The Sisterhood of the Yellow Smile

22 - The Sisterhood of the Yellow Smile

Roots curl like a clutch of newborn snakes between the manifold oaks of The Buried Forest. The roots have pried apart the epitaph stones of The Road of Graves where it wends the woods. The cobbled surface is broken. The epitaphs face the sky at crooked angles.

Somewhere in the woods sounds a steady shink, shink, shink. A shovel in earth.

Two men in sweat-stained leather stand at the edges of a fresh hole. One carries a six-foot pole with a hook at the end. The other has a truncheon. Sentries. A third man stands waist-high in the hole, his arms exerting rhythmic labor with a shovel. Each swing throws soil like a cresting ocean wave. An epitaph stone lies facedown a few feet from the hole, its mossy bottom naked to the forest canopy.

The dig man stops. He raises a calloused hand to a red cauliflower ear.

From the trees; shinking Steel.

The hilt of your Polished Steel Longsword feels mortared in your palm as you step from the screen of a warty oak. The three stonecats have seen you.

Though your Blue Lady, alone back at The Scattered Shrine, might trouble your mind, you must now push those cares aside. These men pry stones from the Road. You are sworn to cut their bodies. Their sentence is passed.

The three will attack together. None is particularly skilled fighter. If you sever the hook from the one man’s pole, then kill the stonecat with the shovel (who can ring your helmet) you’ll magnify the advantage already granted by your skill.

This should be an easy first fight; for one strong and dauntless.

The Gonging Hearse

A desperate tolling clamors awkwardly over the uneven Road. Sliding your Steel from the breast of your last foe, you wheel.

Atop ten articulated legs struts a carriage of greying wood. The legs are woven with living sinew; the box, armored in bone-plate. Beneath the box hangs a bell of weathered bronze. It clangs with each step.

The mancer atop the box steers his towering construct toward you. It moves like a hunting spider. You know it will crush you. You run for the trees, but the carriage is faster. You cannot escape.

From behind a trunk another figure steps. A horned Morning Star swings out. Catches a leg. Crack. The Hearse stumbles.

With R the Killer’s help you stand a chance. His Horned Star is more effective than your Steel against the dead machine. This will still be a robust battle. The Hearse judders over the craggy epitaph stones at a swift clip, even as you take out its legs. Its clanging bell sinks inside your skull, into your brain. It will knock you senseless if it rings for too long.

Additionally, the mancer atop the box sings continuously a song of deadspeech. This will raise the three stonecats you’ve already slain – over and over. You’ll have to cut them down again – over and over.

Keep your Shield raised, your Steel swinging, and stay light on your feet. You will survive.

R pulls his Morning Star from the skull of the mancer. He flicks gore from its horns.

“Too easy. “You and I, fighting together; too easy. “But I had got the whim on me, and had to see it out. This isn’t- “Ah, enough. Let’s fetch those bosom square coins.”

The Scattered Shrine

You emerge from the birdsung, wet undergrowth. The pieces of slate-colored sun, broken like glass by the interlacing branches and leaves, give way to sweeping spotlight rays, angling from the eastern sky.

The light sweeps over a parapet of ragged and dry stones. A broken clocktower. The remains of the tower, the shingles, the hands of the clock, lie scattered in a yard of little bluestem grass.

Behind the scattered shrine, the slate-colored sun gleams against the broad lake of Hornwater. The towers of that near city - unbroken - seem to gently stroke the thin sunburned clouds.

You step over the fallen iron fence.

Why has your Lady not opened the door to greet you? Surely she watched at that window there. Or is that pride swirling in your heart? Should such a noble one as she set aside all thoughts whenever her servant approaches? No. She would come. And your armor heralds your return. What if some misfortunate struck while you were not at her side? It may have been wrong to leave her with this shrine’s mancer, though he seemed true to the Road and the seven. What business did you have, hunting stonecats? You and she needed a roof, to lay your bedrolls beneath. You served two oaths at once; to your Lady; to the long Road. So you tell yourself. Telling, it may be, that you find yourself so often fighting beside this Killer. His motivation was the coins which the mancer clinked. You strike well together. An easier battle than many. Yet, the Killer seems sullen.

