Sutra-Dhara Anima/Portrait of a Shadow Puppeteer
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
four excerpts from "Infinity Inc: Wishful Thinking" by @Skyburner and @Jarissa
Contents |
excerpt 1
She sat down a couple of feet away on the roof, ankles dangling, looking out over the limited cityscape. From the length of chain looped about her torso like a sash, she drew a thin, bitter-looking clove cigarette, which she lit carefully in the shelter of a cupped palm.
The lighter had to be illusionary, as she had no pockets. So the cigarette, scentless, perhaps was as well. Its smoke trail behaved perfectly, though, in complete congruence with the variances of breeze he could see or hear as the night air impacted against the relative warmth of the roof. A slow, controlled wisp of smoke curled from her nostrils on her next exhalation. Sutra leaned back on her empty hand, looking briefly consoled.
"They say it is a web with a cracked heart," the Stage-Mistress said, gesturing toward the atmosphere-piercing peak at the center of the city. "That good vision can spot the repair crew work at all hours. Young spiders grow, but fully formed ones do not mend injuries so good."
Kummer glanced at the illusionary cigarette, shook his head slightly, then looked away towards the peak at the center of the city. "Good cig'rette not real. Is bad, could kill you. No good." He stared at the peak considering what she said, turning the book in his hands idly. "Broken heart is prob'ly trap. Lord Recluse prob'ly use to lure unwary in. I no get about young spiders. I stay 'way from Arachnoids. Less you mean the 'Destined One' what'vers. Kummer no pay much mind them. Easier just work, get to sleep later."
Sutra snorted faintly. "Spiders, poppet. A spider climbs up its thread to gain freedom. A yogi climbs up the sacred sound to true knowledge. Most spiders spend rather a lot of that knowledge on crawling into places where they are not welcome, but that only matters if they are spotted by someone with a good hard boot sole."
excerpt 2
Sutra turned her head just enough to study Kummer with one eye, then looked back at the cityscape again. Out of the corner of the other eye, she checked on that bored Security goon. This is not working. He hears but does not listen. The puzzle is not one I can solve if the Alpha will not manipulate his portion of it in tune with me. For a moment she reflected on the very reasonable possibility that the Alpha in question did not want to be solved ... or at least, not by her.
"I am a Delta," she said dryly. Her voice was not like Grigaere's when he said it, though the sentiment was the same: Grigaere took pride in his responsibility, refuge for his sense of self in his dedicated fulfillment of it. Sutra-Dhara was more matter-of-fact. The Stage-Mistress was responsible for the functional security of her entire crew, for the production itself, for the production house if a dedicated venue even existed. "I do for Alpha what Alpha cannot do for self. Sometimes that is a matter of translate. Sometimes that is a matter of organize. Occasionally," and she puffed on the cigarette again for a second, "that is a matter of make a comfort. Stories for forgetting sorrows. Hints of chaos that bring hope, a new path upward to grasp."
She stopped to examine the cigarette critically, judging the length that had not yet burned to ash. "Sometimes what we do for Alpha is to see the spiked wall before the Alpha crashes into it."
The cigarette turned in her hands a few times, rolling carefully between her fingers. Its bright ember grew and faded like a heartbeat a few times, until she had just the right amount of ash tapped away. "I will find you a book, poppet. A proper one. With pictures. Just right for an Alpha's toy. We may have to assemble it, some -- this island place has all these makers, with all their parts, and not half the islands have a real Prop-maker. Good title, good story, all as it should be. No spiky lāla walls that move and sneak...."
excerpt 3
....He sighed again. "It all feel Alpha meant to be bright animal. Repeat training, same ev'ry day. No change, lots pain. Make insane do long enough. I curious there also. Why? Cheaper get animal, then train. Basic business sense." He shook his head as if casting aside the thought. "Last is useless question. No matter. Is Kummer be base animal? Might be better if told so. I can fake if needed."
Sutra-Dhara Anima laughed, a short bark of a thing with entirely too much nose to it. She looked around to estimate the time, apparently decided she had enough, and started her cigarette's smoke trail curling into her cupped hands. Once she had a big enough ball of dark smog, she held it low, the burning cigarette at its center, almost touching the rooftop between herself and the silver-furred wolf-man.
