Chapter 2
"Farral Beithir: World Snake. An extremely large serpent (or worm) that inhabits the middle earth, and whose body circles the whole of it. It may also guard or block the entrances to Eden, preventing anyone from reentering paradise. This worm is said to be in a permanent state of sleep, its dreams sometimes invading those of mortals, and will awaken when a final drop of betrayed blood reaches its lair below soaked grounds. Sometimes, to ensure its sleep (or hurry its rising, depending on debate), innocent blood is offered to it." - Susan Rainsford, Songs of the Brionnach.
Gabriel received a copy of the tape five days later, accompanied by a letter written in a still shaky hand. He had hoped that since he had not heard from Grace for a few days, that the whole situation was resolved, and the children found. He was looking forward to seeing her in a few weeks ("Just passing through," she would say nonchalantly, "thought it would be rude not to visit Gerde"), in a setting that would show off the peace and grandeur inherent in his new home.
"Gabriel, I've been nosing around the situation, as I'm sure you've expected, and I really don't like what I'm finding. Enclosed is a tape that proves I'm not overreacting, though I think I might be getting in over my head, and would like some feedback. I was thinking of showing it to my old professor over here (I trust him), but I really don't think he has much experience in these things. Haven't you found some other group of Shattenjagers or warlocks or roaming psychics or Something over there yet? This working alone garbage really wipes. The people living over here are really closed mouth on the subject, and maybe I can't blame them. The tape has gotten me a bit shaky too, and no, I did not make it in a studio as a hoax (a studio, over here?). I had a hard time even Copying the tape! The children haven't been found, and everyone has doubts that they will be, though no one is saying it or giving up yet. It's really a sad situation, Gab, and one that will NOT be repeated. So do your thing, and get back to me soon, okay? - Grace."
Knight listened to the tape. Its quality was poor (hey, Grace, that's my old recorder! I recognize the squeaking), but it's loudness made up for it. The few minutes that played chilled him. He had heard supposed recordings of haunted houses, spirit voices, seances and the like, but always believed most of those were doctored tapes, using prerecorded, drop out noise and good timing to make such recordings seem "live." They weren't usually worth his time, though he'd been duped on a few occasions. He didn't feel he was being fooled this time.
"Okay, Grace, good. No phone number. Fair is fair, huh?" Or maybe she was too thrown by it all and just forgot. That was not a good sign. At least there was a return address, and maybe Gerde could help him figure out the phone system over there. There were also other preparations to make.
Knight looked around his library. He wondered how many of these books were true research, and how many someone's meal ticket in a bind. Still, every legend could contain something useful, kept for him even after long generations. He lifted his family crescent, his oath, from the table, feeling its heaviness. The precious jewels encrusted in them had lost a little luster in his eyes. Still, how many people could say they held such purpose? "And this thing would probably be really hard to hock, even in New Orleans."
Nakimura didn't expect the phone call she received. The professor sounded as cheerful as ever, even though he was getting back to her about the subject of damnation.
"Hello, Ms. Nakimura. The question you asked several days ago still bothered me, so I decided to come up with a few theories, if you are still interested? I believe the subject was a little thing about... universal evil?" The professor chuckled.
Grace stared uncomprehendingly at the phone. She laughed. The voice coming out of it continued.
"Well, yes, it's funny how these little subjects stick in one's mind, isn't it? I think you were trying to ask me about its... seductiveness, really. That's what it all boils down to. All of us "echo" the reality we think we see around us, and as social creatures and survivors, we always pick those traits we think will win out. If we think the world around us is evil, and its strength lies in that, well, then, that part of the world that is in us will become larger. It's almost like an evolutionary characteristic. When you look at an animal, the largest feature of its face is it's strongest sense. Bears and rhinos have huge noses, but tiny eyes in comparison. Birds have enormous eyes in proportion to their heads, but very little muscle strength. The only reason anyone would fight such a natural desire to want these traits would be because they were taught a belief in something that goes beyond their perceived reality. But if such faith is continually tested and fails, well, then, how is a person suppose to be able to judge what is "real," and what is not? I know this is all really vague and esoteric, or maybe just convoluted and nonsensical, but you never did give me any details, so I am just winging it, as my former wife would say. Actually, she would use a much more colorful term. So, how are you supposed to help such a person? Well, you just have to keep reminding them about what they believe in, and that this belief is part of who they are. Once a person loses their beliefs, they lose their identity, and quickly following that, themselves. Well, how was that lecture, Ms. Nakimura? Would it have absolutely dazzled my class?"
