City of Sinister Angles

When I Am Through With You...

It was the considered opinion of Corliss Shrewed that women should not carry guns. Firearms were vulgar and inelegant, suitable only for killing foreigners as efficiently as possible, which was men's work (or, at a minimum, lowborn women). A refined lady of breeding and sophistication, on the other hand, should only kill peers. It was unladylike to fight for any reason other than personal or family honor. Other murders would be more properly delegated to servants, as necessary.

This was a common sentiment among her peers. While there were still any number of noblewomen who did carry firearms, well-hidden of course, none of them would dare use one in a duel with another woman. To do so would be to invite scandal and provoke outrage. The perpetrator would quickly find themselves uninvited to any number of teas and dinner parties. It simply wasn't done.

Shi Totenkopf, the so-called "Pirate Queen of the Occident", had a blatant disregard for this point of propriety, as she seemed to have for any semblance of civilized behavior. Far less settled than her husband she spent more time at sea than luxuriously idling in Thule, which was unseemly. At least her husband had the good sense and refinement to cease piracy once it had bought him a life of hedonistic excess.

Shi had even taken her husband's name after marriage, like some kind of degenerate Carpathian. It put the dignity of their entire lineage in question. What of their children? Worse than that, what of the heraldry?

The general sense, however, was to keep humoring the Totenkopfs until such time as their continued backing of the Oberon scrip ceased to be the only thing holding back a currency crisis. The entire monetary system was, in effect, held hostage by these new money pirates. It was almost enough to put one off hosting fancy tea at all.

So there was Shi, the bilge-reeking pirate queen, openly wearing a pistol at a lady's tea. And there was Corliss with no other option than to stew in her seething indignance.

The third-best solarium in the Shrewed palace-estate had been decorated lightly but elegantly, just what a dozen or so slaves could put together in a few days. It was beautiful yet understated. Corliss didn't have any time to be pleased with herself about it, however, as she had to carefully save all her emotions for being livid about Shi.

The guests were all sat around a table spilling microscopic drops of finest Cathayan tea on Corliss's nice Zerzurabic tablecloth. It only really bothered Corliss when Shi did it. Besides Corliss and her vile foe, her friends Deira Langschwert and Esmerelda Payne were there, as well as all the other women whose peerage, gender and age range entitled them to an invitation: Oriel Ghulzhan, Priscila Tenebrio, and Sweeting Bodkin. Jaquelot Baal was unable to attend due to madness.

The first cups were finished, and the slaves appeared to refill them. Corliss signaled one of the slaves, who brought over a tray of cookies. Corliss made a big show of offering one to each of the guests as though she had something to do with making them. Once the others had all been served Corliss begrudgingly offered the tray of cookies to Shi. Shi waved her off.

"Take a cookie," said Corliss.

"No," said Shi, who remembered at the last moment to add "Thank you."

"Everyone else has a cookie," said Corliss.

"I don't want a cookie," said Shi.

"Just take a cookie," said Corliss, the poison seeping through her sweetness "You don't have to eat it."

"I'd rather not," said Shi "Wasting food is uncouth."

Corliss's pupils dilated.

"Did you just call me uncouth?" asked Corliss.

"That would seem to depend on whether you're intent on wasting food, wouldn't it?" replied Shi.

Never for a second breaking eye contact with Shi, and blazing with hate, Corliss handed the tray of cookies to a nearby slave boy. She carefully removed the glove of her right hand, before throwing it on the ground in front of the pirate queen as violently as she could manage. This wasn't very violently at all.

"I demand satisfaction," Corliss seethed.

"Ha!" Shi laughed "Over a cookie?"

"I appoint Esmerelda Payne as my second," Corliss pushed on.

"As you like it," said Shi "I appoint Anastas Draco as my second."

Esmerelda stepped forward "As the challenged party, Shi Totenkopf, the privilege of choosing weapons is yours."

"I choose pistols," said Shi.

Corliss saw white. The sheer, impossible, unmitigatable audacity of the woman! Corliss had never been so insulted, and rage flooded her body to the tips. Dashing forward and drawing her sword in a single movement she leapt at Shi. Corliss was only able to get in one slash, which Shi barely dodged, before Esmerelda and Oriel grabbed her arms and pulled her off. Corliss took some small satisfaction in the fact that she was able to cut the sleeve of Shi's coat, damaging it beyond tailoring.

* * *

By attacking outside the parameters of the duel without bothering to bribe the witnesses first, Corliss had violated every rule of dueling, good taste, civility, and tea. Overnight she became ostracized from polite society. She couldn't bribe her way into a tea party, and her own functions were attended only by her slaves. Shi Totenkopf had inflicted upon Corliss everything that she herself, as a filthy stinking pirate, deserved. The seeds of hate planted at that tea party grew into a beautiful and lush garden.

It was not difficult to track Shi Totenkopf down, she never went too long without returning to that ugly ship of hers. After watching it for a few weeks it was a trivial matter to deduce Shi's patterns and arrange to meet her when she was alone. In the lower levels of Thule, where the docks are, it is always night.

The stink of the docks was deep and intimate: a mix of the creeping miasma of the lower levels, water rot, and dead sea creatures. The creak of wood and the screeching of strangewings mixed with million individual sounds of the ocean to create a cloak of noise.

Shi came stumbling down the dock, visibly drunk. Corliss stepped into her path. She drew her weapon.

The sword Red Ribbon was a genuine Hildebrand, a family heirloom that dated back to the time before the famous swordsmiths swore fealty to House Ghulzhan. It was perfectly balanced, aesthetically pleasing, and impossibly sharp. Truly this was a weapon worthy of a lady.

"Shi Totenkopf," Corliss barked "I've come to kill you and erase the stain you've left on my honor."

Shi turned around to face Corliss.

"Dogs," she said "Don't have any honor."

With that, she fired her old smokey pistol. The ball hit Corliss in the stomach. She stumbled backwards once before falling into the ocean.