- Influence
- 0.00
Ruffano Quickwhistle pressed his back to the soot-streaked brick of the alley and held his breath. Two fogey officers, half-awake and mumbling about breakfast, trudged down the cobbles without so much as a glance toward the shattered window just above his head. He gave them a count of twelve, ten to clear the corner and two for superstition, before he sprang up, caught the jagged sill, and hauled himself through with a rustle of coat and crinkle of paper.
The blueprints, delicate as onion skin and nearly twice as flammable, remained tucked under one arm. He hit the warped floorboards inside with a soft grunt, boots skidding across dust and debris, and froze.
Silence. Good.
He rose to a crouch. All around him, ruin.
The theatre was a skeleton of its former self. What remained of the foyer was lost behind collapsed beams and mildew-choked drapery. The grand chandelier, once the centerpiece of the house, lay in broken splinters where the ceiling had caved in. Shafts of golden morning light spilled through the holes, dust motes swirling in them like dancers called back for a final performance.
He smiled, bitter and toothy, as he stepped through the once-gilded archway into the main auditorium. The stage yawned ahead, tired and splintered, but still standing. The seats were a ruin of upended velvet and broken legs.
"Still better attendance than my last show," he muttered.
He crossed to the stage and climbed onto it with care, paws thudding dully. At center, he stopped, inhaling. There was a smell: old plaster, rot, ash, and something faintly sweet.
He sat.
For a time, Ruffano just dangled his legs off the stage, watching the ghost-audience watch him back. The morning light spilled in behind him, a cheap spotlight. He let the silence linger, as if waiting for a cue.
Then he chuckled, the sound brittle.
"You know, they told me it was a privilege to be silenced? Said I should be honored to be 'corrected,'" he said to no one, voice echoing faintly off the scorched walls. "For the good of the public, for the stability of truth, for the Empress and her glorious Ministries. And the crowd just... nodded. Laughed along."
"But they never did say what was so dangerous about a bit of satire. About asking if the Minister’s hat was on too tight, or if the opera really needed another twenty-minute aria about taxes."
"I bled for this stage. I wept on this wood. And they wiped me off it like a smudge on the Minister's mirror."
"Well...the smudge is back..."
Then, with a soft rustle, he unrolled the blueprints.
Big, complex, and riddled with scrawled notations, the sheets cascaded across the stage like a map to some long-buried kingdom. He flipped through them, frowning.
"Trapdoor, trapdoor... come on, I saw you somewhere..."
He traced lines with a clawtip. Not that page. Nor that one. There.
He paused. His eyes lit up.
"You sly bastard," he whispered. "Stage left. Ten paces."
Hopping off the stage, leaving the blueprints behind, and counted aloud with each step. Nine. Ten. He knelt.
The velvet drape at the edge of the stage had once been a rich crimson. Now, it was moth-eaten, and faded to rust. He ripped it aside with a flourish.
Behind it: a small door, half the size of a cupboard, and a crusted iron padlock barely holding on.
He rummaged in his satchel. Out came a hammer.
Whack. Miss.
Whack. The lock bounced.
Whack. A crunch. It clattered to the floor.
Ruffano froze again, ears swiveling.
Nothing. No boots. No shouts.
He exhaled through his nose and creaked the door open. The hinges screamed. He winced.
Inside, darkness. He crawled in.
It was a narrow chamber, barely four feet high, with a floor of packed dirt. Above him hung a rig for a trapdoor mechanism, rusted so thoroughly it looked fused shut. But what caught his eye were the crates.
Four of them. Small. Buried up to the halfway mark in the soil.
He crawled to the nearest and pulled a prybar from his satchel.
Crack. The lid peeled back.
He blinked. Then grinned.
"That damn searat wasn’t lyin’."
He reached in and lifted a strange device.It was a box of dulled, pitted metal. About the size of a book. A hand crank on the side. Twin spindles on top, grating like mesh on the front, and several tiny levers beside a copper plate etched with symbols he didn’t recognize. From the rear, two copper prongs jutted out, wound with a green-tarnished wire.
He cradled it like a sacred text.
"You lovely thing."
Beneath the machine, nestled in the straw, were rolls of wire. Not ordinary spools: these were thin metal tape, with strange grooves pressed into their surface.
He picked one up. Fit it onto one spindle. Slotted an empty roll onto the other.
With the delicacy of a jeweler, he threaded the wire through the internal rollers. It clicked into place.
He cranked the handle, the internals ratcheting dully, until it resisted. He stopped, then flicked a lever.
Crackle. A hiss. Then...music. Wavery. Distant. And then a voice.
"Hello and welcome, this is Rex Plushpaw, with your episode of the Vulpine Imperium Radio Show..."
Ruffano’s eyes went wide. He leaned back and laughed.
"Plushpaw, you beautiful madbeast!"
He cranked the machine once more before stopping the playback. Gently, reverently, he returned it to the crate and clawed at the dirt, freeing the box with quiet urgency.
...
At last, he clambered back through the window, box slung over one shoulder. As he was doing so, his coat caught on a nail.
