Completed [Solo] Hoarse Whispers

[Montaine]

Hoarse Whispers Spring 83 512 AV The flautist wasn’t playing. There could be a thousand possible reasons for the musician’s absence. Perhaps his muse had lost his muse, or perhaps something worse. Whatever the explanation for the missing maestro it had a catastrophic effect on the glassworker’s efforts. No matter what he tried he just could not find his rhythm. The spinning was too fast or it was too slow, he blew to hard or not hard enough. The result was a gloopy mess, far too long and stretched out of proportion to resemble anything. The little figurine stood on the marver, staring without eyes, accusatory without expression on that featureless face. The little cloaked figure, warped almost beyond recognition and yet still he could see precisely what he had wanted it to look like in his mind. ‘Petch!’ Monty yelled and hit the offending statuette with his pipe. It flew from its resting place and shattered on the stone flagged floor of the workshop. His knuckles grew white from his stiff grip around the crafting tool. He held it so tightly it pressed painfully into the palm of his hand. His breathing was laboured, his condition exacerbated by the building rage. The destruction of the petching jakri did little to ease his frustration. It was in pieces on the floor but still it seemed to judge him. The blind face was split in two yet still it seemed to mock him. ‘Don’t damage the tools,’ Monty startled and dropped the pipe. ‘What did I just say?’ Johann Calbert stood leaning against the wall where the glassworks joined the street beyond, with arms folded and eyebrow raised. He was never in the shop that late, the only reason one might be would be to watch the annealer, or to steal glass supplies and practice the art in secret as Monty was doing. The boss had no motivation to be down there at night, he had novices and apprentices for the drudge work. Yet there he stood, apparently placid. The silence hung in the air slightly too long to be comfortable, ‘Sorry, Calbert,’ The boss straightened up and walked over to the mess Montaine had made of his workshop floor and tutted, ‘So, give me a damn good reason not to take your season’s pay and take your job right now. Petch, give me a good reason not to just call the Guild and have you taken away?’ Monty’s heart was pounding but something wasn’t right, Calbert wasn’t screaming, he wasn’t shouting or threatening to hit him, ‘I need to make a figurine, one good enough to trade for a glass horse that were taken from me by the fortune teller in the market. Please, I can’t lose that horse, it were for me Da,’ Calbert turned to his worker, ‘Why not just make another one?’ Monty looked down at his feet, ‘It were special, my first horse,’ His boss’ expression softened, ‘We’ve known each other for what? Coming on ten years now, right? You’re my best employee since Joe died and frankly give it a couple of years and you’ll be better’n me. I like you, Monty,’ Calbert bent down and picked up the pipe from where it had fallen, ‘Let’s see what you did wrong,’ he held the tool out. Monty’s mouth slowly transformed into a smile as he took it and got to his feet. ‘Thanks boss,’

[Montaine]

‘Let it droop,’ Calbert was a difficult man to get along with. ‘Stop spinning it so fast, just let it flow,’ He could be a right petcher and a half sometimes. ‘Idiot, listen to me, boy!’ He lied and bribed to get his way. He finagled and flattered and fanned the flames to funnel the flow of finance in the city as best he could to his little glasswork shop. For all the old man had done for the boy Monty would not, could not, call him a generous, benevolent soul. But there was one thing, just one thing in the world, that the portly, ruddy faced old shyke loved more than the accumulation of coin and that was, quite simply, glass. Fall the negative qualities in old Johann Calbert, and there were a hefty number, he was utterly devoted to his art. His hands were rough and calloused, scarred by the many burns of his lengthy career that marked him as a true worker of the pipe. He had claimed the boy’s work in repayment of a debt the lad had incurred when he was young but had him apprenticed when he realised Montaine’s potential, and a fiery, passionate love for the medium that mirrored, perhaps exceeded, his own. ‘Your figure’s wearin’ a cowl, is he not? Robes ‘n’ the like, you’ve never tried that before, in these secret little sessions?’ He knew. The petching arse knew about everything. The used materials, the waste of coals, but he didn’t seem to be angry. He seemed happy. It was deeply unsettling. ‘Monty, my boy, the cloth in a cowl falls downwards to the ground, so let the glass do that too. If it gets too long you can just shear it off, easy like, but you can’t do nothin’ if’n it’s too short, can you?’ The old man was right. Monty stopped spinning and angled the pipe more steeply, so it was inches from the ground. The molten material on one side began to roll downwards, picking up body as it did so. When the glass trail gained a satisfactory size and length he span the pipe round slightly, allowing a new trail to form. Soon enough the molten glass at the end of the tool looked like a dribbled candle stuck to the tip of his glassworking rod. It bore little resemblance to his desired product but Calbert’s reassurances rang in his ears. Montaine blew into the pipe once more and the end of the figurine expanded into a tiny sphere. Calbert grabbed his jacks from the tool rack and began to carve a little indentation into the newly formed bubble, etching out the hood around the face while the material was still malleable. ‘Alright, it’s cooling now so let’s break it off and sit it on the marver, then we can work on the finer detail,’ Monty mutely nodded and did as he was told.