"I have this story from the Bell-Chime," she began softly, in an archetypal storyteller voice she had only once used to begin a tale before, "who had it from the Canny, who had it from her sister the Furtive, who had it from the Knife-Thrower, who had it from the Inquisitive, who gathered it in pieces over time from the old one. I am the Stage-Mistress, sometimes the Shadow-Puppeteer. I give the story to you. It is a long line for us, and only three live, and you must see that the story is safely passed some day." She looked up to meet Kummer's eyes, to impress the seriousness of this charge on him. The ball of smoke in her cupped hands continued to be a rolling, formless ball of dark wisps with only the faintest hint of a red light at its center.
"I will try," Kummer replied. "No like Kummer say much to others. This most Kummer say in long time that anyone listen."
"If you outlive me, which may well be so, you must, poppet. The story must not die. Only stories can be immortal, not clay such as we, and for a story to survive it must be sheltered and supported and protected against our deaths."
Kummer frowned, trying to follow her trail of conversation. "Ok," was all he could think to say.
"In the beginning, there was only one line of Hybrids. We call them 'Alpha'. They were formed and counted and most did not wake up. Finally one awoke, then slipped under again. Another woke, and lived a while. Before it sank, a third awoke, and stretched, and stayed afloat."
On the surface of the smoke ball, a sinewy upper torso and head rolled up into view, stretched, and struggled to push itself away from the rolling ball. It had some sort of snout and curved, cat-like ears, and a very masculine build. As the ball rolled onward, the figure's form slowly dissipated, but he did seem to be pulling a leg free before he vanished from sight.
"The Makers in those days were not well sorted. They each had an idea of what would someday be, and their ideas clashed like lightning. Some strikes grew stronger, some exploded. They made another Hybrid that lived, added it to the first, and turned their thoughts to more complex ideas. Before the beginning there had been study; they took the learnings of the study, the remnants, and made a new kind of Hybrid. A great change. Change in time is 'Delta' in math and science, so this new kind of Hybrid would be 'Delta', great change in how a Hybrid is invented. Not really more complex, you see, but more ... this language is missing a word. More delicate to fit together. Strength in variety, not strength in the core." Her smoke ball formed something vaguely feminine, with a hint of elegant bat wings, but no snout or animal ears. It looked a bit like a nature spirit before it, too, rolled past a threshold and vanished.
Kummer watched carefully. His mind worked furiously on the information, sorting, analyzing. His older skills as a medical researcher leaped eagerly forward. The wolf man nodded. "I get. Is practical es'perimentation. Alpha be first generation. Then be control group for Delta. Delta second."
"Mmm. I do not have a piece of the story that puts control in the Alphas. No. They are separate but marching side by side."
Kummer waved a hand slightly, "No, no … in English 'control' have many use. I use doctor or science use. Please ma'am, I get. Please continue."
"Now the Makers divide at last. Some make more Alphas, the first ideas, but new varieties of them. A few more do not rise. Some make more Deltas, a slower process. A small group of Makers go off and make a batch of monsters, terrible things, trying to jump to the end of the process where true power will happen: the 'Omegas'." Her smoke ball converted most of its mass into a demon, something squid-like and spiky, that reached out everywhere to attack its surroundings before Sutra blew a bit of her breath on it to hurry its dissolution. "One Omega comes to the place of first making, to be the first Trainer. He is a nightmare in flesh, anima-eater, heart-ripper, contained only by his glad obedience to the Makers. A Trainer is to teach, but with the Omega it is always a test: test ability, test obedience, test learning, test the limits of suffering. Test the point where body or mind gives out, shatters."
Kummer nodded, quietly listening. "I get, I think."
"The Lead Maker, the Designer, tries to make the Hybrids stronger by returning them to one another. Apart they have such easy break points that the Omega can wade through a puddle of mind fragments, ankle deep. The Designer cannot go back and make them strong enough, he does not know why. So he makes them give their strong places to each other. An Alpha is strong in the core, durable in endurance -- in these days were no bats, no squirrels, no prey. Body may break but the Alpha body will often grow back to function again. A Delta is strong in flexibility of action, of having many routes, durable in sorting away all the many pieces of the world that must be ignored in order to pass a test. Two Deltas, now, neither strong in body, neither able to work long in hard stress before collapse; three Alphas now, all scrambling against the things the world tells them that a human brain is not designed to know, all unable to shut off sensation whether it be pain or fear or scent or sight." The smoke formed five small figures, huddled together in the bottom of a bowl, rimmed around by tentacles that ended in scalpels or hammer-heads or branding irons, glowing in the shape of a lemniscate.
