🚀 go-pugleaf

     I am very tired.  I do not understand.  It was not supposed to be this
way.
     There are more and more of us -- supposedly they are each and all our
people, our allies.  Our brethren.
     When did my brother become defined by who has undergone a horror.  It
is not even a shared horror -- my own passage was years gone, its pains
dulled with time, and the power that was its hallmark is so much a part of
me I cannot remember when every movement came so easily, so precisely.
     I am very tired.  I do not understand.  It was not supposed to be this
way.
     It started in the hills outside Grenoble.  Twins born to a family too
late.  My mother bore us at forty-one, my father was close to fifty.  They
were old, and tired, and our brothers and sisters resented these intrusions
into the retirement of their parents.  Father farmed -- grapes, mostly, but
not good ones.  Our wine was bitter, so we sold the grapes as produce.
     There was not much of a legacy there, and it was apportioned long
before we were born.  I was relegated to the fields, hours of picking in a
hot sun, hours of tending and tilling and watering and toiling.  We were
none too modern in our French village with its one television in the
neighborhood bar.  My twin, Gabrielle... ah, she would have faded like the
cloth of our drapes, doing drudgery and scrubbing the house and glass and
wood and all.  It could have been the seventeen hundreds, the eighteen
hundreds, and how would we have had different lives.
     We could have retreated to the future.  Fled our village and gone to
the city.  Calais, or Paris, or Brittony.  But what could we have done?  A
field worker and a scullery maid from an era that died years past?  I would
have ended up an addict or a pretty boy for men with money, and Gabrielle
would have lived on her back, dying slowly.
     Flee to the future?  There was no future.  None at all.
     What was left but to flee to the past?
     It was a Tuesday, I think.  Yes, that feels right -- Tuesday.  And it
was hot, and my back hurt.  I was painfully stupid, but not so dulled that
I didn't know I wanted something *more...*
     And Gabrielle ran through the fields, truly excited.  She grabbed my
arm and threw aside my hoe, and begged me to "Come now, Antonie, come now!"
     And I knew to leave would be a beating and scoldings from a brother,
and when my sister had her flights I would push her aside, grumbling and
angry.  I did not scoff -- I did not feel worthy to scoff -- but I had no
place to resent other than my partner in mundanity.  Any other day I would
have, as well.
     But on this Tuesday, I followed her, down into the village.  I do not
know why.
     Destiny....
     I was asked by Potentiate why I believed we were the Masters of the
World.  She was trapped, a beautiful prisoner, and I was gloating.  I gloat
so much better than most -- it is an art form left fallow in this age of
catchphrase and crassness taking the place of boast and wit.  I told her
simply enough -- Destiny.  She scoffed, truly not understanding, not
hearing the words I said.  How could she understand?  How could she see how
carefully each step was taken, how coincidence combined to make a clear
path?
     So it was this day, when we walked into the tavern, where the
television was, and saw a legend.
     In the decades following Germany's defeat, there was a man who rose
out of the mire.  A man with gun and blade, who took what he wanted, and to
Hell with what others thought.  Not a bully, but a bravo.  A highwayman,
who the law could not touch, who the government could not even confirm.
     And he sat, with pistol and rapier, sipping bad wine as though it were
good, no one coming within fifteen feet of him.  Le Chat Rouge.  The Red
Cat.
     "You are here... for what," Jean-Pierre, the grocer demanded, finally.
"To rob us?  What do we have to rob?"
     "Your quiet," the Red Cat growled.  "But you're keeping it from me."
     "Good," Jean-Pierre spat.  "You want us all to fear or revere you -- I
say shit!  I say we will *not* fear or revere you!  I say you are a stupid
old man, who should have stayed far from honest--"
     We never saw him draw.  I barely saw the blade flash.  But there was
Jean-Pierre, his work shirt and apron fallen open, his pants dropped to his
knees, his eyes staring at the Red Cat.
     "You do not have to fear me," he purred.  "Though it is wise to do so.
