Hymnal (Art Quest)

[Bromeliad]

It's happening again.

Same old dream.



Latto dreams he's being stripped away, bit by bit.
Shavings of skin and muscle and bone lift off him and curl into the light.
He can feel the suction in his ears until the ears are gone, the scraps and cochleas floating away on a curious little pilgrimage, up.
It never hurts, but it is powerful odd.

It's happening more lately, which is an omen of something, he suspects.
He's got a date with the Boss.

There are four of them, the Sisters, and four Eidolons to do their work in the World.
Each of them, folks pray to. You don't want to piss them off. That goes double when you work for them.

From left to right:


Thalia is the oldest, though you wouldn't think it talking to her. To be her Eidolon you have to die, which ain't hard, and come back, which is the trick. She likes it when you take life, and is probably the easiest to please when you think about it. She'd be the nicest of the four, if you didn't know what she was.

Justa is the second oldest, and she's not so bad, once you get to know her. To be her Eidolon you have to be deeply wronged by the person closest to you in the world, and then you have to find them and take repayment for that wrong. She likes it when you do what's right or you stand up for the people who can't stand up for themselves. She's a fair woman but she can bear a grudge like nobody's business.

Gnosa is the second youngest, which she's self-conscious about. To be her Eidolon you have to learn a terrible secret that has been kept from you for a good reason. She doesn't know as much about the way it all works as Thalia or Justa, and loves it when you discover what nobody's ever discovered before, or what everyone has long forgotten. She'll apologize until she's out of breath later if it gets you in trouble somehow, but that won't stop her from getting all excited about the next place she can stick her nose where she shouldn't.

Carita is the youngest, and her sisters think maybe she's just going through a phase. To be her Eidolon you have to break someone's heart so hard it will never be fixed. She loves mortals best of all her sisters, which means that in some ways of thinking she's the most dangerous. She loves the act of seduction in every form it has, and loves it especially when it's curled up in a lie.

To one of the Four, Latto is everything. He's her servant, bodyguard, high priest, and in a way her closest friend. To the others, he's a plaything at best and a threat at worst.
Which one?
[] Thalia
[] Justa
[] Gnosa
[] Carita

 

[Bromeliad]

Latto's sternum peels from his ribcage and floats in space, turning slowly, and there's a suction there that pulls his heart to it. The rest of him follows.

Through the light and around the corner. Gnosa's house.



He reknits in Gnosa's main hall, surrounded by pickled unspeakables from the world over.
Antediluvian things with too many legs or not enough of them, doodled out by the spasms of some insane non-euclidean hand.

Gnosa experiments on everything she finds interesting, which knowing Gnosa is everything under the Lord's Sun.
When she's done with them they go here for display, their innards peeking from the clean sutures she's trussed them up in.
A chitinous leg twitches and taps against the frosted glass of its tube.
Latto sniffs. Gnosa loves when he drags these things back. He couldn't ever cotton to any of them.

He follows the formaldehyde-stained trail to Gnosa's throne.



She sits on a chaise-lounge made from laminated bone. Untrees grow in stilted pillars up through the walls, pulsing gently like veins shot through the skin.
Hung from their rafters are little trinkets secured with twine. The ones she liked best. Offerings by explorers leaving on barks or nervous settlers heading out on wagons to places they've only ever read about. There's a billhook there, and a million medallions, and someone's severed left hand.

"How do, Gnosa," Latto says.
"Latto," she says. "You're in trouble, boy."
"Not with you?"
"Why? There something I should know about?"
"There's a million things you want to know about," Latto says. "Don't know if none of them fall under the purview of should."
She folds her legs. "Not with me, Lats. With your friend, the Mayor Voldo. I thought you should know."
"What's Voldo got to complain about?"
"You could ask him," she says. "Soon as he ungags you. If he don't burn you at the stake first."

Latto rubs his wrists.
In the waking world, he realizes, someone's tied rope around them. Coarse and hemp.

"Son of a bitch," he says, mildly. "While I was sleeping."
Gnosa giggles. "You have an effect on people, Lats."
"Couldn't think of what I done," Latto says.
"It's not for you to think," Gnosa says. "It's him. I get the idea you wake up, if you wake up, your little downtime in Ernar is at an end."
"Reckon that's true," Latto says.
"And I'm also thinking you'll be wanting my help." Gnosa's toe taps on the obsidian floor.
"Well now how could I turn you down, Gnosa?"
"Freely given," Gnosa says. "Provided you tell me what you were doing there in the first place, Latto, and what you plan on doing next."

