Content warnings for this episode include: Abuse of Power, Colonization, Mention of Genocide, Mention of Attempted Lynching, Mention of Lashing and Slavery, Suicidal Ideation, Violence, Explosives, Death + Injury, Blood, Needles, Strangulation/suffocation, Static (including sfx), Emotional Manipulation, Body horror, Consumption of Inedible Materials (Clancy), Religious Violence, Human Suppertime, Eyeballs in Jar
Intro - Show Your Teeth
How long have you known this day was coming? They are going to put you on display, make your flaws public, point out to your peers the vile truth of what you are. Add each sin to a long chain, documented and verified, and after that make their final judgment and condemnation. It is the only outcome. The trial is pretense; you would not be here if they had not already decided that you were guilty. It is either eternity or death that they will give you, and death is the less terrible. And yet, you do not tremble. You smile, and flash your teeth. Your gallows humor echoes in their waiting halls. You know that your irreverence will not earn you mercy, but then again, neither would begging. They have power over your substance, but not even they can own your spirit. You played your hand, and it came up short, and if it is to the fire you go, you will go with a smile on your face and a Hello from the Hallowoods.
Theme.
Right now, I am sitting at a bar. It is one that has prospered beneath the earth of Scout City, and its ceiling is formed of a mass of roots that collect drops of a yellow sap like honey. It’s things like this, places where you could sit and talk with someone… it seems like a nice experience. There are two in the seats beside me, although they cannot hear me speak. They talk of histories, and how much respect is due to them. The theme of tonight’s episode is honors.
Story 1 - An Empty Glass
“How do you think it went?” said Riot. She sat alongside Diggory at the end of the bar in the Taproot; she had gravitated to a particular stool that felt well-worn, even if her recollection of the place was limited.
“I do not know if it is possible to truly make them understand what happened to us in the North,” said Diggory. They held a glass of a tall, dark drink in their razor-sharp fingers. “We walked on the verge of another place, I think. We each ventured into death. Our journeys back from it have been long.”
“Yeah,” said Riot. She sucked in her beer until it was half empty; it was light and foamy. “Or never came back at all.”
“You are talking about Olivier,” said Diggory, looking over to her. The revenant’s stitches were much like her own, though the strings were older. Their yellow jacket was simple, unblemished by any patches yet, unlike Clementine’s which had been bloodstained and made filthy and was covered in strands of patches ripped away. The jacket lay in the hearse, waiting for less sweltering weather.
“I’m talking about me, too,” she said, and gulped. “Diggory, can I tell you a secret?”
“I would not tell a soul,” said Diggory.
“I’m not Riot,” she said.
“Have you chosen a different name?” said Diggory, a dark brow raised over a pale white eye.
“Not like that,” she said, frowning. “I’m… no one. Under here. I’m alive. But I have… nothing. I remember bits and pieces from two lives. But I didn’t live either of them. People say they love me, that they’re overjoyed that I’m back. And I don’t have the heart to tell them that I’m not. Clementine died on a table and Riot died in the arctic, and even though I look and sound the same, I’m not. Pretending that I am is hard.”
“I see,” said Diggory. “There is a difference between you and I. I am made of many fragments, six kindlings for the same flame. But I am dead, and this vessel was built to hold a great power. You are alive, and that was bought for you at great cost. You will live. You will age. And one day, you will die. You will eat and drink and taste all that life has to offer. When I was once in a similar melancholy, a friend asked me… what I wanted to do. Even if you do not recognize yourself, yet, you are surrounded by people who loved Riot, and Clementine, and are prepared to love whoever you are. Perhaps you have yet to find the purpose that binds you to this life. What do you want to do?”
“I’d like to go take a nap in Lurch Lake,” Riot sighed. “Be a frog or a beetle. Crawl into a hole where it’s nice and cool and sleep until the summer is over, and the winter too. Wake up someday when I can cope.”
“I’ve done that,” said Diggory. “Been numb, dead to the world. I hid in my burrow in the Museum of Broken Promises, and kept company with mushrooms and beetles. But I will say this, I still do not feel ready to… cope. And I have spent a long time waiting.”
