Arcanum - Of Steamwork and Magic Ch. 17

The footman paused. "I must confer with Mr. Carrington."

The door shut as the rain clouds gathered.

Ten minutes spent under the increasingly dripping awning of vines and flowers was time enough for the foreboding apprehension I felt to grow into full bore paranoia -- and I bade Virginia and Sally to both keep themselves ready for anything, and for 'Magnus' to use her smaller stature and increased chance to go unnoticed to her advantage. But finally, the door did open and I saw that Mr. Carrington was a butler -- dressed in mourning finery, his face as wide and round as the moon. His nose was squat and wide, and he looked at me underneath a brow furrowed in confusion.

"Mr. Carrington, I presume," I said. "I am here to speak to Mrs. Misk about her husband's untimely death."

"Are you investigators?" Mr. Carrington asked, his voice filled with utter suspicion.

I smiled. "I was a correspondent of Mr. Misk," I said, casually. Such a lie was easier and easier to bring forth, I had to admit. "He was interested in my technological specifications -- I in his library."

"Oh, Wesley," a feminine voice called out. "Do let..." There was a pause, then an audible sniffle. "Let them in, it is raining frightfully out there."

Wesley Carrington narrowed his eyes, but at last, opened the door.

Sally and Gillian were shuffled off into the kitchen to warm themselves, while 'Magnus', Virginia and I were allowed into the sitting room proper. There, I saw that Mr. Misk had definitely been a collector that could be compared to no one else: The walls were utterly covered in bookshelves. Where there would normally be paintings of forebears or of famous encounters or simply of the scenery of Arcanum herself, there were instead row upon row of books. Many were printed in languages other than the common tongue, and I saw even Virginia's eyes widen as she saw some of the texts. She stepped over to one in particular.

"On Nasrudin?" she asked. "They have this one?"

"One of my darling Victor's favorites."

I turned and saw that Mrs. Misk had entered the room. Dressed in the bell gown that was popular among the Tarantian aristocracy these days, Mrs. Misk was a hard woman to pin down on first glance, simply because she still remained within a black veil. The gauzy sweep of fabric, pinned to her broad brimmed hat, transformed what might have been a hideous face or a lovely face into a vague shape. That vague shape seemed to be all the more ghastly than even a horribly disfigured one -- simply because even with concealment and chastity, the sheer pain of her grief was clear to see in the minute indications that escaped the veil. Her body itself was slim, constrained within a corset as it was, and her hands were covered with elbow length black gloves.

"My lady," I said, stepping forward and bowing to her politely.

"A half-orc?" she asked, her eyes widening. "You? You are Dr. Cog?"

I stood. "Yes, I, uh...now you see why I remained in the mountains for most of my career."

"I thought that Dr. C...that you were quite...old," Mrs. Misk said, her voice light -- fragile as porcelain. It felt as if jostling her might break her. But I saw her confusion and coughed.

"Well, it is rather a dramatic tale," I admitted. "Do you wish a seat, my lady?"

"Oh, yes. Wesley, can you bring us some port?" she asked, turning to Wesley. "Where are my manners, right, bring us some coffee as well, with extra sugars for the gentleman and lady."

'Magnus' mumbled a gruff thanks, while Virginia curtsied to Mrs. Misk as best she could, considering her accouterments and her own lack of social graces. But soon, Wesley had returned with a pot of piping hot coffee, coffee that helped to ward off the chill that sought to creep in through every crack, every poor of the building. Even the thick panes of glass and the wrought iron frames that contained them seemed little suited to warding off the intense chill that came with the December storm that was, even now, hammering on the roof, the walls, adding its percussive undercurrent to our conversation.

I took the cup Wesley poured for me as Mrs. Misk gently took her veil and tugged it back and over the brim of her hat -- revealing her features. If Mrs. Misk had a fractional dollop of elven blood in her, I would not have been shocked. It was evident in the slender arc of her nose, the narrowness of her jaw, the faint sweep to her ears, and the pronounced, almond shape of her eyes. It gave her a strangely otherworldly look, a look all the more intense for being subtle. Where an elf seemed natural in their oddness, the humanish features that dominated on her face only made the minor differences more stark. However, do not mistake me: The strangeness was anything but off putting. No. Mrs. Misk was utterly captivating. Her eyes were filled with such sadness, though, it nearly made it impossible to tell their color.

"So, ah, how is it that you seem so..." She paused. "Youthful for such an elderly orc?"

