Éminence grise: Exposition.

[Carnath-Emory]

Such moments, such meetings, as these...call for quiet nights, for shadowed corners and the company of dark wine. Fate has seen fit to provide two of these, but the wind has a life and will all its own, battering at the hovel's walls and rattling the meagre shutters upon its windows. It had all but torn the cloak from about her throat; it had plucked the pin from her hair, driven the dark mass in volence about her throat.

"I knew that it would be you."

Recognition, after an eleven years' separation, should not have surprised her. It did. Vanity dictated that a man who read mind and heart with equal efficiency would find hers quite changed.

"And the other one -- yours too? Good, good; you make friends. It's about damned time."

He is bound to the heavy, iron corner stove; it lends a dull, golden haze to the interior, and not as much warmth as one might want. There are a great many chains, enough to force a stoop to his shoulders; they are not enough, but if he'd wished escape, he'd have taken it before her arrival. They speak in rapid, jerky phrases here, lazy and guttural drawls there; the dialect unique to Nothern New Dauntless has abandoned most of the common tongue's formalities.

"You didn't flee; you think you've nothing to fear. Is that what you thought before?"
"Oh! Before, before, before; she stabs directly to the heart of it -- woman, you've not an ounce of subtlety to you. Shameful. What would your father think?"
"He'd think me a poor match for you. You'd have kept your life if he'd thought that 'before'."
"You assume too much. Who is to say that tot svet did not choke upon me and spit me free?"

Silence has its own weight, heavy enough upon the lungs, the throat, that it sometimes forces speech from the unwilling; it has its own measure for time -- a minute, properly managed, will stretch into an eternity. She is unwilling, she is waiting, but in time, it's she who breaks the silence hung between them.

"Why?
"Your mother will miss my face, you know; I visit her in the fields, now and then, and imagine -- she finds me quite charmi -- "
"Why?"
"You think I'll answer, and you don't even have the wit to see how funny that is."
"This is the end of everything. This is your last letter, and you're dictating it to me. Of course you'll answer."
"Ahh. See? Your friends have taught you some cleverness. What's to explain? You were a lovely child, I mean really gorgeous. I wanted what any man who truly knows himself would want."
"You had what any man would want, and I woke to a pillow on my fa -- "
"Not enough cleverness. A fool can have pleasure, if he has coin enough to buy it. Prettiness has nothing to do with that. Beauty, true beauty, is desired in order that it may be befouled -- not for befoulment's sake, but the for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it. All the pleasure in the world lay in knowing what would become of you."
"Not a corpse. You failed."
"I was fortunate. I failed, and that just made it better. Will you kill me now?"

And this is tot svet; this is the world within the world, the world beyond our eyes. The truth of that world is this: way down in the woods, in the back of a shed, a woman found her husband... and neither of them were seen again for quite some time.

[Carnath-Emory]

Éminence grise: the shadow which accompanies and, in following, provides a secret destination. It does not seek to penetrate some mystery of the world, nor to discover its hidden aspect - it is that hidden aspect. It does not discover that the world has a double life - it is that double life, that parallel life.



The worst of the storm's fury had passed days ago, but it had left its mark in ice and snow alike, and even now, the nights remain frigid. The shed is near cousin to a peasant's hovel, the boards that make up its walls nailed poorly down, and the wind sends them to shuddering, intermittedntly tears at the threadbare thatch of its roof. Rain upon a tin roof is a comforting sound; here, however, it is nothing but a threat -- already, darp, damp stains have begun to spread on the worn floor. Hours have passed; she has not killed him. Eventually, the conversation renews.


"You're asking the wrong questions, you know. You're like a bludgeon, you think if you hammer away long enough and hard enough, then eventually you'll have something to show for it. I thought Vasilov would have taught you better than that."

The wind sings through their silence, and the stove's golden light is sent to flickering with it; such wavering light would make a monster of a saint.

"He knew that it was his fault, of course. A husband dead, a brother too; terrible tragedy for everyone. Do you think that he wept in the smithy, where no-one would see? Ido."
'I think that you believe this, all this talk, makes you less of a corpse. Makes you less defeated."
"Ha. The bludgeon becomes an axe. Not a very good one, though. Tell me what you know about our beloved Dauntless; I'm already bored with this Why, Why, Why. You sound like your mother."