The weighty bronze door of the ruined shrine squeals at your approach. The doorstep manifests Hayz, the mancer who keeps this ruined shrine at the edge of Hornwater. His skinny fingers twist around themselves; he hails you in his voice like a hummingbird’s buzz.

By helping Hayz and slaying the robbers on the Road, you have earned the shrine keeper’s favor. His shrine will now serve as shelter for you and your Blue Lady.

Additionally, if you ask, the mancer can supply you with information on several subjects.

Your Lady “She told me she wanted to visit the heart of Hornwater. Three hours ago, she took the gondola into the city.”		The Cult of the Leather Dragon “Deadly fighters, or such is what I’ve heard. You can see their keep; just there, through the east window. That is the Island of the Dragon. The only passage is by gondola, through invitation.”
Necromancy “I’ve summoned only vessels myself. We Horners placate the seven with prayer, and by keeping the shrines.”	Namman Tide “Five-score men hope to break their bread with a maid this year. Myself? I’m too old for the festival.”		The Sisterhood of the Yellow Smile “We both know their way of worship. You won’t catch me near their grove…”

As soon as he collects his coin from Hayz, R the Killer will shoulder his road sack.

“Got a chore with those sisters myself. “Maybe it’s digging on one of their burials. Doesn’t concern me. Their coins are heavy enough in the palm. “If you’re ever near again, I’ll hear you, Steelclad. “And- Well, bye.”

R the killer stuffs his pipe, strikes a match, lights, smokes, salutes, and leaves. The bronze door squeals and slams.

You will never see him alive again.

Behind you, Hayz the mancer crackles down to his knees. He kneels before a pit of ash dust and fragments of bone. From a pouch at his side, he takes a fire-fork the size of a kitchen ladle. He looks over the fragments in the pit. He selects a large one, and carefully scoops it into a wooden box with silver trimming. You know he will take the bone to a separate room. He will break it, with a delicate silver hammer, into between three and seven pieces, before returning it to the pit.

There is nothing left for you here.

For many minutes the only sound is the soft gulping of the lake waves against your lugubrious gondola, and the plash of the helmsman’s long paddle. You sit in your rusted armor, swaying on your bench like a suspended statue.

A babble joins the gentle noises as your boat drifts into the Hornwater canals. One city block - a high cube of bricked buildings, packed together like fish, and with their foundations furry in water-moss - blocks the sun. Somewhere within the block a musician plays a natural horn cadenza. The music is slow and ancient.

Your boat sways onward. You keep your eyes keen for your Lady’s midnight hair and green cloak.

You pass a city garden. Cherry trees shade your passage. Their petals fall like rain around you. One pink petal catches on your visor. You brush it away.

You pass along a sandy embankment. An island. An inner lake of Hornwater shines to your right. To your left, above the bank, a shallow grassy slope rises to an imposing keep with iron walls.

Hornwater is a city of thousands. Sign of your Blue Lady evades you.

Your boatman pushes through a narrow canal lined in cotton canopied stalls. One hand of chalky finger-bones reaches from its stall out over the canal. It clasps your pauldron.

“Life Enriched Water. Witch Batons. Good Golden Oats. “Have a cure, sir. “Buy a cure for any ill. “Buy from a Living Bones. Hehehehe, I’ve survived death itself. Sir knight won’t-”

You pull your arm free of the peddler. Your boat floats on.

To find your Lady’s whereabouts you’ll need to leave the canals. Pay the gondolier, and proceed into the landward streets of Hornwater.

You’ll likely spend several hours searching. Your oath of silence makes difficult any interrogation of the locals. You can try to buy the information from the local Emerald House. Strangely, after they understand your request, the priestesses of Lady Horsehair will bid you leave. Perhaps you offered offense?

Eventually, a pageant of royal bearing will stop your step.

