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Lost Souls, Part IV
Character(s):
The Children
Author:
Laura Redish
Storyline:
Rat Kings
Title
of Post: From A Child's Perspective
"Thank Tal!" cried the
Sturtevanter, as the Rat Pack pulled up with the nine kids. He flung his arms
around Mick as the boy scrambled down from the carriage. "Thanks," he
called up, waving at Skitch. They were about the same age, Khyrisse noticed.
"And," said the youngest girl,
"and the strangers came and they were magic. And there was a demon with a
head and it hitted Mick but a man with a sword hitted it and pushed it in the
water and killed it and killed everyone. And, and everything burned up but a
man made it snow. Then the door opened and some devils came through the door
but they were really people, and the big evil man fighted with the strong lady,
and the big black monster eated the man's head--"
"OK," said her mother.
"Carrie, that's enough."
"But, but I'm not finished!" Her
mother sighed. "And then the ghost hitted the lady but the lady hitted the
ghost too, and the magic boy saved us and we couldn't see him. Then the horse
talked. The end."
"OK, Carrie. Let's go."
Character(s):
Flicker, Khyrisse, Ebreth Tor
Author:
Laura Redish
Storyline:
Rat Kings
Title
of Post: Flashback: Khyrisse Wins A Bet
Flicker waved at Khyrisse. "We'll
catch up," he said, in Elvish. "I just want to keep her out of your
hair for a while. We'll meet you at the rift. Oh, Khyrisse!" She glanced
back. "Don't kill the demon horse, OK? We need it for a prophecy."
Khyrisse made a pregnant pause.
"OK!" she said, cheerfully, and swung up onto the roof. She poked
Ebreth in the ribs. "You owe me five gold."
"The horse?" he said.
"Yes."
"Ah, rats." Ebreth took the
money out of his pouch.
Character(s):
Skitch
Author:
Laura Redish
Storyline:
Pitching Camp
Title
of Post: The Best-Laid Plans Of Ten-Year-Olds
The Rat Pack had stopped and set up camp
so that Tarrin could replenish his "crapped" mental energies. Skitch
trailed Khyrisse idly as she warded their campsite. "Khyrisse?" he
said. "Have you ever thought about getting married again? To someone who
isn't a jerk, I mean?"
She stared at him. "You want me to
get married?"
"Well, if it's someone stable, and
nice, who'd take care of you," he said. "We could be like a
family."
"I--thought we already were like a
family."
"Well, more like a family," he
persisted. "Like, like you could have a baby. You need a man to do that,
you know."
"I--I knew that, Skitch." Her
ten-year-old apprentice was trying to teach her about the birds and the bees.
"And we could do things together and
stuff. Maybe live in a house. Tarrin can cook--"
"Tarrin?" exclaimed Khyrisse.
"Well, why not?" said Skitch,
defensively. "I mean, he's smart. He's nice. He's good-looking--"
"--and he already has a wife!"
"Really?" Skitch looked
crestfallen. "Nuts."
Character(s):
Khyrisse
Author:
Kristin L.K. Andersen
Storyline:
The Rats of R.U.M.I.
Title
of Post: A Young (and Very Old) Man's Fancy
Khyrisse sat on a log near the edge of
their camp and rested her forehead on her knees, wrapping her arms about her
head for good measure. Her brain was still spinning and she kept wanting to be
sick. What maggot got into Skitch's
brain? she wondered dazedly. Let's hope it's a desire to keep Tarrin around and
not a desire for a real, "normal" family. Save me, Grendel, from my
marriage-minded apprentice.
Waiting for her stomach and mind to calm
down enough to face the idea of dinner, she fell asleep.
***
Her stomach was tying itself in knots. If
she had to wait another two hours for the rest of the guys to get here, she'd
probably wind up knitting a sweater with it.
"Look, can we not dissect me and Eric? Failed marriage or
successful one?"
Wyvern leaned back in his chair and waved
a hand lazily in acquiescence. "Very well, if you don't want my assistance
with your problems... I thought an impartial point of view might be helpful to
you."
"No. Thank you," Khyrisse said
through her teeth. "I don't need any help. Certainly not from you."
"No, pride is considerably more
important than assistance for you, isn't it? Easier to raise your chin at a
problem than open your heart to it. No wonder you and your first husband got
along so famously." Khyrisse, in the process of opening her mouth to shout
at him, froze. A cold tingle raced over the surface of her skin, and her hands
rose mechanically to rub at the sleeves of Kayla's blue blouse.
