Aye, little figment, aye
Excerpt from Deep Lore, Chapter VI | Pigtail
Pigtail had stayed far too long on Knob Isle. She had always been short, even for a larinisse woman, but the effects of The Paramount had made her even smaller and gave her skin, in a certain light, a slight tinge of green. Even the tips of her ears were abandoning roundness for rather acute points, which she made every effort to hide beneath the locks of a luscious purple wig. But no one on the mainland gave her a second look. Going unnoticed was her trade, gathering information was her life’s work, and tracking people down was her passion.
She was accompanied by Layshio, a seasoned member of the inner circle to which she was recently promoted, whose copious grey hair and beard betrayed his hulking, four-and-a-half-foot frame. He carried a shaft adorned with a deep blue spearhead that most assumed was wrought iron. But, as with everything that dwelled within the mines of The Paramount, it was something far more precious and far more secret.
“This way,” said a slender man in a long-bodied, emerald-colored gown that dragged a donkey-length behind him. They followed him across a burgundy carpet embroidered with golden depictions of lions and longswords and chubby-cheeked royals wearing bejeweled crowns. The man’s sleeves flared as he directed them down each corridor, his heavy necklace clashing against the gems sewn into his every seam. The final leg of the maze terminated in a double-door entrance, giant even by humanisse standards, which was guarded by four men, one of whom demanded that Layshio leave his weapon outside.
“It’s quite alright,” their guide reassured the zealous defender, “they are here at the king’s request. They may keep their belongings about them.” His accommodating tone quickly changed as he repositioned his glance to Pigtail. “Though they’d be wise to keep their hands visible at all times. The archers on the mezzanine have a tendency to jump to conclusions.”
The mountainous entranceway rumbled as more guards on the inside pulled it open. Carved into each door were six panes, reducing the entirety of the ancient battle against Hethusella into twelve scenes, the last of which featured an Apston crowning the first king of the Mar dynasty. And sitting across the great hall, in an old but priceless chair, was the latest one.
When his heavy footsteps no longer ricocheted off the stone walls, and the tail of the slender man’s gown came to a stop, Pigtail and Layshio customarily bowed their heads and genuflected.
“You kneel in the presence of Kyrgun Mar, Lord of Maidenfail, High King among the High Kings, Overseer of Hyden and its Isles, Firstborn Protector of the Realm, and the one-hundred and eleventh son of the throne,” the skinny man announced with the volume and vigor of one addressing a crowded hall, despite there being fewer than ten souls in the room.
“Up. Up.” Kyrgun barked at them, already impatient. “You. Leave,” he ordered the man. “Play. Play,” he shouted at the foursome of harpers sitting in a small bandshell in the center of the hall. The music was upbeat yet reflective, but mostly, it was loud. So loud that Pigtail had to walk twenty paces closer to the throne to hear anything the king was saying.
“Fools. All of them. Fools. Three knights I’ve sent, and I’m no closer to getting my daughter back.” Kyrgun rose from the throne. He was forty if he was a day. He had the arms and shoulders of a man who was once strapping but the belly of one who parted with vanity long ago. “Gods know what this hedomage is doing with her. She’s my only child, and no prince is going to marry another man’s whore. I will not let this… fiend be the reason my bloodline dies out.”
Kyrgun tossed a small, blood-stained sack at their feet. Layshio cautiously picked it up.
Pigtail nodded in approval, and her companion pulled out three severed heads. One by one.
“The knights,” Kyrgun was breathing heavily. He snatched the sack from Layshio’s hands.“Discretion matters.”
“We are nothing if not—” Pigtail started.
“Yes. Yes. You lot don’t exist. Relics just happen to go missing, whispers just happen to be heard, healthy princes just happen to die in their sleep. None of it has to do with you. You’re just old wives’ tales and figments of our imagination. Figments that live on an island I control. Figments I’m paying handsomely.”
“You’re too kind, your grace,” was all Pigtail could mutter. The receiving of assignments and terms of agreements were all handled by the smallest, greenest, and pointiest-eared members back on Knob Isle. She only cared about the task at hand.
“Ask the lads in that sack how kind I am. I don’t need your pleasantries. I need your talents.”
“Then, if I may be frank, my lord,” Pigtail said sternly, “you need to spend less time wielding threats and more time telling us everything you know. Leave out no detail. Leave out no names. Leave out no actions, big or small.” She motioned toward the musicians. “Better tell them to play another song. We could be here a while.”
Kyrgun laughed. “Aye, little figment. Aye.”
When night fell, the slender man showed Pigtail to her chambers, a nook within the servants’ quarters with a blanketless cot. A far cry from the famed guestrooms of the royal palace. But I’m no guest. I don’t even exist.
She fetched a small mirror from her large knapsack and balanced it on the pillow. With both hands, she carefully removed her wig and examined the bald patches sprinkled across her scalp. Another consequence of spending two moons in The Paramount. She never concerned herself with beauty when she was younger—and did so even less now that she was past her childbearing years—but she always loved her hair.
She would occasionally become jealous of Layshio’s locks. There was little need for brutes like him to study the gamji, so he spent most of his days above ground where the poisoned air had no stronghold. Besides, he was more punch-and-stab than cloak-and-dagger, but he was a clever tracker in his own right. And Pigtail had known him since she was a child.
She put away the mirror and stood with her back to the opening where a door should have been. Then she retrieved a deep green box comprised of interwoven branches that gave no indication that it was more than decoration. Tugging on one branch, pulling on a second one, and unclasping another, two asymmetrical sides popped open, revealing a collection of colorful silk strings, plucked scales, and viles of vibrant venom within.
Pigtail selected a blue scale the size of her fingernail and placed it under her tongue with the sharpest edge facing up. She then removed her clothes, folded them, placed all her belongings in her knapsack, and hid it under her cot.
As she stepped naked into the hallway, she took a deep breath and thrust her tongue downward, piercing its underside with the scale. She could taste the residue of the gamji’s broken skin mixing with her blood as it traveled down her throat. Her body began to tingle, and the sound of her heartbeat grew stronger in her pointed ears.
And soon, she was completely invisible.