Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The mail boat had not come for weeks. The radio station had been destroyed by shelling, by the mysterious submarine that had warned the islanders in a heavy accent to steer clear of the blasts. And the Derby Allen, the only boat the islanders had capable of reaching the mainland in stormy seas, had not returned from its last fishing cruise and was now a week overdue.

All decisions on the island were taken collectively, by ‘parliament’ and consensus. But the Rev. Argyle had insisted that the blackout was a test of faith, and that a ‘parliament’ risked further helpings of the wrath that the sinful islanders had already brought upon themselves.

It was not until fuel began to run low and influenza broke out, taking Argyle and seven other able-bodied islanders with it, that the ‘parliament’ was finally gathered. And though they voted to ask for government aid and evacuation, the question remained: how would they make their request known?

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The differences are subtle, but they are there. Sometimes when you look at the house, there will be three dormers atop the roof. Sometimes there will be four. Balustrades are there sometimes, sometimes not. The paint varies in color, and people have reported siding made of wood as well as polyvinyl.

What is clear to me is that #663 Eastpoint Ave isn’t really a house anymore, even if it ever was. Rather, it’s something pretending to be a house, a camouflage of some kind. It’s hoping we don’t look too close and don’t connect the dots.

But that’s just what I mean to do.

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They say that she drives around town in a white hearse, an older one, from the 80s. It’s never carried a dead body, she ordered it from the factory, but no one is sure why.

When you see that white hearse on the road, with its meaningless silver bars on the side like folded wings, you slow down. You get over. Or she’ll bear down on you and run you off the road. Maybe that’s why she chose a hearse, because it’s solidly built.

They also say that if you accept a ride from her, you’re never seen again. I’m not sure I believe that, since the sort of thing that vanishes people without a trace isn’t the sort of thing that buys hearses from the factory. But I think it hits on a key point of the whole thing.

I think she drives a hearse so people will leave her alone.

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To all students, honored guests, and curious passersby whom the threads of fate have brought here, I bid you welcome. You may ask what purpose there is in celebrating the life of an immortal; to that I say what greater challenge could there be, to speak of what has been spoken of forever and still find something new in the telling? These words are, in many ways, my gift.

I have known many joys in my time here in the halls of the Mercura Academy, from my earliest days as an initiate polishing floors to my current tenure as a Grand Scholar polishing minds. It has been ageless centuries of knowledge and wisdom for me here, lit by the light of discovery and warmed by the intense love I have felt–we all have felt–for Nevra, our beloved Witch Queen.

I still remember, when I had first gotten it into my mind to enter the Dark Room for my Ordeal, Nevra drew me aside and asked what I foresaw. That has always been my gift and my curse, to see plainly the threads of fate which stretch out and intertwine before us, much like it has always been the Witch Queen’s gift and curse to inspire her students to ever-greater heights of learning and achievement. I told her that I saw two threads leaving that room; one bore me to ever-greater feats of arcane discovery, and one was a miserable shadow of death.

That day, I survived – I survived the Ordeal that we must all pass through to prove our worthiness to the Witch Queen, the fire in which we are tempered. But I have often thought of those two threads in the Dark Room, the thread of discovery and the thread of death. When my research seemed at a dead end, when all seemed lost, I reflected upon the alternative, and all that beloved Nevra has given us.

Now I wonder if perhaps I was mistaken. Could it be that I have followed the thread of death’s shadow all these long and many years?

After all, we Grand Scholars of the Witch Queen are bound to the Academy for all eternity. Once we have survived the Ordeal, our sole purpose is to produce research and the arcane. We worship our Queen with our minds and bodies forever. I ask you: is that not a purgatory? Is that not a hell? For what is an afterlife but an eternity in the service of, under the heel of, a capricious deity?

None here have ever seen the Dark Room of the Witch Queen, none but we Grand Scholars, and I hope that you never do. It is a cruel machine, a murder engine, and Nevra’s most promising students are its meals and repast. What just and loving goddess would need such a thing? What just and loving goddess would want it? The Ordeal requires an hour in that chamber of horrors, but it might as well be a year for all the hundreds of lives it has claimed. The souls of those who have failed haunt me in my waking life, even as I have relied upon them to drive my quest for discoveries. Lectra knows of what I speak, and Richenda. My dear brother, here with me today, knows in the most bitter way of all.