[] I was there tracking down a gun. It's called Roundhead's Revolver and I want it.
[] I was there because someone told me the guy who killed my nephew stayed at the inn.
[] I was there filling out a contract. Someone's seen a revenant in the area. Figured I could help out.
[] I don't rightly recall why I was there, and next I plan on doing whatever you want to tell me, ma'am.
[] Write-in

 

[Bromeliad]

"I'm trackin' down a gun," Latto says. "It's called Roundhead's Revolver and I want it."
"What's wrong with the gun you have?" Gnosa asks.
"Better gun."
"You have a way with words, Latto."
"Yes'm."
"I'm assuming you don't know what it does."
"Not as such."
"That's what I like to hear." Gnosa's eye flares. "Finding out's as good a task for you as any."
"Yes'm."
"And when you've found your 'Better Gun' I got something bigger planned for you."
"Can't hardly wait."
"You can handle it. Provided you aren't burnt alive." She extends her hand. "A kiss, Latto."

The kiss is the way the Sisters give their Eidolons power. Thalia, Latto hears, kisses her boy on the lips. Justa on the forehead. He ain't got any idea what Carita'll do to you.

With Gnosa, it has always been the hand.



Latto dutifully bends his knee and brushes his lips against her knucles. Her skin is porcelain smooth.

With the kiss comes the power:

Questant's Blade: Your touch opens deep gashes in men or material. Five casts.
Seven League Step: Lift your foot and let it fall anywhere within half a mile away. Three casts.
Seeking Torch: Fire that holds and clings to anything you want it to. Two casts.
Gnosa's Guidance: Gnosa tells you what waits for you down any path. One cast.
Cloudkill: Kill anyone who doesn't know to cover their mouth. One cast.

So it is until the next kiss.

"Now wake up." Gnosa's hand flicks up and playfully taps Latto's cheek. "And smell the kindling."



"---And I say unto you BROTHERS! And sisters!"
Latto wakes up to Mayor Voldo waving a torch under his nose.
"Will we suffer the Harlot's SLAVE among us? No!"



"NO!"
Two dozen angry village folk, with polearms and torches, swarm round the driftwood pyre set up for Latto. Well it's a rude awakening as far as awakenings go. Latto's got no idea what this is about.

"Will we suffer," Mayor Voldo says. "Will we SUFFER the ways of the BEETLE MAN and his IRON and his witchcraft? His WAYS among US? NO!"
"NO!"
That could mean just about anything.
"Will we allow his palpating FINGERS their entrance to our HEARTS my good men and women. NO!"
"NO!"
Still no clue.
"Will we suffer his DEFLOWERING touch upon the first buds of our spring? NO!"
"NO!"
Aw, hell. This is probably about his daughter, ain't it.

[] She got me drunk, mayor.
[] Don't you folk have anything better to do on a friday?
[] Let me talk to the gal, mayor.
[] Fools! Do you dare bring the wrath of the Sisters down upon your HEADS?
[] Cast a spell:

 

[Bromeliad]

"Don't you folk have anything better to do on a friday?" Latto grunts.
"NO!"
"Do not engage with him, brothers and sisters!" The mayor waves his torch at you. "Lest he poison your minds as he has poisoned before!"

"Voldo," Latto says. "Lemme talk to the gal, Voldo."

"Hey there, Latto!"



The clarion voice of Mina, the mayor's daughter, echoes through the susurrous of the crowd. "Lookin' for me?"
"Mina." Latto shakes his head. "You ain't exactly leaping to my defense, then."
"Sorry, darlin!" Mina waves. "But when daddy found out it was either you or me up there and I ain't got the will of the Four behind me. And if you don't make it out alive that's a heck of a story all things considered! I could tell my kids about it! In my unhappy marriage!"
"You hearin' this?" Latto asks the mayor.
"I hear naught but the crackling of your future pyre, beetle man!"
"And besides!" Mina calls. "You're a liar, and I don't condone that in a man!"
"How you figure?" Latto calls back.
"You told me I was your one and only." Mina wiggles her hips.
"I was drunk as a skunk, Mina."
"But everyone knows the beetle men are the husbands of the Four! And I ain't no cuckold!"
Folks have a lot of misconceptions about Latto's line of work.
"Ashes to ashes," the mayor hisses. His torch is getting mighty near the base of the pyre.

