Salem's Witches (Neitherlands Book 1), page 30
Madame Xantiplam gave the director of the opera the sign that everything was ready. A moment later all lights went out, the music began, and the curtains went up.
The premiere of The Ring of Xantiplam, the first act in the celebrations for the fortieth anniversary of the Dominion, had just begun.
Sister Theresa stared at the crowd gathered before her: She always thought some people would go to the gathering, but the final turnout hadn’t so much beaten all expectations as it had repeatedly bludgeoned them with a hammer, stabbed them in the neck, and then thrown them to a piranha-infested river. That is to say, there were easily a thousand people in there, which in turn meant the yard at House Xantiplam was about to burst.
Most of those present she didn’t know, but she knew many of them had been a part of her resistance, with more than a handful having rushed the church to rescue her. She didn’t need to ask who; the cheer amount of people with visible wounds spoke for them. Other than those there were the witches, of course, but more importantly she had managed to get Annabella’s mother to attend.
It hadn’t been easy.
The woman insisted on a wedding and, when she refused on the grounds of it being about as disrespectful as can be, she refused to attend. She was forced to talk with the woman who accompanied her, another lunatic called Jane, who had somehow been more open to the idea of the service being a simple gathering where people remembered Annabella and nobody got married. They convinced her, although Sister Theresa had feared finding invitations to the wedding in the newspaper, something that luckily hadn’t happened.
Not that Annabella’s mother hadn’t talked to the press. Some of the reports about the Quackology incident quoted Annabella as the daughter of a virgin mother, and Sister Theresa was sure she knew just who told them that. She was also sure that person hadn’t been a virgin in a number decades, judging by their demeanor and their insistence on telling everyone they had been born again a virgin under the influence of John. She was sure the newspapers had then twisted the comment to sell more copies, as they were prone to do.
“A disgrace, as this was…” she said, bringing her speech to a close, “We must remember why this all happened. We must remember Annabella as a brave warrior, of course, but we must admit what went right and what went wrong. And beyond everything, we must accept the cause of recent events: It wasn’t Annabella’s religion that was a problem, or the cult of Quackology. The root problem was power.”
Sister Theresa studied those attending the event. She knew many of them had never approached a church or a religious service of any kind, and was grateful they seemed to be enjoying the service, or at least as much as one can enjoy a funeral. “The problem was religion attaining real power, and people fighting over it. It was not a problem of belief, but a problem of using your own beliefs to bully others into obeying you. There is nothing wrong with believing, my dear friends. We all believe in something after all, don’t we?
“I will take to heart some words the Dominatrix uttered recently, as she banned religions from exacting justice on their own: ‘You are free to believe anything you want, but you are not free to tell others what to believe or to coerce them into belief’ Belief in New Wakilork is completely free, and anyone who thinks it should be enforced is little but a bigot. Using wars or threats to keep people believing in your religion doesn’t make you holy, it makes you damned. And with this message, I say to you: Let’s all go in peace. Let us all remember who Annabella Bostwick was during her life and learn both from her victories and her failures. And to any gods who might be listening, let us ask them for Annabella’s soul to find peace.”
The opera was drawing to a close. The second-to-last aria was over and the house was full of people standing and applauding it. Some did so because they didn’t know it was customary to not applaud individual arias during an opera, while others knew of the custom but did not care for it. Regardless, what would soon be called the most beautiful musical play ever produced in New Wakilork[47] was nearing its end.
For the last scene and the last aria the Valkyrie was to appear, bringing with her warnings about what happened to those who did not trust their friendly local Dominatrix. Ms. Alma Matter had been cast in the role. She was a huge woman, bigger than most in the city, who had been blessed with what was considered the most beautiful voice ever heard in The Neitherlands. It was said that when she sang in the early morning all birds stopped chirping so they could hear her majesty.
She walked to the center of the darkened stage and the spotlight went on right on top of her. She stared at her audience, now silent and filled with expectation. She took a breath, opened her mouth…
And then the fat lady sang.
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[1] Axes were very cheap in New Wakilork. Most axe factories were owned by the Dominion, so the population was often forced to buy them or else.
[2] Cities usually shine at specific things — It’s not uncommon for a city or zone to be called the jewel of an empire, for example. In The Neitherlands New Wakilork had, with no small amount of effort, cemented its place as the sewers.
[3] A contraction for “Mysterious mist” meaning “Mysterious mist that comes out of nowhere”. Yes, this was a common enough issue in the Neitherlands for people to have a specific word to describe it.
[4] There were children all the way down in Ussuck who had never heard of her yet sometimes reported seeing her in their nightmares, perfectly describing her looks while shuddering and crying.
[5] Not only was the Resident Liar an actual position in the Dominion, it was one of utmost importance. It was she who kept track of every single lie told by the Dominion, and there were plenty of those to go around. In fact, it was often thought that the Dominion should drop all pretense and hire a small country for this task instead of throwing it all on a single person.
[6] Usually shortened as DIE. This acronym was, fittingly, the last thing conspirators saw after being found out by the Dominion.
[7] Wakilork O’s, featuring the faces of celebrities from New Wakilork. Salem had once signed a contract to be featured in it, but whoever was in charge instead put the face of a parrot. He sued.
[8] Red wine, the one rulers drink. He considered other variations to be for losers and promptly eliminated them from any of his meals. This put him at odds with Madame Xantiplam, who loved her champagne with cherries and once had tried to jail anyone who even pretended to enjoy the travesty that red wine was.
[9] This statement could be contested, depending on what one might consider pretty.
