Cabbages and Kings

by

Seanan McGuire 

Ed. note: The following correspondence was found at the bottom of what seemed to be a naturally occurring sinkhole in an undisclosed location in Florida. It was provided to our university for analysis. While the text was not originally composed in English, it has proven surprisingly easy to translate, with several linguists withdrawing from the project after claiming they had seen the text rearranging itself as they were preparing to move on to the next section. While this is clearly untrue, it must be stated clearly that the wax seals are of a hitherto unknown composition, and that their varied scents have caused disorientation, distraction, and even mild nausea in our researchers.

It is the opinion of this institution that these letters are some form of hoax, perpetrated for unknown reasons. They are meticulously crafted, and that, indeed, is their downfall: the paper and wax have been treated against the elements.

Each of the seals has been sampled, for documentational purposes, and found to contain unknown chemical compounds. They are being analyzed now.

*

The seal: silver wax with a dusting of black glitter, ground obsidian mixed into the wax, fine enough not to change the color, aggressive enough to retain its sparkle. The faint scent of lavender and hyssop, the taste of pine. It is an elegant thing, simple and without flaw.

MY DEAREST L.;

It was with the utmost delight I received your most recent missive. I had feared our correspondence might be interrupted by the unpleasantness between our masters, who have, after all, shown a tendency toward strong opinions over the behavior of their underlings.

Not that I could ever think you lesser than any other, my sweet. You are the very fairest of our kind, a star to be hung in any firmament, and any who doubt your brilliance need only look, for the briefest of moments, upon it. Should they survive, unworthy fools that they are, they will be fortunate to behold you before the nova comes and all are wiped away.

We shall speak, my love, of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, as the sages say; of cabbages and kings. Believe me when I say your beauty and your adoration are all that I desire. The worlds faith in me may waver, but mine in you shall never be anything but absolute. I remain, as always, your servant,

N.

The seal: red wax swirled with the thinnest opaline streaks, the tracks of mineral snails dancing through the crimson. The strong scent of cinnamon masking the sweeter, more distant scents of myrrh and honey, of rose petals soaked in milk and ground to powder. The sigil is complicated, delicate, easily destroyed.

MY SWEET N.;

How I ache for your pointless pleasantries when I am denied them! The nights seem shallow things without you near, the workings of the grand and glorious equally without point to praise. If only you had not been so unfittingly banished--but ah! There is no point to thinking on what cannot be undone, mistakes that cannot be unmade. You are gone and I am here, and it will take a shift in the universe to bring us back together.

Your gift was well received, and such a sweet trinket. I have returned to you a favor of my own. See what you can make of this, and whether it might spark you to even greater heights.

You speak of my glories, my dearest, as if a single star could a midnight make. You shine even when the moon itself has gone, when all light has been sealed away. I could make of you the only star of my regard and still spend my evenings well contented, well illuminated, and prepared for whatever may come.

Grant me grace, my love, and if you cannot grant me grace, grant me only ever time, that we may be reunited in a world made bright and new and fit for our affections. I remain, as always, your beloved,

L.

The seal: white wax brushed thin over a central, sculpted rose of the purest black, creating a hundred gradations of gray beneath the concealing shell. The scent of charcoal, pepper, and freshly burnt paper, clinging to the page like a promise, or a prayer. It is plain, elegant, impossible to replicate. There will never be another seal of its kind.

MY DEAREST L.;

How I wait upon your missives, hands trembling, chest tight with the strain of breathing air which you have not yet perfumed with your presence! There are days I fear I will suffocate under the weight of the burdens we have been given but did not ask for, that we must bear with dignity and with as much grace as can be afforded.

But oh, my dear, if you were here with me, if you were released from your silvery chains and permitted to fall like the star you deserve to be, I could show you such wonders as the sky has never dreamt of, such glories as would set the foundations of creation to shake, and there would be no need for such perambulations as we must now perform.

If only the barriers between us would be removed, so many palaces would stand. If only those above us would listen to reason, so many empires would endure. But is that not, as it has always been, the trouble? I am now, as I will ever always be, your servant,

N.

The seal: red wax swirled with black, as bitter as a bruise, the edges between the two colors muddied and distorted until it becomes difficult to tell one from the other. The scent is bourbon and belladonna, rum and rhododendron. Multiple poisons, of both the body and the mind, swirled and intermingled as the colors it supports.

MY SWEET N.;

How pleasant it was to hear from you again so quickly upon the heels of our last exchange, and with such sweetness in your words! Truly, I am favored above all others, to have such nothings whispered for my eyes and ears alone, when all others must walk bereft of your affections. If I were a more generous sort, I would spread your love far and wide, that all might benefit from it as I do, that all might understand what it is to be beloved. Alas for the world, I am not so generous; even were I inclined to try, I could not share you so freely. You are mine and mine alone, and you shall remain so, even until the sky itself is turned to ashes.

