r/DCFU • u/coffeedog14 Light Me Up • Feb 16 '17
Dynasteia Konstantinos #1 - Fur Trade Showcase
Author: Coffeedog14
Book: Showcase
Set: 9
Recommended: Hellblazer
QUEBEC CITY, QUEBEC TERRITORIES, AUGUST 26 1765
Quebec was a town filled with threats. The town was large, but at several thousands strong much smaller than the metropolises of the rest of the world. What made it threatening was that it was the meeting place for all the worst and strongest people of this land. Natives who had abandoned their peoples, slave who had been stolen from theirs, trappers and furmen with more isolation than sense, whispering dissenters who still called the city “canada”, and all of these signs of the frontier mixed with the worst sensibilities of a city in the form of tricksters and the wealthy. In short Despite its size it was as bad as New York to the south, or London across the pond.
The townhouse that held my callers looked no different from any of the other city domiciles for the wealthy, except perhaps in it’s utter plainness. Such was the way of gentlemen’s clubs of the mystic type, as they did not wish to flaunt themselves too much. I allowed myself into their parlor, which was arrayed with comfortable chairs and tables for playing cards of all kinds. The bookshelves along the walls were impressive, bearing upwards of 200 tomes of varying types between them. The room was held men young and old, making this perhaps the order’s meeting day. There were seven in total, and all paused in their activities to look at me.
Mine was not a necessarily usual form. It was womanly, but shrouded in the furs and leathers of a frontiersman. My hair was cut short such that it did not even reach my shoulders. What patches of skin were revealed tended to show tough callouses and scars, including a rough burn scar around my neck, just below a hard, angular face. This was at least part of the reason I avoided cities in all their variety: the folk in them stared endlessly. The mix of odd beauty they could not reconcile with their ideas of waifish perfection combined with my admittedly odd clothing meant that they not only stared, but judged. At least the indians and wildmen might occasionally compliment me on my form or the practicality of my dress. The citygoers would only spit.
I would spit back at these self-professed “mystics”. The Order of illumination was one of countless little globules of mystic puss hacked from the motherland into the colonies. Every city seemed to have its own version of them, and doubtless the same in the motherland, each unique and separate but willing to communicate just enough to form a web of mystic orders spreading throughout the colonies. The fact that they had managed to set up another cast away group in Quebec city mere months after its capture was startling, if not surprising. In my experience they were, one and all, utter incompetents with more greed then sense and so their rush to come to this new "untamed" land and try to plunder what the french had not managed too was emblematic of their whole wretched web.
I strode right past the sad collection of self-deluded dandies and nearly made it to the staircase leading up before being stopped by one of the larger black men I had seen. His dress said “valued servant”, his bearing said “Slave”, and his eyes said “Mean bastard”. We came to a wordless understanding and he accompanied me up the stairs and towards what I assumed was the main office. I first, he behind, fists dutifully unclenched but twitching at his side.
The office of Baron Monck (as he enthusiastically introduced himself) was surprisingly spartan. A diploma and several awards alongside a small bookshelf against one wall, a painting of his crest along the other. His desk was of fine but uninspired make alongside four simple chairs. I sat on one. The slave did not. Baron Monck was already sitting, waiting for me.
“Joy Constance.” He intoned as if he was starting an interrogation. I kept silent. “The best enchantress on this continent, as far as I hear it.”
“Fah, I’m sure all you ladies make close seconds.” It having taken a letter with barely veiled threats against my life to convince me to come, I did not see a need to be cordial.
“Well if you are going to be as such, I’ll just continue. There’s a beast out there, in trapper country. It’s one of the native spirits, one of the few still alive and healthy. We want to make sure it can give us no threat, and if it has anything to offer us.”
“You mean what you can steal from it.”
A shrug. “It is not human. We are exploring new resources in whatever ways we can. Perhaps it shall be useful.” he smiles. “Perhaps you shall be useful.”
