The Uncrucified [BETA] - Chapter 3 - Plentimon's Day

RATING: R
- Adult Situations
- Light Gore

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At night, Kalara still heard the Dream Eaten’s hollow voice ringing in her ears.

“I’ll be back in the morning” the unfulfilled promise echoed in her nightmares.

Her mind invented myriad ways that Fey might nibble on her most secret thoughts, from singing little songs that went into her ears and stole visions with every note to a long-fingered fey dragging her dreams out of her nose like narrow glowing noodles.  Those dreams began the same, with her being sold for her impertinence, for having stolen a pie or for tripping during a delivery, silly stupid things she knew weren’t true, but that always felt true in dream logic.

Even while her overactive mind invented nightmares, her waking hours never proved such fears real.  In fact, life in Gem revolved around more than just work and meals and fearful punishments.  Festival days for the Small Gods allowed even the lowest workers an extended afternoon of feasting and gambling.  Only the cut of the meat and the size of the prize pot differed between rich and poor.  The Scraps, in particular, looked forward to the one day out of the year they were allowed to visit the Sahlak Bathhouse, a day Djali spoke of in splendid detail.  They would be allowed to wash in crystal clear sweet-smelling waters attended by beautiful maidens who would feed them small cakes!  Or so Djali said.

Plentimon’s Day arrived with much fanfare, as it did every year since Kalara could remember.  The God of Chance, himself, made the long journey from Whitewall where an underground gambling palace lined with unimaginable finery, women, and feasts was prepared especially for him by the Despot.  The marketplace was always filled with chatter about it, as was Djali.

Kalara had doubted the validity of Djali’s interpretation of facts since the day she met him.



The Plentimon of Dice, however, she had seen herself the last time he had graced the city on his feast day.  Auntie had brought the children on an outing so they could see the spectacle and help her gather any coins thrown by the entourage that the children could scramble for her. Dear Auntie, never wasteful and always inventive in the use of her small army of children.

The Plentimon came in the season of Air when the burning sands were at their most temperate.  A two-tone mask of black and white covered his face, a void of blackness pinpricked by flecks of gold that flowed within the semblance of a man.  Bright golden eyes burned behind the mask, the rest of his glittering form layered in rich, colorful robes.  His unimaginably tall figure waved nonchalantly from an extravagant sedan chair laden with gifts and gold.  Slaves painted with gold and silver powders carried his entire procession along until they disappeared into the deepest holdings in the subterranean city off-limits to commoners where gods only knew what took place over the next week of debauchery that marked the Plentimon’s annual stay in Gem.

The entire city from the bottom up took the Plentimon’s arrival as a sign that all within Gem would be blessed in games of chance. Therefore, the Despot decreed that the whole day and night of his grace would be set aside for revelries and games.  The torches of fire dancers in the street and drunken revelers in the squares filled the city with laughter and light.

Meanwhile, the Scraps prepared for the one good bath a year they were allowed to have outside of the standard washing basins they utilized in their barracks.  Older workers chaperoned the rowdy children in a line through the lava tubes, the children ooing and aahing as they passed grander buildings then a few of them had ever seen in their journey from the sparse tubes of the poor to the lavishly carved exteriors of the Red Stone district.  Kalara was among the gawkers, this being her first year with the Scraps during Plentimon’s Day.

“I heard they have stones that you can touch that let you dream anyone’s dreams, even the Despot’s!”  Djali rattled off excitedly beside her.  “You’ll see! You’ll see!”

Exquisitely carved lamps lit by red firestones cast lacy shadows over the procession of giggling children and world-weary chaperones who warned them all to be on their best behavior in the House of Sahlak.  Docking meals was always a good motivator for silence.  The children obeyed, for the most part, lining up in two rows in front of the entranceway of the main bathhouse draped with red silks and guarded by two statues of entwined lovers wrapped in spinning silks frozen in carved stone.  The children bowed in unison as the Lady Sahlak Janissa, herself, emerged to greet Spinel.  Spinel bowed to her in a courtly manner, the lithe Janissa offering a single demure hand in his.

“Welcome back to our most humble abode, my darling Spinel.”  Janissa smiled so perfectly as she kissed his cheek.  Everything about her seemed like a painting of a courtesan, from flowing silks to flawless skin to her hair that seemed to float always in the most alluring ways around her face.  Kalara watched as she greeted their master, leaning ever so close to him so that her lips brushed past his ear.  For his part, Spinel hid any reaction to her teases, aside from the slightest tweak of the corner of his mouth.  “Such darling faces you’ve brought to me this year!” Janissa exclaimed with practiced glee.