"The Alpha, so the old one said, guard the Delta; protect, shield, tell them all the thousands of threats the world makes. So many things to say, so fast, that they learn to say it with their whole bodies. More than the Omega learns to read. More than the Makers learn to notice. The Delta, so the old one said, have less to process: they can sometimes figure out ways to re-sort all the puzzle pieces when the Alpha start to drown, knit a ladder or a rope or simply hold fast until the sensation-undertow can be managed again."
Gradually, the edges of the bowl crept over the little tableau, but slowly enough to still have a definite hole before they all crossed the dissolution threshold.
"And, unplanned by the Designer, unknown by the Makers ... from the Omega, they learned viciousness. The Designer died, and a new Designer was appointed. The unit waited. The Makers sent the Omega to visit newer places of making, to carry his own tale of making tests and shattering Hybrids into obedience. The new Makers began to speak of separating the unit, splitting them to new places, to each form the kernel of a new unit and teach. They would lose one another forever. Better to lose by choice, the old one said, than to be ripped asunder. They knew the Omega would return soon, would test and force and punish and hunt out their secrets."
Her voice hushed further, barely above a whisper, and her cupped hands tightened to hide the suddenly-reduced hemisphere of smoke. Five little figures, their edges blending into one another at every point of close proximity, pushed and pulled and carried one another out of the bowl in the center of the curve. They attacked little stumps of heads around the edges as Sutra continued, "They killed the Makers. All of them. Even the new Designer. They broke the first place of making. They did everything they were invented to do except serve, and did it better than the Makers or the Omega had ever realized they had in their capacity. They got free over the bodies of their tormentors, all but two: the Omega, and the Master, neither of whom they could hope to withstand. They ran, and hid, and if it meant they must be apart then at least it was their doing."
All five of the figures raced for the edge where curved sphere became flat slice, vanishing as they did so. Tentacles rose up in the center, started to chase after them, but came to the edge too late ... except in one case, a last whip-strike just managed to catch a fading curve-eared Alpha.
"The old one said it was a victory and a defeat. New Makers were appointed. New Hybrids were created. That did not change, though the place of first making will never be rebuilt. The Omega project eventually failed. Only one of the first unit was ever brought back, enough for the Master to console himself against loss, enough for the first unit to console itself against loss. The caught Hybrid was brought to a new place of making, and adjusted, and used as a learning point and an example. The uncaught Hybrids stay gone, vicious, too costly to be recovered. Better left far away and alone. They are happy to destroy new Hybrids that get too close to their trail. But ever since, we have this link between the Hybrid lines: the Alpha are strong at the core, the Delta are strong in flexibility, and we cover each other's weakest points as best we can. We are together. All victims."
Opening her hand, she let the smoke dissipate at last. Her cigarette was burned down almost to a stub.
"You see Grigaere and his wolves. They need one another. They seem complete because they try to keep that little bit of completeness, of not needing, in case a Maker some day decides to try a new way and separate them. You see Ceylon Spinel, the Master's exotic ruby, who lends himself to no unit because he only desires to serve the Company. He wants his unit to be the Employees. You see the Dancer, who was made by a Designer to need no unit, but lost some of a Delta's flexibility in it. You have not seen how he has changed from his early days, but he has changed much. You see many Delta who have not been placed with an Alpha, because the Red-Coat Watchers have not been inspired to the best match. You see the Stage-Mistress, and her without a stage crew, trying to make Art out of a world that has too much smoke until she cannot see the audience or the ticket-takers. You see your book, and you think you will insist on being the before-self who does such things, and you do not see the need in this place for an Alpha who does see things, hear things, know the world more than a human can know it. Perhaps I will be the one to pass on the tale to someone else. It can happen either way...."
excerpt 4
....Sutra-Dhara stubbed out her cigarette, and tucked the remains into her left armor sleeve. "While you think away, poppet, remember one other lesson of the story," she instructed as she drew her feet back from the edge of the building.
"Lesson matter little to dog, Ma'am," he said staring off at the setting sun.
She thumped him, hard, on the top of his snout with one knuckle of her empty hand. "Pain is already here, Kummer. You can wallow in it if you insist. Many do. It is a drowning that very few Deltas can hold fast against, especially if you will not try to swim. You are not the only one in the tide, sparkly wolfcat, not the only one surrounded by pain. Imagine if everyone only tended their own weaknesses, how strong would the Hybrids ever have been? How many would have remained to tell the first tale?" Sutra-Dhara came the rest of the way to her feet as though pulled up by a marionette string, turned, and headed for the roof access. "Lockdown in five minutes."
Like a wisp of scentless smoke, she was gone again, wandering along her imaginary path.