[] This here is obviously a massive misunderstanding that requires some talkin' through, mayor.
[] Open your fool eyes. Your daughter's as much to blame as I am.
[] Mina you're some kind of skank, you know that?
[] Your legs are free. Kick the torch out of the mayor's hand then kick his ass off the platform.
[] Cast a spell:

 

[Bromeliad]

"Do you have any words to remember you by, stranger?" the mayor asks, bending down to light the pyre.
"Yeah," Latto says. "Mina, you're some kind of skank, you know that?"
Then he flips his legs upward, knocks the torch out of the mayor's hand, and dropkicks his ass off the platform.

Voldo goes flying into the crowd, which parts to let him through, and lands heavily on the ground.
Everyone goes quiet as he writhes belly-down in the dirt a couple seconds, then rolls onto his back.
"You dare!" he howls.

[] I dare.
[] NOW can we talk?
[] Try to untie yourself before someone runs you through.
[] Try and climb your way up the pyre so you can get free from it at the top.
[] Try and break the pole holding you on top of the pyre.
[] Cast a spell:

 

[Bromeliad]

"I dare," Latto says.



"Do you remember what I told you, Latto? When we met?"

"You laid your head in my lap and I felt your tears rolling onto my thighs and I felt the unquiet inside you, and 'Never again,' you told me.
And I told you never again is impossible. As long as you are mine. But as you are mine I am yours, and as I am yours it will be never again without a sword in your heart. Questant Blade."



"Enough," Latto says.
Dry light snaps against the eyes of the mob, leaving an angry corona where it fades.

The ropes loosen and uncoil from him like dying snakes, cut clean off.

Latto has four of these left.

The crowd stands aghast. Mayor Voldo's mouth hangs open mid-diatribe. You could fly a kite through that.

[] Now that I have your attention can I just say: _______________
[] Everyone get the hell out of here.
[] Step off the platform and leave.
[] Cast a spell:
[] Write-in

 

[Bromeliad]

Latto shakes the tension out of his wrists.
"You people need better hobbies," he says, stepping off the platform.



The townspeople back away from him, their pointed weapons quivering in their hands. Voldo scrabbles in the dust to get away from him.
Latto rolls his shoulders. "Everyone get the hell outta here."

The village square clears.
"It was fun, Mina," Latto calls after her.
"You're the love of my life, Beetle Man!" she yells over the panicky trample of her daddy's goons.
Latto shakes his head. He goes to find his horse.



Chloros is pawing the earth just outside town. Latto doesn't ever tie him up because he trusts him and who would ever try to steal Chloros?
"Hey, fella," Latto says, scratching the coarse fibers along his back. "Bad business in town."
Chloros flicks his tail in empathy and to drive a fly away from his backside.
Latto pulls his spare six iron from the holster stitched into the black leather saddle. Them crazy townies probably still have his other gun but they can keep it. He's finding him a new one.
The threads he's got are mighty thin and wispy, but he's the Eidolon of Gnosa herself; he's done a lot more with a lot less.

[] From what he gathers Roundhead's Revolver was last used in a standoff an hour's west of here, about five years back. Might be worth going there to see if there's a trail to track.
[] Folk in Ernar talk about a man the next town over who claimed he was in a draw with the holder of the Revolver and lived to tell the tale. Could track him down, ask what he knows.
[] The gun was dug up from the Mausoleum of old Roundhead himself. It's too dangerous for common folk to snoop around there, but Latto ain't common, and a visit could pay off.
[] Cast a spell:

 

[Bromeliad]

The gun was dug up from the Mausoleum of old Roundhead himself. It's too dangerous for common folk to snoop around there, but Latto ain't common, and a visit could pay off.

It's a long ride, though not as long as it could have been. Roundhead lived in Ernar at one point or another. He was a marshall there, before the land dried up and the people dried up with it.
Chloros' sure footed through the steppe brush and the chalky stone. A kaklizard kaks at Latto in the distance. Couple microadjustments keep the horse from its den. He scratches Chloros' mandible. Good horse.
The breeze blows the poncho wide back, exposing the shiny chitin of his torso.
A gift from the Sisters, to keep him safe. Somewhere below the plates he wonders if the skin from before is still there. Mottled, pale, and clammy, kept as it has been from the sun for half a decade, now.