The Lady Sahlak casually gazed upon each of the children as she traversed the row, her pearl white skin given even more of a dreamlike quality by the crimson opalescent light of the glowstones hung in the lamps above them.  Every so often, she would stop in front of a child, speaking with them for a few moments and whispering something to an attendant before continuing on.  Djali watched her, as he must have surely done in years past, with his mouth agape in wonder.  Kalara elbowed him in the side before Janissa reached them, but that didn’t save him from being caught gawking up at her when she stopped in front of him, smiling her perfect smile etched with blood red paint.  Her perfume enveloped them in arms of sweet and musky chrysanthemum.

“Such a beautiful boy, Spinel!”  Janissa called back to their master.  “How would you like to come live with me, Djali?  I see how much fun you have here every year!”  Her playful giggle rang like bells in his ears.

Djali could only stare for a moment before he finally closed his gaping mouth and swallowed, the poor boy still unarmed by the most beautiful woman in front of him and the shadow of cleavage leveled just in front of his short view.

“He’s not for you, Janissa.” Spinel’s harsh voice spoiled her plans.  “The boy’s a fool, but he knows every tunnel you’d never care to step foot in.”

“Awww…”  Janissa leaned closer, pressing a finger to Djali’s nose and winking at him.  “I guess you’ll have to stay with stuffy master Spinel…for now.”  Djali turned beet red, even under the red light, as Janissa straightened herself and continued on.  She seemed to bypass Kalara completely at first,... until she spied the gleaming scar on Kalara’s forearm as she passed.

“Well, well, another ‘Sweet Girl’!”  Janissa leaned in, tracing her delicate fingers down one side of Kalara’s cheek and lifting her chin up so she could get a better look at her.  “Are you as sweet as the others, I wonder?”

Kalara only stared, wide-eyed and unsure of how to answer.  The question confused her.  It almost felt as if Lady Sahlak was concerned more about how she might taste rather than her demeanor.

“Ah, and such lovely jade green eyes, even in this light!”  The Lady kept raising Kalara’s chin till her throat was fully exposed, the cold bite of her painted fingernails like small knives across her skin.  “And a smooth complexion.”  The Lady examined her for a moment longer, eyeing her the way an eagle does before it eats its prey.  Kalara felt smothered by her shadow and the sickening smell of her perfume.  Lady Sahlak’s eyes gleamed with hidden amusements, Kalara swearing she could see the edges of the perfect mask she wore fading.

“Mmm, but perhaps too much effort to polish this gem.”  Finally, the Lady released her and Kalara took a step back into line.

“Spinel, we’ll speak later!  Take your lot of little pups to the Lotus Pool…” Lady Sahlak waved to an attendant, who immediately jumped into action at the merest flick of the Lady’s wrist. “…and tell Lady Iblan she would benefit most assuredly from a dip in our waters. She looks so haggard these days!”  She hid a jeering smile behind a silk sleeve, the quip not lost on Spinel, who only tightened his jaw, bowed, and moved on ahead.  The fued between their houses was widely known, but there were few who could resist the quality and purity of the waters provided by the Sahlak, lest they be tricked into bathing in low quality purified piss.

Kalara gazed after the Lady Janissa of House Sahlak wondering what kind of a master she might be, her cold fingernails still lingering on her skin.  The bathhouse was like a painting she’d seen on the walls of the palace square.  She was the celestial goddess at the center of a wondrous garden.  Even as the chrysanthemums faded from her senses, Kalara spied the young workers of the bathhouse who peeked out from behind the statues in the entryway.  Every piece of the tapestry of loveliness woven around them seemed to fit except for the peeking children, most of whom seemed only a few years older than herself.

Kalara knew the lies of such perfection before.  She remembered the warmth of Auntie Sweet’s hearth, the sweetmeats and comforts she distracted them with to keep them from asking questions.  Auntie had kept her and her ‘darling children’ only to fatten and sell at the market like sacrificial goats.  Kalara thought she caught a hint of fear in the childrens’ eyes as they gazed towards their mistress who passed idly through the entryway with demure steps.  She thought she saw a symbol very much like the one burned into her own forearm on one of them, but as soon as she noticed, the children dispersed like figments of her imagination back into the red shadows of the bathhouse in the wake of their mistress.

Kalara didn’t have time to ponder too long on the bathhouse children before their group was led to their own private bathing area.  Nobody wanted to share a bath with a herd of rowdy dirty children and Spinel, as stoic as he seemed, was kind enough to buy out a whole area just for them knowing this was the one thorough bath they’d get in a year’s cycle.  He enjoyed the bath too, though he usually disappeared to his own business and pleasures after he was through, leaving the children in the care of their older chaperones.

