ advantage o’ his baby brother.”
“He presumes I know better,” said Emmanellain. “Can you tell what he’s saying?”
“No,” said Sicard. “He ain’t alone, though — I can hear another man with ‘im. An’ —” It sounds like they’re about to come in here, he meant to say, but the creaking door hinges spoke up first. He cursed under his breath, glancing around the room for the shreds of a plan: an excuse, an escape, a hiding place, anything.
And, as always, his pirate resourcefulness came to the rescue.
He clicked his fingers for Emmanellain’s attention. “Oi! Armoire!” He pivoted in the direction of the heavy wooden wardrobe, grabbing Emmanellain around the waist and pulling him in. They managed to get the cupboard doors most of the way shut, just as the wall of the room swung open once more to admit two Elezen men in silhouette.
In the light of the room, Sicard could see Emmanellain’s eyes aglow, wide with panic. He gestured emphatically at the open crack between the cupboard doors where the light flowed in freely. Sicard tried his best to convey calm with his facial expression: ’s fine. ‘S dark in here an’ light in there. They can’t see us. He wasn’t sure Emmanellain understood the gesture, or if he could even see it beyond the crush of garments hanging all around them: petticoats and lacy things, mostly, as well as some tight, slinky numbers and a few strap-heavy leather garments. Sicard tried not to think too hard about any of their various uses as he held Emmanellain close in the crush — not out of digust, certainly not, but because it was hardly a convenient time to be getting ideas.
The man who was not Artoirel let out a whistle upon noticing the triptych of paintings. “Fury have mercy! Will you look at that?” He was golden-haired, with hooded eyes and high cheekbones (even by Elezen standards), and seemed to be dressed as some sort of serpent. Sicard didn’t know him on sight, but he heard Emmanellain murmur his name, just above a whisper: “Stephanivien de Haillenarte.”
“Haillenarte? Another High House toff?”
“Yes. Shhh.”
Out of sight from the cabinet’s narrow vantage, Artoirel scoffed. “Well, we’ve never exactly come to this part of the Dzemael library for tasteful art, have we?”
“It’s not art I’ve come here to appreciate at all,” Stephanivien remarked. He stepped out of view, forcing Sicard to shift his line of sight. He watched the golden-haired mechanist step up close behind Artoirel and ease aside his formal ascot to cover his neck with tiny nips and kisses.
Artoirel absently removed the lacy accessory and set it aside, still staring at the paintings. “That one there, with the archbishop ravishing the maid - whoever painted these, they’ve made her look an awful lot like de Borel, wouldn’t you say?”
“Mmmm. I suppose so. But I’m not especially interested in looking at him right now. I’d rather see more of you.” Stephanivien took Artoirel by the shoulders and turned him, the better to capture his mouth in an increasingly passionate kiss. Artoirel melted into it, forgot about the art and kissed back with a passion.
“Hypocrite,” Emmanellain muttered darkly. It was harder to take a philosophical view of the aristocracy’s double standards, Sicard supposed, when one was forced to hide inside a cupboard.
He shifted position, leaning back into the frothy crush of a crinoline floating cloudlike between him and the cabinet’s rear wall. He heard a quiet purr, as of fabric tearing, and something sharp and metallic dug insistently into his upper thigh; he twisted his body as best he could to examine it in the dim. Meanwhile, Emmanellain watched with increasing displeasure as Artoirel began to unbutton Stephanivien’s scale-print waistcoat. Stephanivien eagerly returned the favour, pressing in close with hands wandering, and he set about stripping the heir to House Fortemps to the waist.
“Oh, no,” Emmanellain moaned. “Am I going to have to watch my brother — ? Oh, gross.”
“Found somethin’ back here,” whispered Sicard, tugging at Emmanellain’s capelet. “Some kind o’ latch, an’ it goes to . . . a trap door! There’s a trap door!”
“Oh, thank the Fury!” Emmanellain almost tripped over Sicard in his haste to dive through. Sicard, purportedly an only child and accustomed to the lack of discretion common on a pirate vessel, waited his turn bemusedly. He couldn’t quite resist the impulse to peek once more through the crack in the cupboard doors, though he would never speak a word to Emmanellain about what he saw.
The path beyond the trap door was dim, and downward-loping; they could feel it growing increasingly uneven under their feet, but it was hard to make out anything more than a handful of yalms before their faces. “Damn shame we didn’t think to grab the lantern ‘fore we scurried off,” said Sicard.
“The lantern!” groaned Emmanellain. Sicard could hear his hand slap dramatically against his forehead. “Do you think Artoirel and Stephanivien will wonder who left it lit before they arrived? What if they realized they weren’t alone?”
