Marshall Law: The Cherny

[Lent]

Purpose. Constable Lentham spent years without it. Years lost. Adrift. Before that, he had purpose. Before that, he threw himself at a job, harder and harder. Threw himself at a wall. Crime. Danger. Darkness. Myrken. Threw himself until he broke. That was the idea. He wasn't supposed to live through it. Wasn't supposed to heal. He did though, everything but his memories. When you die in every way that matters, you stop mattering at all. Purpose gave way to inertia. Life went on with him as a strange, ill-fitting part of it. The job was the job. It was no longer a purpose, was simply something to fill the time. Not between one point or another. There were no points, just time, and it needed filling. The drink and the job.

Problem with that was it was a social sort of job. People to chase down. People to protect. Complaints to hear. Partners. That last one was the big problem. McCoy. A good kid. Cut down too young by a madman. That changed everything. Inertia led to friendship. Friendship led to loss. It wasn't the good sort of loss, the empty sort. This loss created. Purpose. So he hunted down Karolinger. One year. Two years. Winters in the woods. Stymied at every turn. Signs of his return ignored by all but Lentham. In the end, it went as badly as it could have gone. The Marshall returned, possessed. Brought others with him. People, good people, constables, died. Kids like McCoy, because Lentham hadn't been able to stop it. He went to find a solution. When he came back, it was all over.

Except for it's never over. Good things end all the time in Myrken, but the bad things? They're always with you. Jons Feul was a demon. Karolinger. Anyone could be a demon now. Lentham blinked and there they were. The goodwife walking down the street, spreading whispers and lies and perversions. The butcher down the block, cutting up the lost and helpless and destroying the evidence. There was no one to trust. Purpose didn't go away but how far would he have to take it? How many were tainted? How few were not?

And now? Now another Marshall was dead. The primary suspect was the drow. Jirai. He had hunted her too. Spent time with Roschen to do so. It all ended with their reconciliation. With Burnie pulling him because she had been "neutered." That was the word. He had experience with her though. Was asking too many questions about demons too. About the demon that had been bonded with Karolinger. Something in the report was rotten. He wasn't there when Karolinger died. Others were. One in particular seemed especially suspicious. He asked questions and they gave him this instead. A dead marshall, but the wrong one. A dead marshall and a witness.

That's what brought him to the mill this morning. The trail was still hot. These things had a tendency to drag out, disappear. So he'd knock, show his credentials to whoever opened the door and asked to speak with the master while sipping idly out of his flask. There was a proper way to do such things after all.

[Waldemar]

The mill was doing good business, from all appearances; the road between the trees grew increasingly rutted by the tracks of laden carts and wagons. Even now the great wheel turned, filling the clearing with the sounds of rushing water and creaking timber; a low thunder of turning wheels sounded from within the mill itself, rising and falling with heartbeat regularity.

The door was opened by a red-haired youth, maybe sixteen years old and smudged with flour; he inspected first the man and then the badge he displayed with his single green eye, the other covered by a band of sweat-stained cloth. The request to speak with the miller had more of an effect than the credentials in that he turned to slouch back into the mill, leaving the Constable waiting on the doorstep for a few moments. Crows squabbled and croaked in the trees around the millpond, reflecting darkly in the still waters below.

The next figure to appear was an older man, maybe somewhere in his forties, walking with the aid of a stick. Respectably-attired in clothes of a conservative cut and cloth which might've been black were it not for the fine dusting of flour. His vest and shirtsleeves indicated that he'd been tending to his trade, an impression reinforced by his air of politely masked impatience as he inspected Lentham's badge in turn. No move to invite him inside, perhaps assuming that whatever brought the man to the mill might be quickly resolved here on the doorstep.

"What do you need, Constable?" Clipped, barely on the civil side of brusque.

[Lent]

"Hn. Marek Waldemar, then. Detective Constable Kurt Lentham." Notes. Lentham had notes on the man. Not many, but then he didn't need many. Wasn't here for him. "First, you reported a break in, not long ago." And if Waldemar thought he'd have immediate follow-up on that from the Constabulary? Well, he likely hadn't thought that at all, but here Lentham was. "Can talk about that, iffin you like."