The Nevra we have all seen is a Witch Queen indeed, insatiable in her hunger for knowledge of the arcane arts. We have put aside our health, our friendships, and even our love of anything but Nevra herself, in the pursuit of knowledge. She directed us to cast aside our familiar bonds as relics of an old world, of dead lives. New life was denied us, for who could need a child when they were in possession of life eternal? There could only be love of, and love for, our dear Witch Queen.

And what has the Witch Queen done with all her knowledge of life and death? What has she done with secrets carved from the bodies of innocents in order to make strides in their research? I have loved pursuing new ways of enriching and lengthening lives with Nevra. Once I thought it was a noble and worthy calling, but slowly the lives that we have achieved have become cursed. The Witch Queen has build a gilded cage for all of us, and I have been complicit in this, singing sweetly the whole time.

What do the threads tell me now, when I look into the future farther than I have ever been able to, or dared? I see that the people, Nevra’s people, need death. They–you–ache for release. I can see this as clearly as I’ve ever seen anything. Death must walk among the people once more, for without death, life is void of meaning. I see clearly now that this entire place exists only to please Nevra, to feed her insatiable need for adoration. Immortality is lonely, and we are the toys and trinkets with which the Witch Queen surrounds herself in order to feel whole.

You don’t know that you want death, but you do. You’ve longed for it for so long. This whole kingdom is built from bones and we’re the living corpses that haunt its streets. You and I are dancing ghosts stuck in an endless waltz. The time has come to end things, to give death back its reign, before the Witch Queen gathers the threads of fate into her own hands and ushers in a terrible world where she has slain death itself.

But I am forgetting myself! This is a celebration, after all, and what is a celebration without gifts? Gifts for Nevra, gifts from her three Grand Scholars!

The first birthday gift is from Lectra the Infector. It’s called the Long Farewell; you may have heard of it. A poison so deadly that the gods themselves would wither and die if it touched their lips. Sometimes it takes week to take effect, sometimes only days, but death is a guarantee. Everyone who has touched the wine will bid adieu, even if they merely brushed a bottle in passing.

“It’s been a pleasure, my queen. May my gift leave you trembling, breathless, flushed. Do not weep for your lost years, for the last moments will be as aeons. Pain is the ultimate immortality.”

And, of course, Richenda has a gift to bestow as well, do you not, my pale and wan cutter of threads?

“My lady, whisper low and hear my plea. My gift unwrapped is but a token, for what follows is the barren rage of death’s eternal cold. Death your bones with dust shall cover, for no love toward others in that bosom sits. A wyvern’s bone, not yet still in its grave, for those for whom a death envenomed is too slow.”

And now, my dear Witch Queen, dearest Nevra, I give to you my gift: this final prophecy. I have followed the threads of fate to their conclusion, and they tell me thus. You, who has long sought to conquer death, shall see your long life ended by the one you love most.

We leave you now with our gifts; enjoy them to the full. Happy birthday, my beloved.

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Sheriff Theodore “Teddy” Decker Jr.
Occupation: Businessman, law enforcement
Age: 70

Teddy Decker is the scion of the Decker clan, a family that has had an outsize presence in Deerton ever since Decker’s Drugs opened in 1938. He is the sole owner and proprietor of the only pharmacy, only grocery store, and two of the three gas stations in town, along with all three apartment complexes. His father, Teddy Sr., was a widely beloved figure who offset his business ruthlessness with canny PR. Teddy Jr. has never felt any need to do so, and his frequent appearances at city council and school board meetings to air his views coupled with his free-spending ways have guaranteed that he is well-known to the populace.

Two years ago, after making noises in that direction for many years, Teddy Decker ran for sheriff and ousted the incumbent on a platform of being tough on crime and cracking down on corruption. He has since proceeded to use his power to harass people he doesn’t like, line his pockets with city contracts, and generally act with impunity. The Deerton City Council, including the Mayor, have shown themselves to be unable or unwilling to do anything to interfere with Decker acting according to his whims of the moment. As a big fish in a small pond, he hasn’t yet attracted the attention of anyone who has both the will and the power to rein him in.

