In the quiet that follows.

[Carnath-Emory]

The robed figure lifted one voluminous sleeve; from its end emerged a hand; and that hand extended its forefinger, which was in turn pressed against the shadow-concealed lips of the figure. "Shhhh," it issued softly, almost inaudibly, and the guardsmen on the balcony, for but a moment, wavered in their focus on the proceedings below. The robed figure lowered its hand to its chest, and twisted its wrist so the palm lay supine to the Council; and then the guards systematically checked the condition of their crossbows; they ensured the loaded bolt in each was ready to fire. The hand closed into a fist and settled in the figure's lap while the guards in the balcony above, as one, stepped forward and raised their crossbows, with every bolt aimed at a Councilor...


In the aftermath of a trial gone terribly, terribly wrong, they had fled with all the haste that she could command. There'd been confusion, at that time: some twelve guards lay dead within the Meetinghouse, windows were shattered; Councilor Guillaume's carriage had lurched away, driven by Quincy's hands, as Helstone and Guillaume himself fought for safety within its doors. There had been more guards, at some point, but these had responded to Captain Daniels' commands -- the dead ones most certainly had not -- and Mikhail's wraithly guard had fought alongside Captain Kerrak himself, who had evidenced a most... unexpected talent.

And she had fled, as Jacob Pyror bled out his life on the Meetinghouse lawn, that being what her employment demanded of her. The Governor had been dragged and bullied and otherwise ushered towards the only safety that she knew: that of her own rooms, the Meetinghouse being a wreckage, the Edificium being prone to invasion of the most insidious sort.

Bromn had slept, after a while, or had seemed to, at least. Her place had been the room's sole chair for most of the night, and while she'd dozed off at some point --

fumbling through damp, cool darkness; a cry rings out in this living tomb, a loved-thing's scream, echoing between the walls of No-Place, No-Time. she is caught in a tide of old dry parchment, a gust of paper swans swoops and darts, one thousand tiny cuts as she chokes on copper and black feathers and mint

-- adrenaline and alarm permitted no more than that of her. At some point, she had washed the night's sweat from her face and hands, lacking the water for anything more than that (like so many here, she rations her supplies). Had inspected the fresh bruising to her ribs, where the crossbow bolt had caught her; intended for the Governor himself, it had found solid armour in its path, metal buckling but not giving way, not quite. Had dressed diffidently at last, with some care for her burned arms and a head filled with questions.

Because Quincy had seen this madness: a dozen guards turning upon the Judiciary, upon their own Captain, as Archimedes shrieked his feral wrath at the sky. Because Quincy might have reckoned something of this, something crucial. And because..."Burn!", Kerrak had roared, as flame gouted through the night.

'Trust him,' Duke Burel had written. And a woman for the first time had reason to doubt the wisdom of that.

[channe]

My. That went exceedingly well.

The idiotic statement bounced sarcastically around in Helstone's rattled cranium as the Lothbury carriage peeled off down Bakery Row. For a moment, the barrister stood in the middle of the quiet street, regarding his shredded coat with some displeasure -- that's what you get, Cory, when you jump out a window -- before unlocking his door and trudging up the stairs to the second floor.

He had been hired once again to argue for the prosecution in the matter of the treason charges against Private Masaccio. He had been utterly confident of victory, cocky even to the point where he had agreed to allow the defense to go first. The opposing counsel, Pryor, was a tobacconist by trade, and he suspected (no longer suspect, but proven so, he thought, as the coat came off inside and was shaken free of a few shards of broken glass) that the man would talk himself into a number of logical faults and circles and out of a decent argument. Besides, Helstone and his clients had the previous exoneration behind them, which was half the battle.

The truth, too, would be his next thought.

Yes, he had been completely confident -- at least, before the small matter of the madness of the guardsmen present at the trial.

The guardsmen present -- Helstone can't remember their exact number -- had raised their crossbows as one and fired on the members of the Council; an blatant and true act of treason at a treason trial, a fact which would have amused the attorney had he not been so shaken by the presence of the monster that had come later.