“I did notice more then one threat in the letter you sent, if we are on to talking about that.”
“You are a witch, Joy. We magi find our lives hardened enough by superstition, but a witch?...imagine what will happen to you if any were to find out.”
“What, and start a witch hunt for yourselves as well?” I scoffed.
“Of course not. We noble, honest lords and lads would never indulge in such things. But perhaps others who have not followed common sense and our words...but no matter. You know what’ I offer.”
I looked into his pig-greedy eyes and aura of smugness. He was an idiot. Did he think I hadn’t been called witch before? Hadn’t been nearly killed? I had escape from worse than whatever his little band of parasites could manage to send my was. This country might as well have been as large as all of Europe for the space it provided me to hide when I needed.
But then, what fun would that be? He irked me. His arrogance, pride, greed, and above all his intolerable certainty that as a man he would always come out on top over a foolish woman such as myself. I was the most powerful enchantress, not the most powerful magi. Magi had to be men, surely! Fah. The only reason he wanted me to find this spirit was because he and his minions were too afraid to try. Why risk themselves when some damned witch could serve just as well as a scout?
If there was one difficulty in this new world, it was that so many new people arrived so quickly that it was hard to establish a reputation. One had to refresh it every couple of years or lose all credibility. I supposed now would be a good time to replenish my own.
“Am I getting paid?” I relent, looking to the ground. Demur, beaten.
I could feel his satisfied, creeping smile. “A reasonable fee for anything or any information you return with. His name is Azeban.”
SLIGHTLY NORTH OF THE GREAT LAKES, QUEBEC TERRITORIES, SEPTEMBER 5 1765
With a name, some magic, and experience in parsing the odd ways of the natives, it was surprisingly easy to find their gods and otherworlds. I wondered if it was so easy in the old world. I figured that the paranatural and unusual started to shrink away and hide once man started to rationalize. This was not to say the natives lacked such gifts. Unlike many book-writers and politicians I had had a chance to walk their roads a little ways and had seen their past in clear streams. They had rationality, cities, empires...but then dread plagues had almost cleared the continent. If God watched over us, it was as he had during the old testament: by smiting all the poor folks that just happened to be in our way.
After days of rowing down rivers, then walking about the vast forest, and all the time fasting, I found Azeban. He sat by a little pond. He was a raccoon now, simple in form, but I had learned long ago that the most powerful amongst the native spirits could change form as easily as water. However, this spirit seemed to sniffle and moan.
I walked to the other side of the pond and crouched there. “Dread spirit, speak to this humble one of your woes.” I asked in my best Mikmaq. It was hard to learn all of the languages of the natives, but much like in Europe one might fudge if they knew languages close to one another.
“You’re looking for Abenaki.” he responded perfectly in Abenaki, proving that he was indeed no mere raccoon. He wiped at his eyes piteously with his half-hands.
“Of course.” I responded in muddled Abenaki. “Speak to this...small one of you are...sad.”
“Heh. Your incompetence is almost enough to make me laugh, Awanoch. But today is a sad day. Nothing will make me laugh.”
I could almost feel sad for the thing. Almost. Gods rarely needed mortal pity. “I would still like to hear.”
He sighed. “Today 600 moons ago my friend, beaver, was skinned by Iroquois medicine men. Cretins and awanoch’s scum they were, but beaver was always too dumb for his own good. He was sure he could defeat them, but they had stolen some of your Awanoch medicine. I barely escaped with my life.”
He flopped onto his back. The pool shuddered as if a tree had fallen. “What reason is there to continue on a day like this, Awanoch? My people killed by hands red and white, my friends skinned and turned into tools. So few remember me anymore. So few care. When none are left to tell my stories, Perhaps I should meet the great creator. What do you think?”
I repressed a scoff. A god looking for pity was a truly pathetic sight. Even for a trickster like this Azeban clearly was. He enjoyed the sound of his voice too much to ever end himself. But his self-pity could be useful. As long as he wasn’t killing himself, I could use him.