[Montaine]

Though the glass had lost much of its amber lustre it still radiated a vicious heat as it squatted impassively upon the stone table. The young glassworker had to admit that the cloak flowed just as it did in his mind. Loathe as he was to admit it, the old man really was good at what he did. There were still niggling doubts at the back of his skull as to whether it was of adequate quality for the task ahead of it. It had to be good enough to impress the fortune teller because as much as wanted, needed, his prized glass horse returned he needed something far more rare and precious from the shadowy creature. Information. The stars glimmered high up in the night sky. The little points of light punctuated the blackness over the city. There were no clouds and Monty could see them out above the street where the west wall of the workshop was open to the evening air. The sailor had told him about the stars before and he couldn’t help but wonder if the stars looked the same from Sahova. Were the cold island Nuit even interested in the stars? Calbert coughed. The glass was cooling too fast. He had learned early on of the contradiction of cooling glass, how in order to bring a piece to room temperature you had to place it within an oven. It made no sense at the time until he had witnessed an elegant eagle shatter into countless of tiny, shimmering shards across the workshop floor. It had to be eased to a lower heat gradually lest it break. Montaine didn’t have much time to engrave the face and, as delightful as it would have been to see the fusty old fortune teller explode, he really did need to complete it. He had done so little etching in his time. It was a delicate art and usually when a piece required such work Calbert would do it himself. This time the boss just stood back and watched. Monty picked up the old man’s hardened scalpel and pressed it lightly against the glass. The material was still soft enough to have a little give but was worryingly resistant to the blade. He nicked a minute, self superior smile into the smooth face and bent down until he was propped on his heels and could look up the figurine’s cowl. He gently etched in two dark, little eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. He put the knife to one side and grabbed the shears, using them to pull out the tiniest nose from the statuette’s face. It was such a tiny detail yet the moment it was complete Monty was shocked. The fortune teller’s shadowed face looked back. ‘Good job, boy,’ the boss said, clapping him on the shoulder, ‘Now you go run along and I’ll set this to cool, don’t argue now Monty, lad, I’ve done the annealer shift plenty o’ times in my years,’ Monty barely dared to breathe as the boss placed the tiny glass fortune teller into the safe fires of the oven. Calbert had told him to go, rest up, sleep. That sounded good. Yes, he decided, he would sleep.

[Montaine]