"Thank you professor," Grace replied slowly.
"Ahh, I see proper befuddlement. Okay, Grace, that will teach you to ask me such questions. I hoped it enlightened. Or consider this answer a revenge on former pranksters. Good night, Ms. Nakimura. If you have time, drop by my office again for another nice little chat. I still have the sea to show you." The professor laughed, and cheerfully hung up the phone.
Grace missed the hang up switch as she dropped the receiver. After a minute, the open line blared at her. She did not hear it. She had better things to listen to. She still wore the clothes she took with her to the hillside, muddied and torn as she ran through the forests, hair encased in leaves and debris, face bloodied. An engorged tick removed itself from the soft tissues of her neck, moved to an eye to sip at her tear ducts, and looked for suitable, new flesh to lay eggs. She did not care if such small creatures found comfort in her. Soon she would be able to comfort the world. People stared at, though avoided, the obviously insane woman as she dropped off her package in a nearby mailbox, original tape carefully wrapped inside. She had not eaten for several days, but she had such music to listen to she hardly felt the need for food, or the passing of time. Grace knew she was waiting for something. An evil thing, as the professor clearly told her. She felt such powers within her (so strong!) and knew she could get rid of this evil thing, and that the world would be so grateful. She just needed to listen. The music would tell her what to do.
***********************
The flight over Scotland was beautiful. Gabriel could easily see why Gracie would fall in love with such a place. The land was filled with lonely places, even more so than Germany. There was something to the smoky mists and highlands that made the country seem more remote than it was.
Knight opened his reading again:
"There are many shared legends of Celtic wanderings. Indeed, the early Celts were a technologically advanced and barbarous people composed of a number of different races and tribes, who occupied vast areas of western and central Europe during the last half of the first millenium b.c. Some believe these clans may have traveled well into Asia, bringing along tales of wood nymphs and spirits, and taking away images of giant sea dragons (Dewi, the Great Red Serpent) and Asian mysticism's. The Celtic circle, also a very mystical and unifying symbol in Asian lands, depicts a belief in an orderly universe, harmonies between opposing forces such as life and death, good and evil, man/woman, yin/yang, all complimenting and celebrating the diversities in life. Why it has been thought for so long that cultures avoided each other (the Babel Effect), enemies in strange lands, is beyond the evidence of shared mythologies..."
Gabriel felt himself nodding off again. Better to look out the window than fall asleep in his seat, he thought. ("Do you think your lack of attention span might have something to do with your devastating writing skills, Boss?") Looking at the window, it was too easy to think of Gracie somewhere below enjoying the beautiful countryside. Knight tackled his reading again.
"The Celts were highly ritualistic and religious. Their elaborate burials, under a mound, in a wooden chamber usually made of oak, furnished with highly decorated weapons, food, drink, and personal ornaments point to powerful beliefs about the nature of life after death. The bodies of the wealthy dead were laid out, burnt or unburned, on four-wheeled wagons in the earliest of Celtic peoples, and later in lighter, two wheeled wagons.
Celtic religion featured many female deities such as mother goddesses and war goddesses. The Mother Goddess of the Celts was often conceived as a warrior, fighting with weapons and instructing the hero in superior secrets of warfare. Celtic deities were tribal by nature, and each tribe or clan would have its own names for particular gods and goddesses. This accounts for the great diversity of names in Celtic mythology, there are over 300 different names recorded. The Celts also believed that it was dangerous to name a sacred thing by its correct name, the result being that sacred things are often referred to in a roundabout way."
Hmmm, thought Knight, that explains why no one really wanted to talk to Gracie. Poor kid.
"The Celts themselves did not commit their traditions to writings, regarding their laws, genealogies and spiritual disciplines as sacred, required to be handed down orally. The Druids, the high priests of the Celts, would spend twenty years learning the traditions and oral lessons.
Animal symbolism found in Celtic myths include boars, birds, serpents, fish, horse and cattle. Boars symbolize courage and strong warriors. Power and strength is attached to the bristles of the boar, which was held in high esteem by the Celts. There are many examples of supernatural boars and their adventures in the literary traditions of the Irish and the Welsh. The otherworld feast is supposed to be sustained by magical pigs which, no matter how many times they are cooked and eaten, are alive again the next day to be cooked again."
Yeeaaauck! thought Knight. I hope I don't get reincarnated as a Celtic pig in my next life, though Gracie would say I surely will.