The commonly-clothed people of Hornwater loiter beside you as a coach drawn by huffing oxen glides through the street. The citizens have parted for the thudding step of the oxen’s hooves. A band of five with crashing gongs, also, heralds the regal train.

You see a sigil on the banner of the lead carriage. It is a clam, with its ridged mouth facing to the right, cracked just wide enough to show the shining silver of a pearl, on golden fabric.

Behind the clear glass window of the coach a lady sits. She isn’t your Blue Lady; the age is right, but this woman’s hair is shockingly white, and she holds it high as she scans the throng in passing. Her eyes are amber, and disinterested.

Her amber eyes fix on you as they pass where you stand. She gives a word. The carriage stops.

“You are the unknown… “I have heard of a knight near town, wearing rusted armor, carrying a Shield crested with a Pinecone. “The laundresses say you are a Cracked Cup Knight. “I learned from my mancer your true pedigree. “This coach takes me to my palace at Burning Shells. Sir; would you climb inside? Join my procession? “The Guildlord would have your ear.”

Guilds of Hornwater

Hornwater’s common folk, they who live in the mainland sprawl of town, all swear allegiance to one of the ruling powers among the islands and canals. Chief among these powers are three guilds: Burning Shells, The Guild of Long Knives, and The Builder’s Guild.

Each guild has its Guildlord and Guildlady. The Guildlord of Burning Shells is the richest man in Hornwater. His guild controls many vineyards on the fertile land by Hornwater lake.

Though the Guildlord has not the strongest militia, The Palace of Burning Shells is an imposing prospect. Perched alone on its island, girt by jagged cliffs, with one long, narrow stone bridge, at the end of which sits a heavy iron portcullis, the Palace perches like the nest of some prehistorical sky whale. Weathered limestone towers stare with ten thousand sparkled window-eyes, slate-tinted in the sun. At its pinnacle, a cathedral roof crowns the monolith.

Why have this Guildlord and Guildlady beckoned you to this rich estate? Perhaps they want for one skilled with his Steel. They would look elsewhere, certainly, before they looked to you. This guild may know where your own Lady has vanished to. That must be your driving thought.

The Singing Reception

A steward in velvet doublet and high black boots leads you down a long and tall chamber. The floors are polished tile. The walls are shelving stone, almost like a dried wall of coral. Smoke drifts up the walls from two long troughs on either side of the room, pooling in the walls’ inverted bowls.

An organ plays. You see its pipes stretching like tree branches from the northeastern corner of the chamber. They snake across the ceiling. The pipes hum a happy jingle.

At the far end there is a crescent moon table. It is made of gritty quartz. Around it are twelve stone stools. In two, there sit the Guildlord and Guildlady, wearing matching robes of sterling and green.

The Guildlord looks at you, his clasped hand hiding his mouth.

“I’ve heard of a knight in town who keeps his oaths. “Be not anxious, sir. Your silence does us both honor. “I shall speak shortly. Our guards, our private army, have no skill in their arms. My weaponmaster, decent man - he fell this last summer to the Leather dragon. “I need a new master. “I have heard you guard a Lady. Bring her. Let me see her bearing. There may be space for you both at Burning Shells. Acceptable, no?”

By the time you return across the bridge from Burning Shells, dusk is setting. No sooner have you stepped down from the carriage than a courier woman in sleek leather runs over to you. She shoves a letter into your gauntlet.

The letter is sealed in a square stamp of yellow wax, with a sigil like two sets of grinning mouths, one mouth smiling above a second mouth.

Knight that carries the Pinecone Crest, This letter gives invitation. Attend the service of your Lady between the hours of Midnight, this night, and Midday, the morrow. Your Lady has begged and been granted burial at Yellow Smile Priory. Visit her epitaph here, that you may witness her blessed interment. The priory is on that ultimate Road of Graves, where it winds through the Stallion Gate, along the northwesternmost curl of the Hornwater wall. We shall be pleased to accommodate your attendance, The Sisterhood of the Yellow Smile.