Trivia: Decker is a narcissist at heart, but he does genuinely believe that his family knows what’s best for Deerton and that his methods are the solution to arresting the town’s terminal decline. His one disappointment is in his only child, Theodora Decker, and his grandson Theodore Decker IV. He considers them both to be simpering weaklings, and other than allowing them money, he has nothing but contempt for them.

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We are all curmudgeons-to-be
Our pursuits future dotage
Fodder for youngster’s jokes
As has happened to everyone
Since we first stood upright

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The box had the address of the old archdiocese office on it, the one that the archives had moved away from in 1987 after the former bishop had bought a nicer building across town. Delicately wrapped inside the box was a ceramic nun doll, midcentury most likely, cushioned with straw and with a folded note upon her tiny habit.

“I trapped a demon in this doll decades ago but my time grows nigh. Please exorcise it for me, for when I die, the ties that bind it will be broken.”

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Nevra, our witch and also our queen
Her abode holds never before seen
A powerful magic protects and keeps whole
For none may enter who have human souls
And yet a contradiction here we must stand
The doors you must open with only human hands
If the worthy can puzzle this conundrum away
They’re welcome to come in and welcome to stay
But woe be to any who fails at this test
For Nevra will send them to eternal rest

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Name: Syd
Age: ??
Occupation: Spy

The Margrave’s agents are all people from alternate versions of Deerton that hope for a better, perfect, version of the town once all competing and imperfect Deertons have been erased from every dimension. That part’s easy enough, but what’s not quite so easy is what the being known as Syd wanted, or what they used to be. Whatever the answer to that, when Syd joined the Margrave, they left behind any concept of a fixed physical form, allowing them to appear as a being of virtually any shape or size (within reason, of course). This has made them an excellent spy and infiltrator for the Margrave, though Syd has an extremely hard time keeping their nature in check even when impersonating another being.

Syd is a great lover of practical jokes, chaos, and confusion, and is often unable to keep from partaking in them even when it doesn’t really fit their disguise. The Margrave doesn’t seem to be bothered by this, perhaps because the chaos her underling causes is all in the service of unraveling. Syd requires a visual representation of a being or object to take on its shape; they are not creative enough to come up with their own original designs. In addition to their physical form, Syd left behind all notions of gender as well; they are whatever they want or need to be in the given moment.

Trivia: If no visual reference is available, or if Syd is forced to abandon their current form, they may be forced to manifest as an amorphous blob or spots of pure energy. They find this extremely embarrassing, often fleeing despite themselves.

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The Margrave, Malika Anax
Age: ??
Occupation: The Destroyer, The Eraser, The Scourge, The End

Across a multiplicity of timelines, there are whispers of the Margrave, mainly borne by those who have been able to escape her wholesale erasure. The truth is worse than any of them imagine, for the Margrave seeks to erase every version of the city of Deerton from existence. It takes some time, of course, to unravel the threads of fate and reality that bind each iteration of the town together. So the Margrave methodically works her way across the multiverse, taking up residence quietly in an outlying mansion or other abandoned abode and diligently working to disassemble the town one piece at a time. It is not so much destroyed as it is erased, never having existed at all.

Naturally, such work softens and loosens the bounds of reality, and some strange effects and warpings are possible as the threads are broken down. The Margrave is an expert at using these bits of strangeness as weapons and misdirection, though her preference is to work in secrecy. There are often people who become aware of the town’s looming destruction; the Margrave generally attempts to recruit those who demonstrate ability to her cause. Once every version of Deerton across the multiverse has been erased, it can be recreated, perfect and whole, in whatever state which is desired–or so she says. The lost souls that have joined her on her quest all want to see something they have lost or never had in the new and perfect Deerton.

But who is the Margrave, what secrets does her past hold, and who was Malika Anax before her version of Deerton became the very fist to be swept away into nothingness…?

Trivia: The Margrave is fond of speaking as if she is reading what is happening from a book, but this is just an amusing affectation, and she will drop it when she must. Normal, direct speech is usually a sign that she is in a dark mood, beware!

“The Margrave gently reminded the intruder that they have no idea of what they speak, and no power to back up their adorably ignorant threats.”

“If I must undo the last of this miserable town’s existence with my bare hands, than so be it.”

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