You need not revere me, though it is only natural.  But if you do not
silence yourself, you will learn which of us is stupid, and learn why I am
old, and why you will never be."
     A man -- it might have been Robert, the tavern keeper, but then again
it might not... in any case, he attempted to bring out a shotgun to bear.
And the Red Cat spun, his hand a blur, his bullet tearing the barrel and
bloodying Robert's hand.  If it was Robert.  I cannot recall.
     So *fast...*
     And the people ran, frightened.  As frightened as Jean-Pierre said
they would not be.  And revering?
     The Red Cat turned, and saw Gabrielle and I, and we were not running.
     He looked at the two of us a long long time, before slowly walking
forward to us.  I felt my throat close, I was so nervous.
     "How old are you," he asked us both.
     "Thirteen," Gabrielle whispered.
     "Both?" he asked.  "You are twins?"
     "Yes," I said.
     He nodded slightly.  "You are impressed with the Red Cat, yes?"
     "So fast..." Gabrielle whispered.
     "It took some time," he replied.
     We did not know what to say.
     He nodded, finally.  I do not know why.  "Come," he said, and turned
and walked from the tavern.  He did not look back -- no doubt he expected
we would follow, and we did.
     He led us to a hovel at the end of the road, apart from the other
houses, and walked in as though it were his.  Well, no one lived there now.
"We must clean this," he said.
     "This is Armand's" I answered.  "It is on his property."
     "Was," the Cat said.  "It is mine now, and I do not live in filth.
Clean."
     And we cleaned.  My sister scrubbed as hard as she could, in a way I
had never seen her do for our parents or brothers.  And I nearly broke my
back, moving and cleaning and clearing.  He could have told me to throw
myself into the path of an automobile, and I would have gone happily.  It
was as though we had spent years in the darkness, and now we were in the
sun at last.
     And three days and nights passed, and Armand did not come to claim his
hovel, and gradually it began to look less like a hovel and more like a
house.
     I look out my window, and I see women on our beach this evening.  One
made of gold, one in wisps of cloth.  One for whom fire clings like a
lover's caress.  They seem epochal, in a way we were not.  Symbols of the
world we live in now.  Symbols for our failure of judgement.  If we had not
thought to swell our ranks with the Awe-Inspiring Force, if we had not
propped up the final gasps of a failed enemy and made it such a universal
threat to ourselves and others....
     I am very tired.  I do not understand.  It was not supposed to be this
way.
     After those three days, my brothers came looking for us.  The
runaways.  The bad children.  They found me tilling the dirt near the
hovel, in preparation of a late planting.
     "Idiot," they shouted.  Two of them knocked me down, the third and
fourth kicking.  "Vanishing for days on end?  How *dare* you--"
     "Do you have a problem?"
     The Red Cat stepped out of his house, and Gabrielle was behind him.
     "These turds ran away from home," Pierre, my oldest brother said.
"They've left--"
     "Ran away?" The Red Cat asked.  "Perhaps.  But you did not want them,
remember?"
     "They're scum," Louis said.  "Always shirking, always complaining--"
     "They have never shirked or complained for me," the Red Cat said,
walking towards my brothers.  "I think perhaps you saw no value in them.  I
do.  They are mine now, the same as this house."
     "Brave talk, old man," Gaston sneered.
     The Cat blurred, though he was old.  He broke Louis's knee, and
Gaston's arm, and dislocated Michael's shoulder.  Yves ran away.
     "They are mine now!" he shouted as my hurt brothers limped and got
away.  "Stay away from what is mine, or I shall take your land and grapes
and house and things too!"
     We loved him, Gabrielle and I, and he taught us so many things.  That
day, he taught us that bullies were men with bluster, and no strength, but
that a strong man, confident and sure in his power has the world.
     For a month or more we toiled for the Red Cat, building him a home, a
place to live.  He watched, and trained, and we watched him and loved him.
And if nothing had changed, then perhaps we would be there still.  But as
always, there was destiny.