The handwriting of the letter shrinks as it falls from your gauntlet. The mud between your sabatons swallows the paper.

Can these be lies? Your Blue Lady would not turn to The Sisterhood. They have certainly kidnapped her. The blame for this evil is your own, you should have distrusted- No. Search within your mind. The Sisterhood of the Yellow Smile keeps an upright furlong. How can your Lady have chosen that fate? To be interred. Alive. She is alive. There is still time to stop her life turning over. You know your road. To the priory, before the burial. But, her interment is vouchsafed. She has chosen burial under a Sisterhood stone, and such a place on That Road is incontrovertible. You must find a loophole.

There are two devoted fraternities and two unblemished sororities in The Time of Dying.

The Brotherhood of Crimson The brothers excoriate themselves in their devotion to The Scratcher. They desire one end only; to be falsely buried under the road, and serve their god in death forever as Mailed Flayers.	The Sisterhood of Marblevale They renounce love, wealth, and name. Their end is under unscraped stones, on a smoothly-surfaced mile of The Road.
The Brotherhood of the Hoof This cloister is settled not far from your former Lord’s keep, beside The Lake of Tomatoes. It is devoted to Gallbladder. The brothers eat the dead.	The Sisterhood of the Yellow Smile They bury the living. In such a way is the soul vouchsafed from necromancy.

The quickest path to the Yellow Smile priory, before your Lady’s burial, is through the Vekelhause Marina. This burg lies in the heart of the town. It is a forsaken waterfront; unkept, rain-rotten homes; crumbling, water swallowed docks.

You’ll need to swallow that concern about your Lady for now. Beneath the water’s surface, three Gasps patrol the district. If they notice you they will rise with a frosted *gasp* from the surface and attack with a barrage of arrows. If you do draw their attention, use your shield to your advantage.

When you reach the other side of the marina you find yourself standing on The Road. The priory lies only yards away, swallowing the epitaphs under its gate.

Though you arrive before midnight, your hopes are dashed when you meet the aged prioress.

“See your Lady? No, knight. “No, knight, not before she is buried. Then you may look on her stone. “Stop these appeals. “Your Blue Lady has given herself an ending of redemption. You know what this means, you yourself have made your own vows to ear the covetous epitaph. “Be glad in your heart. Now, go.”

Something in the prioress’ speech is potent with witchery. Though you would not heed them, your legs carry you from the abbey.

As you go you pass a hall of sculpted glass. You see the fate of those who take gold from The Priory of the Yellow Smile.

The Thief Made of many small green pieces. Hunched. His forever-still fingers reach for a purse.	The Beggar Kneeling, her hands form a bowl, her ruby-glass eyes and lips shaped in gratitude.	The Killer His sculpture is fresh, gleaming, rounded and smoothed like melted wax. One hand raises his Morning Star, no longer horned metal, only dull red glass.

Four doors clang shut as you exit the priory. The moon in high and bright in the velvet sky. In the ditches, the crickets chirr.

You must now choose between two ways.

Accept your Lady’s End Keeping your oath to the road, you let your Lady perish underground. You may serve the guild at Burning Shells as a master of arms.	Break The Road’s Tenets You choose to turn your will and your Steel against the Sisterhood.

The Veilbend

Midnight has come and gone when you finish your trek. You arrive at the opposite entrance to the priory. Marching through an open gate, you step onto the Sisterhood’s covered mile of Road.

The ceiling is brightly painted. The fresco shows seven kings with golden crowns and silver shields. They kneel, their heads bowed, their shields raised to their white beards. They offer kingly fealty to a queenly skeleton in a translucent, shining dress. She sits on a throne of golden glass.

The space is lit by a thousand-and-one torches. Your steel boots tap, tap, tap over well-swept, well-mortared onyx stones. Each stone is deeply-carved with the epitaph of the cadaver beneath it. You believed, once, that you would earn such an epitaph yourself. Not so deeply-carved, perhaps; not on such a stone of onyx - but, on The Road.