"Fish, especially salmon are associated with knowledge and secrets. Serpents and dragons are portents of trouble, strife and infertility. Birds also may presage bad luck or bloodshed. Horse and cattle represent fertility, as do many occurrences of animals in Celtic legend. Horns were a powerful symbol of virility and divine power. The Celts not only gave their gods horns, but enhanced their chances of success in battle by wearing horned helmets. In Celtic mythology powerful opponents may use the magic of shape shifting into different animal forms during battle. The number three was sacred to the Celts, and deities were sometimes portrayed in groups of three, or as having three heads or faces. In mythological tales, the deities or semi-divine heroes are described as being one of three people of the same name, or as having been born three times in succession."
Yikes, what does that say about the Knight family tree? Gabriel skipped ahead, not sure how all this reading was going to help him. He read about a few interesting Gods. Always good to know the higher ups to call upon in times of need, he thought.
"Rosmerta - A Celtic goddess of fertility and wealth, whose cult was widely spread in Gaul. She is the wife of the god Esus, but also of the Gaulish Mercury. Her attributes are a cornucopia and a stick with two snakes.
Morrigan - Morrigan was the Celtic goddess of war and death who could take the shape of a crow or raven. She is associated with the sometimes frightening aspects of female energy, and is wife to Dagda. As one aspect of the Celtic triple goddess, Morrigan is seen washing bloody laundry prior to battle by those destined to die.
Sidhe - Ancient Irish hill people believed to be the spirits of the dead."
"Wow, lots of chicks in this Celtic deity hierarchy."
"Gab!" Knight could almost hear Grace yell his name in exasperation. He yawned. It was hard getting to sleep the night before after not being able to contact Grace yet again. He hoped he was doing the right thing. The plane tickets weren't horriblly expensive, and maybe it was time he took a little R&R time himself. It looked like a great place to spend it. Knight closed his eyes for a moment, and fell into a dream.
He ran through the woods barefoot, scents filling the wind, sensing colors unmeant for human eyes. His anguish came through a mouth too wide and too cruel, vocal cords torn away. The beast was not being chased, but it ran unrelenting, uncaring for the cruelty it was performing on itself, from a shape it could not behold. Wolves cannot weep, he said to the astonished tears that fell to the winds.
"Stop Gabriel. Look at me. Remember me..." Exhaustion choked him, strong legs trembling even for his scant weight. "Please. Awaken to me..."
(No! I cannot be beast again. The power was too strong, the joy, and the solitude.) The loneliness, always with him it seemed, denied, and then made companion, never to be denied again. The Fates could not be asking him to be opened again. He ran, forsaking the blood on his tongue.
There was a softening to the tearing winds around him. The beast felt a warmth caressing its frantic heart, a pleading for stillness. It slowed, stopped, head hanging, eyes squeezed tightly shut. (Malia.)
The winds laughed. "Yes. You remember. I watch for you now, Gabriel. Be with me a little while."
The wolf laid down on tucked paws, looked around with numinous eyes, yet saw nothing. He knew he would never see her, even recall her features in a dream. He closed his eyes again and listened to the winds.
"I know, my heart, I also wish many things." A closeness enveloped him, calming the devastation that still shrouded his core. Malia's bright promise only reminded him of the nothingness that usually resided within, and would soon return. He had forgotten, for a while...
There was a place for peace. For love without fear. For calmness without dread.
The gales rose once more. His fear had wasted time, and now she was fading back into her own existence, beyond fears. "Remember who you are, Gabriel, always. Remember why even I loved..."
********************
The room was damp and hot. There were shiny spots on the walls from some unnamable substance, both oily and watery at the same time. Knight slipped on strange, spoiled remnants of food, made soft and unidentifiable by the heat. There was a white, lumpish coating of fat mites in Grace's kitchenette, on some on her overturned furniture, and probably enveloping large parts of the room. He gingerly peered at Grace's phone, afraid to pick up the now dead receiver, and looked at a pad of paper dropped onto the floor. It was one of her famous "To Do" lists, many of which still occupied (she never threw out even the completed ones, in case she might need similar instructions or reminders in future) the old bookstore. ("You mean, Grace, you might need this list again in case someone ever turns into a wolf in a German opera house a second time?" "It helps me remember a very interesting time, Gab, and I like waving it in your face once in a while when you're impossible. You're lucky I don't wave it more.")
"Call professor about Farral Beithir - Office - 01-1-428..." Gabriel punched the numbers into the phone.
"Hello, Rainsford speaking."
"Er... Mr. Rainsford? I'm a friend of Grace Nakimura. From America. Visiting. Do you know where she might be?"