Don't ask him please don't ask him he
wants you to ask him he's just waiting for it look at him--"My first
husband?" she repeated faintly. "I've only been married once."
Wyvern looked momentarily surprised, then
nodded serenely. "Ah, yes. I lose track of time in here, you know... I had
forgotten. That hasn't happened yet, forgive me."
Khyrisse's eyes stared directly into
Wyvern's in transfixed horror. He looked... amused. Cold rain seemed to be
flowing through her veins instead of blood.
Her mouth moved on its own. "Who was--is--my second husband? What
are you talking about?"
"Oh, I really can't tell you, you
know. Our good Rip Hunter is overworked as it is. Let's just say," he
said, eyes twinkling with an unholy gleam of delight, "that your second
marriage made even better reading than your first."
She felt suddenly and completely ill. Her
brain ran in circles, trying to figure out what Wyvern meant, and got
nowhere... but a horrible sort of dread began to creep into her soul.
Khyrisse stared at her tormentor as
a sparrow stares at a snake. Wyvern's eyes flicked briefly to just below her
collarbone, above the loose collar of Kayla's blouse. Khyrisse's heart was
beating so hard that her throat and the upper curve of her breast vibrated with
it. He watched her pulse race for a moment, and a tiny, eerily satisfied smile
flashed across his expressive face.
Khyrisse suddenly remembered that Eric had
once found that physical peculiarity fascinating and jumped up, sending the
chair over backwards.
***
Khyrisse tumbled off the log with a
strangled shriek and fell on her butt in the dirt.
Ebreth leaped about a foot and a half, dropping an armful of
kindling. "AAAH!... Khyrisse?!
What is it?" He stared at her as she looked around wildly.
"Khyrisse?" Ebreth asked again, crouching down to look into her face.
"Are you all right?"
Khyrisse gulped air. "Uh-huh. Never
mind. Nightmare. I'm okay."
Character(s):
Ebreth
Author:
Laura Redish
Storyline:
Rat Kings
Title
of Post: Ebreth Tor Understands
"Shhhhh," he said, and gathered
her into his arms. "Shh. Shh. It's okay." He stroked her back.
"It's all right."
Character(s):
Berryn, Silent-Voice
Author:
Laura Redish
Storyline:
Skeins of Fate
Title
of Post: A Boring Job
"So," said Berryn, "what do
I do, being a minion?"
"Wait," said Silent-Voice,
"mostly."
"Oh."
Character(s):
Jack Paris
Author:
Douglass Barre
Storyline:
Rat Kings Are Cool. Huh huh huh huh.
Title
of Post: Look, It's Trying To Think
Jack looked over the Rat Pack as they
settled down for rest. The party seemed a lot smaller with Cori and Pieret
gone.
So they were going to the Rift, next. Jack
wondered at their propensity for following talking animals. Uncle Asinus Paris
would have a field day with this crew. Jack was just happy at this point to
have something to do. He didn't even know which rift they were going to... the
one in Diaria or the one in the Doomlands.
Jack started doodling a flowchart in the
dirt. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the path, but Jack knew that
everything had a pattern somewhere. He started with Lianth. "Plus Jack,
Val, Rat, Flicker, Ari, Khyri, Skitch, Vas," he wrote. "Rat leads to
Rumi." He drew another circle to
indicate Rumi.
"Plus Ebreth, Tarrin, Pieret. Minus
Flicker. First bomb. Meet Norn." After a moment, he wrote, "Rat leads
to Rimbor." For Rimbor, he drew a square. "Plus Cori. Second bomb.
Meet Novoa. Tarrin leads to Sturtevant." That seemed strange. Cori wasn't
involved in this; she had explained why she had come. Now she was lost again.
It seemed to Jack that the trip to Rimbor hadn't yielded any pieces to the
puzzle. According to what Novoa told Khyrisse, Octavian wasn't involved either.
Why go to Rimbor, then, Jack wondered.
He continued his map. Dalencia added
Grimthane, but that was a stopover. Sturtevant took away Grimthane, Pieret and
Cori. It added the horse, Fred. Fred
was pointing the way to the rift.
Every stop added something, gave them some
clue to their next destination.
Except Rimbor City.
