LossIndex | Time Under Chaos | Player Characters | Delluth | Story: Loss Under a rare greenish-blue sky, Jerusha clung to the back of a half-tamed gray pony, her smile almost brighter than the sun itself. The animal circled Delluth warily, its simple mind protesting its captivity, but helpless to disobey his command to carry the child around and adjust its gait just so. Delluth sipped his tea. It was a pity Jerine wasn’t here to see such a beautiful day in Lochenar. Jerusha let loose another squeal of excitement. The pony flicked an ear, but had grown used to the noise. A shadow passed over the scene. Delluth looked up at a large bird, which circled again, then looped down for a landing on a nearby stone. It was a glossy black, shaped like a falcon, and its breast was marked with the sigil of his House. He regarded it for a long, tense moment, and commanded the pony to stop. “Hey!” Jerusha protested. Her father stepped closer to the bird. “I am Delluth Telutci.” “Proof,” the bird said, though it seemed to have a normal beak that ought not to have made such sounds. He sighed, knelt on the ground near it, and cut his left middle finger with the knife he carried as a tool. The bird dipped its beak down to touch the blood. “What is, Papa?” Jerusha asked. Then she gasped, as the bird shifted, turned in on itself, and disgorged a folded and sealed letter no bigger than the palm of her hand. Delluth picked it up off the ground. “A letter for me.” The bird resumed its original shape, spread its wings, and took off again. “What does it say?” She had come to stand beside him, but was watching the bird vanish into the distance. The knife served to break the seal of his great-uncle, the head of House Telutci. He unfolded the page. “Papa? What does it say?” He looked around, at the low, slate-roofed stone cottage, the garden, the small paddock he had built with wood fetched via the Logrus and unaccustomed physical effort, and the granite-studded moors rolling on to every horizon. “We’re going home.” “This is home!” “Our other home, then. Telutci’s Ways. Find your shoes and put on your best pair of trousers and decide what you want to take with you, Jerusha. It has to be things you can carry.” “I want to bring Charger!” The pony had sidled away during Delluth’s moments of inattention, but had not dared to flee. “I’ll get you a new pony at the Ways.” “I like Charger!” “A pony in any color you like. With wings.” “Oooh!” The child pelted off toward the cottage. Delluth followed, rereading the short and pointed note. “War is coming,” it said. “Return immediately.” And his great-uncle’s signature. Jerine had said something about rising tensions, conflicts and shifting alliances. He had nodded, and not listened. How long had it taken this letter to get here? How had time behaved in the Courts while it traveled? He packed a few things, helped Jerusha pack a handful of toys, and found their cloaks. “We’re going to walk to the green hill,” he told the girl. “Is Mama coming back?” “No. We’re going to her.” She was silenced by the reminder. Delluth closed the door firmly, took Jerusha’s hand, and led her into the yard. The Logrus came to him, pulsing through his mind, producing black tendrils that seemed to absorb the sunlight. He sent them questing for the familiar hill, found it, and pulled them toward it. Left alone and quivering with alarm at the weird phenomenon, the pony took a step toward freedom. And another, his head swinging around to be sure no one was stopping him. Then he bolted out across the moor. On the green hill, Delluth looked around carefully, then brought out his Trumps and captured Jerusha’s hand again. “You don’t want to be left behind, do you?” The card showed a courtyard paved in blue and black, and a wide doorway surrounded by carvings of vines and many peculiar half-hidden faces. He focused his mind on it, reaching, willing the scene to come to life. Jerusha shifted from one foot to the other. A cool breeze stirred the grass and the willow-like trees surrounding the hill. Delluth looked up from the card. Then he shuffled Jerine’s to the front, then his parents’. No contact. “Papa, I’m bored.” “We’re going to have to walk, Jerusha.” “Is it a long way?” “Yes. And it might be dangerous, so I need you to stay close to me, Jerusha, do you understand?” She stared up at him, eyes wide, and nodded. “Yes, Papa.” They walked, Delluth choosing the places to go to with far more care than when he had traveled alone, once. He paused in shadow after shadow, unwilling to stop for rest, the landscapes growing wilder and more varied, until he was carrying a sleeping child and feeling weary himself, and arrived. He faced a black plain, on which there might have been figures walking or marching in the far distance. He had seen it before, and turned around. The doorway was tall as any tree, surrounded by sinuous abstract carvings, and all of it would have been white, except that the ever-changing colors of the sky painted it differently as the hours changed. Delluth approached this portal. The vast doors opened a fraction before he reached them, emitting a tall, spindly demon with a shock of flickering fiery hair. “Who approaches the Court of the Emperor?” “Delluth Telutci. And Jerusha Telutci.” The demon blinked its bulging eyes. “What is your purpose here, Delluth Telutci?” “I ... seek word of my kinsmen.” The demon bowed. “You may enter, my lord Telutci.” He passed through the opening in the doors, which could easily have crushed him. A smaller demon, with sallow yellow skin and pointed ears, met him and bowed. “Come this way, please, my lord Telutci.” He followed it to a small reception room, equipped with seats and small tables and an illusory fire in a fireplace, and a high ceiling that made it all seem toylike. He laid Jerusha on one of the couches and stood beside it uncertainly. “Does the child require assistance, my lord?” “No. Just