Death is Eternal #455 by GIC
The Plunder of Pompador and The Gentleman of Saint Tressien
Contents
The Plunder of Pompador (genre: fantasy comedy)
The Gentleman of Saint Tressien (genre: fantasy of manners)
The Plunder of Pompador
Genre: fantasy comedy
Word count: 506
For two solid weeks, the Kingdom of Pompedor hosted the most uninvited guests in its 800-year history — a particularly rowdy tribe of marauders called the Varshinians, who were not so much interested in conquest as they were in eclectic furniture.
It began on the Feast of the Eel, a local holiday where Pompedorians traditionally fling pickled fish from their balconies while wearing ceremonial slippers. In the midst of this chaos, the city’s gates mysteriously opened themselves — a minor detail later blamed on the royal locksmith’s lactose intolerance — and in marched the Varnishians, led by their fearless and fashionably asymmetrical chieftain, Thunk the Tolerable.
Thunk was not your typical barbarian. He spoke fluent Legalese, carried a briefcase instead of a club and kept detailed spreadsheets of cities he intended to plunder, complete with dietary notes and antique wish lists.
Upon arrival, the Varnishians set about plundering Pompedor. But instead of gold, they were after more peculiar treasures — tufted divans, enchanted footstools, self-fluffing pillows and, most sacred of all, the Singing Armoire of Saint Bletch. The armoire only knew sea shanties, but sang them in five-part harmony and had surprisingly strong opinions on civic policy.
King Plop the Unready, unaware his kingdom had been invaded, initially thought the sudden movement of furniture was part of a new city beautification program spearheaded by the Ministry of Vibes. By the time he realized what was happening, when his throne was sold at a roadside bazaar for two potatoes and a coupon for goat polish, the Varnishians had already redecorated half the capital.
To his credit, Plob tried to negotiate.
“I offer you safe passage,” he declared from atop a borrowed barstool. “Leave us with our pride, our tapestry collection and at least one working chamber pot!”
Thunk considered this.“What condition is the tapestry in?”
“Moderately dusty,” said the king.
Thunk sighed. “Fine. Keep the tapestry. But the chamber pot’s non-negotiable.”
As the days wore on, the citizens of Pompedor discovered that the Varnishians were actually polite houseguests — if you ignored the constant rearranging and occasional goat juggling. They always knocked before ransacking, tipped local waitstaff and only invaded before sundown.
One Varnishian, Ogg the Reasonably Tall, even opened a pop-up boutique selling salvaged end tables. It was wildly successful, mostly because it accepted payment in fermented turnips — the city’s unofficial currency ever since the potato shortage of ’93.
But all things must end. On the 15th day, Thunk declared the city “sufficiently feng shui’d” and ordered a celebratory conga line out of the palace gates.
They left behind several thank-you notes, a large mural depicting a goose fighting a cabbage and — mysteriously — King Plob’s missing underpants atop the Singing Armoire, which now only sang melancholy ballads about betrayal and elastic.
In the end, Pompedor was never quite the same. The people talked of the invasion as a time of confusion, chaos and impeccable interior design. And though King Plop never got his throne back, he did learn to appreciate the humble barstool.
After all, it had excellent lumbar support.
The end
The Gentleman of Saint Tressien
Genre: fantasy of manners
Word count: 1,038
The tallships of the Order of Saint Tressien made landfall in mist.
Three vessels, each cloaked in salted canvas and crowned with the silver eye of their patron, drifted into the mouth of the Oiselet River, a narrow serpent of water coiling beneath the granite heights of Caëlbourg. The city’s ramparts watched their coming with wary indifference, more concerned with the rising tensions between merchant clans than the arrival of silken-robed strangers from across the Silvarienne Sea.
Brother Léo de Forlange stepped ashore with the deliberation of a man unused to uneven ground. His boots, stitched in the manner of the Parlienne Court, sank half an inch into the river mud. He made no sign of discomfort. To his left, Brother Adrien coughed discreetly into a lavender handkerchief, the pale embroidery flashing once, like a moth’s wing.
“Charmin,” Adrien murmured.
Léo said nothing. He surveyed the settlement before them — not quite a town, not quite a camp. Caëlbourg had been carved out of the wilderness by the Duchy of Estival two decades prior, a statement of claim as much as a settlement. Timber-framed halls leaned against each other like drunken noblemen. Smoke rose in idle coils from slate chimneys. Chickens wandered between broken paving stones.
It was no Rouvinne, but it would suffice.
A delegation met them near the customs gate. Three figures: one cloaked in magistrate’s red, one in huntsman’s leathers and the third — oddly — in mourning black, a veil drawn across her face.