I smiled. "In my life in the wilderneness, I happened upon a magickal phenomenon that restored me some measure of my youth. It is why I'm traveling once more."

"Ah," she said, her eyes widening. "I've heard of such phenomenon. Victor said that he read of them in, in...in one of his books." Her eyes wavered and she paused, reaching up to wipe at her face with her gloved hand. "D-Do forgive me."

"No forgiveness required, my lady," I said, my voice husky. "I do not wish to press you, though. But..." I paused. "Can you tell me what happened to your Victor?"

Mrs. Misk breathed in, then out. "He was found four days ago," she said, quietly. "We buried him not two days before." She sniffed. "H-He was so paranoid, so afraid, of what would happen to him after that...that...that thrice damned Wales released his even more damned book." Her hands shook and she clasped them together to stop the motion. "He started at every shadow. Every day he returned from his job at the firm, he would say that someone or something had followed him." She shook her head. "And then, and...and then he...he vanished..." She sighed. "And then t-the guard...f...found...found him. Dead. Drowned." Her eyes glimmered with tears and she whispered. "Oh heavens, I've set myself off again, do forgive me, Dr. Cog."

"No, no, it is all right, Mrs. Misk-"

"P-Please!" She sniffed. "You can call me Leslie, I always did hate t-this...this Lady Misk nonsense." She sniffed again. "A-And he's dead. I'm not e...exactly a Mrs anymore." Her voice held depths of bitterness that matched the depths of the southern seas. I wished greatly to take her into my arms -- to caress her until the tears subsided. Instead, I sat up straighter and nodded as she muttered under her breath: "Damn that Wales. If only I knew how..."

My brow furrowed. "How?" I asked.

Leslie looked at me, then flushed. "Oh, ah, I have no idea how that Wales found out that we even owned that damned book. It was not in our library. Victor never did speak of it to me -- save for when he started to get worried, and then when Wales published his book. Afterwards, he said often that 'they' got his father and now 'they' would get him."

I nodded. "How did his father die?"

"In a fire..." Leslie's eyes went unfocused. She shook her head. "I don't want to speak of this anymore." She stood, breathing in a shuddering breath as the rain continued to sleet against the windows. "B-but of course, I cannot send you out in this weather, it is utterly frightful and the weather wizards are out of town -- preventing some hurricane from striking one of the farming settlements, I believe." She shook her head. "Still, you have been so kind, listening to me, Mr. Cog. Do..." She paused. "Do you think that my husband really was murdered."

I frowned, then reached up and stroked my mustaches. "It is...possible."

She drew in a short gasp, a gasp that lifted her chest in a most distracting fashion -- even given the weighty subject we were covering. Her hand went to her throat and she closed her eyes. "I see," she said. "Then may I ask you to do something for me, Dr. Cog?"

I bowed to her. "Of course, my lady-"

"Leslie. Please." She smiled, shyly. "You may be half an orc, but I really am not in the mood for serviles today, Dr. Cog."

I stood and smiled at her. "If you wish me to call you Leslie, then you must call me Ray."

Two spots of color appeared upon her pale cheeks. Her eyes widened and I saw the faint glimmering of excitement in those dark orbs. Those glimmers did not so much fade as they were violently dashed as she jerked her head aside, looking at a book contained within a small glass container on a sitting room table in the corner of the room. She touched the dome, as if she wished to clean it of dust, but I saw that she was merely trying to find the right words. "O-Of course, Ray. Please, make yourselves comfortable. If you need anything, just speak to Wesley."

She slipped from the room.

Virginia frowned. "Sir," she said, her voice soft. "Remember what the Curse of T'Sen-Ang said? They had access to his memories. Maybe those have more clues as to where the actual book is."

I nodded. "I believe we won't find this here..."

"I have an idea, sir," Virginia said.

"Oh?" I asked.

Virginia bit her lip. "Sir, I think you would prefer not to know. I must get Sally and head out into the storm-"

"Wait, this is the second time you'll have dashed off." I smiled. "Whatever will I do without your protective shadow, Virginia?"

"Oh, har har," Virginia said, her cheeks flushing. Then, quite seriously, she turned to 'Magnus.' "You keep an eye on him. If he plows that Leslie woman, keep your ear to the door. She might be in the Molochean Hand -- this may all be an act." She nodded.

