Oddly, Celumëomaryu had hesitated, staring into the living face that had taken on such a strange resemblance to Calimiel’s. The features, though lovely, were nothing like those of Maladil’s daughter, yet the way she held her head and the sudden smile that crept across her face in a direction totally incompatible with the lines of its past were intimately familiar to the secretary, and clearly unfamiliar to the neck and the lips that they were using. The eyes stared back at her, wide and unblinking, as if she had nearly forgotten how to see. Inexplicably, Celumëomaryu shivered. Was that how she would look? Disjointed, unnatural… monstrous? How did her prisoner smile?
She glanced uneasily into the corner of the cell, where the other female prisoner was sitting with her face in her hands, but Calimiel repeated herself impatiently, this time directing the words to her. “The keys, Celumëomaryu. Get them. Let me out.”
Yes. The keys. She shook herself. She was to have a body, she was to have the physical strength she’d longed for, and all would change. Why should she stand here worrying about her beauty? It was no more than that, she told herself, and in any case the jarring appearance of the face was sure to change with time. She shivered again, turned, and went to seek The Butler.
******
The Butler sat before the fireplace in his own quarters, deep in thought. Celumëomaryu had not been in this room since he’d lived there, and found that it did not surprise her much. The room was windowless, colorless, and dim, with its air slightly smoky from the candles and its tables immaculate. The Butler sprang up from his straightbacked chair the moment she walked in.
Who told you you could come in here?
Celumëomaryu ignored the question. “I need the key to the cell in the dungeon.”
The Butler smiled grimly.
“I need to let the prisoners out. And Calimiel.”
Calimiel? The Butler looked startled, but only for a moment. She’s claimed one already?
“Yes. I’m not such a fool, myself. I want a body so that I can be free, not so that I can languish in a cage until you decide to let me out.”
I might say the same thing to you.
“I will return it, later, when I’ve finished with it, of course.” Celumëomaryu measured her options as she spoke. She had no art for begging, nor for flattery, and brute force was not only beneath her, but seemed unlikely to be effective. Bargaining, perhaps? She eyed the Butler’s bookshelves with some surprise as she considered. Celumëomaryu, though she read little, knew enough of books to recognize this as an impressive collection of valuable tomes and old, enough to be the envy of the library. The library.. She hesitated, remembering what it had been like to smell dusty pages... and fruit trees.
The Butler was looking at her with an expression of disdain. Of course.
“Would you like my haunt?” she inquired in a low voice.
The Butler laughed. Your haunt? Another room in this castle? Just what I need. You can wait until I’m ready myself. I have something to think about.
“No!” Celumëomaryu was surprised to find herself shrieking for the second time that day. Well, so be it. If composure was to be lost on him, she would have to be more forceful. “No. I cannot wait. I have earned this prisoner, I have done battle for her, and I have waited long enough. These years in the Castle... I have had enough years in the castle. I am not who I was, and I want to return to a body while there’s still enough of me left to appreciate it.” She stared hard and compellingly at him. “Give me the key. Give it to me. I can always go mad more quickly, you know. Or you could take my beautiful library and be grateful for it. You can sell the books back to Maladil for all I care. You can take my treasures. You can have Calimiel’s necklace and Maladil’s papers for all I care. But give me the key.”
Maladil’s... what?
She smiled. “Do you want them?”
The Butler hesitated for only a moment. Yes. I want them. Done.
[ January 08, 2003: Message edited by: Belin ]
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"I hate dignity," cried Scraps, kicking a pebble high in the air and then trying to catch it as it fell. "Half the fools and all the wise folks are dignified, and I'm neither the one nor the other." --L. Frank Baum
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