“They look to you like they were noticin’ much of anything ‘cept each other?”
“Can you even believe it?” Emmanellain’s voice came out an indignant squeal bouncing off close stone walls. “All the times he’s spouted off about marrying well and carrying on the family name, and all the while he’s sneaking off for this! You can hardly tell me they looked like this was their first time creeping away together. The way they were touching each other? No. They’ve done this plenty before. Granted, I know it’s not a serious thing, and it is All Saints’ Wake where the rules are different, but still. He’s got no right to say a single word to me.”
Sicard glanced at him sideways, even though it was too dark to actually see him. “Didn’t realize he had. Thought he was a’right with our. . . situation.”
“It’s . . . maybe a little complicated,” admitted Emmanellain. “He likes us fine together. He understands it’s as more than business partners, and he has no complaints on that score. He just . . . well, he knows one day he’ll have to make a match with a woman who’ll bear him little Fortemps heirs, and he expects I’ll do the same. For the sake of the family legacy.”
“You ain’t the firstborn,” said Sicard. “You ain’t sirin’ heirs in any case.”
“Direct heirs? It would be unlikely,” Emmanellain acknowledged. “But he’ll point to the Dzemaels’ distinct lack of legitimate descendants and the death of the Durendaires’ heir, and say how the family needs my sons as a contingency plan.”
“O’ course. Dunno why I’d expect anythin’ different out o’ bleedin’ Ishgard.” He spat the city’s name like that of a particularly hated nemesis.
“Well, it’s not what I want!” said Emmanellain crossly. “I always say he could just have seven sons and then mine won’t be needed, but he doesn’t seem to consider that a satisfactory solution. It doesn’t mean I’m going to obey him.”
Sicard sighed. “Let’s let it lie, mate. I don’t wanna fight. There’s better uses of our time.”
He looked fondly over at Emmanellain, which led him to realize he was able to look at Emmanellain, and to make out the stark white antelope mask pushed up on his forehead, and the gentle rounding of his cheek underneath. “Hold up. I think there’s light ahead!”
It glowed pale white across the rocky terrain, illuminating a scaffold shelf housing abandoned barrels and boxes, and a sturdy workman’s lantern long unused. Instead, the light emanated from a scattering of violet and indigo crystals protruding, sharp as daggers, from the nearby walls. Rock dust filtered lazily through their sparkling, scintillating glow, creating the illusion of light slowly dancing across the corridor between them. Sicard reached out and caught Emmanellain’s fingers between his own. “Look at that! Bloody beautiful . . . ”
Emmanellain, looking very pale in the crystal light, bent to take a closer look at the lantern. “This thing is just covered in dust. It hasn’t been touched in years at the least, maybe even decades.” He opened the glass door. “It’s never even been lit. I can’t imagine why it was left here all this time.”
“Same’s true of a lot o’ this stuff,” said Sicard. “There’s food, though I reckon most of it’s gone rotten by now, an’ there’s tools, buildin’ supplies, weapons an’ sundries, even some beddin’ for workers. Guess they must’ve had crystal miners what stayed overnight, time to time.” He smiled lasciviously. “Bet we can make good use o’ those, wouldn’t you guess?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Emmanellain coyly, grinning. “Perhaps you could provide some example?”
Sicard laughed, and tugged Emmanellain towards one of the storage shelves, near thick enough to stack three barrels deep. “Supposin’ we climb up here, where these blankets are.” Like a gentleman, he helped Emmanellain up; like a rogue, he then immediately pushed him down on his back in the blankets, crawled on top and straddled his hips. “That’s a good bit more comfortable than bein’ on the hard rocky ground, wouldn’t you say? An’ a great deal easier on my knees.”
“And what exactly is it you’re doing on your knees, pray tell?”
Sicard’s answer did not require the power of speech.
For a long time, there was quiet. There were the usual sounds of the mine, of course: the distant rush of water from an underground stream that spilled into rapids and waterfalls far below. There were the all-too-human sounds of soft moans and heavy breathing, the occasional murmuring of words and names.
And if there were other sounds — inhuman sounds, unnatural sounds — though they fell on men’s ears for the first time in many years, they remained unremarked.
But only at first.
“Stop, wait. Do you hear something?”
“All’s I hear’s a mouth bein’ used for exac’ly the wrong thing, which is talkin’, when it could be doin’ somethin’ I’d enjoy a lot more.”
“No, really.”
“If you don’t wanna suck it, mate, jus’ say so.”
“No, it’s not that I don’t want — I just feel like we’re being watched.”
“Ain’t no one down here but us, mate. Not a single livin’ soul.”
“You don’t feel that? You don’t feel eyes on you?”