Wasn't much to go on. "Two figures. One with a cloak. Nothing taken. One worker hurt. Some disruption. Fled when confronted. Yes? Thing with a mill is that it doesn't create great wealth. Some of what you make goes back into it. Rest of it probably isn't stored here anyway. This isn't a business, it's a living. You're not a businessman. You're a miller." Quite often the mill was owned by whoever owned the farmland and that owner would charge his farmers to use it. Quite the racket. That wasn't the case here. "Not an insult." Best to clarify. "Just how it is. Makes motive funny."

"Afraid to say that's not the only reason for me being here. Had a murder last night. Worker of yours was noted as a witness. The marshall. Bit more pressing, then, then a break in." There was something unsettling about the Constable, the way he insisted on eye contact, the way he tried to peer through Waldemar, to find the secrets within, to quest for a demon within. A miller? Why not. Relatively new back to Myrken. Could be one of them. Could have planted the boy there, could be all working together. Demon conspiracy to kill the Marshall. Knock out Myrken's defenses one at a time. Lentham wiped at his brow and inhaled through his nose. His recovery was quick, preceded and punctuated both with sips from the flask. "A boy, Cherny, this says. I'd talk to him regardless of our other business."

[Waldemar]

Waldemar nodded as introductions were made, and again to confirm the report of a break-in. He made no comment on the Constable's appraisal of his mill's profitability or otherwise; clearly he'd not spent much time asking farmers what they thought of the miller's trade, or he'd've received a very different impression.

"It's a living." A moderately comfortable one, given the quality of his flour; there was certainly plenty of demand, and his rates were fair enough that more and more local farmers were bringing their meal to him rather than the miller in town. Enough that his clothes were relatively new, lacking the threadbare patches and frayed hems that he'd worn on his arrival. "They may have just been looking to cause damage."

Any further speculation as to the intruders' motives was forestalled by that news of more serious trouble; the miller frowned uncertainly, cautious, but as more explanation was given his manner shifted from confusion to understanding, with a touch of grim humour around the edges.

"Ah. Well, that explains some things." How the boy had crept back to the mill only after dawn, how he'd been pale and subdued all day. "You're welcome to talk to him, for what good it'll do. Come in." He stepped back into the mill, stick thumping on the floorboards, allowing space for the Constable to follow; the sound of machinery was louder here, a backdrop of grumbling axle-bearings and meshing wooden teeth. A younger boy, maybe ten years old at most, was sweeping the floor as best he could with one arm in a sling.

"Padalec!" The lad looked up at that shout from the miller, all watery eyes and weak chin and ears too large for his head. "Take Cherny's place upstairs. He has a visitor." Padalec nodded quickly and scurried for the stairs, taking his broom with him. In the meantime Waldemar stumped over to the flour chute, dipping fingertips into the thin trickle of flour to test its consistency; reaching up to minutely adjust the angle of a lever overhead, he tested the flour again and apparently found it more satisfactory. At least the Constable's interruption hadn't spoiled the whole bag.

It was a short while before he spoke again, voice raised slightly to address Lentham without looking round from his work. "You can use the kitchen, if there's too much noise in here." Pointing with his walking stick to a door on the upper level of the room, at the top of a short flight of steps. "You'll probably have trouble hearing him." He couldn't entirely keep a thin smile from tugging at his lips at that private joke. Well, the man would find out for himself soon enough.

[Glenn]

More to say about the mill. the question of who would attack the mill for the sake of attacking it, for instance. Who benefitted? Lentham wasn't an expert detective. So long as he stuck to that question, though, he wasn't a terrible one either. Drunk. Raggedy. Falling apart at the seems, but competent enough. Who benefited from the mill being attacked? A professional rival? Someone the miller had doublecrossed in a business dealing? Without more information, he couldn't know.

Who benefited from the Marshall dying? Someone who wanted her position? A militiaman who she had embarrassed or been too harsh to? Some dark figure from her past (she seemed to have some)? Just someone who wanted to spread chaos? Jirai? The Demons! The demons benefited most of all. Was Jirai replaced as well? Was the drow working with them? The moment to ask more about the break-in had passed, and it was with a large gulp of his flask that Lentham looked around once more. "Hnnn." He inhaled through his nose once more, nodded to the miller. "The kitchen. Thank you." He would start in that direction so far as he could fully work it out given what he had missed. "Afterwards, we'll talk more about the break-in." He hardly saw what Waldemar had to be amused about.

[Waldemar]

The miller only nodded and waved the Constable towards the kitchen door, once more intent upon his work. His flour was gradually building a reputation for quality, and he was unwilling to let even the authorities interfere in his efforts toward that end.