"And you are...?" Professor Rainsford sounded instantly suspicious, for a non-American.
"Oh, sorry. My name is Gabriel Knight. I'm actually over at her apartment, or at least the address she sent me. Some of her things are here, but the place looks... unlived in for quite a bit."
"Well, Mr. Knight," Rainsford said briskly, "I'm not in the practice of giving away someone's address to a stranger, forgive me. I'm sure wherever she went, she will be back soon. She is on a holiday, as you should know. And, Mr. Knight, I can't recall your name coming up in our conversations."
"Well, um, did she ever mention a place she was going to visit in Germany? Schloss Ritter? Or her plans for..." Rainsford interrupted.
"Mr. Knight, I'm not accustomed to telling holiday plans for a good acquaintance of mine to strange people calling me over the phone. I haven't the slightest idea who you are. I think it's best if I just said goodbye."
"But her place looks like it was ransacked," a note of desperation crept into Knight's usual off-putting cool. Rainsford was silent.
"Where exactly are you, Mr. Knight?" Gabriel unfolded a torn, wrinkled envelope and told him the apartment address. "I'm calling the local police over to that place. I don't know if you want to be IN the apartment when they arrive, but I think you should be very close by, because I would like to talk to you." Rainsford abruptly hung up his phone.
**********************
Grace walked through the woods, barefoot, unmindful of the bruises and cuts infecting her feet. She walked across an infant hand, torn nails scratching coyly at her ankles, its small needs left unattended. A bird wove a delicate patch of silken blond hair into a nearby nest, the tiny strands glittering in the cool sun. The forest around Grace was a burial grounds, its occupants scattered across the lands. The recent visitors lay beneath the light forest debris, while older neighbors remained in charns deep within the earth's more stonier mantle. Though now aware of these things, Grace moved steadily on. Singing birds quieted as she passed by their brooding nests, glad that this death had let their families be. Rabbits and serpents alike quivered at the mouth of their holes, but she had no interest in them. She was getting nearer to the maid, and the increasingly, maddeningly beautiful music fueled her tread. It was like all the desires of her life were calling out to her, inviting eternities of fulfillment. These music makers knew her every thought, her every secret, her joys, pains, promises...
The music stopped. To her newly deaf ears, the sound of water slowly dripping nearby was overpowering. She cowered, and would have pricked out her lying eardrums to have her music back. "Please, Deos, play again..."
She looked around wildly for an answer to the calm. The dripping sound came from what looked like a dark hole at the edge of the hill. A thin stream of water leached out from the rock beneath it, and the surrounding earth resembled a weeping wound. It was no bigger than a yard wide and a foot and a half across, a cruel slit in the hill's side, and her natural claustrophobia held her back. But the maid lay within - that she knew. Grace went to the wound, looked at it's mouth, and considered its silence. She bent down and crawled into the sod, pulled at roots and rock to propel her in, and prayed that the maid would not demand her burial there. The tunnel continued for 20 yards downward, some parts even narrower than the opening, and her warning heart made the little air around her steam. There was too little room to turn back, and she let her fate be in the hands of the earth. A few paces before smothering, the cavern beneath the dirt opened up, and she felt her knees under her again. She was penitent for another 5 yards over rock, and then she saw such wonders.
*****************
Knight knew the man in an immaculate, dark jacket and hat was Grace's trusted professor. He was a little on the stout side, but looked like he could go spelunking underwater while reading Byron and debating Bill Gates over the lap top. The man's cutting eyes found Knight skulking by the top of the stairs down the hall from the excitement. Rainsford scissored through the small crowd of apartment dwellers, a few also tourists who had rented the flats for a few days of small town sightseeing, and confronted Knight fiercely.
"Are you the one Grace has been complaining to me about lately?"
Knight back away from the towering man. "What?" He didn't like being cornered against the brace at the top of the stairs. He could easily picture this commanding man tossing him lightly over the banister, to the floor 6 stories below.
Rainsford slitted his eyes at Knight. The apple haired man seemed like the typical American nowadays - worried, smart-assy, more than a bit angry, and naïve. He also seemed truly taken aback, and Rainsford calmed himself a little. "Ms. Nakimura said she was a little worried about an acquaintance of hers lately, someone who was... troubled. I hope this troubled person didn't have anything to do with all this?"
