Stories of Skinned Men

[DISCOLIQUID 2701]

⟢  Stories of Skinned Men ⟣

 

“Once you’re outside of the circle of people who agree that you’re special, you’re just another human body.” Glenn Cook, Soldiers Live.

 

An impish simulacra of a housecat scratches bloody writing onto vellum flayed off its own back. The spoken words of its pacing summoner are dictate and threat alike. Should a word go unscripted, a recounting poorly embellished, a gaudy detail questioned, the striith would be slain again & another one of its pelts tanned for work in the Catcher’s black contracts. Death would never take the grey cat. Styx would always spit the demonic, mangey feline back out, to be reborn again and again at the displeasure of its diabolic master’s woeful malcontent. 

 

“Are you listening, akun’zro?” 

 

Skin-bag. The Ratcatcher’s loving nickname for their infernal handler from the Moz Strimoza. The grey cat balks, and in line with the idioms, bites its own tongue. On a normal day, the grey cat would, in any number of colorful ways, suggest the Catcher take their own life post-haste. Still, bitter reminders to fall on the sword only amused the striith’s binder, doubtlessly accelerating the timeline between now and the feline’s next forceful skinning. Depictions of creative applications of blasting potions, swallowed cockatrice breath, or hand slipped into the gear-train of a smogging machine did not worm their way past the imp’s tongue… today. 

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You talk, I write. What’s new?”

 

Candles melt as low as the wicks will allow, until they gutter and spit, wax splattering. The luminary ordeal reminds the Catcher of battle, of trench warfare, of the fear in men’s eyes. Of froth corrupted lungs, choking on smog. The warlock sits, squat, legs splayed, on a throne of open books. Many yellow pages, ruined, for candlesticks were sat just atop them, allowed to bleed their red holy wax. Their slack posture, hunched, cutting the image of a widower in profane relief and paradoxical misery at the death of their battle-axe of a wife, yet choked to death. But the Catcher had no wife to choke to death, nor husband to poison, they had only their striith, and its dismissive, self-destructive suggestions. They were quite the pair. 

 

“They were real people, you know.” 

 

“. . ., what?”

 

“The skins I wear around, like a regent in her gowns. Each one of them. I tore it off of them, their identities, and into their flesh I stepped, like boots too big, and a jacket too wide.”

 

“Have you grown a soft side? Let me see it, so I can put a dagger there until you die.”

 

“Write, grey cat. Write, and don’t waste my time. The souls of those I caught, and flayed. Their stories are worth documenting.”

 

“. . ., if you say so.”

 

⟢ Entry 1: Joan ⟣

Spoiler

“How old was I? Maybe thirteen. I used to look it, too. Young, fresh-faced, warm. I had a knack for story-telling. Well…, heh. Maybe I had a knack for lying. Mom was still alive, back then. I think she wanted the best for me. The best our station could afford, at least. But this distinction, this small gap, was all I needed for light to pour in from the hall outside my bedroom door.”

 

“Selling cow-hides and meat with Joan, I had scraped enough together to pay for a room in the tavern of Alba. There, I could watch the streets. I did not understand what I was seeing. What I learned, in time, were the names and faces of Alban guards. They wore burgundy brigandine, simple helmets, and often chased Joan and I out of houses we had snuck into. The two of us were thick as thieves. Those guards locked me up to hunt rats in their armory more than once. Heh.” 

 

“And then I learned of nobility. Of money, of wealth, of power. I did not grasp it for quite some time, but it eventually became clear to me. The frictionless saunter of a woman who trails from the start of her day to the dark of her night without hiccup or bump. They glide, if you watch carefully, and arrive at a chosen stop. The miserable, the down-trodded, they bump around, like ants. Here, there, stopping by a group to stuff a nose in. These were the structures I came to learn from the perch of my tavern room. How others moved, how they acted, and the gap grew. More light poured in. I began to understand the difference between the high and the low.

 

"In my lows, I held but one real ally. Joan was my first and oldest friend. I do not know where she is now, but I want to tell you about her. She could not have been more important in the slaughter I am about to paint for you. Joan despised her station. She was distrustful and miserable around the wealthy. A few years my youth, but with a fire I could not imitate. She was adopted, as was I, by a woman named Constance, who came with a daughter - Lucienne. These are our three actors in the play that culminated with my first murder. Lucienne, the polished, perfect daughter of the passingly rich Constance, the street-wise and rag-tag Joan, and I.”

