Transcript – The Things You Know

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ANNOUNCER
Scroll & Dagger presents
The Pensive Tower
Episode Thirty Seven: The Things You Know

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PAXTON
This is the memory of Kinia Cadnick. Turshen, aged twenty-three, identified as female. Memory regards curious events that occurred following the death of her grandmother, Manira Cadnick, in the summer of 701. It was donated on the 14th of Trevall, in the year 701. Inscribed by Paxton Ferox on the second of Kalla, 730.

We Begin.

PAXTON (STATEMENT)
It’s always hard losing someone. No matter how old you are, or how old they are, when you lose someone you love, it hurts. Someone who used to be a part of your life is just gone and you’re never going to see them again and now there’s a hole in your life where someone used to be.

So, you’re just left with that numb emptiness.

My grandma was my hero when I was little. My parents had to work a lot and so would usually drop me and my sister off with her during the day and pick us up in the evening. During the day, she’d play games with us, give us books to read and tell us stories of her travels.

To hear her stories, my grandma had been everywhere. From the west coast of Xealica to the ivory walls of the Laohin Republic. From the Sand Sea to Gelland. She even said she’d been to Coopia, though they hadn’t let her go any further than the port.

She told us about the time she was sailing across the Tummult Ocean and saw the Maelstrom, the great storm that encircles Stemeveca and the Sentinel Mountains, which are the only part of that country that you can make out through the storm. And she told us about when she went to the Sundered Islands, that she said used to be a huge island called Raakia. We didn’t really believe those stories. Yes we were young but we’d heard of the Maelstrom. Why would anyone go anywhere near that?

But, real or not, those stories are some of the fondest memories I have of my childhood.

But childhood has to end eventually, and I grew up. So I didn’t see my grandma as much as I used to. I tried to visit her as often as I could but this got tricky when I moved Widport.

I’d gotten a job in the shipyard as a blacksmith’s assistant. I know you wouldn’t think it to look at me, I don’t exactly have the usual build of a blacksmith. But I’m stronger than I look and I’d been working towards my qualification since I left school. I finished my apprenticeship two years ago and that was when I found out about the job in Widport.

I’ve loved ships ever since I was a little kid. We used to travel over to the UMS a lot, to visit my mom’s family in Laparynth and I’d spend most of the voyage scampering around the ship, chased by my very anxious father, as I tried to examine every inch of it from bow to stern.

So, when I got the opportunity to work on ships, and actually help build them, I took it without hesitation.

The only downside was that I was now so far away from my family.

So, when my grandma started getting confused and forgetful, I wasn’t really around to help her. The rest of the family, those who still lived in Hundford, would go and help her around the house and sit and talk with her but I was too far away. I did visit, of course, but it’s a six hour coach ride from Widport to Hundford and I couldn’t do that every weekend.

When grandma’s condition got worse and she had to be put into assisted living, it was my mother who made the arrangements and my sister and brothers who helped her pack up her stuff and rode in the wagon with her belongings. I was able to get there in time to help unpack everything and get the new place looking nice. I know no one in the family blamed me, at least I hope they didn’t.

And then, when she got sick and had to be taken to Holy Aranta’s Hospital, it was my parents who stayed with her through the night because I was too busy at work to get home. And, because I was so far away, it was my brother who was with her when she was put on end of life care while I was trapped on the highway.

I tell you all of this so that you will understand why, when someone needed to go through Grandma’s house and catalogue her belongings after she finally passed, I immediately said I would do it.

I felt so guilty for missing so much and leaving my family to deal with everything. And I felt that I owed Grandma something after everything she’d done for me, so this was something I could actually do to pay her back.

I didn’t voice this around my family, I knew they’d be shocked that I felt that way. I knew they wouldn’t understand. It wasn’t about obligation, I had wanted to be there for Grandma the same way she had been there for me, because I loved her. But I hadn’t been able to. I had failed, and this was my chance to redeem myself a little.

So, I went with my father to Grandma’s house and began the process of clearing it out and cataloguing her possessions for the audit.

Everything was pretty normal at first.

The care worker let us in and told us where everything was before leaving to go to one of the other houses they were in charge of. It was a small house, just the one floor with an attic, I assume because that made it easier for the residents to get around and the care workers didn’t have to worry about falls so much. My Dad went to the kitchen to begin boxing up the glassware and the crockery and told me to head up to the attic. He would start at the bottom, he said, and I would start at the top and we would meet in the middle.

I knew it was going to be unpleasant when I pulled down that ladder and was immediately showered with dust. By the look of things, Grandma hadn’t been up there in quite some time, perhaps not in all the time she’d been living there.

Stepping up into the attic was like stepping into another world. I’d expected it to be dark so I had brought a lantern and I now shone the light around me, illuminating a mass of boxes and crates covered in what looked like an inch thick layer of dust. Cobwebs hung heavy from the beams and the rafters and I saw what looked like an army of spiders scuttling away from the light.

I resisted the urge to sigh, for fear of what I might breathe in. And instead, I got to work.

I didn’t find much of interest in the first hour or so; old clothes, toys and books that didn’t look like they’d seen the light of day in decades. I went through them all, listing down the things of importance and tossing anything that looked like garbage into a sack.

Things got interesting when I found a rather old, battered looking trunk that had been hidden under a pile of mouldy wooden crates.

I opened the trunk and stared down at the contents. The stuff in there was old, like, really old. And I was pretty sure it hadn’t belonged to my grandmother.

I started going through the contents, being very careful not to break or tear anything. There were several dresses, all of them rather plain except for one, a dark blue one which was decorated with ruffles around the collar. There was a doll that looked older than everything else in there. It was made to look like a taurox girl, dressed in a white smock with a head made of porcelain and horns made of what seemed to be actual horn. Underneath it were a few small wooden toy soldiers, one of which was broken in half. Underneath the dresses, I found a few framed photographs of some people, I couldn’t even guess at who they were. And, right at the bottom, tucked into a corner of the trunk, was a book.

It looked as old as everything else in there, the pages were faded and starting to moulder in places. It looked like it had been bound with old wallpaper. The spine crackled as I opened it and began skimming through the contents.

Every page was filled with small, neat handwriting and I quickly realised that what I was holding was a diary. A diary that was, according the dates of the entries, just over a hundred and fifty years old. Really curious now, I delicately flipped through the pages, trying to find something that might tell me who the diary had belonged to.

But whoever they had been, they hadn’t written a name or anything in there.

But the diary itself was interesting enough that I thought I should tell my dad what I had found so I went back down the ladder and headed into the kitchen.

Dad was busy wrapping the glassware in brown paper when I entered but he stopped when I told him what I’d found and showed him the diary.

Like me, he flipped through with interest, but he couldn’t tell who the diary had belonged to either. We both assumed it must have been someone in the family and the way the owner had written in the diary made us think they had probably been a woman, but that was obviously just guessing.

Then Dad remembered something, that my great aunt Ellia would be arriving in town for the funeral in a couple of days. As Grandma’s younger sister, she might have an idea of who the diary had belonged to. So he said I should just hang onto it for now.

So, that’s what I did. I spent the rest of the day going through the attic, listing everything I found. But I didn’t note what I found in the trunk. I could have, I suppose, just made a general note of each item; “doll,” “toy soldiers” and so on but I felt like I should do things properly and find out who they had belonged to so I waited to find out more.

Two days after I’d found the trunk, Auntie Ellia arrived at the house. I’d only met her a few times in my life because she lived even further away from Hundford than I did, all the way over in Sangland. But, every time I had met her, she’d always been friendly and chatty, telling stories of where she’d been and what she’d done. She was very much like Grandma in that regard.

She wasn’t her usual self when she arrived, though that was hardly a surprise. She gave my dad a hug and then went to get settled in the bedroom. She was going to live in Grandma’s house until after the funeral so that she could be on hand to help with anything.

Once she had unpacked and gotten settled, we told her about the trunk I’d found in the attic and showed her the diary.

With a curious look, Aunt Ellia took the diary and delicately turned a few of the pages. After a few seconds of reading, a look of realisation filled her face.

She told us that this diary had belonged to Shanra Cadaik, her and my grandmother’s grandmother, so my great great grandmother.

And then, because I asked, she told us a story. Shanra had been a taurox and had moved west with her mother after she’d left the local harem. They’d settled in Jjerham, a small town on the border between Welaudan and Senteria.

They didn’t have a lot of money but they had enough to get by and, a little while later, Shanra got a job as a serving maid in the palace of Erod Tengar. I could hardly believe that, my ancestor worked for the actual royal family, in their palace.

For around ten years anyway. When the entire royal family was dragged out of their palace and executed by the radicals, a lot of the servants were dragged along with them.

Shanra was lucky. She was able to escape the mobs and had fled to the coast and settled in Hundford, where she’d met my great great grandfather. And that was pretty much where the story ended.

We talked a bit more until it got late and me and Dad left. My thoughts kept going to Shanra Cadaik, who’d been at the centre of such a huge event in our history. A person who I’d never even heard of.

I’m not sure when exactly I decided I was going to keep the diary but the following day, when we were finishing up boxing up everything, I listed everything else I’d found in the trunk as the belongings of Shanra, but I left the diary off the list. I turned the list over to the audits office and thought no more of it.

A couple of days later was the funeral.

It was a simple affair, taking place in the Trokosh of First Humility on Ghobald Road. The whole family was there, along with all of my grandma’s still living friends and we all sat in silence as Witness Kulnan gave quite a moving sermon on the value of a life lived to the fullest, and then made way for my father who gave the eulogy.

Only one thing disturbed the serenity of the ceremony, at least for me.

There was a man standing to the side, a diman. I’d noticed him when I’d entered, mainly because I knew he wasn’t part of the family and he was far too young to have been a friend of my grandma’s.

He was a small man with dark scales and bright green eyes that kept darting from side to side as if he was constantly on the lookout for something. He also wore a black coat which, I know, isn’t unusual for a funeral. But it didn’t look like it was personal clothing, if you know what I mean. It looked more like a uniform. I remember there was this metal pin fixed to his lapel in the shape of a tree.

All the way through the ceremony, I felt like he was looking at me, but anytime I glanced in his direction, his eyes were elsewhere.

The service finally ended and Grandma’s coffin was carried out of the trokosh to the burning ground.

Once the coffin was in place and all of us were gathered around, Witness Kulnan brought out a red glass candle, lit it and soon the coffin was engulfed in flame.

When the cremation was done and the last of the ashes had been carried away on the wind, we began moving back to the carts and steam cars we had arrived by.

I was just about to duck into the lead car, after my mother, when the diman in the black coat appeared behind me, as if from nowhere.

He introduced himself as Mr. Fa’Til, said that he was from the Ironwood Bureau and asked if he and I could have a quick word in private.

I glanced at my parents and was not at all reassured to see that they were looking very worried. My father gave this kind of grimacing nod of encouragement which, if anything, made me feel more nervous about the situation. But I still allowed Mr. Fa’Til to steer me away from the cars.

When we were out of earshot of anyone else, Mr. Fa’Til stopped. He didn’t waste any time but immediately asked me about the inventory I had submitted for audit, specifically the trunk. He asked if there had been anything else in the trunk, perhaps something I’d forgotten to include on the list.

He knew about the diary. That much was obvious. There was no way he’d have asked that question if he didn’t already know. It had been the only thing I’d left off the inventory.

I should probably have just told him. By law, family is entitled to any possessions of the deceased unless otherwise specified in a will so it wasn’t like I had no right to hang onto the diary. But this man clearly wanted it for some reason and I didn’t want to give it up. Shanra was my great great grandmother so, as far as I was concerned, I had a far better claim on her diary than this stranger.

And besides, everything about Mr. Fa’Til gave me a very uneasy feeling. From the tone of his voice to the intense look in his eyes.

So I told him no. No there was nothing, everything that had been in the trunk, I had recorded on the inventory.

He knew I was lying. His expression didn’t change but I could tell from the look in his eyes that he knew I was lying.

I half expected him to call me out on it, but instead he nodded and gave me a card with an apovox number printed on it and told me to call him if I happened to find anything in the coming days.

I took the card and promised I would, knowing that I wouldn’t, then bid Mr. Fa’Til good day before walking past him back towards the cars. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking I’d gotten away with my deception.

As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

It all started in the week following the funeral.

I decided to extend my leave from work, just so I could be there for my dad who was having a hard time in the aftermath of the funeral. He’d been able to keep things together before, I think because there was so much that needed to be done so he was able to distract himself.

Now, though, with everything done, he had nothing to keep his mind occupied so he fell into a bit of a decline.

Mum was busy with work and my siblings had to head back to their own homes, so I stuck around to take care of the day to day stuff.

It happened when I was coming back from the market. I was walking down the high street when I suddenly got the feeling that I was being followed.

I turned around but couldn’t see anyone at first. So, thinking I was imagining things, I carried on walking.

I turned down my road which was considerably quieter than the high street. The first thing I saw was a black steam car parked halfway down the street.

There were one or two others but not so many that this one wasn’t immediately noticeable. It was long, low and expensive looking. The windows were tinted so that it was impossible to see the inside.

I could hear that the motor wasn’t running but, even so, my pace quickened ever so slightly as I drew closer to it.

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I span about to see the face of Mr. Fa’Til. He looked manic. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, his clothes dishevelled. He looked as if he hadn’t slept since the last time I’d seen him.

He wasn’t wearing the black coat this time, instead he was wearing a more casual suit, though the metal tree pin was still fixed to his lapel.

He said he was tired of waiting and demanded that I give him the diary.

I was obviously terrified. But I was also confused. This man had followed me for what? An old diary? I had read a good chunk of it by that time and, while it was quite interesting to read about the day to day life of my great great grandmother, there wasn’t anything in there of much value to anyone else, as far as I could tell.

I reflexively responded that I didn’t know what he was talking about. I knew he wouldn’t believe me but I didn’t want him thinking he could just push me around.

He snarled and grabbed me by the front of my blouse. I tried to struggle, then I felt something cold against the skin of my neck and realised he was holding a knife.

His eyes bored into mine with such an intensity and I realised that Mr. Fa’Til might actually be insane.

Between clenched teeth, he hissed something about an ebony king, that he would have it. I had no idea what he was talking about, the diary hadn’t mentioned any king apart from the one Shanra worked for before the pogrom. But I was far too terrified to say anything in that moment.

I didn’t even hear the sound of footsteps on the sidewalk until there came a polite cough from behind Mr. Fa’Til.

I risked moving my neck enough to see who it was. It was a human, a man, wearing a plain dark blue suit. He had long, dark hair which he’d tied back into a tail, and a scar that ran right across his right cheek.

“Hello Jashan,” said the newcomer. His voice was soft but, oddly, I was suddenly far more afraid of him than the man with the knife at my throat.

At the sound of the voice, Mr. Fa’Til span around. I didn’t see his face but the knife dropped from his suddenly limp fingers.

“No.” That was all he said, and I was shocked at how afraid he sounded.

“Oh, I’m afraid so, Jashan,” the stranger said, his mouth stretched into a smile. “We had a deal and you haven’t lived up to your side of it. And you know what the consequences are.”

Mr. Fa’Til began babbling, saying things about how he just needed more time and begging the stranger, who he called ‘Mr Thurlow,’ to be patient.

The stranger… Mr Thurlow, didn’t appear to take any notice of Mr. Fa’Til’s words. Instead his eyes turned on me, and I felt a shock of renewed fear run through my entire body.

“I think it best if you got yourself home, Ms Cadnick,” he said, “don’t worry. No one will bother you on the matter of the diary again, you have my word.”

Far from putting me at my ease, every word out of the strangers mouth sent shivers up my spine. But I didn’t need telling twice and I took the opportunity to turn around and run in the opposite direction.

I didn’t stop for anything. Not when I heard the door of the steam car open, not when I heard a new voice shout after me and not when I heard the screams just as I turned the corner back onto the high street.

I ran home and didn’t leave for nearly three days. And it was during that time that I decided to come and donate these events to you. I brought the diary with me, you can keep it.

I wish I could hold onto it but honestly, after everything that happened, I’ll feel a lot safer without it in the house.

PAXTON
Final Notes; There’s quite a lot to go through with this one, though not as much as I’d like. As I mentioned in the donation of Billem Docker, anything that involves the Ironwood Bureau is completely classified so we can’t even confirm or deny that this Mr. Fa’Til ever existed.

The appearance of Mr Finton Thurlow, or at least someone using the same name, is interesting. This memory would have taken place nearly twenty years before Burik and Cullen began their careers as serial killers in Hy-Braelyn, but Ms Cadnick describes him almost exactly the same as Doctor delNox did.

We were able to follow up with Ms Cadnick. She still lives in Widport, though she now works more in the administrative area of the shipyard. She stands by her account and claims to have had no further contact with anyone from the Ironwood Bureau.

We offered to return the diary to her possession. She declined though she did request an appointment so that she could come and read it again.

On that subject, Szelia did go through the diary, trying to find any reference to this “ebony king” that Mr. Fa’Til mentioned. The closest she found was this passage, dated to the day of The Pogrom of Erod Tengar, which describes her escape. I shall quote here;

“There was screaming and shouting everywhere. I knew I didn’t have much time so I grabbed anything I could before making my way out through the servant’s staircase. A purse of money, some of the queen’s jewellery (it’s not like she’d need it anymore) and a black statuette that was kept in a lockbox. Not sure what that might be worth but you never know.”

It’s unclear to me what Mr. Fa’Til was hoping to learn from that, but I suppose we’ll never find out.

There’s been no sighting of Alayne SinDreda for quite some time now. Everyone’s starting to relax. The Lawkeepers have called off the search, though have advised us to remain on guard, just in case.

Inscription complete.

[The venoscribe clicks, and the whirring stops.]

[The end theme plays and the Announcer recites the credits.]