'Magnus' eyes widened and she opened her mouth to respond -- but Virginia was already sweeping out of the room, heading towards the kitchens in this mansion. For a moment, the pattering of the rain was the only noise in the library, the faint sunlight that eeked past the clouds drawing lines of watery patterns on the far wall. 'Magnus' harrumphed and, in her best approximation of a masculine burr, said: "That lass is hiding something."

"We all are, Magnus," I said, casually, looking at the books. But checking the titles of the books passed remarkably little time, considering how many were clearly unrelated to the task at hand. As 'Magnus' drank what was left of the coffee, I started to move through the mansion -- noting that even with the pal of mourning hanging over everything, the place was still neat and tidy and well dusted. I found the answer to this when I came to yet another reading room and found possibly one of the most beautiful half-orcish women I had ever seen standing on her tip toes, bending forward to sweep a feather duster along several golden chalices. The room had a roaring fire that had been stoked to its full heights, and this cast a brilliant orange glow along the orcess' bared, green thighs -- for she was dressed in a rather fetching maid's outfit. The kind that were black and white and frilled, with garters and stockings alike and a skirt that had been clearly crafted by a man. Unlike Gillian, who tended towards the athletic, this was a half-orcess who had attained the soft curves of a gently tended woman. She might be a member of the servants, but she clearly didn't do heavy lifting or hard labor. And as she bent forward to dust along the edges of the mantelpiece, I saw the skirt ride up more and more, revealing even more tantalizing glimpses of her flesh.

I coughed, softly.

The orcess spun around, clutching the feather duster to her chest, her golden-brown eyes wide. Her hair was nearly as long as mine, but where mine was tied into a neat queue, hers had been curled expertly, giving her a mane that flowed along her shoulders and along her chest like waterfall. The effect was so very striking that it nearly stopped my heart beating. I coughed, then adjusted my collar. "A-Ah, uh, sorry, I did not mean to startle you, miss."

The lovely creature before me flushed, ducking her head forward. "Me...I...am...sorry," she said, her diction slow and careful. I saw shame filling her features as she spoke again: "Me..." She closed her eyes, her jaw clenching. "I am Binda."

I recognized the speech pattern. Some with orcish blood, raised in orcish communities, learned the orcish tongue before the common one. If they did not learn the common tongue until later in life, their syntax and diction and vocabulary struggled to match that of someone raised on the common tongue -- at least when it came to common. I was quite sure that Binda here could talk circles around me in orcish, a tongue I had never been taught. But of course, who cared how well an orc could speak orcish, huh?

I smiled at her. "My name is Rayburn Cog. Is your sister Linda, by any chance?"

The familial resemblance was clear -- even more clear when she smiled at me. "Yes! Yes, she be...is me sister."

I chuckled. "So, when did you move to Caladon, Binda? If I do not miss my guess, it was recently...you are learning Common quite well for coming to it so late."

Binda flushed. Thanks to the daringly low decolletage of her maid's outfit, I could see the dark green of that blush creeping from her breasts to the edge of her neck to her cheeks as she looked aside, her hands twisting and clenching on the feather duster. She whispered. "O-Only three month ago. Me sister, she live here since she young. Ma, Da, they sell her to teacher, she send money back as she work, in factory, then in coffee." She nodded. "O-Once money big enough, and she get friend, she get me job too. Now we all send money to brother, Urgag Reeks!" She beamed. "Urgag only one, but he go to guard! He have armor and uniform!"

"Your mother and father are orcs?" I asked, curiously, stepping closer. She shook her head.

"They half," she said, nodding. "Half make half, right?"

I chuckled, softly. "I admit, that study has not been my focus," I said. "But you prove the hypothesis." I smiled at her. "Uh, sorry, I kind of use a lot of complicated words. Even if you're born speaking like this, you need to-"

"Me know," Binda said, putting her hand on my shoulder, then squeezed. I took her hand and squeezed back, smiling.

"Ahem."

A cough from behind them drew my attention. I turned and saw that Wesley was standing in the doorway, his hands clasped behind his back. The distant sound of thunder grumbled through the mansion -- like the distant sound of a worried god. Binda's cheeks flushed even darker and more emerald than before and she bustled from the room so swiftly that she nearly tripped. The movement of her hips and the shifting of her skirt drew my eyes, a glance that Wesley caught and did not remark upon -- but he did purse his lips. The silence stretched, like a violin being drawn to a scream by a single bow. Finally, he frowned at me and said: "The mistress seeks to ask you a question. She is upstairs, in the second story smoking room."