"Jack?" Ebreth asked, and Jack
jumped with panic. He hadn't heard the slaver approach. "Everything
okay?"
"I'm trying to piece this all
together. It doesn't all fit. I feel like I'm missing an important piece."
He looked straight at Ebreth. "Are you involved in this? Or are you
peripheral, like Pieret was?"
"I'm not involved, except that I'm
trying to help," Ebreth said quickly.
"Then why do you keep lying to
us?" Jack asked, not even bothering to care. "Don't deny it. I'm a
mathematician."
Character(s):
Ebreth Tor
Author:
Laura Redish
Storyline:
Rat Kings
Title
of Post: Ebreth Takes Offense
"Now what have I lied to you
about?" said Ebreth, annoyed. "The one thing I've actually known
something about, I told Khyrisse about it right away. I don't know anything
about this goddamn undead thing. Neither do you, and I don't accuse you of
lying."
Character(s): Jack Paris
Author:
Douglass Barre
Storyline:
Jack Paris, Private Eye
Title
of Post: Jack Is A Lousy Interrogator
"You said that you had never heard of
my cousin Lita," Jack said. "But you were lying about that. Or else
my mention of her made so much of an impression that you called it out in your
sleep a few nights ago."
Character(s):
Ebreth Tor, Tarrin
Author:
Laura Redish
Storyline:
Jack Paris, Private Eye and Audio Recorder
Title
of Post: Remembering Lita
"I called her?" said Ebreth,
stunned. "Jack, you must have--"
"Lita!" said Jack, in Ebreth's
voice. Ariath looked across at him. "What?" said Jack, in Jack's
voice, and then in Ebreth's "Just. Just a dream." He cut off the
playback, looking Ebreth Tor in the face.
"That was great," said Ariath,
impressed.
Ebreth still looked surprised, but he
shook his head. "So?" he said. "Do you think Ebreth Tor the
pirate would have been dreaming about her? Have you got any idea how many lives
he ruined? Do you think it bothered him? If he was frightened he would never
have fucked with a Paris in the first place. He would never have done half the
things he did but he wasn't and he did. Now I'm afraid and you think
something's wrong with me? You're fucked up, Jack! You should be worrying about
me if I don't have nightmares! You should sit there and watch me sleep and if I
sleep peacefully you should slit my fucking throat!" He turned his
shoulder on the smaller man with a certain intensity, his hand shaking. He had
been shouting. He didn't care. "These aren't my memories. Now just tell me
what you want to know, right? Ask me whatever it is you've been waiting to ask
Ebreth Tor, I will answer you, and then I never want to talk about this again.
Do you understand me?"
Character(s):
Jack Paris
Author:
Douglass Barre
Storyline:
Jack Paris, Private Eye
Title
of Post: Jack Too Much For His Own Good
Did you love her?
Why did you betray her?
What really happened that night on Boche
Island?
How did you come back?
Why shouldn't I kill you?
Can we really trust you?
Did you love her?
"Um, you're sure you don't know
anything about all this?" Jack stammered under the weight of Ebreth's pain
and accusation.
"I. Am. Sure," Ebreth said.
"Um, that's all, then," Jack
said, and quickly slunk off.
Ariath was beaming.
"You say one thing about this,"
Ebreth said to her, "and I tell what I know about your friends. I don't
think anyone else heard you."
"Works for me," grinned Ariath,
who stood and skipped over to where Vas was whittling.
"Damn me, but I like the guy
regardless," Ebreth spat. "Parises! Sheesh!"
Character(s):
Khyrisse, Tarrin and Skitch
Author:
Kristin L.K. Andersen
Storyline:
The Rats of R.U.M.I.
Title
of Post: Making Plans and Getting Organized
Khyrisse had some questions of her own to
ask.
She composed herself, closing the cover of
The Art of War and her eyes at the same time. Once she was sure she was as calm
as possible, she used one of her sending spells.
"Pieret" is dead. Warn your
ambassador that an arch-cloaker is loose in Edimon. Who do I contact for an
appointment to discuss international trade agreements? she sent in a perfectly
polite and fairly serene mental "voice". She smiled a little, pleased
by the tone she'd managed to project. Khyrisse got up, dusting her hands off,
and walked off to do the next thing on her list. She hardly knew whether Eric
would receive that message or not-- although he should. Neither did she know if
Eric would deign to reply. The spell would wait around indefinitely until Eric
"told" it that he would not reply... but catch her doing the same!