Sicard hesitated. He had been blissfully unaware of it before, but now that Emmanellain mentioned it, he could feel the distinct prickle at the nape of his neck that often heralded the presence of witnesses. “A’right, maybe someone else found their way to this place, but seein’ as they’ve likely come here to do the exact same thing we’re doin’, I can’t see as they’d give us too much trouble.”
“Sicard —”
He shifted off Emmanellain. “If it’d make you feel better, I can do you first.”
“Sicard!”
The terror in Emmanellain’s voice chilled Sicard, chased away every previous thought of sexual shenanigans. Whatever he was looking at, his already-pale Elezen skin had faded white as a sheet. Sicard turned to follow his lover’s gaze.
”You don’t feel eyes on you?”
From its hideous, sharp-toothed mouth, the creature produced a hideously accurate echo of Emmanellain’s voice, skin-crawlingly distorted and wrung raw as it clawed its way out of the monster’s . . .well, throat was not quite the word, because the thing had no throat. It was at least half eyeball: a single bloodshot eye gleamed wetly from the centre of its massive, perfectly round head, which comprised the majority of its tangible form. It had long, reptilian arms and legs that each ended in three wicked claws, and a long, slender tail, and either side of its body sprouted great batlike wings tipped with a single sharp claw, perfect for ripping and gouging. Its magenta tongue lolled and slavered with the texture of sodden, shredded fabric, and Sicard could imagine the feel of it scraping across his skin as it made ready to devour its prey.
And it hovered between the pair of them and the nearest gateway.
“Son of a whore!” Sicard muttered, and automatically reached for his pistol. Even as he moved his hand to his side, though, he knew he would find it absent. Bad form, to bring weapons to a social gathering, Emmanellain had warned him, speaking like someone with paid guards following him through his off-duty hours. A pirate never got to stop being a pirate for social calls, always had to be primed for the possibility of attack. Soft Ishgardian toffs, the lot of you, he’d grumbled. But he had reluctantly dispensed with his pistol.
Ask me if I’ll be doin’ that again.
He flung himself down from their little love-nest on the shelf, stooping to snatch a hidden dagger from his boot. “You best stay back,” he shouted at the creature, brandishing the blade, “’less you’d like that eye o’ yours a whole lot bloodier!”
“An ahriman!” Emmanellain gasped, his voice shaking. “I didn’t know they could even survive the cold in Coerthas!”
“Aye, thanks for the taxonomy lesson,” growled Sicard. “Now move your arse!” With a tilt of his head he gestured towards the gate separating their hiding place from the gem-flooded great hall.
The ahriman, as if it understood Sicard’s intent, let out a blood-curdling and disturbingly human shrie. Then it echoed back Sicard’s words, low and slow. ”Moooove . . . yoouuur . . . arrrrrse.”
“Ugh, I really hate that,” Sicard muttered, too softly for the thing to hear and repeat it. “Emmanellain! Go!”
Emmanellain shook his head frantically. “I can’t get past it!”
”Emmanellain!” the thing croaked. ”Em-man-el-lain!”
“Fuck. Guess I’m gonna have to open up a path, then.” Sicard gritted his teeth and gripped the hilt of his dagger tight. “Be ready to run.” And then, knife extended, he rushed at the ahriman.
“Sicard, no!”
Emmanellain reached out to hold him back; he broke away, but it set him off balance, and instead of piercing the hideous eyeball, his blade nicked a leathery wing. The thing laughed a sound that was hideously like Emmanellain’s, the way he laughed when Sicard cracked a filthy joke. It followed that up immediately with a hitched breath and a groan in the same voice, the way he sounded when Sicard . . . well. That was enough to fill Sicard’s field of vision with explosions of raging red fire.
He feinted for its wing again, then pulled back and arced out his blade to catch on the thing’s lolling tongue. He pulled hard. Slimy fluid burst from the damaged organ, and the knife sliced through the corner of its mouth, extending its gruesome not-smile halfway to its leathery armpit.
“Sicard!” Emmanellain yelled again, and this time Sicard could tell his voice came from the ahriman’s other side, just past the gate. He dove and rolled out of reach of the creature’s slashing claws, then leapt to his feet with the smooth ease of a man whose battles are usually fought on the far less steady terrain of the open ocean. Wasting not one instant, he ran full tilt at Emmanellain almost from the moment his boots struck stone. Behind him the ahriman let out another shriek, and this one was no echo: it was a sound no man could possibly ever have made, chilling in its inhumanity.
Sicard sprang across the threshold. Emmanellain was already in place to roll the great round door shut. Sicard took on some of the weight, and together they eased it closed and engaged the latch. They slumped against its rocky solidity, panting, fighting to catch their breath.
At last Emmanellain spoke. “Did you actually call me Manny?”