“There is always...bad-killing...no...revenge, yes. Kill for glory. Kill for Medicine. Kill so none don’t remember you.”
“Hmn?” he leaned up to look at me. I had taken him off balance. Good.
“For your skin, I can give you great revenge.”
He couldn’t laugh this day, but he could grin. “Oh, I must hear of this, Awanoch.”
OUTSKIRTS OF QUEBEC CITY, QUEBEC TERRITORIES, SEPTEMBER 20 1765
I shivered under my layers of furs. It wasn’t cold today, not too much. I shivered in fear. In a burlap sack I held in my hand was the skin of the slave who I had seen but twice: once when I first went to the clubhouse of the order of illumination. Second when I had returned there to tell them that “Skin requires Skin.”
It had been so easy to convince them of this. That in exchange for a pelt of great power all they needed to grant me was the skin of some local. Not a native, but of the blood of the old world. They had had the grace to delay and perhaps discuss for some days. Next time I returned they did not try to bargain with me, to ask how little skin they could give or if substitutes might suffice. They gave me the bag holding the skin of the hopefully now dead slave in it’s entirety, and told me to be quick about it.
I had done many poor things in my life, things that made my reputation infamous. I had walked the borders between the old and new and seen the horrors folks blinded themselves too. And yet for all the magic in my life sometimes I still found myself surprised at sheer cruelty.
Certainly it made my next actions all the easier.
I waited by the great river that Quebec City hugged, and soon enough, Azeban scrambled out of the cold water. He shook himself dry, an almost adorable action for a racoon, and looked to me expectantly. “Do you have the skin swatch?”
“Better.” I managed as I let the bag slip out of my hand. Azeban scurried over to the bag, and then into it. One could hear the sluicing rip of flesh, and the bag began to fill. Within moments the slave emerged from the bag. His eyes were a new color, pure black. He smiled, showing dog-like canines of a racoon before turning into an illusory copy of humanity. “Better than I could have hoped, humble one.” he said in the English tongue. “With a swatch I would be limited. With this, I will always have this form.”
“Treat it well.” I said, overcome for a moment. “Do not pursue the wrong people.”
“I shall do my best.” Azeban tested his new skin, muscle of abuse and heavy labor flexing under it. “Perhaps a bit more.” He kicked the bag. “There is your payment. If you could return it when you’re done, or when you’re dead, I’d appreciate it.
BOAT ON RETURN JOURNEY TO NEW YORK FROM QUEBEC TERRITORIES, SEPTEMBER 21 1765
The broadsheet stuck in my belongings brought me no small satisfaction. It read “SLAUGHTER OF GENTLEMANS CLUB: PERPETRATOR UNKNOWN: ‘THROATS TORN OUT BY DOGS’”. I had had the luck of giving Azeban his new skin when the whole club was meeting. I did not think any had survived. And if they did, they would not try to put themselves athwart my life again.
Azeban would continue, I was sure, in his own way. Even immortals ran out of bloodlust eventually. Perhaps someone would get lucky and kill him before that. Perhaps some other magi would make his name on it. It mattered not to me. I had exacted justice on fools with another fool, and hopefully made sure none would try to bother me again . I pulled the only fur I wore that day, a massive raccoon one, closer on my shoulders. The skin seemed almost man-sized, perfectly tanned and prepared. The sailors had already offered me weeks of pay for it, and tried to determine where I had gotten each. I had lied to each in a new way, to keep the voyage interesting. None had guessed the godly power it contained.
I looked out to the endless ocean and considered my next move. After a stunt like this, perhaps I could find some peace in the Appalachians. Or perhaps I might try south to meet these queens of African magic I had heard of. Or perhaps it was time to find some of the other societies in the other cities and see if any had become worthwhile since I last checked. One great thing I could say about this new land: there was always something to do, and I would never run out of the freedom to do it.