“Ugh,” Riot said, and leaned her head against Diggory’s shoulder. “It seems so much easier though.”
“It does seem that way,” said Diggory. “If you need to take time, rest, adjust. Then please do. I can investigate this… Quartet, on my own if I must. Or see if Shelby will accept my help.”
“Shelby,” Riot sighed. “Fuck. No, here’s the thing. Every part of me hates what’s happened. As a groundskeeper, I’m supposed to protect everyone. As a detective, I’m supposed to be smart enough to do it. Riot knew a ton about the Instrumentalist. Clementine knew a ton about Scout City. I should be able to do this. I should be able to help. I just need to pull my shit together.”
“If you feel that it is your calling,” said Diggory. Their glass was still full, and Riot’s mostly empty. “You will always feel their hands upon your shoulders, moving you. But please take it from me—you can not let your past lives govern your course. You may find your new lease on life leads you to places that you did not expect. I urge you to consider Riot and Clementine’s choice as a gift, bestowed upon you, and not an expectation you must fulfill.”
“Well,” said Riot, and finished her glass just in time for another to slide into its place from the gnarled hands of the bartender. “If my third life is spent disappointing people, that’s just keeping the family tradition.”
Interlude 1 - The Last King of America
I do not dabble much in human politics, but the fall of the black rains changed them irreversibly. Even before the rains came, there were preparations. The Botulus Corporation offered seemingly limitless wealth to any politician who would discourage policy created around dreaming technology, to any country that would allow for the construction of Dreaming Boxes. By the time the Black Rains actually fell, there was a Dreaming Box in nearly every state, and little elsewhere in the world. Democracy had been a jest for decades prior, but it was the Botulus Corporation’s push that toppled it entirely.
When the rains fell, the collapse was profound. Each country on Earth was touched in some way, either by the significant effects of the rains themselves or, in less weather-struck places, the fall of world trade, dissolution of import and export, the lapse of any worth in currency. For much of Europe, the ensuing decades brought the rise of other powers, the Aristocracy. For America, life outside of a Dreaming-Box was hard-won, and beset not only with the terrors of the black rains, but also of the Botulus Corporation's relentless advertising.
And in this wasteland, one appointed himself King of America, and fought with each other self-proclaimed king until only he remained, and his cavalcade of followers ruled the decrepit highways. For a time. But the Botulus Corporation has let thousands of its followers free, after decades of slumber, and they have no respect for kings. As cities rise free of sovereigns, America asks itself… what will we have now, in this desolation? We go now to a king and his sword of Damocles.
Story 2 - Something Whispered
The King of America sat with his elbows on his knees and his hands in his braids, in as much as he had any of those things. The Count’s body, with flesh and bony wings extruded from the base of his spine, was as much a masquerade as his name at this point, thin and peeling. And like his name, he had almost entirely forgotten what lay beneath. He dared not unfold the joints and planes he felt shifting beneath his spine, lest he find himself unable to put himself back into any humanoid shape again.
The future was a secret, and he had been reborn filled with secrets. But where visions had come in clear whispers, flashes of bright truths, a grey haze now swam in his head, blurred even the moments ahead of him. There was a knock on his regal door which he did not see coming.
“Sire,” said Holt, his road captain. “Your supper is ready.”
“Have it brought to my chambers,” called the Count.
“As you desire, my liege,” returned the captain, and the Count returned to his brooding.
It had started with the fight against the Humble Boot, who strode unwanted into his court. Whether by the black rain or some other charm, the old man had been as spry as an unbroken stallion, leaping, kicking with inhuman viciousness. The Count saw each one coming, of course, dodged them with kingly grace, only returned an occasional sharp jab to crush the Humble Boot’s nose. The Humble Boot, with blood in his beard and teeth, had whispered something to him then, and it was at that moment the haze had begun. Each kick the Boot made after that landed hard, caught the Count in the stomach, ribs, chin. The count’s wings had come out, then, and he showed off his teeth and his claws, but he had taken a sharp little knife to the side before he invited his followers to help him, dragging the Boot out of his court and casting him into exile.
But even as the Count pulled the knife from his side, healed the pitch-black void it had left, the gaze of his followers had been different. No one had ever gotten that close. They knew something was amiss. The Count groaned. What was it the Boot had whispered? That too was lost in the murk. He stretched, and found his way to the mirror, and shuddered. Visions came to him but in unpleasant flashes; the burning sun of the American west upon his head and the lashes upon his back, a neck that had broken their nooses, eyes that had watched the rise and fall of their empire. He withdrew, clutching his temples, until the pounding in his head felt less like it would open his skull down the middle. Eventually he realized it was a pounding on the door.
“Your dinner, sire,” said Holt.
“You may enter,” said the Count, standing straight. He aligned his wings like a long robe, formed a collar of their long black fingers, let their bony filaments cascade around his arms.
The doors swung open, and Holt was there, wearing his ceremonial helmet with bat wings painted in red, and a cloth mask covering his lower face with long pointed teeth painted stark white. He was clad in his road leathers, ready to ride at a moment’s notice, and he dragged a body wrapped in torn white linens across the ground into the center of the floor.
“Who is it?” said the Count, and Holt stood, stretched his back.
“Clancy, sire,” said Holt. The Count could not see his eyes beneath the polarized lenses of the helmet. “Crime of mocking the crown in court.”
“I see. Very well,” said the Count, and waited for Holt to depart, but the man lingered.
“Sire,” said Holt. “I’d beg pardon for my insolence, if you’d permit me a question.”
“Why Holt,” said the Count, crossing his wing-robed arms. “You have been my right hand for… well, a decade at least. We are like brothers by now. You may ask whatever you wish. Don’t be frightened.”
“Twenty, twenty years tonight,” said Holt, and kneeled, bowed his head. “Sire, my bones grow brittle. My blood thins. The years take their toll, and I remember what you told me the night I chose to ride with you. That you would make me like you. Immortal. If I was loyal. Is there anything I can do to prove that loyalty? What can I do to be worthy of your blood in my veins? I fear that if you do not bestow this gift soon, I may wither.”
“Ah,” said the Count, and smiled, tight-lipped. He approached Holt, and stooped to place his hand on the captain’s shoulder. Holt’s breath hitched in his throat.
“Road captain Holt, none have been above you in loyalty to me,” said the Count.
Holt might have shed a tear beneath his helmet; the man seemed to dare not breathe.
“So. Soon,” said the Count, and stood up.
Holt remained kneeling for a moment, and nodded. The Count did not need secret sight to know what ran through Holt’s mind; it is always soon.
“Enjoy your supper, sire,” said Holt, and turned swiftly, and pulled the doors closed behind him on the way out. The Count frowned. They always did expire in usefulness, eventually; it would have to be Holt on the floor someday soon. He turned back to the bound body on the floor. Perhaps supper would clear his head. He knelt down next to the man.
“Terribly sorry about this,” said the Count. “But don’t worry, it won’t be painful.”
He reached out his hand, nails extending into long needles, and reached into the man’s neck and shoulder. The blood that welled up into the Count’s hand was warm, savory, but the secrets that came with it were the main course.
Clancy’s life was not very interesting, and so the Count did not expect the secrets to be of much worth. A man killed over a motorbike. A lover left behind. A guitar stolen from the treasure hoard. Long conversations about the King’s cruelty and the clouding of his foresight and the end of his reign. Injections of liquid silver, beneath the skin, caught in the veins, poisonous and deadly to those born of the void. The Count withdrew sharply, head pulsing, vision spasming with stars, and the secrets were knives in his throat, the silver fire in his veins. Clancy, the sacrifice, turned his head, and although his eyes were wrapped with bandage, he smiled, and tilted to reveal the outline of a trail of explosives taped beneath his linens. And then the Count’s quarters erupted in a blaze of white-hot fire, and the King of America’s reign came crashing to an end.
Marketing - Time For Reinvention
Lady Ethel Mallory:
The thing you’re probably wondering is, where have I been? I’ve been busy. Reinventing myself. Rededicating myself to the heart of our company—its customers. I’ve had time for a long look in the mirror. I reread my autobiography, and filled it with red ink. I was so naive. So beautiful. So hungry to be loved and adored. I sold my soul to a man in a pinstripe suit, and he made me a goddess. Put my face across the nation, and I sold what I was asked to sell. I did it well.
