Ravel Puzzlewell, Part I

I should have waited at least one day to prepare, but I was too close to the answers I had sought. I went into an empty room in the Brothel, and found that touching the portal with the cloth that contained Kesai’s blood was enough to activate it. Passing through, we entered the maze where I was certain we would find Ravel.

We appeared in a brambly, bushy labyrinth. Thick bushes formed walls about us, while the ground underneath looked to be formed of thousands of interlaced roots. We soon discovered dangerous living hazards as well. Two creatures attacked us, more plant than animal, although they moved quickly enough, and had two branch-like claws. Fortunately, their fighting ability did not match that of my companions, and they were quickly dispatched.

We moved through the maze, dispatching several more of the creatures. We reached a breach in the wall of brambles to our right, and followed it to another opening. At the opening, we saw a small open area, and a single individual, who I approached.

The plump, hook-nosed crone before me didn’t look much like a myth; she was outfitted in a simple (if dirty) brown shirt and leggings, with a number of pouches hanging from her frayed belt. She seemed oblivious to my presence, more concerned with the tangled black roots woven together to form the floor of the maze than anything transpiring around her. I studied her for a moment.

A tangle of jagged gray hair jutted from beneath the crone’s hood, spreading down her shoulders like a mass of twisted gray roots. Sickly blue-gray flesh hung in loose folds from her face; her narrow chin, long and sharp, jutted forward in an extreme under-bite, and two filthy yellow canines protruded from her lower jaw, like small tusks.

“Ravel…?”

“Ah… visitors.” The crone’s voice was thick and scratchy, as if trying to force its way past layers of dust. Her eyes were a dull, bloody red, with black veins running through them like tree branches. As she gazed at me, a strange crawling sensation passed through me, like snakes burrowing beneath my skin.

“Greetings… Ravel.”

“Well, now, my pretty thing, have you returned at last?” Ravel’s face split into a grotesque smile, displaying a row of chipped yellowed fangs. “You were a-gone so long, I a-feared you forgot poor, lonely Ravel.” Despite the horrid site she presented, I was not repelled as I might have expected. Instead, I had no trouble matching the light tone she had affected.

“How could I forget you, Ravel? I missed you, but you hid yourself in a place that was difficult for me to reach. Come now… did you not wish my company?”

“Ahhh….” Ravel’s yellow smile widened, peeling back the folds of her skin, and she cackled softly. “Such sweet words… you already are a-knowing the answer of your asking, my precious man. I scattered clues like caltrops, and these were my means of a-guiding you to my garden. I a-feared it was you who had forgot I.”

“I assure you, I did no such thing. I have returned to you at last.”

“Have you? But what has returned?” She squinted at me with her black-veined eyes and hissed softly. “Let Ravel see how you've a-fared in this life.” She reached out, as if to caress me, and I suddenly noticed her fingers were talons, each fingernail filthy and wickedly sharp. However, I felt no fear at her movement, and let her touch me.

Her ragged talons traced their way across my skin, and in their wake I felt the same strange tingling sensation I felt when Ravel first looked at me. Her eyes dimmed somewhat, and her talons slid gently along the contours of my face, lingering on my scars. I reached out to touch her, feel her features. My hand touched Ravel’s cheek as her talons caressed my face, and instinctively, I mirrored her touch — as her talons dragged along my left cheek, my fingers dragged along hers. Her eyes closed, and mine followed. It felt strangely familiar… I felt a memory surfacing.

When my eyes opened, it felt as if all the color had bled out of the trees and the maze; everything was a featureless, dusty, dead gray. Ravel’s eyes were still closed, but as I watched, they slowly opened and she smiled, a sad, gray smile. I felt words rising to my lips, echoing something I had said in the past, in a different place, on another plane…

“It is said you are the greatest of the Gray Sisters, Ravel. I have traveled far to reach you.” She nodded, but slowly, too slowly, as if through a dream. When she spoke, her words were muted, as if being spoken underwater.

“But why have you traveled so far? Your need must be great… yet you seem to have brought nothing that would interest me. You must pay for your services…”

“My need is great. My currency is this: a challenge. Perhaps an impossible challenge… one I fear is beyond even your abilities….” I echoed the words, and I felt the manipulation, the subtle twist designed to pull Ravel’s strings. Her eyes blazed a fiery gray in the dream-memory, and the gray that was eating the landscape seemed to ebb from her features.

“There is nothing that is beyond me, foolish man! nothing! Pose your challenge, I will hear you!”

“Death waits at the end of life for all men. I need it to wait for me no longer… can you do this, beautiful Ravel?”