Knight stumbled out a few words. "I didn't even know she was in Scotland, Mr., um, Rainsford, sir, until a few days ago." Wow, Gabriel hadn't used the word "sir" since he was arrested in New Orleans for a little, drunken, naked skinny dipping with this wonderful gal in a public fountain late one night. It was only when he was standing, dripping and shaking, in front of this large, red faced, good ol' boy and fully dressed, beautiful woman (SHE wasn't stupid enough to actually undress and enter the freezing water) that he asked if he could put his rank jacket back on, sir. Why was he now justifying himself to this stranger? Knight stood up straighter and asked a few questions of his own. "And she didn't seem to be having any troubles until she met up with you."
"What, boy?" Rainsford pushed him up against the adjacent wall, and fortunately not over the banister. "You are the person she was talking about, aren't you? You're involved in whatever trouble she's gotten into. Somehow this is about you." Rainsford hated using this new age psychobabble on the kid, but when talking to an American...
Knight thought about faking his way out of this. The old Gab would have started with a vehement, "Now wait a minute, Mr. Scotsman...", but somehow he couldn't seem to muster up that old, cocky spirit right now. He could almost instantly tell that this man was trustworthy, unlike himself for the most part, and maybe he should have taken another tack. "I had nothing to do with this. Maybe you've heard of me... " No, this was not the time to bring up either Blake Backlash or the Shattenjäger legend, both of which would have made the professor see Knight as more of a psycho than he wanted at the moment. Rainsford was still waiting for the promised I.D. "I mean, Grace never mentioned me at all?" A note of hurt, though not surprised hurt, crept into his tone.
"Well, maybe in a roundabout way." Roundabout, thought Rainsford. "Going on a roundabout way to visit another friend." That's what Grace had said. He looked at the youth before him again. He didn't see a whole lot there. Just someone who seemed to be stumbling through life. Probably not dangerous, at least not to Grace, he hoped. The professor gave the man some more breathing room. He looked back at the apartments. He could tell no one had actually broken into the place, though the rooms were in absolute chaos. The only fingerprints to this chaos, though, would be hers. He chided himself for not asking Grace more questions when he had her on the phone. That laugh did seem very strange when he thought back on it, but now that observation was far too late. And the man whom he might blame some of this logically on turns out to be a bit of an anxiety-ridden fool. Rainsford glowered.
"Okay, Mr. Knight. What do you do for a living again?"
"I, er, I'm sorta a... I'm a writer." Well, thought Knight, that was really impressive sounding.
"A what?" Rainsford looked at Knight, reassessing. Not really the profession of the devil, he murmured. "I guess it's a job that you can put off for a bit? You and I are going to help these overworked gentlemen," he nodded over to the policemen looking though the apartments, "look for Ms. Nakimura. Unlike America, it's the sort of thing we do over in Scotland, take a bit of initiative. After you." Rainsford bundled Knight down the stairs, and onto the newly anxious streets.
******************
Gerde looked around her silent home. Such things have happened here, she thought. Her home had always been the calm epicenter in potential world shaking whirlwinds, and she was pulled from both sides because of it. She thought of the people who passed through this place, looking at the old portraits on the walls, recalling their victories, silent fame, and self-sacrifices. Her side of the family had never had portraits hung in their honor, and she would never occupy a place in either Shloss Ritter or the Knight family tombs. Still, she thought of her life, and her important position in a hidden world. Gerde was content, except for the recent pain that had entered her life. She had not been unprepared, and knew she was getting older, and would eventually meet with love again after her duties were done. In this silent time, away from caring eyes, she let herself indulge in sadness.
Wolfgang was a much less angry man than his nephew. Of course, age, experience, and hard fought for wisdom tempered the man, and this was what drew Gerde to him. She remembered nights when he was so exhausted from all he saw and did, and still, a light burned in the library as he tried to seek more answers. He never refused her knocking, and could still be warm and even somewhat cheering in the darker parts of the night. He knew true humanity was having emotions, not dulling them, and that such feelings were tools and lifesavers. She could not truly pass on this wisdom to Gabriel, the anger in him wouldn't let her speak. She hoped her patience would clear some sort of path for them, but she found her own anger, sometimes at his stumbling, sometimes, she knew, for more selfish reasons, often getting in the way as well. He was certainly not Wolfgang, and she was terribly afraid for him because of that.