Chloros ain't much of a talker for company, but that's OK. Latto isn't either.



About an hour's ride out from the Mausoleum Chloros canters past a fresh grave, hooves kicking up loose dirt.
There's a bell hung round the ramshackle marker, tinkling atonally in the cutting wind. An offering to Thalia, who's partial to the sound of them. Looks like there's still folk here who keep the faith of the four.

[] Kick the grave over as a little fuck you to Gnosa's prime rival. Wind'll get it soon anyway.
[] Dismount and dig up the grave. It's far enough from civilization and the grave is fresh enough that there might be something worth gleaming below the soil, and Gnosa loves when you gleam.
[] Have some respect. Leave the dead well enough alone.
[] Cast a spell:
[] Write-in

 

[Bromeliad]

Latto pulls one foot out the stirrup, hesitates, then drops back into the saddle and rides past the grave. The bells chime as the horse passes them.

He feels a tinge of disappointment sent from Gnosa, but he ignores it. There are some things you don't probe. And what he's riding up to is gonna make her inquisitive little toes curl.

He smells it, first.
The air carries a potent deconstitution and with it a heaviness that makes his fingers grip the horn of his saddle a mite harder.
Then he can see the wrought iron bars of the graveyard on the horizon.
Chloros whinnies uneasy.



At the gate he dismounts, checks his pistol, and clacks the chamber closed. The stippled handle has a reassuring heft to it. He rubs Chloros' forehead and tests the gate. Unlocked.

There's a padlock hanging by a rusted chain on one end. Chain's broken and it ain't the rust that did it. Latto makes a note of it.

It's getting darker; wouldn't do to stay in this place past the gloaming.

Mausoleum ain't hard to find.



"Now we're talking."

High stone walls and a high stone door, carved into the jagged chalk of the hillside and closed up tight. The roof is wooden slats fretted across stone. Classic Boleri mosaic, although the paint has long since faded off the tiles and the wood itself is spongiform and splintered from years of brackish rainwater, dripping onto it from a high stone spout up top.
A thin dribble of it sluices down the spout, past the leer of a forbidding stone gargoyle nested in the recesses of the tiered roof, and channels itself through the cracks and canyons in the ruined mosaic. It drips off the end of a ruined banner, flagging limp in front of the place on two squeaky iron rings.

These places are often trapped when they're for the wealthy, and haunted when they're for the powerful. By the time he kicked it Roundhead was very rich and doubly powerful.

Latto carefully approaches the door and plants a palm on it. Won't budge.

[] Plant yourself and push extra hard.
[] Hinges are rusty. Shoot 'em and break the damn door off, ghost or no.
[] Pace the perimeter as far as you can. See what you can see.
[] Come back tomorrow, in the light of full morning.
[] Climb up onto the roof. Looks weak.
[] Take a closer look at the banner and that ugly old gargoyle.
[] Write-in
[] Cast a spell:

 

[Bromeliad]

Latto takes a closer look at the banner and the Gargoyle.

Banner's got Roundhead's crest on it, the old pistola that represented his warrior lineage, snuffed out now, him as the smoky wick.
Under that, rotted mostly away, is his name writ in the Boleri tongue. Rondo Hadiei. In the coarse language of the Tuli they called him Roundhead.
Too bad he wasn't buried in Boleria. Sun there lasts twenty hours of the day, so people say. His old mausoleum would probably have held together a lot better away from the Tuli muck and fog.


Now that there Gargoyle's more interesting as something other than a conversation piece.
Its left eye socket is dark and empty, but in the right something catches the dying light and gleams. Ain't stone, whatever it is. Latto can't make it out from here. He squints


A hammer clicks back behind Latto's head.

"Evening, Beetle Man," a roughshod female voice rasps by his ear. "Gun down and hands up, thank you. No turning round, now."

[] Do as she says.
[] Drop to the ground and sweep her legs from under her.
[] Make like you're putting the gun down then roll and fire.
[] "I'll drop it but I'm turning around. Don't like to talk to a body without looking it in the eyes."
[] Write-in
[] Cast a spell: