The woman with the bladed braids

“So, yeah, ‘course they’s gotta be triplets. Children born all alone never have that mythical power that twins ‘n such do.” The old man was starting out relatively relativistic with his grand tale about some faraway Prime world, about which I of course cared very little. The bar has lost it’s touch when the burning man had one day floated out with some scarred stranger. The horrid squeaking of the chained fire mephitis was a petty substitute to the slow cackle of the burning flesh of the smouldering corpse, with his closed eyes trembling with all manner of feverish and horrid dreams. So now I had to listen to the war stories of scarred veteran primes.

“Likes I said, middle one was the genius of the three. She was skilled in geometry and maths and all that whatchemacallit. Brilliant military leader, too. And ambitious. Her sisters were more like personal servants then her friends, really. Always scurrying around with messages from their sis to all manner of strange folk. They left her when the war started though.” Great. War. I suppose he’d been in it, serving that woman from the start. “And y’know, son, I was there right at the beginning.” I hate being right.

“The war started out devastating. The nation was being pushed back on all ends. Except on the places where she fought, though.” Of course. “She climbed the ranks real quick, son, and I mean real quick: she was a general by the time she was eighteen.” Yes, yes, she was a prodigy. “But she had a bad side to her, too. She was cunning, but ruthless as one of them fiends you gots over here. Killed assassins with her bare hands, she did. Peeled the skin from their flesh with her bare teeth, she did. She’d wear the daggers they’d bring to kill her at the end of long braids. Sent the skinless suckers back on horseback, too. Messy stuff, that.” Gory details. Could be the fireseed wine, or the old man was finally getting to some of the juicy stuff.

“And it wasn’t just assassins, neither. She once nearly tore of half of a lieutenant’s face when he looked at her funny. Jes’ like that, with here bare hands! Suffice to say, people were learning discipline real quick ‘round her. I was lucky she only took my ear.” A little flab of flesh beneath the man’s grey hair where an ear should’ve been. Looked like a pretty clean cut, though. Woman would’ve had some strength in her. If the old man wasn’t completely barmy, of course.

“So after a while, she’s marching ‘cross the battlefield with dozens of daggers clanging ‘gainst each other behind her back, like some sickly wind chime. She got the fear into the enemy real easy, walking ‘round like that. Didn’t show no flesh, neither. Mask, gloves, fancy battle-robes covering the rest. People were starting to think she weren’t human. And the way she fought! She rarely skipped a battle herself, really. Shouting commands all around in that booming, empty voice of hers, while all the while tearing through skin and bone with those swords of hers. Mighty terrifying, if I says so m’self.” He slammed his mug on the bar, and ordered two more bub. I love generous Clueless. Not that it would really matter in a couple of minutes.

“’Course, people on our side were starting to get mighty nervous as well. Was no telling who she’d ‘discipline’ next. Lost a lot of good men that way, but she sure was winning against overwhelming odds. Folk say she wasn’t fighting alone, though. The say her sister’d never really left her and where aiding here all ‘round. Even wore the same masks ‘n stuff. Was probably enough to put the fear into people where they went. I don’ think they did, though. Y’see, her two sisters were always a bit more morally stable, if y’know what I mean. Well, at least one o’ them was. Don’ really know ‘bout the other. Anyway, the one sis would never have let her commit the atrocities she did. Pretty horrible, son. Prolly not as bad as this ‘Blood War’ you’ve got out here, but still, pretty gruesome stuff.”

“She weren’t completely stupid, though. The war ended pretty quickly after that, and as a high-ranking military officer, she quickly got herself involved in politics. And that’s usually a bad thing for a slightly genocidal general. She started doin’ some pretty strange stuff, as well. Starting up new cities from scratch ‘n stuff. Circular ones, actually. Kinda like what you’ve got over here, ‘xcept for the whole floating thingy, of course. No-one knew where she got the idea, but hey, she got the support, so who the hell cared? Must’ve been some of that math of hers. Prolly made for good infrastructure, or summat.”

“So, one day, people start whispering she’s finally lost it completely. I mean, y’know, more then before. So you have all these wizards gathering all over the place, coming up with all manner of mad schemes to lock her away somewhere ‘n stuff like that. All completely stupid, of course: she got her hands on some pretty powerful magics herself as well. Folk say she got her hands on some teleporting-thingy, ‘cause she started appearing all over the land. People couldn’t keep track of here, even the high-and-mighty wizards. Gods know what she did then, because all of a sudden, no-one heard of her. ‘Course, there was talk in the streets that she was still stalking about in those circle-cities of her, but those were just rumours, gossip of frightened people. Folk in the government never heard from her again.” Well, that was original. Powerful bloods go mad and disappear.

“Stuff gets weirder ‘n that, though. Those cities of her start disappearing, too. Jes’ like that. Holes in the ground, is all that was left. One after another, they were simply gone. So the government sent me to one of the last one. They figured that I server under her, so I must’ve known something more about the crazy stuff she’d been up to. Total nonsense, of course. She never told no-one what she was up to with anything, ‘xcept when it came to military tactics. And she never even told too many people ‘bout them, neither. She all got it in that weird head of hers. Honestly, by then, I didn’t really think she was human as well. Stuff she did was too messed-up for that.” Eh, humans can act as screwed up as fiends, given the chance. Where’d this berk think they got their souls from? People are stupid all over, and the Primes are by no means exceptions.

“So, anyways, I went to one of those last cities of hers. Completely abandoned, of course. Totally evacuated. Can’t have hundreds of thousands of people disappear as well. Would cripple the economy, and all. We didn’t really find much, though. Thought we saw some white-haired guys vanish ‘round a corner once or twice, but we didn’t really find any of them. Must’ve been our minds playing tricks on us. So then, all of a sudden, I and up here. In this fine city of yours. Strange place though, reminds me of…”

His voice starts to trail and his head hits the bar with a loud thump. In the usual, fluent movement, I cut his purse and threw a couple of coppers to the barkeep. The powder took painfully long to work. Sodding Clueless with their sodding stories. Dabus on the Prime? Pch, pure screed. I kick one of the mephitis on my way out, but it just doesn’t work as well as it did with the burning man. A shame.