He yelped as he tumbled, legs in the air, landing squarely on his back, upside-down on the filthy wall dangling from his coat. The crate flew from his grip and landed in a shrub with a whuff of leaves.
He groaned.
From across the way, a beast watched him...
The blueprints, delicate as onion skin and nearly twice as flammable, remained tucked under one arm. He hit the warped floorboards inside with a soft grunt, boots skidding across dust and debris, and froze.
Silence. Good.
He rose to a crouch. All around him, ruin.
The theatre was a skeleton of its former self. What remained of the foyer was lost behind collapsed beams and mildew-choked drapery. The grand chandelier, once the centerpiece of the house, lay in broken splinters where the ceiling had caved in. Shafts of golden morning light spilled through the holes, dust motes swirling in them like dancers called back for a final performance.
He smiled, bitter and toothy, as he stepped through the once-gilded archway into the main auditorium. The stage yawned ahead, tired and splintered, but still standing. The seats were a ruin of upended velvet and broken legs.
"Still better attendance than my last show," he muttered.
He crossed to the stage and climbed onto it with care, paws thudding dully. At center, he stopped, inhaling. There was a smell: old plaster, rot, ash, and something faintly sweet.
He sat.
For a time, Ruffano just dangled his legs off the stage, watching the ghost-audience watch him back. The morning light spilled in behind him, a cheap spotlight. He let the silence linger, as if waiting for a cue.
Then he chuckled, the sound brittle.
"You know, they told me it was a privilege to be silenced? Said I should be honored to be 'corrected,'" he said to no one, voice echoing faintly off the scorched walls. "For the good of the public, for the stability of truth, for the Empress and her glorious Ministries. And the crowd just... nodded. Laughed along."
"But they never did say what was so dangerous about a bit of satire. About asking if the Minister’s hat was on too tight, or if the opera really needed another twenty-minute aria about taxes."
"I bled for this stage. I wept on this wood. And they wiped me off it like a smudge on the Minister's mirror."
"Well...the smudge is back..."
Then, with a soft rustle, he unrolled the blueprints.
Big, complex, and riddled with scrawled notations, the sheets cascaded across the stage like a map to some long-buried kingdom. He flipped through them, frowning.
"Trapdoor, trapdoor... come on, I saw you somewhere..."
He traced lines with a clawtip. Not that page. Nor that one. There.
He paused. His eyes lit up.
"You sly bastard," he whispered. "Stage left. Ten paces."
Hopping off the stage, leaving the blueprints behind, and counted aloud with each step. Nine. Ten. He knelt.
The velvet drape at the edge of the stage had once been a rich crimson. Now, it was moth-eaten, and faded to rust. He ripped it aside with a flourish.
Behind it: a small door, half the size of a cupboard, and a crusted iron padlock barely holding on.
He rummaged in his satchel. Out came a hammer.
Whack. Miss.
Whack. The lock bounced.
Whack. A crunch. It clattered to the floor.
Ruffano froze again, ears swiveling.
Nothing. No boots. No shouts.
He exhaled through his nose and creaked the door open. The hinges screamed. He winced.
Inside, darkness. He crawled in.
It was a narrow chamber, barely four feet high, with a floor of packed dirt. Above him hung a rig for a trapdoor mechanism, rusted so thoroughly it looked fused shut. But what caught his eye were the crates.
Four of them. Small. Buried up to the halfway mark in the soil.
He crawled to the nearest and pulled a prybar from his satchel.
Crack. The lid peeled back.
He blinked. Then grinned.
"That damn searat wasn’t lyin’."
He reached in and lifted a strange device.It was a box of dulled, pitted metal. About the size of a book. A hand crank on the side. Twin spindles on top, grating like mesh on the front, and several tiny levers beside a copper plate etched with symbols he didn’t recognize. From the rear, two copper prongs jutted out, wound with a green-tarnished wire.
He cradled it like a sacred text.
"You lovely thing."
Beneath the machine, nestled in the straw, were rolls of wire. Not ordinary spools: these were thin metal tape, with strange grooves pressed into their surface.
He picked one up. Fit it onto one spindle. Slotted an empty roll onto the other.
With the delicacy of a jeweler, he threaded the wire through the internal rollers. It clicked into place.
He cranked the handle, the internals ratcheting dully, until it resisted. He stopped, then flicked a lever.
Crackle. A hiss. Then...music. Wavery. Distant. And then a voice.
"Hello and welcome, this is Rex Plushpaw, with your episode of the Vulpine Imperium Radio Show..."
Ruffano’s eyes went wide. He leaned back and laughed.
"Plushpaw, you beautiful madbeast!"
He cranked the machine once more before stopping the playback. Gently, reverently, he returned it to the crate and clawed at the dirt, freeing the box with quiet urgency.
...
At last, he clambered back through the window, box slung over one shoulder. As he was doing so, his coat caught on a nail.
He yelped as he tumbled, legs in the air, landing squarely on his back, upside-down on the filthy wall dangling from his coat. The crate flew from his grip and landed in a shrub with a whuff of leaves.
He groaned.
From across the way, a beast watched him...
