A Gift for Lord Jesby

Blethius vanished once we reached the top of the stairs, much to Momus' relief. The two of us made our way towards the main doors, stopping in the hallway to take Mother's picture down. Momus looked at the painting for a moment before adding it to the collection in his cloak. "Why particularly did you want this one?"

I gave him a look that indicated he was being deliberately obtuse. He knew perfectly well that she was my mother, having saved me from her in Mellisondra. "I believe you have met the lady."

"Yes, I know. Curious to find her here."

"Is it not, though?" I replied, feigning a puzzled tone. The last thing I wanted him to do was start examining why Mother's picture was hanging with pictures of the keep's master and his immediate family.

"Yes, very curious," he mused, fastening his cloak about his shoulders once more.

"That is why I want it." It was not the best excuse, but it was a plausible one. After all, if I had found her picture hanging in some strange place, I would have taken it anyway.

"What was her name again?"

"I do not believe she gave it." I was quite certain of it, actually.

"That's funny, I seem to remember she did, but, oh well."

We reached the front door at this point, and I attempted to Trump us back to Skeltland. Unfortunately, as I had half expected, nothing happened. Reasoning that perhaps the Shadow could only be accessed from a specific spot, we walked back to our arrival point and I attempted the Trump again, with no more success than before. It did not feel as though someone was blocking my attempts. Rather, it felt like something in the Shadow itself was preventing Trump from working, at least as a means of departing. Was this what Blethius had meant when he said he did not have to let us go? Unwilling to give up so quickly, I tried another of the powers at my disposal, and was quite pleased when my teleport spell deposited us in Skeltland without difficulty. So, the Shadow required one power to enter it, but a second one to depart. How clever. While sorcerers were certainly not uncommon in the Courts, sorcerers with Trump were few and far between. Not a bad method of keeping the riffraff out. Especially when one had a guardian handy to handle the rest.

Momus looked around after we appeared in the main hall, almost as if to reassure himself that we had truly left Father's keep behind. "Well, that was entertaining."

"Yes, yes it was. I am sorry about your friend." And I truly was. There was so much I could have learned from him...

Momus attempted to get a very tragic, very noble look, and said, "We accept these things."

I was not fooled by his act for a minute. "You are assuming he is completely gone, of course."

"Well, you did see his burned, blackened bones."

"I also felt that picture, and the frame. I just cannot see him as the sort who would give up and throw his life away without trying to preserve some...aspect of himself, perhaps?

"That seems to be a fairly acute character judgment."

I smiled at the compliment. "Of course, we still have that frame and picture. I imagine it will hang prominently somewhere?"

"I think it would be a proper gift to give to the Lord Jesby."

"Oh, I am sure it would be." Especially given the...interesting nature of the two when placed together.

"Would you like me to tell him that it's from both of us? From the Chanicuts, congratulating him on his...on whatever?

"But that would take away ever so much from your own efforts." And I did not want to drag my house into this scheme if it backfired.

"Oh, I don't think we need to worry about that."

I raised an eyebrow at the certainty in his tone. "Indeed?"

"He'll obviously recognize me in time. It's just a question of when."

"With an effort like this, I am sure sooner rather than later." Due more to the painting than Momus' charm, of course.

Momus pulled the frame out of his cloak then, and did something I could not quite catch. Then he pulled a vial out of the side of the frame. It appeared that there was a small compartment hidden there. How interesting that Momus had been able to find it. The vial contained some kind of an amber liquid. "I wonder if it's poison?" he mused aloud.

I studied the vial carefully. "There is nothing magical about it, nor any Trump energy present that I can detect."

Momus nodded. "I'll have someone take a look into this."

"Yes. I wonder if there are any other compartments?" Not that he would tell me if there were.

"Not that I noticed immediately. I didn't want to call attention to it because I was afraid that perhaps this Blethius character might display a curiosity all his own."

"Well, yes, that is why I did not choose to ask about it in any great detail. It was a rather odd effect placing the picture on the frame, though." I waited with some interest to see how he responded to that.

He looked at me with some concern. "And how long did you leave that on the frame?"

"Not long."

"Good."

"Something awful would have happened, I imagine?"

"Certainly something uncomfortable."

Indeed. I was now more convinced than ever that he knew precisely what happened when the frame and picture were put together. "Well it did feel uncomfortable. So I stopped."

"Good. Good, good." He looked at me again, and there was just a hint of nervousness. Almost as if he did not trust me quite as much now.

I smiled enigmatically, content to let him worry a bit for the moment, since he had not seen fit to warn me. "I doubt anything really happened. There was not time."

"Time seems to move oddly there, does it not?"

"Exactly."

"Well, I had probably best be going, if you don't mind." He pulled out the painting of Mother and leaned it up against the wall.

"Thank you very much," I said, already thinking of where I would hang it.

"I will, of course, speak nothing of that."

"Thank you." I smiled and indicated Theocritus' final painting. "Are you going to frame that, or are you going to have Steed do it himself?"

"Oh, after, of course, I secure the Duke's permission to hang it someplace prominently where he can view it, I'll set it together myself."

"Be careful," I warned. Just in case I had overestimated his knowledge of the thing.

"Oh, I think I actually have an understanding of how this works. I've framed portraits before."

"I imagine that with artwork of such quality, there is a certain...manner one must go about framing them."

"Oh, I don't know about that, it's just that..." He sighed. "Art's a precious thing, really. You look at the same object day after day and it ceases to become art, and in fact becomes something else, something burdensome to you after a while. The key to any good piece of art is to appreciate it in small doses."

I nodded, beginning to comprehend what he was so obliquely stating.

"This is one of those things that I suspect..." He sighed again. "Well, perhaps I'm not quite the critic that Steed is, but I'm sure seeing it on a daily basis he'll come to appreciate it more in time than I ever would."

"No doubt." I smiled. "Well..."

"Until the next, Melanie? It's been a pleasure."

"I can say the same," I responded, before he bowed and left for Meath. And truly I could. Despite the disappointment of Theocritus' death, I had found several things of interest on our trip. Especially the Spindle. I would have to return there soon, and do something about the time flow problem we had encountered. It simply would not do to be absent from the Courts for long stretches of time while I attempted to study the thing.

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Last modified on November 3, 1999 by Kris Fazzari.