The vision cleared, the gray bleeding away from the maze, until the color resumed, my hand still cupping Ravel’s cheek. Her eyes were closed, and she sighed. I withdrew it slowly, and after a moment, Ravel’s eyes opened, and she gave a rasping hiss.

“Yessssss…” Ravel’s finger withdrew, and she looked at me sadly. “Oh, sad, sad, broken half-thing. All-a-pieces.” She squinted at me again. “No longer the one Ravel knew are you… are you still a-broken, after all this sad, sad time?”

“Broken? What do you mean?”

“A body you possess, but a body of knowledge you do not?” She pointed her ragged talon at my chest, at my scars. “Many and such, such scars you have, all a-scrawled on your skin. Many tales does your skin tell.”

“What tales does my skin tell?”

“Your scars and tattoos shout to me, ‘here is a man in confrontation with the world.’ “ Ravel made a crooning noise, not unlike a dying bird. “Yes, such tales as would shrivel even a hag’s ears…”

“Tell me these… tales. I would know them.”

“The tales are many. They echo of balance imbalanced, trials of war, battles with fiendish elements, and a creature that feeds on others from a-far to sustain itself… and of torments. Such torments flesh has never known…”

“Divided in two you were, when your mortality was peeled from you. No longer balanced, much a-broken in the separation… both a blessing and a mistake… but more mistake than blessing, Ravel thinks.”

“You took my mortality? How?”

“Forgotten the how of it, I have… have I?” Ravel’s gaze dimmed for a moment, the black veins swimming in her eyes. “And even if I a-membered it, I would never do it twice. Not forgotten the moment have I, after the break, a-seeing the pain stream from your veins, your cries like a wailing child, every bit of your being filled with emptiness. Terrible, even for these eyes.”

“So… that’s why I feel hollow inside? Because my mortality is gone? Very well… what are these other tales my skin tells?”

“Great, great trials of war… much too much to be born by any, any mortal thing. This war touches all, my precious half-man. There is no place where its caress is not felt… did it touch you?” Ravel’s voice dropped, almost bitter. “To this, Ravel says ‘aye.’ ”

“That would explain the scars… What about the battles with fiendish elements?”

“Two fiends butt heads…” Ravel sniffed, as if in contempt. “Their tiny heads filled with ideas of how the Planes should be, yet can never be or the Planes they would be no longer. Such foolishness!”

“A creature that feeds on others from afar?”

“No base hungers do you feel, but far, far more terrible ones boil beneath your skin. And such a cost… I know not… knot? Knot the nature nor the cause of these hungers. But heed this: Coming events cast their shadows before them, my precious half-man… there is no a-saying of what these events will be, not even with Ravel’s eyes.”

“And these torments… what are these torments you speak of?”

“A lodestone pulls iron to it… and so do you, my precious half-man, but it is not iron, but tormented souls. As others suffer, they are drawn to you, and your path becomes theirs.” She made a sweeping gesture. “Do you not see them in the eyes of those that have traveled here with you?”

“My companions? What do you mean?” Although even as I was saying the words, I reflected I had already found troubling sides to all those shared my path.

“Do you wish to explain, gith?” Ravel threw a burning glance at Dak'kon, tempered with a fanged smile. “Vows may prove tighter than any chain, no? The manacles of a race once enslaved, now a slave again?”

Dak'kon was silent, but his blade shifted at Ravel’s words… the blade darkened, the edge sharpening until the karach itself seemed to carry a horrible malevolence about it.

“The cog-box…” Ravel’s gaze drifted to Nordom. “Once it knew only suffering’s definition, but now it feels its sting. There is no room for ‘2’ in the world of 1’s and 0's, no place for ‘mayhap’ in a house of trues and falses, and no ‘green with envy’ in a black and white world. When it discovers how the planes turn, when it discovers the truth behind loyalty and ill-logic, more torments will it know…”

“The chattering skull…” Ravel didn’t bother to even look at Morte, as if he was beneath her notice. “Are the quips enough of a shield for what lies buried inside your brain-box, hmmm? Why speak truths when lies suffice?”

“The Abyssal temptress…” Ravel sneered, her yellowed fangs piercing her purpled lips as she squinted at Fall-From-Grace. “A skin so fair, lips so rich, eyes that might cause you to forget Ravel herself… and yet she suffers, more than any other. When one turns on their nature, many are the torments that arise from such a betrayal.”

“Ravel…” Grace replied softly, almost cautiously. “I have come to terms with m—”

“You lie, succubus!” Ravel’s lips peeled back in a snarl. “You lie! Do not dare lie to me, when your heart is a book to me! Every word you spit screams of your torment!”