“Aye, well, ain’t my fault if your name’s got too damn many syllables.”
“It’s fine. I think it’s cute . . . Siccy.”
Sicard glared at him. “Call me that again, I’ll break ‘nough o’ your ribs you can suck your own dick.”
Emmannellain managed a pale imitation of a smile. “Not a particular fan of the nickname, are we?”
- - - - - -
They moved further into the underground labyrinth, sprawling with dead ends and false starts. The rushing water on this side of the locked gate was louder and fiercer, and the crystals beyond the doorway no longer glowed with sickly-pale aether; they were crimson and copper, flickering like flames, and wreathed in crackling lightning-strike auras of unstable electricity. “Reckon we don’t wanna get too close to those,” Sicard observed. Emmanellain had absorbed very little information on the subject of aetherology throughout his education, but he thought it was a very reasonable supposition.
“At least we’re away from that hideous eye-beast,” he said, trying to strike the right insouciant balance of flippant and self-righteous, despite the racing of his heart and the mercifully-unshed teardrops of terror still drying at the corners of his eyes. Wasn’t this the outcome his earliest Halonic teachings had promised him if he were caught in some unsavoury activity with another boy? The withdrawal of Halone’s protection, and the appearance of some demonic monster to bring him to account for his sins?
But the things we do aren’t unsavoury. There’s no shame in it. We’re in love. Not that he’d felt a particularly great deal of shame over their sex-play even before they’d fallen in love with each other, granted. But in the wake of such a frightful encounter, the extra layer of justification seemed soothing.
Sicard shuddered. “What in the bloody hells was that thing? I hope I never see its like again. ‘Specially not when I’m jus’ tryin’ to get some like any other red-blooded man. ‘S rude, really.”
“Well, you’re certainly free to go back through that doorway and take it to task for its lack of etiquette,” said Emmanellain, “but I believe I’ll decline to follow.”
“Ain’t much point,” said Sicard. “It’d jus’ keep me away from other things I’d rather be doin’.” He gave Emmanellain a very significant look.
“I absolutely cannot believe you’re still chasing after that when we’ve just been very nearly devoured by some sort of voidsent!”
“Wouldn’t say no to bein’ devoured proper, an’ in the fun way,” said Sicard. “An’ don’t pretend you feel any different. I can tell.”
“You do have your ways of relaxing me,” Emmanellain acknowledged, “which is only fair since you also have your ways of setting my teeth on edge. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to find somewhere a bit darker, more out of the way, perhaps with fewer lightning bolts crackling in the air. But above all, let’s find somewhere we can’t be watched by any further intruders.”
“Bein’ watched wouldn’t’ve been the worst thing,” Sicard mused, “least not if our audience was someone a shade more attractive than a giant bleedin’ eyeball. But fair’s fair. Let’s walk a li’l ways, see what we can find.”
It did not take long to come to a fork in the cavern’s labyrinthine tunnels, wherein the left branch led somewhere illumined by the same pale light that had bathed their first trysting spot in its aethereal glow. To the right, though, it appeared craggy and pitch-dark, and when they followed the tunnel they found it narrowing to a rocky and rubble-filled dead end.
“Oh, it’s good and dark here, alright,” said Emmanellain. “I can hardly see my hand right in front of my face.” He held up his hand, fingers outstretched, to prove the point, though of course Sicard wouldn’t be able to tell.
“Wish we’d thought to grab a blanket,” said Sicard. “All these tiny pebbles, gettin’ horizontal is gonna feel like lyin’ on barnacles.”
“Who said horizontal?” said Emmanellain cheerfully. “That’s hardly necessary. Just lean up against the wall, find a smooth spot. And when you’re ready, just say the word, and I’ll . . . ah, well, I did say I wanted to go down on you, didn’t I?” Inwardly he cursed himself, that after all this time he still blushed to hear himself say what he wanted out loud.
“I dunno, mate,” said Sicard doubtfully. “That’s gonna be hell on your knees.”
“Good thing I grew up Ishgardian then,” quipped Emmanellain. “There’s no position I’m better equipped to handle.”
Sicard chuckled. The sound echoed strangely in the narrow space, sounding both close and distant at once. “A’right, if you put it that way. I ain’t ‘bout to stop you.”
But instead of moving to lean on the cavern wall, Emmanellain felt Sicard step up close. He felt a hand slide around his hip, soft breath shifting the strands of his hair close to his cheek. He leaned into the gentle touch with an appreciative sigh and a velvety chuckle. The first nip of teeth startled him, but it was a playful bite, and it excited him in spite of his best intentions. “S’posed to be my mouth on you,” he murmured, smiling fondly.