Seeing the water and the comforting sound of her fellow Scraps laughing alleviated the darker thoughts her mind had wandered to.  This was water, glorious hot water!  Kalara jumped in on a dare from Djali and sunk to the bottom before emerging with a spray of water, laughing as she doused Djali and scoffed at him “I see you have your brain back, nyeh!” She made an imitation of his gaping face from earlier before splashing him again.

“Hey!  Don’t blame me if you don’t have those kind of breasts yet!”  Djali retorted, turning beet red once again before hopping into the pool on top of Kalara and dunking her under for good measure before she could defend that statement or comment about his own privates.  They were all naked the pool.  Slaves in tight living quarters didn’t have time to be concerned with modesty.  Whatever surprises or shyness anyone dealt with had been quickly alleviated by forty nude children washing their own clothes and bodies in the commmon area.  Most of them were too young to really appreciate the full artistry of the human body just yet, anyways.

Having water in this amount, however, was a privilege only for the super rich, for water had to be transported by hand from the cisterns and heated by firestones.  It smelled sweet with oils and every now and again Sahlak attendants came and showered them with petals for the bath, which delighted the children, who danced and laughed as the colors scattered around them.  Djali danced with her, spouting water out of his nose and arranging petals on her head when she wasn’t looking.

It was the happiest Kalara could remember being in the few years of cramped spaces and deceitful adults that had been her life up until this point.  When she could laugh no more, her face too sore from smiling and her breath short, Kalara took a seat on the side of the pool and wrapped herself in a towel, resting her chin on her knees as she took in the sight of the other children playing.  Djali was pretending to be a whale now, filling his cheeks with water and spitting it out at the other kids.  She admired the endless energy he had to just be a child.  Even as young as she still was in body, she felt like she’d abandoned such capacity for joy a long time ago when Auntie haggled her childhood away without even a drop of genuine affection.  He’d helped her rediscover at least some of that joy, even if he was a foolish, gross boy.

“I never thought I’d see you here.”  A soft, guarded voice only just above a whisper sounded in her ear, Kalara turning finally to notice the unassuming figure of a servant girl kneeling at her side.

“I brought you a hazelnut tart. I know you like them too.”  The girl smiled weakly, her dark eyes marked with kohl and makeup that couldn’t hide the gray circles that weighed them down.  “I’m Asha.” In the light, Kalara caught sight of the distinctive raised flesh of Auntie’s trademark gleaming on the girl’s forearm as she reached out to offer the plate.

She finally recognized her then, if only vaguely.  Asha had been in Auntie’s home only a small while after Kalara had first arrived. She’d disappeared only a few weeks later, Kalara just old enough to remember her.  She had been yet another ‘older sister’ too old to stay and explained away as a having gone on to a better home.

“I’m sorry…I don’t remember you so well.” Kalara shook her head, frustrated.

Asha only smiled her sickly smile.  “It’s alright. I’m just happy to see a familiar face, even if it’s a ‘little sister’ I barely had.”  She watched quietly while Kalara downed the plate with ungraceful large bites.  Even if she despised Auntie’s methods, she could never give up her love of pastries, especially after a bland diet of mysterious stews, unleven bread, and tea.  When she moved to discard the plate, she found her wrist grasped tightly by Asha’s.  The quick movement startled her briefly, but it wasn’t aggressive.

The fear in Asha’s eyes made it clear. It was desperation.  “I saw her looking at you…”  Her voice was a trembling whisper.  “You have to know…she’s…this place…”  She couldn’t find the words for a moment, the fear driving her voice even lower, as if Lady Sahlak might hear her from afar.

It was then Kalara noticed the marks on Asha’s wrist, the twisting red of rope burns hidden by bracelets and a hint of worse bruises and cuts that disappeared into the shimmer of her silks.

“This place isn’t what you think it is, what it looks like.  You should prepare yourself...”  Asha’s grip eased as Kalara placed a comforting hand over hers.

“If she wants you here, you’ll have to be good.  If you don’t cry, if you do what she says, the Lady promises us we’ll be kept. We’ll have the most beautiful clothes and the best foods.  Everything you can imagine!”  Her small smile widened, even as tears welled in her eyes.  She seemed to be trying to convince herself as much as she seemed to be convincing Kalara.

“You’re a ‘Sweet Child’.” She continued in hushed whispers, Kalara listening in rapt shock.  “They like how good and obedient we are.  They’ll give you to people who want that.  Sometimes they’re nice…but sometimes they’re not…most times they’re not…If you come here, maybe I can help. We can be sisters again!”  Asha squeezed her hand again, desperate, it seemed, for an ally.