The second story smoking room, as it transpired, had a broad window that looked out at Caladon. The city, even shrouded in the storm, was quite a beautiful place. Wesley loomed in the room, beneath the stuffed head of a snarling lizard-like beast with cold, blue scales. But as I took the seat that Leslie gestured towards, she then flipped her hand to Wesley. Wesley coughed softly. "Ma'am?"

Leslie looked to him. Her voice was soft -- but it contained just a enough edge to be a command: "We are perfectly fine, Wesley. You may go."

Wesley's jaw tightened. He turned on his heel to go. The continual sense of unease that the mansion was shrouded in seemed to have become yet more taut. Leslie, then, said: "I have been thinking, Dr. Cog. There cannot be a way for that damned Wales to find my husband's memories unless he broke into our home. And that seems unlikely -- why publish a confession if that were the case? And we'd have evidence that something had been stolen. Which leaves..."

"The staff," I said, quietly.

"And the only servants who were in the home when Mr. Wales visited..." She gulped. "It was Binda and Wesley. The rest were at their homes. But Binda has no home, and Wesley is here every day, he only goes home at the evening..." She shook her head. "But I cannot bear to imagine either of them betraying us like that."

As we were both seated in chairs facing the window, it was merely a moment to reach across and take her gloved hand. Through the silken glove, I could feel the gentle, delicate sensation of her hand in my grip. She closed her fingers around mine and squeezed back, but her eyes did not glance towards mine.

"I can find out who did it, Leslie," I said, softly.

"I-I know you can, Ray."

My thumb rubbed along her knuckles. Leslie drew in a soft breath. She bit her lip, then looked at me. I leaned forward, tugging her hand up to my lips. I kissed her knuckles through the silken glove. Leslie's gasp was shocked and her eyes were wide...but she did not draw away. I released her hand and stood. "Should I get to it?" I asked.

Leslie was silent for a moment. Then, softly. "R-Ray, I...Victor and I..." She looked out again. "I..." She paused, then whispered. "It is such a cold day today."

"Shall we stoke a fire?" I asked, quietly.

Leslie looked out the window. Her thighs pressed together beneath her skirt, which rustled and crinkled faintly -- like wrapping paper. Her hands gripped her knees. She murmured. "Y-You do put such ideas in my head, Dr. Cog...Ray..." She shook her head, her cheeks flushing. "A widow shouldn't feel such things. Not so...so..." She gulped.

"You are not dead, Leslie," I said, my hand gently falling to her shoulder as I stood behind her. She shivered quietly, truing her head. She pressed her face against my knuckles, her eyes closed.

"Let us stoke a fire, then," she said, quietly.

The chambers of Mr. and Mrs. Misk were clearly still in use, despite the recent loss suffered. The bookshelves here were smaller and more intimate, and they had been stocked with an even wider range of books -- but many of them were smaller, paperback books that looked to be easily read in bed. The bed itself was quite large, and covered with freshly placed sheets. Leslie stepped in, her hands wringing, her voice soft. "I-I cannot believe I am here, doing this..." She whispered. "B-But you're...so...handsome." She gulped. "And...I have not been touched...in...s-so long..."

I gently closed the door behind me, my finger working the latch. I stepped forward as Leslie murmured quietly. "Victor worked so very hard at the firm, to...provide..." Her voice was softer. "But I wished for children...and...he did not..." My fingers found the ties on her back. I unlaced the first tie of her dress, and black fabric rippled aside, revealing her pale skin. Her whole body shivered and she breathed in, her shoulders shifting -- causing the dress to skim down along her shoulders.

"Do you know where he kept his journal, Leslie?" I asked, tugging her dress down. It puddled around her ankles, revealing the corset beneath and her underclothes. Her eyes were closed and she smiled shyly.

"I buried it with him," she said.

My fingers started to undo tie after tie on her corset. So, if Virginia's suspicion was a bust, I knew where we could go to investigate next. As the third tie came free, Leslie let out a quiet sound, somewhere between relief and arousal. Now, her arms moved, pushing, her hands gripping and shoving. Her corset came apart around her and she stepped forward, her undergarments joining the rest of the pile upon the ground. Soon, her slender, perky body was entirely exposed and she was crawling upon the bed by palms and knees. She looked over her shoulder and hastily rolled onto her back, her legs tucked together. Her entire body flushed as I took her in. She was utterly blemish free, but her human nature told in the wild thatch of pubic hair above her elf elegant sex, which I had caught a glimpse of before her knees pressed together and she laid a single hand above her sex -- demure and gentle.