“Wha’s’at?” said Sicard dreamily. The echo was even stranger now, more distorted, close and distant all at once.
“It’s fine. If you’re not in any hurry, neither am I. We’ve got all night. Just — oh! That was maybe a little too hard.”
“What’s too hard?”
“When you bit me. My neck. That hurt.”
“Mate, you haven’t had your hands off me long ‘nough to let me get anywhere near your neck.”
“I haven’t laid a single finger on you! You’re —”
Realization dawned.
Emmanellain’s whole body convulsed with a horrified shudder. He jerked away from the touch at his waist, the ghostly mouth far too close to his face. His breathing deteriorated into shocked, anxious gasps as he stumbled back in the direction of the large, bright chamber. “Oh gods oh Fury oh gods oh Fury oh gods . . .”
“Fuck me seven hells an’ sideways!” Sicard ran out close behind him. He yanked his shirt up over his head, white waistcoat and all, like it was filled with live bees, or stinging nettles. The reality was a distinctly different kind of horror: oily black smears, handprints and fingerprints, cross-hatching his skin everywhere he had felt not-Emmanellain’s touch. They snaked up his sides, traced circles on his chest. When he reached up to touch the substance that marked him, it left charcoal smudges on his fingers, which he rubbed off on his white trousers — Emmanellain’s white trousers — with an instinctive revulsion.
That stain was never coming out, but Emmanellain couldn’t manage to work up any proper indignation over it.
Sicard shot him a look of fresh dismay. “Emmanellain, I . . .” His voice trailed off, and he reached out to touch the bitten side of Emmanellain’s throat. “Fuck, I’m sorry. This was a bad idea. We’d’ve been better off watchin’ your brother fuck.”
Emmanellain flinched. “How bad is it? What does it look like?”
“You ask me, ‘s like someone stabbed you a bunch o’ times wi’ the business end of a sail needle,” said Sicard. “Ain’t nothin’ human teeth could manage, even if they got filed down to a perfect point.”
Emmanellain touched his fingers to his neck, and then to Sicard’s chest. “What did this?”
“Who fuckin’ cares?” retorted Sicard incredulously, though at Emmanellain’s hurt look he relented. “What was touchin’ me, I couldn’t start to guess. As for you? I’d say bats, maybe, ‘cept we’d’ve heard if there was any o’ those in there. They ain’t quiet, ain’t hidin’ what they are.”
“And a bat wouldn’t have hands to put on me,” Emmanellain offered weakly.
Sicard’s jaw tensed. “Hands on y—? Oh, hells no. Fuck this. Ain’t on, not happenin’.” He met Emmanellain’s eyes. “I dunno where we’ve landed, but we need to get the fuck out, now.”
They linked hands and ran. Sicard was the faster of the pair; Emmanellain allowed himself to be dragged past a blur of fire-and-lightning crystals, deeper into the bowels of the cave. From somewhere across a darkened chasm, he heard the rageful draconic cry of some scalekin or other. Whatever croaked back an answer was nothing natural in this world.
They left the lurid fire crystals behind and came to a stretch of pale silver rock, reflecting back the receding glow of luminous minerals, deep-buried and barely peeking at the path; the mining had not proceeded as deep as this. The dim light revealed the path ahead of them. On either side of it, a scattered phalanx of skeletal silhouettes puttered aimlessly among the rocks, chevaliers without a captain, carrying rusted swords and daggers that seemed quite equal to Sicard’s in size and sharpness. Emmanellain felt himself stumbling, struggling to break his forward momentum.
“Keep on! Don’t stop runnin’!” Sicard called over his shoulder.
“But they’re —”
“Don’t stop!”
They blitzed past the skeletal ashkin, careened around a dog-leg bend, and kept going. Out of breath, with a stitch forming in his side, Emmanellain started to slow, but the clattering of bones beind them spurred him to renewed vigour.
Sicard yanked his arm, pulling left. “This way!” Emmanellain turned his head, and immediately he spotted what Sicard had seen: a break in the wall, damaged by some sort of avalanche or earthslide, barely narrow enough to squeeze through by the smallest of margins. Whatever was on the other side, it was lit up bright orange, the colour of sunlight through marmalade. Emmanellain thought longingly of the peaceful breakfast table in Fortemps Manor, of tea and toast and the total absence of living-dead things.
There was no guessing what might be on the other side of that tunnel. But the ashkin were gaining ground, and they lacked all the parts that were beginning to slow Sicard and Emmanellain down: aching muscles, racing pulses, hungry lungs. This was their best chance at escape.
“You first. Go!” Emmanellain said. He was inwardly proud of how commanding he sounded.
But Sicard hesitated. “You ain’t even got a weapon . . .”