But it took these long years to understand what my actions then have meant for the world. By the time we looked up to question whether we should have been, it was too late. And see how well it’s gone. When was the last time you heard a message like this from corporate? When was the last time you heard from Oswald Biggs Botulus? He doesn’t know what to do. He’s watched the world change and crumble, and that’s why the future, my future is here. The future of the Botulus Corporation is Lady Ethel Mallory.
Story 2, Continued - Something Whispered
I must have been cursed by Skryekeskrye, Spinner of Fates. Each of my comings and goings is bothered by this loathsome spider. Beware, Lady Ethel Mallory. I have killed. I may kill again. We return now to the Count.
The Count stumbled down the side of the empty highway. There were few stars out tonight, but the space between them had no comfort to give her children. He could still hear the shouting, the sound of bike engines on the horizon. He should have seen it coming. He would have. He cursed, and spat out the thick black fluid that coursed from his wounds. It was all the Boot’s fault, and now he was off in exile, beyond the Count’s reach even for revenge. One of the Count’s legs had been shredded by the debris, and he limped as fast as he could, dragging himself down the highway out of Belfry, Montana. The world screamed in red and grey around him; it felt like dying for the first time, when the Countesses’ white-hot teeth had pierced him and blessed him and cursed him.
There were lights, beams staring from behind him on the highway, and the deep growl of an engine. He could not think of any of his legion that had a car; their bikes alone demanded a king’s ransom to keep in driving condition. And yet, the vehicle careened closer, and he sobbed for air, stretched his fingers, prepared to stand his ground.
The car slowed as it approached, swerved to give him a wide berth, and came to a stop on the highway, engine chuckling. The driver’s side window rolled down, to reveal a face he did not recognize, wearing red round glasses, fingerless gloves of black lace, arms wrapped in tattoos of a hundred moths.
“Hey,” said the stranger. “You need a ride?”
The Count stared at the apparition.
“Make up your mind, buddy, we don’t got all night,” said a voice from somewhere deeper within the vehicle. Its paint shone as red as blood in the dark.
“Please,” said the Count, and he stepped up to the vehicle, wrapped his hand around the back seat handle.
“It’s not locked,” said the driver. “Get in.”
He collapsed into the back seat, could feel each piece of twisted shrapnel caught in the workings of his skin. The silver was sluggish in his veins, and he could barely see straight in the present, let alone get any hint of the future. It was the death of all his prophecies.
“Are you alright?” said the stranger. “Looks like we may need to patch you up.”
“Drive,” said the Count; he could catch glints of motorcycle headlights in the rearview mirror.
“Where to?” the stranger said.
“Anywhere at all,” the Count whispered.
“Sounds like my kind of guy,” said the voice, and the Count realized there was no third person in the car, but that the green dials and screen of the convertible glowed a bright green each time the automobile spoke. “Let’s drive.”
Interlude 2 - Peace-Keeping Measures
I have been doing my reading on the purpose of the Council of Heavens. The reading states certain truths, but there are others that remain unspoken which are nevertheless as crucial. Indescribable beings exist throughout the universe, but only the few who could truly threaten the balance of the cosmos are invited to the table. This is, although they do not coexist peacefully, a peace-keeping measure. The servants of Syrensyr and Tolshotol and Xyzikxyz wage war by proxy on dozens of worlds, quibbling to keep each other in check, but all three make no mention of it when they sit for the Council.
Domains of souls and space and stars, of matter and fates and weather, of what goes unseen and now what sees all. I do not know what my place shall be among them, yet. What do they know about me? Do they listen to my broadcast? And for the one who sits at the head of the table, with all the souls of the universe in one hand and eternal flame burning in his belly, I do not know to what end he has granted me mercy. We go now to one who also weighs this.
Story 3 - Barbatos Vs. The Industry of Souls
“You understand what it is you’ve done,” said Typhon the Terrible. “My entire department is at risk. Because of you two.”