The kitchen had been cleaned up since the nocturnal invasion, smashed crockery swept up and thrown out, battered pans returned to service with a couple more dents and dings. Table, chairs, cabinets and shelves; a fire burning in the hearth, a cutting board with a half-loaf of bread on the table, cooking herbs drying from the rafters overhead. It could have been any one of countless kitchens in Myrken Wood.

The boy - a different boy - entered the kitchen a little while after the Constable, this one skinny and black-haired and with a keen alertness to his gaze, nervous and watchful. Maybe ten years old, maybe a scrawny thirteen, thin hands curled into bony fists at his sides. Apparently this was the boy Lentham had been sent to meet.

[Glenn]

Cherny had seen Constables, certainly. Had he seen one in so ragged a uniform? One drinking from an ornate flask right in front of him, while on duty, while in the middle of an investigation, at the very beginning of a questioning? No? Well, now he had. "Hn." A slow nod as the boy was examined. The same uncomfortable stare. Demons could take the form of boys. This was the main witness, no? Maybe he was a demon that did it and just said someone else did the deed. Maybe so. Maybe Lentham couldn't take the chance. Cut him down now. One less demon.

There was that slow inhale through his nose. "Cherny, then. Right." A long sip of the flask. Not too long, though. Best not to run out, especially not now. "I'm Lentham. I want to hear what you saw. Say it plainly, lad. You've nothing to fear." Nothing more than usual at least.

[Cherny]

He'd seen Constables around town, certainly; he'd initially taken the Marshall for something similar, based on her badge and the weapon she wore at her hip. Lentham was different from the grey-coated officers patrolling the town, but the boy didn't know enough about different types of Constable to really dispute his credentials.

Nothing to fear, the man said. The boy had yet to learn the fine Myrken art of gallows humour, so he didn't know to laugh at that reassurance. There was quite a bit that he didn't know, he was coming to realise. Like why he was there, talking to a strange man in a uniform that surpassed his beloved coat for tattered hems and fraying seams. But the Constable asked what he saw, and he understood the reason.

He understood he was in a difficult spot, too.

The smallest flicker of a glance for the door, and he shrugged helplessly. Thin features twisted into a hateful sneer as his left hand stretched out, grasping something unseen before him before tugging it back; his right hand, clenching something similarly invisible, reached forward and around to his left, then drew sharply across from left to right; a twist of fingers turned the imaginary hilt about in his hand before it was brought down and back, halting at a spot maybe six inches lower than the left-to-right cut.

His hands shook as they loosened from about the unseen weapon, his expression of arrogant scorn fading into one of hollow fear, distant for a moment. Remembering. Another shrug, and he dragged an unsteady thumb across his throat from ear to ear, then jabbed it at his chest, gaze fixed somewhere a few feet to Lentham's left and a thousand yards behind him.

That's what he saw.

[Glenn]

It was the shrug. That little shrug. Tiniest thing from a tiny little emaciated urchin. Cherny wasn't out of the woods. No way. No How. Wasn't his fault, not really. How could he know that the sneer, the sudden, dramatic sneer almost sent a blackjack into his skull. The weapon had popped into Lentham's hand. A sneer. A demon! In the den of them. All the proof he needed! The boy had done the deed. His body had been consumed. His soul had been devoured. All that was left was a head with legs. A demon spawn. Something to be stomped out and crushed. Brains splattered upon the ground.

But then there was that shrug. Was the boy fighting? McCoy fought. McCoy fought back against the worst odds. Got him killed. Did his job. Someone else fought too. A boy? The Flux? Flashes of memory tormented Lentham ever since his time in the dream, but they were few and far between. They WERE. Now with the demons swarming he saw things he shouldn't see. Ten? Thirteen? Too old. But then McCoy had been older still. It was all a mishmash. A demon trick? Attacking his mind? The blackjack was in his hand, but the Constable did not strike.

He stared instead, watched the bizarre motions, the boy fighting against the demon inside of him? It wasn't until the second shrug that Lentham finally blinked. What the hell was the boy playing at. No voice? Shock? The Demons could talk. He knew that. Karolinger could talk. Mostly swears and incoherent utterances, but better than this. If he was trying to lead Lentham off the trail, he wouldn't pantomime it. "Hnnnnnnnn." A long, extended exhale through his nose and then the flask was held out to the boy. "Sip this. Try again." Was the blackjack still in his other hand? Really? Well, perhaps Cherny ought to comply then.