“All the more reason to go already!” Emmanellain shouted.
Sicard chose to waste no more time arguing, and knelt before the hole. “Bit of a drop,” he advised, peering down. “Feet first’s safest.” Then he slung himself down, let the passageway swallow his legs all the way to the thigh in one careless swing.
If there’s some sort of monster down there, he’ll dine well tonight, thought Emmanellain. But he didn’t voice the sentiment; surely Sicard had thought to check, hadn’t he? Either way, nothing to be done about it now. The first skeletons had started to shamble into view.
Behind him, swallowed to the waist by the passage, Sicard grunted. “This ‘s a tight fit. Too narrow for my shoulders . . .”
“Damn it!” cried Emmanellain, eyeing the foe. “Can you get through?”
“Think so! I just need a bit o’ time!”
“Not like we have much to spare, but I’ll do what I can!” Emmanellain picked up a rock from the ground, roughly the size of a full-grown gysahl head. “Fury guide my hand!”
And he threw it at the nearest skeleton.
It landed well, breaking through the rib cage, folding the creature in on itself in a crumpled heap. “Ah-ha!” he cried in triumph. “Who can suck his own dick now? Uh, if you had one, or ever did.” Sicard shot him an incredulous, narrowed-eye look, but he chose to ignore it. He took up another rock.
“Who else wants to be served more of the same? How about you?” The next nearest skeleton took a blow to the head; its skull imploded, and it staggered back and was still. “And that’s why you never, ever mess with House Fortemps!”
“Oi! How’s about less talk an’ more rock, aye? You’re bein’ cocky, an’ that’ll get you killed!” Sicard hissed. Emmanellain ignored him, at least until he followed it up with the sweetest news Emmanellain had heard all night: “I got it! I’m through!” And when Emmanellain turned to look, Sicard had disappeared entirely and the path was clear. He made ready to follow.
It was just then that he felt the delicate lines of five finger bones wrap like a bracelet around his wrist.
The skeleton held him fast, keeping him from reaching for another rock, rendering him weaponless. Behind him, more of the ashkin were approaching. Soon he would be overwhelmed. In desperation, Emmanellain planted his left foot hard and kicked upwards with his right, aiming squarely where the skeleton’s genitals would have been had it been clothed in skin. Of course, there were no flesh bits hanging down to take the damage. Consequently, his boot connected squarely with the pelvic bone and shattered it to shards. The impact carried up through the skeletal body, crumpling the spine, fracturing ribs, dislocating shoulders. It gave pause to the oncoming horde; their shambling steps grew hesitant.
Emmanellain did not stop to evaluate the damage. He just dropped to his knees and crawled through the gap after Sicard. The advantage of his narrow Elezen build meant his shoulders, so different from were not broad enough to present an obstacle.
But if he could fit through, so could the skeletons, unencumbered by muscle, nerves, fat, and flesh.
- - - - - -
Sicard had time to think of that. He had time to think of a lot of things. It felt like an hour he waited on the other side of that collapse for Emmanellain to make his way through that little hole. The angle made it impossible to see what was happening, though the chattering bones were easily audible, magnified by the cave’s weird acoustics. There was nothing Sicard could do but pray to the Twelve, whose interest had always struck him as dubious at best, and hold his breath trying not to wonder if tonight’s would be the last tryst they ever had.
Those weren’t tears in his eyes, of course. He just couldn’t help but react to the dust in the air.
Finally, though, Emmanellain slid feet first through the gap, and Sicard managed to preserve enough presence of mind to take up an abandoned shield from the floor beside them and wedge it in the opening, blocking the gap so their foes could not follow. Emmanellain had to help guide the shield into place; Sicard scarcely realized he was shaking. He all but fell into Emmanellain’s arms. “Scared me for a minute there,” he muttered, voice muffled against one slightly grimy antelope-striped sleeve. “I best never feel a wall b’tween us again, you got that?”
“Got it,” said Emmanellain, and he wrapped his arms around Sicard. He didn’t even consider the oily smears ruining his garment.
Something hard and sharp poked at Sicard’s back, and he flinched. “We come this far together, an’ now you’re stabbin’ me?”
Emmanellain let out a slightly shaky laugh. “Sorry. Looks I brought a souvenir.” He showed Sicard his wrist, still braceleted by gripping skeleton fingers, still attached to a splintered wristbone.
“Llymlaen’s tits, mate! What’d you do to ‘im?”
“Kicked him in the balls,” said Emmanellain.
That broke the tension of the moment all to pieces, and Sicard was suddenly embarrassed by his outburst of emotion. He straightened, awkwardly cleared his throat. “Well, at least we landed somewhere nice an’ bright. Loads o’ crystal-light in this place. What d’you reckon it is?”