     He was a devil with a sword, and a truly great hand with a pistol, but
more than that he was grace.  A presence.  I should have known that it
would be a matter of time, that what changed our worlds was inevitable.
     We were fourteen when I woke in the night.  It was hot, the heat of
the summer burning, wet and vicious and insidious.  I pushed off my cot and
made my way outside to the well.  I can remember every stone of that well,
the moss clinging to it.  The smell of old rope and damp stone and earth.
     It had been a hot summer, but no other night did I awake.  No other
night was I driven outside, where I might be near the low window in the Red
Cat's room.  But this night I did.
     Destiny.  I sit here on my terrace, looking over an island I and my
brethren are the absolute masters of, and I taste the aftertaste of Destiny
as bitter as the wine from that broken farm that spawned me.
     I was outside the window, dipping the bucket into the cool water.
Splashing it onto my face and shoulders and drinking it... so cool and tart
with minerals, and I looked into the sky, with its limitless stars, and
shivered in the heat....
     And... I... *heard.*
     At first I thought Gabrielle was crying.  She would cry as late as
twelve, and I would comfort her.  I crept closer, and realized I was not
standing without my sister's window, but the window of the Red Cat.
     But I heard my sister.  I heard how she reacted to his touch.
     I fell back, a blow to my chest as powerful as one of the shots from
the Red Cat's pistol.  Stumbling back into the darkness.  Falling onto the
ground, into the dirt and looking up into the limitless sky, hearing my
sister moan away her virginity.
     And I felt *hatred.*
     In the darkness, I burned.  But not at him... how could I hate this
man?  The man who consumed my soul, who *was* my life.  But my sister... my
sister who had been my partner in drudgery and misery and now in the Red
Cat's glory... I *hated* her now, for claiming so much more than I could
have.  For taking more of him.  It was the pure hate of betrayal, and I
shuddered it in the darkness.
     In shame and anger I crawled back to my cot, feeling the heat of the
day, feeling the heat of Hell.  The heat of rejection and horror.  And
there I lay all the night, until the cruel sun crept along my floor to my
eyes, and I had to start the day.
     I shoveled, forcing the spade into the earth hard, fatigue and anger
driving every stroke.  My exhaustion made me feel every muscle along my
back, every movement that I slammed into the earth through the shovel's
blade.
     The door of the cottage slammed shut, and I glanced that way.
Gabrielle was carrying a bucket, walking with a slight limp and a look of
almost malicious contentment.
     My eyes burned at her, and she smiled, ever so slightly.  "You know,"
that smile said.  "You know, and I am *glad* you know."  And she walked
ever so slowly to the well, to wash and get water for the day.
     I stared at her back, at her slattern horrible hair, still tangled
from her night's pleasure, and I found myself walking towards her, and felt
the spade lifting in my hands, felt my legs moving forward, saw her growing
larger, felt my hate grow with every passing step--
     "Antoine."
     I jumped, then, the spade skittering from my hands.  I had not heard
the Red Cat leave the cottage, or come up behind me.  Before me, Gabrielle
half turned, and I saw the smugness turn to fear in my eyes, as she
realized what had happened.
     "Look at me, Antoine."
     I turned, and looked.  He stood before me in his open shirt, his tight
pants and boots, the pistol tucked in his belt, the sword worn at his side.
"So you want to kill, do you," he asked.  I could not tell if he were angry
or amused.  Perhaps he was both.
     "I--"
     "Do not speak," he said quietly.  "Gabrielle, go about your business.
This does not concern you."
     Gabrielle half-ran into the cottage, bucket slopping.  I could see her
fear.  I knew she knew -- knew how close she had come to death.
     And I felt *good,* knowing that she had been shaken, as I had been.
     But the Red Cat was looking at me, and I shivered.
     "To kill with a shovel," he said, a hint of sneer in his voice, "is to
reveal yourself for what you are.  A farmer.  A peasant.  A nothing.  An
animal that clubs its prey in desperate attempt to ease the pain that is
his life.  Is that what you are?"