Kalara hardly had time to process Asha’s warning before the voice of another attendant caused her to quickly pull her hand away, Asha rising and disappearing with her head low with practiced obedience and stealth.

For most of the outing, the laughter of the other Scraps echoed in the hall, the comfort they had eclipsed by Asha’s terrified grip.  She scratched the scar of the brand as she stared into the waters, the meaning of that brand finally dawning on her.  Sweet Children…Auntie had written their fate from the first moment she’d set that mark on them.  When she couldn’t stand the laughter of the other children anymore, she wandered farther away from the pool, pretending to nurse a cart of cakes and food they’d brought in for them to dine on.

She thought she heard Asha’s voice then, a screaming yell that echoed just barely from down the hall nearby.  All of her common sense told her not to follow it, to let things be.

But against her own best judgment, she found her feet carrying her to the sound.  She just had to know.  She had to know what her warning truly meant.  Just when she thought Asha’s voice might have been a figment of her imagination, she heard a soft whimpering that ended in a strange dampened moan.  The light coming from the crack of a curtained doorway cut a swath of bright red light across the shadowed hallway that led her inevitably to the sound.

Other rooms along the way cast their own unique sounds, laughter, sighs, and other breathy sounds muffled by closed curtains.  The further she went in, the more the sounds moved from pleasurable to…not right.  With each footstep closer, she didn’t want to know, but with each whimper, she knew she must know for her own sanity if this place was to be her destiny.

She reached the crack of light that stretched down the hall, the only curtain left slightly open in the hall of shadowed crimson.  It took willpower to open her eyes and peek in.

Asha was biting her lip, muffling any whimpers as they rose up.  No more silks hid the canvas of red scars, cuts, sigils, and strange artistry carved into her skin.  She had curled herself into a position much like a shocked calf too scared to move in the grasp of a predator.  A delicate inhuman hand moved across an exposed breast, caressing it at first before plunging smoothly in.  The fingers passed through the skin as if it were water, no blood, only a ripple of flesh that corrected itself without a flaw.  The shocking sight caused Kalara to step back, her hands covering her mouth to stifle a scream.

Luckily for her, the client wasn’t even paying attention.  The strange woman with eyes as black as coal and not a hair on her head continued reading a scroll as if this was the most normal thing in the world, her other arm content with her night’s entertainment.  The woman’s skin gleamed an unearthly purple painted with ornate gold symbols from head to toe.

Asha had noticed Kalara, however.  When their eyes met, she only shook her head emphatically, mouthing the word ‘Go!”, her lips quivering with suppressed emotion.  Her client shifted slightly, humming to herself as she moved her hand once more, peeling back the skin of Asha’s ribs with terrifying ease, revealing her still-beating heart without a splash of blood or gore.  Her organs peeked from behind her ribs, even as Asha’s eyes pleaded “GO!”

The sound of far-off attendants in the hall hurried Kalara in her flight from that horrifying sight.

When she reached the Pool, she couldn’t talk, couldn’t eat for the rest of the night.  Djali and the others couldn’t draw the voice out of her.  All she could do was wrap her arms around her knees and rock.

Asha’s eyes pleaded with her still, even if she couldn’t hear her anymore.

“Are you as sweet as the others, I wonder?”  Lady Salakh’s voice echoed in her mind.

The revelation of the intent of that question filled her with terror, as did the fact that Spinel had spoken not a word in denying her sale to House Sahlak as he had immediately with Djali.  With all the made up terrors of Fey that danced through her nightmares, a very real monster took hold.

Author's Note:
I have to point out an irony here I didn't realize till after I finished and posted the chapter.  It's the sight of a Neomah's fleshcrafting entertainment that sends Kalara into a panic, and thusly on an unexpected path.  

However, later on (if you've kept up with her Circle's adventures), she attends a hot springs bathhouse once more as an adult and actually enjoys the company of Neomah attendants, one of which removes Auntie Sweet's brand from her arm at her own request.

Filling out the history of Kalara's brand and what it meant for her has added such emotional impact to the act of having it removed.  Especially by a being that caused her so much fear early in life before she really understood demons aren't all monstrous.

In fact, I imagine the Neomah noble taking her pleasures at House Sahlak's main pavilion is probably a very good patron to have...once you get to know her!  A patchwork history came to me while I was writing her that she is an artist 'refining' her 'craft'.  I'm intrigued by the concept of Neomah as nobles too, considering how often they're placed in positions of servitude in this setting.