Emmanellain glanced around. Sicard watched him take in the fiery crystals on the walls, the empty antechambers, the heavy stone slab near the back wall. “It appears to be a chapel. At least, it once was. It’s been emptied, stripped down to bare bones.”
“Oh? ‘S that a play on words?”
“What? No! . . . ugh.” Emmanellain rolled his eyes. “Be difficult or don’t, but that’s the answer to your question. Look, you can see here where someone started to chisel a stone-relief mural on the wall, only it was never finished.” He studied it more closely, furrowed his brow. “I’d almost say . . . yes, you see these scalekin motifs? This was going to be a picture of the basilisk and the blinded knight. That’s from the life of Saint Daniffen, so this chapel must have been dedicated to him, or would have been if it was ever finished. But here’s the thing: if this is a chapel to Saint Daniffen under Dzemael Manor, we must be . . .”
“Hold that thought, mate,” said Sicard, scarcely whispering. “I hear somethin’.”
It was subtle at first: the scratch of footsteps on stone, the scrape and creak of an opening gate, the metallic jingle of plate armour. Then there was a voice, once again familiar but not quite right, and it bounced around the chamber so its direction was impossible to ascertain. “Emmanellain? Emmanellain!”
They exchanged a wide-eyed look. “The ahriman again?” Emmanellain whispered.
“Could be,” said Sicard, and again he withdrew his dagger. “Stay close, but not too close. I can hurt those things.”
“I can help,” said Emmanellain sulkily. “I demolished those shambling skeletons, didn’t I?”
“No matter. I shouldn’t’ve left you,” said Sicard. “You ain’t got a weapon, even. Now let me protect you, y’hear?” But Sicard didn’t object when Emmanellain picked up a heavy chunk of granite from the chapel floor and hefted it up like a projectile.
He darted his eyes around, trying to pin down the voices’ source. He could hear others too, murmuring softly, conversing in an undertone past the one who was calling. “Emmanellain? Sicard? Are you here?”
He pointed to a far corner, where the chapel door hung lazily off a single hinge. “Right there, I reckon,” he whispered. “In three, two . . .”
Emmanellain launched his rock.
It exploded, midair, in a flash of light.
“By the Twelve, Emmanellain! Could you consider not trying to kill me next time?”
The figure that appeared in the doorway had no bat wings, only broad bony horns and a scalebound tail, with further scale patches gleaming iridescent on her face and arms. There was nothing inhuman about her, though she was neither Hyur nor Elezen, and Sicard knew he’d be a subpar boyfriend indeed if he did not recognize the face of Emmanellain’s dearest friend, even before he called out her name.
“Dorayaki!”
The Auri woman lowered her conjurer’s staff, all that had kept her from being struck by the granite projectile. Emmanellain rushed forward and clasped her hands in his. “Honestly, old girl, I am so awfully sorry for throwing that rock at you. We haven’t exactly encountered a lot that’s on our side over the course of this night, let me tell you.”
“And no small wonder, down here!”
It was Artoirel who had spoken. He and Stephanivien approached from behind her, flanked by a handful of High House knights in a blend of colours: Dzemael, Fortemps, Haillenarte. The young Count de Fortemps had his arms crossed sternly, but upon seeing the two lost revellers — the bloody bite marks up and down Emmanellain’s neck, the smears and bruises all over his companion — any trace of hostility melted away. Impulsively he rushed Emmanellain into a fierce hug, uncommonly emotional by the standards of even the closest Ishgardian families. “Fury take you, brother, you could have been killed. Do you have any idea what you stumbled into?”
“I have some suspicions,” Emmanellain conceded.
“I don’t,” said Sicard. “What’ve we stumbled into?”
Artoirel looked expectantly at Emmanellain, who sighed.
“Among the knighthood, it’s known as the Dzemael Darkhold. At some point in the past, one of the Dzemael counts got it in his head to dig deep under House Dzemael and build an underground shelter where Ishgardians could hide in case of Dravanian attack. It wasn’t an awful idea by any means, but it had unintended consequences. Whether they delved too deep or too carelessly, or perhaps just had rotten luck for all I know, they encountered one of the portals between worlds that voidsent come through —”
“A voidgate,” supplied Dorayaki.
“— a voidgate, through which a host of voidsent crossed into Ishgard. House Dzemael had to give up the project and seal up the exits and entryways, which is why we found all those supplies abandoned in the tunnels. There’ve been some attempts to clean it up, go in every now and again and get rid of the voidsent like some sort of arcane pest control, but they’ve never managed to seal up the void all the way.”
“The best they could manage was to cut off all the doorways between the Darkhold and Ishgard in order to keep the city safe,” added Artoirel. “But, Dzemael Manor being what it is, there were inevitably some secret passageways they missed. It seems as though you found one.”