     "I...."
     "You do not know," he said, slowly pacing around me, to stand behind
me, whispering in my ear and raising gooseflesh on my trembling arms.  "You
are scared.  You do not know what I will do to you.  You hate your sister
for what I have done to her.  You hate yourself most of all, yes?"
     "Yes," I whispered.
     "Well," he said.  "I gave something to her.  I owed her nothing, but I
gave it all the same, and took pleasure from it.  I will give something to
you, now, and it will give me pleasure too."
     I closed my eyes, waiting for the blow, waiting for....
     "I will teach you to kill like a man," he whispered, and something in
me thrilled and recoiled at his words.
     There has been so much death in my life.  So much to answer for when I
am called to my Last Judgement.  But the glory has been great, the passion
of the kill, the thrill of the hunt, the joy felt when a skilled opponent
turns my blade away from his heart.  So pure I have become....
     And so impure are we becoming.  I look at our beach, and these
children who would be Unimaginable are joined, by their silver angel, by
the man whose look is death, by the thing that is metal, not man.  The
Nubermachine is different, subtly, than the Ubermachine was.  These
creatures are no stronger or weaker than we, but they are less than we in a
way I cannot define.  My passage... the passage of Geneva and Drake and
Gabrielle and Stigmata through the Ubermachine was the passage through a
crucible.  Our elements seared and made pure.
     The Nubermachine does not purify, it smelts the metal clear and leaves
the ore behind.  And that frightens me.  Lady Awe-Inspiring is so terrible
because of it.  And these our children?
     But what do I know of children?
     The Red Cat took me into the woods, and set up a simple chunk of bark
as a target.  He handed to me his pistol, that he handed to no one.
"Shoot," he said simply.  And I aimed and squeezed the trigger slowly...
and just before the hammer fell I flinched, anticipating the noise and kick
and the pistol fired high into the trees.
     He closed his hand over the pistol and took it from my hand.  "This is
not a weapon that responds to fear," he said quietly, and I was scared he
was angry.
     "I will not flinch again," I said.
     "You are right, for I will not teach you pistol."  He unlimbered a
knife, and handed it to me.  "Go and cut two willow branches, as straight
as you can, and peel the bark and twigs from them.  They must be of equal
height and near equal length, and must be as high as your lowest rib.  Do
you understand?"
     I nodded, closing my hand around the hilt of the knife.  I could not
shoot, but I knew the woods and the trees and I was good with my hands and
with labor.  It did not take me long to find and bare two clean batons, and
I brought them back to the Red Cat, still in the clearing in the woods.
     He took one, and taught me how to stand... and made me stand there,
holding the shaft before me at an angle, one arm back, one leg forward and
straight, one leg behind, with my weight upon it, foot angled to the side,
both knees bent.
     It sounds so simple, describing it.  But I held it.  I did not move,
and felt my bent legs turn to molten lead, my arm aching more than I had
ever felt, my entire body trembling in pain and the agonizing exertion of
*not* *moving.*
     Hours, it felt to me.  Days.  A lifetime I stood in the woods, my body
searing, tears flowing unheeded from my eyes.
     He whispered again.  "Your body is strong, but its strength is
undisciplined.  You have speed, but no finesse.  But you do not flinch from
this pain.  You will learn discipline, Antoine.  You will learn finesse.
You will learn to kill as an art.  You will learn all of this and more.  Oh
yes, Antoine.  It is time for you to learn.  Stand."
     I did so, exhaustion flooding me.  "How... how long?" I asked.
     "Ten minutes," he said.  "Perhaps less."




[[Continued in Part Two]]


--
Beta-Cit Eric Alfred Burns  | Takes more than Combat Gear to Make a Man,
<sabre@awenet.com>          | Takes more than a License for a Gun.
http://www.eyrie.org/~sabre | Confront your Enemies, Avoid them when you can,
Writer Type, Poet Boy       | A Gentleman will walk but never run.
Maine Expatriate            |  				--Sting