“Gentlemen,” said the magistrate, bowing without warmth. “On behalf of the ducal steward, welcome to Caëlbourg.”
Léo returned the bow, just deep enough to satisfy etiquette.
“I am Brother Léo, of Saint Tressien’s second house in Rouvrance. My companion is Brother Adrien of Bellecombe. We come with the blessing of the High Prior, under seal of the Council of Nine.”
“The Council has many seals,” the magistrate said. “Forgive me if I cannot name them all.”
“You need to name only the Lord of Heaven,” Adrien offered, with a flickering smile. “We are His servants.”
The huntsman scoffed. The woman in black remained silent.
Léo studied her. Beneath the veil, her posture was immaculate — not merely noble, but courtly. An exile, perhaps. Or a punishment.
He filed the curiosity away.
By the second week, the brothers had established their house in the upper quarter, repurposing a collapsed merchant’s villa into a place of quiet elegance. Lace curtains hung from the arched windows. A single bell rang each dawn. Children came to watch the foreigners pray.
So, too, came the court.
Caëlbourg’s court was neither grand nor solemn. It convened in a converted grain hall with leaky rafters and moth-eaten banners. The duchess herself was still in Estival, embroiled in succession intrigues, but her steward — the Honourable Marce Gauvraux — was curious enough to host a salon.
“We thought you would be monks,” he told Léo, offering a cup of quince cordial. “Hairshirts and vows and all.”
“We are missionaries,” Léo replied. “Not ascetics.”
“And yet, you wear grey.”
“To better show the dust.”
Gauvraux laughed. “Clever. And the veil?” he gestured toward the far end of the room, where the woman in black sipped wine alone.
“Still silent,” Léo said. “Still present.”
“She is Lady Irénée Calvain. Widowed twice. Distant kin to the duchess. Cursed, they say. She lives in the orchard house, near the cliffs.”
“Does she speak?”
“Not to anyone who might quote her.”
The salon continued — a string quartet performing street dances from Parnivelle, a masked poetry contest, a duel of aphorisms — but Léo remained fixed on Irénée.
She left before the bell tolled midnight. He followed, ten paces behind, never closer.
She did not turn.
By late autumn, the Order had gathered modest followers: two printes, a baker’s niece, the firstborn of a debt-wracked fencer. Léo delivered sermons beneath the hanging lanterns of the orchard house’s grove. Irénée always listened, never speaking, never kneeling.
Adrien had begun collecting verses in the local dialect. “For the Lord’s translation,” he said. “Though I suspect the Lord speaks better grammar.”
Léo approved.
In return, Adrein warned him gently: “She is not for you.”
“She is not of me,” Léo replied. “Nor of this place.”
“That is worse.”
Winter laid claim to Caëlbroug without ceremony. Snow buried the square’s statues, smoke doubled in the chimneys, and the magistrate was found drowned in the river.
A letter arrived from the duchess. She demanded proof of piety — visible proof, such as convents, treaties and tithe receipts. The stewards muttered about relics. The merchants spoke of relics that had already been taken.
Adrien grew ill. His hands shook when he tried to scribe. “The wind speaks too many tongues,” he said. “And one of them hates me.”
Léo administered tonics, none of which helped.
Irénée came to the chapel one night. No veil. Her voice, when she spoke, was dry as candle smoke.
“You have made a mistake.”
“Have I?”
“You think this is about grace.”
He waited.
“It is not,” she said. “It never was.”
She turned away. “They buried the last priest in the orchard. Beneath the quince tree. He wore gold.”
In spring, when the roads opened and the frost retreated, the duchess arrived with her court. Trumpets sounded, silks unfurled. Her herald pronounced her joy at the presence of faith in her lands.
“I am told you wear dust to show humility,” she said to Léo. “Let us see if it hides blood.”
They unearthed the quince tree. Beneath it, bones and coins. The bones had been gnawed.
“Wolves,” Gauvraux muttered.
Irénée stood at the edge of the crowd, her veil once more in place.
“They will accuse you,” Adrien said from his sickbed.
“Let the,” Léo said.
“But you did nothing.”
“I listened.”
That night, the orchard burned.
The Order’s house was spared, but its bell cracked.
In the summer, the duchess sailed back to Estival. Irénée vanished with her. Gauvraux remained behind, now steward in full.
Caëlbroug’s children still came to watch the brothers pray, though they brought fewer questions.
Adrien, pale and trembling, wrote in his journal: The forest speaks. It remembers. But it does not forgive.
Léo kept the cracked bell. It would ring again — when the dust returned.