“Ah…” Ravel gestured at Annah, as if she was for sale upon on auction block. “Look upon the feisty tiefling… such fiery hair and voice…” Ravel smiled, baring her rows of yellowed teeth. “Shall I speak of your torment, tiefling?” Annah seemed paralyzed, her eyes wide as Ravel turned her black-veined gaze to her. I could see her trembling, her heart beating fast.

“No… no, I shall not speak of it.” Ravel’s voice dropped, almost in exhaustion, and the smile faded from her face. “Grown tired of cruelties and torments, Ravel has… the world is a-jagged enough place…” She turned to me, her bloody eyes dimmed, and she sighed.

“And my precious, precious half-man… for you, the greatest torment of all… life forever-more. Can it be life a-cares for you as Ravel does?” She gnashed her yellowed tusks with a horrid clacking noise. “One so brave, so passionate, so terribly lost, sad, sad.”

“A puzzle of bone and skin were you, always, intriguing, and the most beloved of all who came to me, petitioning, requesting, pleading… pleasing? Pleading for help.” Ravel stared hard at me, her black-veined ember eyes narrowing. “So hard to see a-past the scars, to dig up the man-who-once-was underneath…”

“Ravel, can you tell me anything about who I once was?”

“A shadow with substance, a-seeking that which casts the light. I know you more and no… know…” Ravel paused, her eyes dimming. “No more than I know the nature of any man. Crossed pasts have we… a man tainted with un-death, still feeling the pangs of separation, and an old withered crone, now all-imprisoned. Seems it that we are a-meeting for the first time? No, no, not, not… knot?” Ravel seemed confused for a moment, then shuddered, as if throwing off a weight. “Knot at all. An echo of a future meeting this is… or a past meeting, depending on which way time is facing.”

“So this… this meeting echoes a meeting in the past?”

“The now and then — very… similar? So tangled the now-and-then is, both mirrored in each other… once and again, you come a-fore me with a problem, to challenge me for a solution to an impossibility.” Ravel hissed at me, and her eyes blazed. “Beautiful, ungrateful, beloved man!”

“What was this impossibility I asked you to solve?” Ravel didn’t seem to have heard me — she still seemed to be in the past, for her eyes dimmed, as if looking far away.

“Such fire in your eyes, enough to stir a Gray Lady’s heart… passion to be free, but when freed, the fire in your eyes guttered out. With the separation, your life has shed all meaning, I fear.” Ravel smiled with her yellowed fangs, then clicked them together, as if laughing. “Mayhap you should sit on your hind legs and limp your forepaws — mayhap Ravel will give you a another scrap of knowing.”

“I will not beg for your aid, Ravel. I will ask, nothing more.”

“As it ever was for you, you would not bend your knee to me, my precious man.”

“Ravel, I have many questions I wish to ask you…”

“Oh, more questions do you have?” Ravel crooned softly, but there was an edge to it, as if she was reprimanding me. “Tchhh-tcchhh. But you have already asked soooo many.” Ravel’s black-veined eyes took on a curious gleam. “The time for my questions is now, half-man. Know this and know Ravel’s law: if you do not answer my questions, no more of your questions will I answer, my precious man. Step a-lightly with the answers, or the asking shall tear you apart…”

“Your rules are fair. Ask your questions, Ravel.”

“I would know why you traveled here with these others… know not the place they were traveling to?”

“Of course they knew. Who would not want to travel here to meet with you, beautiful Ravel? Few opportunities does life provide for such a meeting. They wished to see if the tales of your power and beauty were true… as I knew them to be.”

Ravel stared at me for a moment in silence, then her face split into a horrendous grin, her row of yellowed fangs glistening in the faint light of her eyes. “Ahhhh… my precious man, you carry only words…” A blackish tongue darted from her purple lips, and rolled around the rim of her mouth, as if in anticipation of a meal. “…but you are well armed, indeed…” She nodded slowly, and her grin faded. “And they travel with you willingly?”

“They chose to walk my path with me. As I said, who wouldn’t wa—”

“Chose? Ahh… a dangerous word. Is it so?” Ravel threw a black-veined glance at Dak'kon, her voice like an arrow.

“Is it choice, gith? Is it? Or is it a matter of two skies?” Dak'kon’s blade bled into a vicious dead black, mirroring his eyes… and to my surprise, the karach edge silently split into jagged fangs. I felt anger; I was the one who had come to question her. I was the one with whom she had made her bargain.

“Ravel… leave him be. I will answer your questions, not them.” Ravel ignored me.

“What of the cog-box?” Ravel turned to Nordom, sneering. “What does it know of choice?” She snapped her fingers, like the sound of cracking bone. “There is only obey and obey, hmnnn?” Nordom’s eyes kliked as he regarded her.