[10] There was another couch in the room, but Desiderio found it offensive enough that Betelgeuse was soaking his rug after entering his house uninvited, so the floor had to do.
[11] Insofar as one can say the whole of New Wakilork doesn’t look like it’s been hit by several natural disasters in a row, one after the other, with some of them coming back for seconds.
[12] In all fairness, in the Neitherlands “Traditional Medicine” often included somebody wearing a skirt made of leaves dancing around and hitting you with branches after bathing you in the blood of a recently sacrificed calf.
[13] It was better not to mention what happened on the tenth time. To prevent that time from ever coming, Sarah always skipped her tenth chance of making a scene.
[14] Not that it had gained much to begin with. Or any at all.
[15] In true New Wakilork fashion, some of those involved in gossip or tabloid operations had commanded the creation of an actual magical grapevine that brought over the latest gossip in the form of the juiciest grapes in the city. Sometimes they were used to make wine, which was extremely expensive and thought to contain such amount of gossip on everyone it could make lesser minds go crazy.
[16] When in person, usually he didn’t limit himself to moments of silence. In parties, in fact, he was known to release venomous spiders into the room to add that extra thrill to his gossiping.
[17] It was indeed the first time she ever got slapped during a discussion. No one who knew her could understand just how she had made it that far with such an attitude without getting slapped, and her record was one that would stand unchallenged for centuries.
[18] Because so much as implying the opposite was punished with a visit to the scorpion den.
[19] As a matter of national security all people found in the premises of the Dominion Dungeons were considered to be escapees and immediately jailed regardless of their actual escapee status.
[20] Those made up of people who make a living out of never working a day in their lives, yet making everyone else around them work every single day of their lives, that’s who.
[21] Yes, they had makeup in prison. It was of very low quality and smeared quite easily, as the witches found out during the row.
[22] He was very good at selective hearing.
[23] In New Wakilork, laws aren’t so much signed these days. To show the importance and might of the Dominatrix, it is said she simply wills them into existence.
[24] He dealt with the worst hangover ever quite regularly, partly due to an inability to recall previous hangovers each time he went out drinking. Which, by the way, happened often enough that he could hardly remember what being sober and not hungover felt like.
[25] In addition to other nights belonging to days ending with a y.
[26] The Thief Rulebook, Chapter Three, Section Eight, Part One: A thief does not enter by the front door, as a matter of respect for his victims. Part two dealt with how good victims should, whenever possible, make entrance by the back door easy to prevent any property damage.
It was Veronika who told them about the rule, and her friends decided not to ask just why she knew them so well. They eventually went with it because, if they were caught as unregistered thieves, perhaps doing so while following guild ruling would ease the penalty.
[27] It got its name from the inability earlier researchers displayed when it came to naming it. This inability set in of sudden and came coupled with an inability to move, breathe, or do any of those things living people do.
[28] There were guilds for about anything in New Wakilork, all of them fiercely protective of their territory. It was therefore impossible to do anything in the city without risking the anger of one guild or another.
[29] Which wasn’t TOO well, but at least well enough everyone in it understood they could be worse off so it couldn’t be that bad anyway.
[30] In New Wakilork there’s always somebody hiding around waiting for somebody else to say they need a drink. It is believed one only needs to think on their need to drink to immediately summon all kinds of booze peddlers.
[31] Which included large amounts of procrastinating with healthy doses of doing nothing at all sprinkled in for fun.
[32] This included large amounts of leaning on random walls, staring at their own fingernails, and whistling. Not at all suspicious behavior.
[33] During the Stonefountain Riots a group of birds got mad the Dominatrix demolished their favorite fountain in town. They voiced their discontent by doing what birds do best right as the Dominatrix left the fortress for a very important meeting.
[34] She had not. Even as a young girl Madame Xantiplam had accomplished the notorious feat of getting kicked out of kindergarten after telling her caretaker exactly what she should do with all those chores she kept delegating on her.
[35] Which had been put there at request from a very wild architect who fantasized that, one day, they could have giant birds deliver things by air through it.
[36] Consisting partly of the same people who first kidnapped Annabella some time back. They saw this operation as an encore.
[37] They went to grab Sgt. General McCormick’s hair and his wig came out. The scarce education the goons had made them believe they had scalped the poor guy, so they left him mostly unharmed and went to celebrate the feat.
[38] This part of the plan included the creative use of a cliff, a broom, a slippery brick, and a baby crocodile.
[39] A real and very respected profession in New Wakilork, although one of the few ones without a guild.
A guild of blackmailers was once started, but its members retorted to blackmailing one another in a fight for the guild leader position. After a happy accident every single secret each member had on the rest went public, destroying the guild and all of its members for life.
Needless to say, current day blackmailers keep close tabs on each other and often threaten with going public if anyone so much as thinks a guild would be a good idea.
[40] A record the Dominion was much too glad to relinquish.
[41] Made up mostly of food and lodging, which he already had before, but inside the church he didn’t have to work for them.
Or so he thought at the time.
[42] Although you wouldn’t guess just from walking through the city.
[43] Who wore his underpants over his regular pants, used an old, ratty bedsheet as a cape, and got regularly beat up by juvenile delinquents.
[44] Operated by enslaved fairies who threatened every now and then with unionizing.
[45] The wings they sold on WakMart weren’t known for allowing people to fly, and those who tried using them for such a feat always found themselves getting closely acquianted with the ground.
[46] Actually, even the throne room sometimes smelled like death and decay. It was impossible for it not to when so many of its visitors had exactly that on their fate.
[47] After a lots of bribery and a variety of threats from the Dominion to the press.
Tizzy, Salem's Witches (Neitherlands Book 1)