His dreams were not enjoyable that night. No flying over the Zastoskas, no death defying duels with Eyhparian fiends, no exciting adventures on the high seas with tanned, tattooed sailors. It was darkness and shadows and all shades of black and grey. The world was an immense ream of charcoal cloth that wrapped round his limbs and would not let him go. No matter how he struggled or called out for help the fabric refused to loosen its grip. But the floor had no substance, just a thin stretch of cloth that collapsed beneath his weight and he was falling, falling so far down into the blackness. Then he had seen the face. A colossal, pristine, glass face that emerged from the depths of the textile dark, impassive and impressive and filled with…not hate, no, something more akin to disgust. The face was below him and no matter how hard he tried to grab on to the fabric falling round him he couldn’t stop himself from dropping down and down and ever downwards towards that sneering, immovable glass glower. He kept falling, kept falling onwards, ever onwards and the face just got larger, and scarier until finally, finally he hit it and the great glass façade was shattered. Montaine’s eyes shot open. He was covered in sweat and sticking to his sheets. He hadn’t had a nightmare in so long. He clambered out of bed at peeled his bedclothes from his skin. The cool, night air blew through the gap between his shutters and the wall and sent shivers down his spine where the moisture met the breeze. The actual substance of the dream was slipping away from his memory now, but the last glimpse before he had awoken remained disturbingly, resiliently, at the forefront of his mind. The glass had shattered but beneath it waited the sagging, rotten flesh of the fortune teller’s true face. His skin peeled back in places, lips cracked and eyes yellowed where they should have been white. He opened up his shutters fully and leaned his bare torso out the window. The light of the sun was just peaking over the horizon and the glow of the ovens had long since ceased. There was no smoke rising over the workshop. Montaine turned round and grabbed his clothes, pulling them on and cringing at as his sweat was pressed against his back. He opened the lock on his door and made his way down the steps and across the street to the glassworks. He saw it immediately. Sat on the counter, across the workshop floor, was the smug, little, glass figure of the fortune teller.

[Montaine]

‘Monty? Thought it were Mory on stall duty today?’ The sun shone brightly today and set the glass aflame. Banden was struggling to hook the cloth awning onto its pegs and give them a little sanctuary from Syna’s heat. Monty put his piece to one side and hurried over to help, before the whole thing could come crashing down on top of them. Together they just about managed to get the petching piece of shyke up and sturdy enough for them to let it stand on its own. Out of the corner of his eye, the glassworker could see the fortune teller’s shadowy tent set up, as ever, across the way. ‘Nah, he’s taking my spot in three, I’m meeting the doctor up at the university, so we traded,’ It was a simple enough lie. The crew had lightly mocked him for seeking an education and accused him of seeking superiority, but after a while admitted it was an acceptable enough pursuit for a young man. Montaine wasn’t entirely sure if it was the lessons they saw as the pursuit, or the fair doctor, though. He hadn’t the heart to tell them he wasn’t interested, particularly after seeing the joy in Banden and Mory’s faces when he’d revealed his Kontinese acquaintance. His colleague raised a conspiratorial eyebrow and wiggled it. Monty snickered and shook his head. He turned to the crates of glassware arranged at the side of the stall and began to unload them. The practical objects to one side, the vases, bowls and platters which were larger to the back and the smaller glasses arranged in front. At the other end of the stall stood the more decorative pieces, elegantly crafted birds and delicate dancing women. Between the two was the main display, where the best of both were collected. Montaine briefly considered placing his offering as the centrepiece of the display but instead moved it right to the far end. The tiny glass fortune teller stared out of his tiny glass cowl, right at the shady tent across the way. To the casual observer it was a simple gathering of glass pieces, but to one who so keenly observed the world as the fortune teller, Monty’s offering was distinctly out of place. The little figurine stood apart from its brethren, looking pointedly in a different direction. The craftsman almost just swiped it up and walked over to the petcher’s tent but no. That wasn’t how the game was played. He had insulted the shyking fool enough already, if he wanted his information, if he wanted his horse, he had to be patient, and let the fortune teller come to him. So he waited. Completed

[Arcane]

Rewards and Treasure! Experience Points +1 Persuasion +2 Glassworking +1 Organization +1 Subterfuge Lores Nightmare: Anselm's Glass Face in Darkness Glasswork Recipe: Cowled Figurine Johann Calbert's Benevolence Miscellaneous +Inventory: Glass Figurine of Anselm Comments I like the imagery and artistry you invoked in your writing. Zeltiva has so many talented writers (and you're one of them!) that it makes me feel inadequate haha x_x That said, that little thing you did is not etching, it's really part of glassworking. I look forward to the next session of verbal sparring between Monty and Anselm!