“Okay, but . . . how’d you know to come for us?” asked Emmanellain.
Artoirel glanced at the house knights, who had retreated to a discreet distance out of the range of hearing. “I realized,” he said quietly, “that someone had beat us to that hidden room in the library, since they had left behind a lantern and a mask — white, with rubies. I recognized it as the one you wore three or four years ago, the one Sicard borrowed.” Emmanellain shot Sicard a didn’t-I-tell-you? glare. “You couldn’t have gone far, and the only place you might have hidden was the armoire. Of course, when I opened it, there was the trap door.” He pressed his lips together. “It was just hanging open. Imagine if the voidsent had escaped.”
“You are wildly lucky,” added Dorayaki. The statement earned her a wounded look from Emmanellain. “Oh, stop: you know I love you, but it’s the truth. Last time I ran a mission to clear out this place, there was a gargoyle the size of a goobbue, and twenty times as mean, feeding on the crystal-aether in this very room. He gave us hell even as a full party of professional adventurers with a healing mage. He’d have eaten you alive. Not literally, of course, but . . . actually, no. Probably literally.”
Sicard tried to imagine the creature she described, but his good sense wouldn’t allow it. He shuddered and reached for Emmanellain’s hand. Emmanellain shot him a concerned look, then slid an arm around him.
Stephanivien looked bewildered. “Are the two of you . . . ? I thought you were business partners.”
“We’re partners in a lot of ways,” said Emmanellain levelly — and, just to drive the point home, planted a kiss against Sicard’s temple.
To his endless mortification, the captain of Limsa Lominsa’s foremost pirate crew blushed rose-petal pink.
A complicated dance of emotions stormed across Stephanivien’s face. It included a couple of longing glances at Artoirel, and ended with him looking down at his hands as he nervously twisted his Haillenarte signet ring. But when he raised his head, there was naught on his face but resigned composure. “Well, good for you. I’m glad you can be happy. Somebody ought.”
Sicard glanced over at Emmanellain. “Thought I was s’posed to be your dirty li’l secret. I still don’t know how to make nice with all your bloody nobles.”
“All Saints’ Wake is over,” said Emmanellain. “No more masks. We’re a team, and I don’t care who knows it. I’d rather be run out of Ishgard with torches and pitchforks than pretend any longer.”
- - - - - -
All Saints’ Wake drew to a close, and the Dzemael masquerade ended, as it does every year. Those who were fortunate or unfortunate enough to remember their indiscretions come morning would blame them on the punch, or on unseen voidsent, or on one another. Or perhaps they would keep their own counsel, say nothing. If nobody spoke of an indiscretion, had it even really happened?
Stephanivien and Artoirel would say no, of course. But the memory of their indiscretion, despite being unspoken and thus having never happened, would keep them both warm through countless cold winter nights to come, until (with any luck) maybe they could steal another secret tryst at the Valentiones’ ball.
Bit by bit, the aristocrats found their way home through dark streets, guarded by neither saints nor gods. Jannequinard de Durendaire, who the festive punch could claim as one of its many victims, elected to sleep it off on a couch in the Athenaeum Astrologicum, and no one could quite confirm whether or not he slept there alone. House Borel being just around the corner, Dorayaki chose to spend her night in the Lord Speaker’s bed, and nobody even pretended to be surprised.
Emmanellain and Sicard returned home in the family carriage along with the current and former Counts de Fortemps, neither of whom said a word either for or against their entwined hands. About their misadventure, naught was spoken save for a stern and private warning from Artoirel to never scare him that badly ever again and to definitely never tell their father how close they had come to being swallowed by the Dzemael Darkhold.
The pair elected to retire almost immediately to Emmanellain’s chambers, and no one bothered insisting upon the fiction of a guest room for Sicard. The two were grateful; neither much relished lying alone in the dark. They never did get around to the tryst they had so anticipated. But there would be other nights, even other All Saints’ Wakes, and after their ordeal all they really wanted was rest and quiet.
And if at some point in the night Emmanellain startled awake in the midst of a terrible dream, at least he could pull the blankets up over his head and bury his face in Sicard’s shoulder, breathe in his scent that never really shook off the salt of the sea, and drift back into sleep untroubled.
He would have no way of knowing what had wakened him: not the dream, but a half-remembered croaking voice that broke through the veil of sleep, drifting up from the street outside his window.
”Em-man-el-lain! Em-man-el-lain!”
”You don’t feel eyes on you?”
Then it drifted off into the night on batlike wings, its wicked claws never touching the frost-damp cobblestones, and where it travelled thereafter, no one knows.