***
"Tarrin?" she said hesitantly,
standing at the edge of the little circle he and Skitch made, holding her own
notebook and pen.
"Yes?" he said, looking up from
their spelling lesson.
Skitch looked at her, then at what she was
carrying, and grinned in delight.
"Would you teach me how to pronounce
High Diari correctly?" she said, with a wry smile.
Character(s):
Khyrisse and Skitch
Author:
Kristin L.K. Andersen
Storyline:
The Rats of R.U.M.I.
Title
of Post: Damned Weird-Ass Fricatives...
Khyrisse groaned and flopped backwards to
lay on her back next to the fire. "Gods, learning how to communicate with
Ixhriy wasn't this bad."
"Hey, you could always call her by
her nickname," Skitch said suddenly. "That's got an 'ee' sound at the
end, like a normal girl name."
Khyrisse glared at him with one eye.
"A 'normal' girl name? Whaddaya mean, 'normal'?!" Skitch grinned
unrepentantly.
"Really?" asked Tarrin,
brightening a little.
"Yeah, 'Khyri'," Skitch
supplied. "Does that mean anything in Diari? Elf names always have to mean
something."
Character(s):
Tarrin; Eric
Author:
Laura Redish
Storyline:
Rat Kings
Title
of Post: A Greased Weasel
"In the Diaria," said Tarrin,
"is enough for a name to mean a person. It doesn't also have to mean
something else." He paused respectfully. "But I think you should be
very careful to pronounce the K, because Khyri, with hard K, that means a
weasel." Khyrisse looked indignant. "Uh, Diari weasel. Diari weasels
are the most beautiful weasels in the world. Very expensive fur. But you
pronounce that with the elven K, write that Kyri in Diari, and that doesn't
mean anything except you." He beamed at her.
Thanks for info, Eric's clipped reply
suddenly interrupted Khyrisse's thoughts. Will have someone get back to you on
trade issues. Thought you didn't have a city to speak of anymore. No time to
chat.
Khyrisse's eyes crossed.
"Tarrin," she said, "could you teach me some curse words?"
Character(s):
Khyrisse and Skitch
Author:
Kristin L.K. Andersen
Storyline:
The Rats of R.U.M.I.
Title
of Post: Playing Games
Khyrisse suddenly sat bolt upright in
surprise. "My gods... he actually
said 'thank you'." She fell over
again, laughing her butt off, while Tarrin and Skitch looked at her in
astonishment. "Oh, this is going to be fun," she laughed, wiping
tears from her face.
"What are you talking about?"
Skitch said.
"I'll tell you later."
"Weasel!"
Khyrisse returned to her Diari lesson,
musing over this. "It means 'weasel with expensive fur', huh?" She
grinned a little. "Okay, it's not that far from what my name means in
Elven. I can live with that."
"What does your name mean?"
Skitch wanted to know.
"Ain't tellin'," she said, and
stuck her tongue out at him.
"Awww!"
Character(s):
Ariath
Author:
Douglass Barre
Storyline:
Bride of Rat Kings
Title
of Post: Ariath Worries
"So, Vas?" Ariath asked
absently.
"Hm?" Vas asked.
She took her hands out of his hair.
"Is it just me, or do you think Khyrisse is taking this whole Pieret thing
pretty well?"
"You are too," Vas said.
"Yeah, but I didn't like him
when I knew him. I get the impression that Khyrisse did. I mean, he was her
uncle and all."
"And he stranded Cori in Hell."
Ari whapped him upside the head.
"That just makes it worse, you... you... oh!" Ariath huffed off to
where Khyrisse and Tarrin were talking.
"What does your name mean?"
Skitch wanted to know.
"Ain't tellin'," she said, and
stuck her tongue out at him.
"Awww!"
"My name means 'Gypsy Heart' in
Diari," Ariath chimed in.
"Khyrisse's means expensive
weasel!" Skitch provided.
"Huh," Ariath grinned.
"You'd think mine would be that one."
Khyrisse smiled.
"Hey, I just wanted to let you know,
Khyrisse, that if you needed to talk, I wasn't planning anything tonight. You
know, only if you want." Skitch was looking up Ariath's skirt. Khyrisse
yanked him hard and he landed on his ass. "It's been a tough day, and even
leaders need to talk," Ari said. "And I've got some really good
Dalencian wine in my tent."
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