 

“I hated Lucienne. It was like a rock in my guts. The time Joan spent with her made me want to choke them both to death. I claimed Joan, she was the closest thing I had to family other than my mother. The thievery we worked for paid for my tavern room. The schemes we worked kept me fed. But Lucienne saw me as the issue. Perhaps it was my sharp tongue. Perhaps she saw a darkness in me that she did not see in Joan. Day after day, Joan grew closer to Lucienne. I remember the first time Joan met me, wearing a new, threaded dress. It would have cost me a year of work, thieving, and cheating in pig. I dredged her through the mud, and Lucienne shortly after. I ruined their beautiful clothes, and it soothed me. Perhaps this was where the rift arose from. Maybe it was all the time Joan and I spent in jail together.”

 

“And soon, I was removed from the home by Constance. I was sent to Lord Roger Ashford de Rouen’s castle, where I found no home. A sword was shoved into my hand. For so long I had clung to a little rusted dagger. Now…, now I had a blade, as long as my arm and made of cold steel. He had not meant to, but Lord Roger gave me the last thing I ever needed from Men.”

 

“Joan left her own skin behind. It was not flayed, nor cut, merely… stepped out of. She left it behind, that life on the roads. Lucienne took her in, and she became a different person. Well-tailored dresses. A life with prosperity. The near nameless flesh of an unloved street-rat was shed and discarded, now an empty husk."

 

“I wore it with pride.”

 

⟢ Entry 2: Eke ⟣

Spoiler

“Here is the first name I remember. Eke. Taken as well by the Arja, sequestered into the pits below Hallowcliffe’s ruins. By the time I first glimpsed the blackstone of their ritual room, the blood of their internal squabbles had dried on the floor, become metal in the air. Those Princes had fallen or ascended, as we do, and now the abandoned dilapidation of their chambers housed new shadows. Among them, myself.”

 

“Eke was young. Arrogant. He did not understand his place at my side, and when bid by Arja to raise him to militant standard, I did my best. We fought, the first time, swiftly. He had been unarmed, a fool’s mistake in those flaming halls, and paid the price for lacking preparation. Nicks and bruises. Small debts to owe me, as I taught him the lessons he needed. He was sore, though, sore for years. His anger soured into hatred. I will never know if Arja poisoned this well to test us, but he thought it… wise to challenge me.”

 

“I remember how afraid I was, in truth. I had been recently turned, you see, my marrows yet fresh. My eyes were adjusting to light, and dark alike. In my mind, I imagined that he had worked this out, and prepared a bag of flash powder to blind me in rapid succession. I had seen Arja work the souls of lost men into a veil of invisibility, and this frightened me too. How could I fight what I could not see? I laid my claws upon the sharpest blade I had, and worked tirelessly to plan for this challenge.”

 

“Into the icy winter of paranoid Norland, I drifted, slinking through a travelling caravan to avoid the aurum and salt of their gate-guards. There, I waited, at the respite of the only flame large enough to disdain the chill, the hearth of their tavern. I penned alchemists of the frozen wastes, writing the men of Solgaard, and other mud-mixers until I caught the attention of one who had what I wanted. I spent the wealth of my pockets upon these baleful candles that reveal the gleam of those cursed by ghosts. I lied through my teeth, elaborating that I was a monster hunter. What did I care? As far as I thought, I was.”

 

“I prepared an armor of thick mail. As I reasoned, it would give me the best chance in combat. Padded with gambeson, and I found a morion helmet that I wrapped black silks under. I prayed that if Eke started throwing flashing bursts, they would assuage the sparking light in my blind eyes. Upon a bandolier, I strapped no less than six potions. Bombs, cockatrice breath, smoke whispers, auric oil. I look back and laugh. I was a frightened, weak thing.”

 

“When our challenge began, I had already successfully lit the candle. My issue was not that I had underestimated my opponent, but that I had overestimated him. He made the same mistake twice, somehow. Despite having a full year to prepare for our fight, he brought one sword. No flash powder. He had no tricks up his sleeve. Listen, grey cat. I do not know if I have ever been more angry in my whole life. The gall to set his blade upon my life, and bring nothing more than its metal.”

 

“He crumpled in minutes. He could not slink into the veil of ectoplasm, nor do I even know if he was capable. His sword sung through the air, performative and playful, and mine bit into his flesh time and time again. He danced. I fought. I painted the floor with his blood, and when he glared up at me from my feet, I hewed his arm from his body.”

 

“It was this broken man that taught me about shepherds, and ectoplasm. He had no choice, after I sundered him. I did not flay him alive, as became tradition for those who fell to my blade in the future, but I did step into his skin. He was meant to be Arja’s chosen, my foil. He left, shattered, and never returned. Like a usurper, a heel-grabber, I took the mantle that was left for him, and received all blessings that Arja had meant for another.”

 

“I won because I was afraid.”