rest. And food, maybe, when she wakes.” “And you, my lord?” He stared. The demon’s ears twitched, though its face remained impassive. “Do you require sustenance, my lord?” “I suppose so.” “Very good, my lord.” The demon bowed and withdrew. After a while, Delluth sat on a chair from which he could see Jerusha. He could not sit straight, but hunched there, half-crushed by fear. Demons brought food that he picked at, and drink that he could not swallow. At last the main door crashed open and his cousin Samatha sailed toward him, all done up in elaborate court dress and hairstyle. “Delluth!” she cried. “It is you! Where have you been? What took you so long?” “I had to walk.” A man had followed Samatha in, but remained mostly hidden by his cousin’s form as she approached. “So you did get – what’s this?” she demanded regarding Jerusha, who had roused and begun to sit up. “My daughter.” “You – you *spawned* with that, that –” “Jerusha,” Delluth said, “this is my cousin Samatha. She’s your cousin too.” The child rubbed at her face and said, “Hello, Cousin Samatha.” “My lord duke,” Samatha said, turning to the man who now stood a polite distance away. “I am so sorry. I had no idea, none at all.” Jerusha got up and began exploring the tray of food. “It is no matter,” the duke said. Now able to see him, Delluth shuffled wearily through memories of the dukes he had met or seen, and identified him as Swayvill Corrino. He supposed he ought to get up and bow, but the duke made a small gesture of negation, his expression softened by sympathy. “I did tell you he was eccentric,” his cousin worried on. “Samatha!” Delluth had never liked this cousin, and now her normal attitude had touched off some angry nerve that had survived his journey. “What happened? None of my Trumps work any more!” She stilled, some genuine feeling attempting to surface in her face. Her hands tried to curl into fists. “The war,” she said. “It’s all gone, Dell. The Ways, the family – gone. We’ve lost everything. You’re one of only four I know of that survived.” He could not be surprised, yet all breath left him and the room blurred. Jerusha abandoned the food and touched his arm. “Papa? Papa, what’s wrong? What did she mean by gone?” He reached out and drew her to him. “It means they’re dead, sweetie. Your mother, my parents, my sister, everyone.” “What’s dead?” He swallowed, hard. “It means we’ll never see them again.” “Never ever?” “That’s right.” “But Mama always comes back! She promised.” “This time – this time she can’t, Jerusha.” “But I want Mama!” The girl began sobbing and he held her, while his own tears dropped silently into her hair. When she slowed down to hiccups, Delluth saw that Samatha had sat down to wait, her frustration poorly concealed. Duke Corrino had removed himself to nearer the door, and seemed to be focusing on a Trump. Jerusha sniffled. “Papa,” she said, “I have to go.” Delluth looked at his cousin, who gritted her teeth and approximated a smile. “Come with me, Jerusha, I’ll show you,” she said. “Go with your cousin,” Delluth urged her. Reluctantly, Jerusha crossed the space between them and was led out past the Duke. After a moment, he nodded and put the Trump away. This time, Delluth managed to stand and bow properly as the head of House Corrino approached. The Duke nodded graciously. “You look exhausted, Delluth.” He sat again, and waved Delluth to his own seat. “I’ll come to the point, then,” he went on. “I have offered to take the survivors of your House into Corrino.” “Why? Your Grace,” Delluth managed, after a moment. It was not as if the large and prosperous Corrinos needed a handful of orphans. “Several reasons. For one, we were in negotiations to bring Telutci in as a client when this happened. I feel … that we should have, would have, taken action if we had heard of the attack in time. But only a few people in your House even knew of the discussions, so –” He lifted his hands, indicating helplessness. “For another, Telutci has a reputation for occasionally producing individuals of considerable brilliance. Not as astonishingly as Barimen, perhaps,” he chuckled, “but valuable all the same. “It’s a gamble. Perhaps nothing will come of it. The five of you will not strain our resources - I’m sorry to have put it that way, but there it is. Even a half-dozen more would not be a problem. And you, Delluth, have mastered the Logrus; you are already an asset of sorts. If you are willing to join us.” Delluth looked at his hands. Samatha would have said he had been off sulking in Shadow somewhere, which was not an inaccurate description, objectively speaking. Corrino would not be as patient and tolerant as his own family had been. And it didn’t matter. The part of him that had childishly, foolishly, heedlessly gone haring off in a snit had been … amputated. “I am, your Grace,” he said, looking up. “For myself and my daughter.” Swayvill nodded, unsurprised. “We’ll see about a formal ceremony later, when you’ve had some rest. Samatha can guide you to our Ways –” “A question, your Grace.” “Yes?” “What happened to Telutci? Who attacked, and why? I was not paying attention.” “You’re not thinking of vengeance, I can see that,” the Duke observed after a moment. “What does it matter?” “I made a mistake.” Delluth caught himself leaning forward, and sat back. “I won’t make it again. But I need to know what happened, and why, and what it means.” “Ah.” Another pause, a long look from dark eyes that had seen more than Delluth could easily imagine. “I’ll have someone who knows the details come to see you. I don’t have the time for this today.” “Thank you, your Grace.” The Duke nodded; Delluth rose as he did, and bowed again. The door opened as Swayvill moved toward it, admitting Jerusha and Samatha. The girl rushed into Delluth’s arms. “We’re going to have a new family,” he told her, stroking her hair. And added silently, “We’ll get it right this time.” |