[Cherny]

That tendency towards overstated movements, exaggerated expressions, was something that he'd learned through long and bitter experience: people are dense. They rely on words a lot, so if you don't have any words you've got to be really, really clear. There's no room for subtlety, because they won't see it. So he'd played it up, so that the detective might better understand.

There was an absence in the moment between his performance ending and Lentham speaking, holding out that flask. A span in which the boy was elsewhere, seeing something other than the here-and-now of the mill kitchen and the Constable with his blackjack and flask. Then there was the sound of the man's voice, and something held out to him, and words that only made sense after a couple of seconds. He met the Constable's gaze for long enough to assure himself that he was being offered the flask, and only then lifted a hand to accept it as if it might bite him.

He stared dully at the flask for a time before he remembered why he had it. It might've been bravado that had him raising the flask to his lips without even so much of a sniff at its contents. Maybe it was just apathy, not so much unafraid as uncaring. Either way he drank deep.

[Glenn]

The boy had likely had worse. Was that surprising? He was most probably not a connoisseur, what given his age and all. Even so, it wasn't quite the skull fusing swill one might have expected. It seemed strangely watered down. The Constable had cut the distance as Cherny drank, and now he was right close indeed. "Hnn." He watched closely, too closely, and then at the end of it exhaled through his nose once more. A nod. A hearty enough smack aimed at the boy's shoulder. "Attaboy." Not one of them. Not yet. Holy water mixed with drink. Only way he could be sure of anything. Only way he could be sure of himself.

Easy to be friendly now. No smile, but some more warmth, at least. Boy deserved that. Lentham nodded again. "So, shock. Tough times. Makes sense. Ok. How about I ask questions and you just nod or shake your head?" Otherwise, they'd get a whole lot of nothing here and he'd already wasted some of his flack on the boy. Had to leave with something.

[Cherny]

He'd had worse, or at least stronger, which was probably why the watered spirits provoked only a brief grimace and cough to clear his throat. Not as bad as the whisky Niall had offered him at the tavern, but not especially good either; one mouthful was more than enough, and he held out the flask for Lentham to retrieve.

That easing of the detective's manner was a start, but it'd probably take more than that to put the boy at ease; he stepped back a pace once the flask was handed over, absently rubbing at his shoulder. A shrug answered that question first, but was followed by a hesitant nod. Nervous, but not so much that he couldn't correct the Constable's assumption: fingers of one hand pressed flat against his throat, the others over his mouth, dark eyes on the man's features. Did he understand?

[Glenn]

His witness... couldn't talk. Lentham was nodding slowly at Cherny now. A few too many nods. Ten, eleven maybe. It went on for a little bit as he processed that bit of information. Witness, couldn't talk. Check. "Hnn.." A sip from his own flask. The constabulary had a long history of working with the tools it had. Scant few more often than not. Well and good.

"I ask. You nod. You shake your head. Right?" Right. Hopefully there was a nod there so that they could continue. "The whole arrow thing? Kind of got that. Need to know WHO did it. Usually, case like this? You see the arrow hitting. You see the person fall. You're telling me you saw everything leading up to that? You saw the person who shot the arrow, all the way back to preparing to take the shot?"

[Cherny]

He couldn't talk. Not here, not where there was a chance of the miller finding out. Too many difficult questions would ensue. So for now, no, he couldn't talk.

But he could still answer. Mute, but by no means dumb.

The the Constable went on to talk about arrows, shots being taken, and the boy's brow creased in confusion as he shook his head. Again his hands moved in place of his tongue; a touch to his chest and then two fingers pointed at his eyes; describing the shape of the wickedly-sharp drow blade, repeating the path it had taken across the Marshall's throat. That clarification made, he could nod in confirmation. He saw that.

[Glenn]

Information had been a bit muddled. This was obviously not the best form of communication. There was a vague recollection of seeing the body, seeing the damage to it, but everything had been a bit of a rush and he MAY, just MAY have been in his cups a bit, believe it or not. And then the boy's little pantomime's had made no sense to him. Granted, he wasn't exactly paying attention, so taken with the idea that the boy might have been a demon. "Hnn." Lentham rubbed at his eyes, best to start over.

"Were they.. fighting then?" The Marshall was known for getting into disagreements. Arguments. Not surprising. She was the Marshall. They all did that. "Did she just stand there and take it?"