Yes, the whole thing had gone to hell, he mused.

The coat was draped over a chair and a note left for Mary to mend when she arrived in the morning; tonight, he'd make himself some tea, and drink it by candlelight before retiring. He'd laugh; it wavers in the silence of his chambers. His hands would shake. The man's not used to being in the midst of a firefight.

Or -- in a carriage with Giscard Guillaime, being assaulted by a thing whose screams were, in Helstone's estimation, second only to the tales his mother used to tell him about demons in Hell.

The best way to deal with this sort of emotion, he's discovered, is to kill it -- preferably, with work.

Tomorrow, there would be letters written and sent to Councilmembers and a visit paid to the injured Pryor in the Rememdium (if he still lived, Cory noted with some displeasure). There were things he had to ask the man. He'd also attempt to look up his clients Ariane Carnath-Emory and Governor Bromn in the tavern the next morning; he'd breakfast there, and if they did not show, he would endeavour to go to the Meetinghouse later in the afternoon.

Either way, the matter he had been hired to take care of was no longer simply a case of Masaccio's words; it had moved into the sphere of blatant action (and, he suspected, supernatural influence), and Helstone intended on having the whole story before it went to trial again.

This was business. Strange business, but business nonetheless, and that, at least, was a comfort for the shaken lawyer.

[Quincy]

Quincy huddled in the steep waters of a high sided bathtub in the attic of the tavern, her hair a chin-length wreckage of wisps; all the pieces of her armour were cared for and put aside, gold and crimson agleam in the moonlight of the window. Things were worse than even she imagined; this night's madness was solid evidence.

-- for Archimedes bent his knees when he was but ten paces away from the carriage and *leapt*, an airborne, skeletal, shrieking figure that came to a horrible, support-crunching landing on the carriage's roof, its talon-like toenails tearing through the covering, its jagged fingernails immediately seeking the neck of the carriage's driver -- and piercing that neck with a gurgle of bubbling blood from the driver, and then separating the head from its shoulders with a twist. Then Archimedes hurled a fist at the side of the driver's body, knocking it from the carriage; in tandem, he leapt from the top of the vehicle and landed on a nearby rooftop, issuing another shriek at those below.

The driver who'd been right beside her; the driver who had, with self-assurance and terror, reared the carriage around and took flight from the fray. Quincy's fingers clung to a washrag; she thought of it over and over, wondering why, why she had not been fast enough to save him! It would be a wonder if Giscard would have her back after such a disgusting lack of foresight - of preparedness. She flung the rag, and it slapped the far wall, leaving a leaky, damp smear on the wood after it flopped to the floor.

She dripped her way from the tub and curled nakedly atop warm bedsheets; with long, sickly shudders, she squeezed her eye shut and almost immediately collapsed into the erratic breathing of an upset sleep.

[Vanidor]

The light of dawn had crept up upon the prone councilor. Brought hintings of brightness (and the heat that would follow) to the canvas walls of his tent. He continued to lay in bed, his hands wrapped tightly 'round the metal and wood hilt of his sabre. Beads of sweat continued to linger 'pon his brow.

Not from the heat, though surely that soon would add to the dampness. But from the exertion. From the nausea of the act. From trying to do something he had never done before. Something he had hoped to never do, really. At least when within the company of -her-. But it had. It had because he had felt that himself, and his companions, were threatened. And they had been... the moment those guardsmen raised their crossbows and stepped to the fore...

The events played over again. Rumbling through a mind wracked by his loss of control. He was amazed that he had not... Not burnt himself out, as the older man had said might happen. Could still happen, if he tried something like that once more. And it would. He knew it would... the trials of this place would make a certainty of it...

A slow breath. Hands flexing 'gainst the pain of their nightlong hold. He could hear the other men in the small encampment rousing. Sentries that traded jokes with the newly risen. The newly risen grousing at the sentries that were headed to bed. Kerrak al`Nerun let loose a slow breath and closed his eyes once more.... and as he tried to return to his rest, all he could hear were the echos of Archimedes' bestial roar...