“Seems like a managerial problem to me,” said the demon Barbatos, putting his shoes up on the desk next to the jar of eyes. He still clung to the vestige of his earthly form, a bandage wrapped around his eyes and his hotel manager’s red velvet suit. “You seem scared, Tiff. What’s the matter? Afraid of being fired? It’s not so bad. After they break the horns and pull out the eyes, that is.”
“Please,” said Apollyon, and he nudged Barb’s shoes off of Tiff’s desk, careful not to dirty the sleeve of his floral suit in the process. “What does Lucy want, Tiff? Surely there’s a way out of this that benefits everyone.”
“What benefits you harms the Industry, and that is the problem with you,” said Tiff, his smoke-grey suit charred. “At the core, precedent has been broken with an ex-employee like Barbatos returning to the Industry. It has drawn an unfortunate amount of attention to Barb’s situation. To yours.”
“Attention from… up top?” said Polly.
“Let him look,” said Barb. “I’ve got nothing to hide. The boss doesn’t like it, he can smoke me like tobacco.”
“Attention from everyone,” said Typhon, leaning his elbows on his desk. “Floor departments. Audit offices. Production, engineering, intake. If what you both have done becomes common knowledge, it will do irreversible harm to the Industry. I have had you both in my office to discourage thoughts of quitting. I cannot have half of every department contemplating the same possibility.”
“A moment to confer with my client,” said Polly, and he found himself standing in the hall outside with Barb, cigarette aflame.
“It’s a setup, you being my lawyer,” said Barb. “Can’t believe you agreed.”
“You should be thankful. If it was anyone else in this place you wouldn’t stand a chance,” said Polly, and breathed out smoke. “I am an Auditor, after all.”
“Auditor of soul records, not of gods,” said Barb.
“All the same,” said Polly.
“Audit this: the smart thing to do is say I’m guilty the second we step into court, so that I can get atomized or something and you can go home,” said Barb. “Remember your wolf and your big dead friend? How long do you think you’ve been gone from them already? Time goes fast here, you know. Really fast.”
“I know,” said Polly, and he looked down to the carpet. Mort would be missing him, and Yaretzi too. He thought of them all, happy for a moment together managing a hotel in a wasteland in Ontario. But then, beyond that, he thought of them separately. Running from the grasp of the Industry, from the servants commanded by Tiff himself from that very office. And even before that; of his long years spent behind his desk, running audits for eternity. Of Mort, who had died in his armor only because the Industry of Souls had killed a god and buried his heart on Mort’s world. Of Yaretzi, who was a child the day that the Industry goaded colonizers across the sea to set fire to her home. All of their lives, truly, had been set fire to by the Industry, and hell was to blame.
He cast his cigarette stub down and ground it into the carpet with his shoe.
“What you did for Yaretzi was kind,” said Polly. “But if we don’t see this through, then we will never really be free of them. None of us will. There’s a chance here, however faint, that this trial will shake the Industry to its very core. So I will either clear your name and let us both out of here forever, or I will die trying, and wreak so much damage on this place that it will never run smoothly again.”
“Oh that’s unfortunate,” said Barb, and grinned. “I thought you were the sane one of us two. In that case, I guess we’d better get ready for the case of Barbatos vs. the Industry of Souls.”
Outro - Honors
Honors. How do you respect the legacy of one who is gone? Marolmar is ended. Not by anyone’s hand but mine. And his is a memory that is complex, and fills me with joy and pain in different kinds. His unkindness, the quickness of his temper, his lack of understanding for my feeling, I do not remember pleasantly. But there are things I shall carry on from him, as well. A desire to see things grow. To rebel against tyranny. To shape a better universe. I hold his words on these things, and they shall take root, among my eyes, and prosper in me. And perhaps find a way back out to the universe in a gentler fashion than his own. Until my work is done, I am your loyal host Nikignik, waiting honorarily for your return to the Hallowoods.
The bonus story that goes with this episode is called 'A New Movement' and is available on the Hello From The Hallowoods Patreon. Consider joining for access to all the show's bonus stories, behind-the-scenes and more! Until next time, dreamers, give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Which is a collection of 23 daggers. They must be returned for Caesar to rise, knife-born, and begin his new revenant empire.
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