She looked at the portraits again, glad that they were hung so far up from corroding tears. There was Stephen and Annabelle Ritter, whose bodies were never found and never memorialized. Before that last event, they were following a group of cultists, poisoners, and "witches" who were sacrificing children and assassinating parts of the monarchies to bring about their own political agenda. Though not exactly Shattenjager legend, they helped eradicate a threat that may have brought greater parts of Europe into quite different sides of the great World Wars. There was Jurgen Ritter, who was said to be a great healer as well as a warrior. He possessed a power, now lost to the family, but which there is still hope of recovering, that helped end the plague of leprosy and strengthened the heirs of Europe. He also recovered the Shattenjager dagger, lost for nearly three hundred years and whose recovery empowered the Shattenjager initiation. His body was recovered, but in pieces, the results of a thousand cuts.
(At least Wolfgang was whole, and I have replaced his heart.) Gerde sat at her desk. She had no work to do, and the day was cloudy, threatening rain. She toyed with the idea of preparing a meal for herself, but liked the quiet, and wanted to hear the first drumming of the coming storm. Her phone rang.
The line was very statically, as if the storm had already hit the caller's end. She had trouble making out the voice.
"Ger... Gerde"?
"Yes, who is this?"
"Gerde... Grace. I'm in trouble... Could you..." The line broke into pure static.
"Grace? I can't hear you. What happened? Where are you?"
"I'm sorry... Gerde..." She seemed to be crying now.
"Grace. It's alright. Just tell me where you are." The line noise was so strange, hollow, like something Gabriel once played for her, but which she couldn't remember at this dreadful moment.
"... you contact Gabe? He might know where... countryside near Melkiinstal northwest by... Gerde?" The line broke a last time, and then toned out.
"Grace? Grace?" She knew there could be no way to reconnect the line. She hung up the phone and dialed the number she had found for Gabriel, supposingly Grace's vacation apartment, though they had never confirmed this. It rang for a long time.
"Yes? Officer Freel speaking." Gerde quickly hung up the phone.
**********************
Grace looked around the preciously inlaid cavern walls. Rivulets of thin, opal waves streamed down one corner of the cave, frothing into a scatter of loose gems. Golden panels reflected cast light from strange, smokeless torches that burned fiercer in her presence - so bright, in fact, that if she could still fear, she would wonder about her own oxygen needs in an hour's time. There was also a fiery luminescence in the room that came from no natural light, but such wonders could not invade her thoughts at the moment. She was no scientist, and only the barest beginning student of the supernatural. And because of the closeness of the maiden, she could only afford the tiniest forethought to what her eyes were relaying to her preoccupied mind. Yet, the art history student still residing in her could not help but be drawn to the magnificent, and deathly, surroundings. Ivory and jade urns nested in ebony niches, many with elaborate wagons and many horned beasts carved into them, pulling the richly dead into the next world. The niches were rather large and long for the size of their single, ashen occupants, but when she approached the walls, she noticed small hands holding each urn, positioned in elaborately loving embraces. The whole skeletons of infants, preserved so that some stretched skin and hair still remained after centuries, guarded the remains within ribcages and wrists. There were at least a hundred niches in this room alone, each representing two deaths, one natural, one not. Even Grace, half maddened by the music, recoiled at such sights. She backed away further into the room, and noticed small, heavy, ebony doors shut for millennia offering her risky escape. They darkly reflected her fear as she neared them, and she felt the smoothness of the marble beneath her feet, unscratched, unsodden even after hundreds of years. She saw that the door's hinges were made of oiled ironwood, never meant to be used again once sealed, but which moved with smooth precision when Grace pulled on the beckoning handles.
The maid lay inside her antechamber. The hundreds of deaths surrounding her were merely servants, and Grace now considered that All their deaths were perhaps not so natural. The goddesses jade carriage was richly incised with sapphires and rubies, covered with silver shields and swords, and pulled by two nephrite horses armored in chain mail made of woven gold. Grace touched one of the elaborately carved swords, and instantly felt the ability to expertly wield it. She knew its precise balance, its cut and points, and wished for an opponent to impress the maid, friend or foe. Yet, with all this fierceness burning inside her, she hesitated to open the wagon's doors. She looked about the chamber again, but this inner sanctuary held nothing but the coffin, the structure's most precious treasure. When she approached the carriage doors again, the room seemed to grow hot, and the beast's, for a moment, alive. They were warning her, for once embarked, this journey and these beasts would not be turned back. Grace gritted her teeth, and wished the music would tell her what to do. She deeply knew she did not want the responsibility for what lay ahead, but the gods would not grant her a scapegoat. I could still turn back now, she said to herself. I might be buried here, crushed by earth, or to insanity outside, but at least I could not be blamed...
She stepped back from the burial, her decision made.
Though untouched, the betraying doors of the carriage blew open, the horses whickered in their joyous freedom, and Grace was engulfed in music, and flame.