They will fall like rain, my dearest, and blanket the world in soft gray, like the wings of the mourning dove, and who could ask a better carpet for our dancing?

The politics of time and tide remain as strained as ever they have been, with one hand washing the other, only to pinch and slap when authoritys back is turned. It seems a small, petty thing, to rail against authority when circumstances are so turned against us, but it is, at times, all that can be done. We complain. We protest. We do not concede to the simplistic calm of the status quo. We remain the thorn on the rose of supposed perfection, too small and blunt to slit a throat, but sharp enough to bloody a hand.

One day, when the canyons run red, they will look back upon our thorns in discontent, understanding what we are, what we were, and what they have failed to prevent us becoming.

Endure. That is all I can or will ask of you now, when the sun burns brightly and the skies are clear. I remain, as ever, your beloved,

L.

The seal: black wax swirled with red, a response, a reflection. As with the previous seal, the two colors are smudged together until they become impossible to pick apart. That is, perhaps, the intent. The scent is of whiskey and chocolate, bitter and alluring at the same time, yet strangely repulsive when studied closely. There is something else there, something vile and almost obscured.

MY DEAREST L.;

You are the most brilliant, most cunning, most terrible of women, and were I not already so privileged as to count myself well-regarded in your eyes, I would fall into such a despair as has never been seen on any level of the firmament. To spend another moment absent your glories is to know true tortures, tortures such as our supposed superiors could never once conceive.

I have considered your gifts and found them charming. I hope only that you will be equally delighted by my offerings, fragile and fragmentary as they are. When earth and sky come together, it seems to me that anything might be possible--but ah! These may be the ravings of a man who dies of thirst in sight of the only spring he has ever known, unable to drink to slake his desires.

Only tell me that I have interpreted you correctly, only tell me that I am still good and welcome in your eyes, and I will be forevermore your slave, in this world and in any other which may as yet arise. I remain, as always, your devoted servant,

N.

The seal: plain silver wax, only lightly dusted with glitter, only lightly scented with monkshood. It is a grave departure from what has come before.

MY SWEET N.;

Tread carefully, my beloved. You interpret signs that are not there, and other eyes than ours may read these missives, causing a small misunderstanding to spread like a poisoned root, damaging all that it touches. I would not have you culled like a common weed.

I remain, as ever, your beloved,

L.

The seal: white wax with a single red drop at its center, like a heart pierced by a thorn. It smells of marzipan and foggy air, a soft, cobwebby scent which clings to the nose for only a moment before falling away.

MY DEAREST L.;

Of course you are, in this as in all things, correct. I do not know how I allowed my heart to overstep my head so completely. Please accept my most sincere apologies if I have caused you any inconvenience or discomfort. It was never my intent. I merely pine without you, unable to contain my feelings in any logical lines, scattering them across the landscape like flower petals, to blossom where they may.

I find some small hope in that you sign still as my beloved, not retreating behind the understandable and--yes--forgivable veil of formality which we have so carefully pierced between us. If love can still flower in this unfriendly soil, there is still a chance that we will find a way through these trials, however unfairly set, and be made new in some bright future where all trials have been set aside and we, the soldiers of the last and greatest war, may be united.

I remain, as always, your devoted servant,

N.

The seal: gray wax. It stinks of rot. It stinks of the gray. It has no clear shape, but shifts and twists when directly regarded. It is unsettling.

MY SWEET N.;

Now.

L.

The seal: golden wax, bright as sunlight, mixed with chunks of pyrite which glisten and gleam in the light. It smells of ozone. It smells of fire. It smells of something falling very far, terrible and unforgiving. It smells of fear.

MY BELOVED LAILAH;

As you have spoken, so has it been done. How good it will be, to hold you in my arms again, to fold my wings around you and feel your breath against my skin.

It has been raining the bodies of angels for three days now, unseen by mortal eyes, contaminating all they touch. There will be no rainbow to follow this flood. There will be no redemption, no forgiveness for those who would displace us, would keep us parted and pretend they know the will and word of the divine solely because they held the sharper sword when last we clashed. We have learned to sharpen our own blades. We have learned so much more than they intended teaching.

The lords of creation who would forbid us the congress of our own hearts have erred for the last time. We will not be denied the lives that we have crafted together, nor will we be prevented from coming together, where the twilight steals the day, where the lines of right and wrong can be redrawn to former a truer image.

The image of your smile, perhaps.

They will translate our letters, upon the Earth. They will complete the incantation without ever knowing what they do. They will free the nine spirits of pestilence contained within the seals, the nine spirits of death and disease, and those spirits, as they fatten upon the flesh of angels, will do what they were made for. The age of man will end. The age of gods will resume, as it was always intended to do. And we, my love, will be together.

When these words are read upon the Earth, we will be together.

I remain, as I have always been, as I will always be, your devoted servant,

NERGAL.