Her reluctance endures for near to an hour; comfortable in an absence of words, in her own company, the woman thinks to enjoy it better than he. His smile, when she looks back his way, proves her error.

"Vasilov taught me steel, not words. He should have been proud that I stabbed you, instead of talking you to death."
"You're really not very good at this -- "
"Dauntless history is dull, a bore. A handful of fools drag their families across countless miles in search of wealth that may or may not exist; an idiot's gamble. It turns out not to, they hammer together a shelter, and by the time the King's word reaches them, it's too late to return as he's instructed. They've made a life for themselves, and they're too damned proud to admit that it's a failure. Good enough?"
"Splendid. And you see? You really are a child of your people, regardless of how you try to disown them -- "
"They disowned me!"
" -- but enough about that. Even as a child, did Dauntless ever seem to make...sense to you? I mean, where's the bloodline, where's the guarantee of rulership from one year to the next? Oh, no such thing here; just House after House, all these wonderful families. All these odd rules: the House polices its own, women keep to kitchens and away from the armoury, death begets death -- oh, and these are just the ones that got you in trouble.A society of supertitious atheists; perhaps you're travelled enough now, Ari, love, to realise how unique that is."

Apparently not; there is no reply, but simply the sight of her climbing from her rickety chair, to fuss quietly with the sack that had been left in the shed's far corner. Some small quantity of dried venison is procured; she returns to her seat chewing, and he continues with his lecture.

"Of course, it's terribly unstable; one sharp blow to Nikolaev would see them knocked from power, one real devastation of Kalugin would see the streets left unguarded and in disrepair. And of course, without my..modest..wealth to aid your own House's fortunes -- well! I doubt that we'll be able to call them 'fortunes' for much longer, you see?"
"You think to extend your life for an hour with this; for a day, perhaps. Best not bore me with this endless, pointless bla -- "
"Hah! No patience, none at all. Have it your way: did you know that it wasn't only Chernevog's men who were slaughtered by that dear of yours, that red-haired brute? Oh, no. Kalugin was nearly decimated as well. A disaster, all told, and a terribly confusing one. .. Coran -- that was his name, yes? But don't worry, love; it's not as if I'll be able to whisper it to Kalugin ears. There aren't enough of them left anyway..."
"There is no point to this."
"And you are a short-sighted twit. Shall I continue? Coran, yes. And that lovely creature who dragged me here, the one with the hair like yours; you've aquired quite the cabal of admirers, isn't that so? I must wonder, now, if it was he who slew Nikolaev's wife -- oh, you hadn't heard? But then of course you wouldn't have; in any case, they say it's driven the poor man quite mad. Talk of witchcraft, talk of streltsy -- you understand? It's falling apart, sweet, and no thanks to you and this black-haired devil. Makes me long for the old days, when it was just their families and mine, and not a coin or a hut to our names.."

When she leaps from her seat, it is with force enough to overturn the thing; its hollow rattle upon the floor is lost beneath the wind's roar.

"You could not have lived so long; you lie! Or you are a very chyort -- "
"No, no. Just a man, sweet; a more ambitious man than most, and flawed by curiosity. Shall I admit it? I wanted to see what would happen. Oh, New Dauntless had gold enough that it needn't look elsewhere for it, but even Kings can be convinced against their own better judgement; the families had wealth enough of their own, but even businessmen can be swayed in favour of their coffers, and the few truly desperate ones were... well. Truly desperate. Off we set, and off we settled, and of course there was no return when the scroll came commanding it. Their pride needed no encouragement."
"Centuries. Centuries ago! And all this time -- "
"All this time a word here, a whisper there, and now and then a long knife to a back that didn't take my advice when it should have. And now look at me: all undone by a little girl that I couldn't resist, as fresh and bright and full of promise as moonlight in sparkling wine -- "

She'd struck him then, the first touch shared by the pair in some eleven years. It was as he'd said, at least in part: when his lip tore against his teeth, it became quite plain that he was human enough to bleed.