Stone fountains trickle to either side as you march with steadfast purpose.

The sisters stand a quarter-mile down the stretch. When the ancient prioress notices your coming, and sees the shine of your Polished Steel Longsword, she raises her voice.

“The gods will curse your soul. “You would forever serve as the animating vitality of mancers’ mean spells. A mere sum of energy. “Unless you mean to bury the point of your weapon in the soft earth here, and kneel before your Lady’s grave. Sheath that cutting edge. “Stop, knight. “You will doom yourself. You will doom your Lady. “The seven will forsake her!”

The sisters will raise small kitchen knives or sweeping-brooms against you. But the sisters are not warriors.

You will find their tissue easy purchase for your Steel.

Unfortunately, the priory is not without its defenders. As soon as you have slain three Sisters of the Yellow Smile the rest will flee. Only a second passes before you hear approaching a kind of heavy *tinking*, like hammers striking in a giant glass piano.

You’ll need to defeat four different glass illusions.

Empty Robe Man You cannot catch his eyes, nor should you want to. His legs are fragile, but hard to hit.	Crying Child at the end of the Hall This one never seems to get any closer, until you look away.
Body Faker No sooner have you shattered this church-window-figure, than it reassembles and attacks again. Must be shattered thirteen times.	Veilface Moves like a jagged fog cloud; slow and cutting. Let your shield do the work here.

The last of the glass illusions finally shatters into silence that is pristine. You stand alone on the Road of onyx Graves.

You find your Lady’s grave easily enough. It is clean, unmarked by either your own blood, or that of the sisters. The mortar is fresh.

You can, if you choose, pry the stone free with your crimson-edged Steel. However, to dig with your weapon would be slow and dishonorable. Moreover, you know the time is short. The sisterhood has left no airholes.

If you search behind the nearest stone fountain you will find a set of shovels in a leather wrapping. Avoid looking into the fountain pool as you pass; like The Sisterhood’s glass, it reflects a deadly illusion.

With a shovel and strength of arm, the earth over your Lady’s coffin is easily turned.

Your Blue Lady, clad in golden funeral-robe, throws her pale arms around your gorget. Her black hair drapes your pauldrons, her breast heaves with sobs.

“Oh, my Cracked Cup Knight. Thank you. “I lost belief that we would ever find that boy. The child of my Lord’s first wife. I thought that by pledge to the sisterhood, my life’s misdeeds might be swept away. “I changed my mind. The earth, that thudding, thudding, thudding earth onto the lid- “Oh my knight, these bodies… “What has my selfish folly cost you?”

You seven mancers who listen for souls - long this one turned its thoughts from thee, in deference; but this soul is no longer beholden to examine only itself. The oath is broken. This soul begs no mercy. It has no future under the safeguard of an epitaph. It hopes that the mancer who catches it might, at least, abuse soul and body both to fighting purpose. … Your choice was right. Such are the words, anyway, by which you try to warm your cold bones. Your Lady says she changed her mind. Isn’t that enough? But the grave-dirt under a stone of The terminal Road, it is still soiling your hands.

You should lead your Blue Lady swiftly from the Priory. Tarry, and sisters, and other glass illusions, may attack.

You emerge from the easternly gate. Dawn has begun to rise. You notice the morning sun to be strangely-hued. There is a tinge of lilac in the usual slate-blue. The upper arch has just risen over a distant silhouette of woods. You see it coloring the belltower of The Scattered Shrine, flushing the broken architecture.

You look back, and find that all one-thousand-and-one torches in The Veilbend have ceased burning. The covered onyx roadstones are hidden from sight. The priory waits in steady silence, watching to see if you will reenter.

You feel a motion of your Lady’s arm.

“My Cracked Cup Knight. You- “You have thrown much away. For my sake alone. Will you not say why? My Lord was worthy of your loyalty. He is gone. A ghost. “Will you remove your helmet? Meet my eye? “Will you speak? “No. Do not. You have sacrificed. Only lead me.”