“Query: What does Nordom define /choice/? Define: choice: The act of choosing, selection; the right or opportunity to choo—” Ravel cast her gaze on Morte, overriding Nordom’s reply.

“Skull, skull, skull…” Ravel clicked her tongue after each word, and her smile widened. “Your expression is difficult to read without the skin wrapping, but I feel your fear from here. Coming here was not your choice.” Morte replied with his usual jauntiness.

“Well, I didn’t have anything better to do except go to one of the Lady’s mazes and meet one of the evilest creatures ever to set foot in Sigil, so I said ‘sure! Why n-?’ “ I felt sudden fear. This was not someone to take liberties with. I tried to shut up Morte.

“Morte, be quiet. Ravel, I…”

“ ‘Be quiet?!’ “ Morte clacked his teeth. “Like the hells I will! I think we've listened to this crone rattle her bone-box enough, and now she’s got some pair of stones, saying I haven’t got any skin! So what if I don’t?! Obviously the fact she has skin has done wonders for her looks! Does she think I like being naked all the time? And another thing—” Fortunately, Ravel chose to ignore him, moving on to her next victim.

“The succubus…” Ravel squinted. “Did she have a choice? Mayhap in her smooth-skinned mind of soft silks and hard truths, maybe choice… tchhh. But no. A Sensate must experience all, and to refuse to come — not a Sensate would you be. Still no choice!”

“The tiefling. The fiery one.” Ravel cackled softly, and her eyes kindled, as if amused. “No choice. At. All. When you feel instead of think, there is little room for choice.” Annah made no response — Ravel’s mere presence seemed to have silenced her. Her tail had stopped flicking, however, and her eyes had lost their hard edge. I needed to get Ravel’s attention back to me.

“Enough with this, Ravel. What other questions did you have?”

“Shhhhhh… there will be time enough for you to speak, my precious man.” Ravel tapped a talon against one of her yellowed tusks. “This question next: What do you feel for these that have come with you? Do they matter in your heart?” She smiled, black veins dancing in her eyes. “Or are they tools for your will?”

“They matter to me, and that is all the answer you need. Ask your next question.”

“Even the gith?” Ravel’s ember gaze fell on Dak'kon, then slid off to lock with my eyes again. “Speak what he means to you, and say it true, or blanketing my garden he will be.”

“He is my ally. I know him. He is my friend.”

“Ah…” Ravel nodded… then she smiled again, her talons tapping against each other. “What of the skull?” Again, Ravel didn’t bother to look at Morte. “Surely he matters not to one such as you! Or… does he?”

“He seems trustworthy enough. He’s loyal, and he helped save my life in the Mortuary.”

“Curious, curious-er, curious-her…” Ravel smiled. “Quite the puzzle box you are a-shaping up to be. What else lurks in the dark places of your mind?” Ravel’s voice took on a threatening weight, and she turned to Fall-From-Grace, her red eyes blazing. “And here is the core of it — the Abyssal temptress… does she rise above the merely carnal to you, or is she something else in your eye, hmnnn?”

Grace said nothing. She seemed to be studying Ravel intently… I was suddenly struck with the feeling Grace was sizing up Ravel for weaknesses. Ravel turned back to me, clacking her yellowed tusks, as if in anticipation.

“Speak, precious man, but have a care where your words fall.”

“I could fall in love with her.” The truth, but I knew I was on dangerous ground when I saw how Ravel’s gaze slid off me and narrowed on Grace. I had played a dangerous game up to now with the night hag. Dangerous indeed to try to lie to her, but more dangerous to answer the truth to Ravel’s next question.

“Hmnnnn…” Ravel turned, clacked her tusks, then glanced at Annah with a sneer. “And what of this slip of flesh… the fiendling, the tiefling with the scarlet hair and the fiery passion. What is she to you, my precious man?” I had known Annah for too short a time to be sure of my feelings for her. And now I focused my will, made myself believe she was no more than a travel companion to me.

“I like her company… I consider her my friend.”

Ravel glanced at Annah, then snorted, her black-veined eyes gleaming. “Hmmmmnnn… so be it. My next question is this…” Ravel’s voice dropped, almost whispering. And suddenly, I had a strange feeling she did not want to hear the answer. “Why did you wait so long to return to me? Ravel grew a-lonely without you, precious man.” I felt the moment of peril slip past, and again could comfortably make a flattering answer.

“The way to this place is difficult, beautiful Ravel. Efforts have been made to insure you have little company, and many were the trials I was forced to undertake in order to stand before you. Yet I am glad to see you once again, Ravel — time has not dulled your beauty, I see.”

“Your answers…” Ravel’s eyes glinted, and her lips peeled back in a grotesque smile. “Your words are soothing and have not been heard in such a time… they stir even my black-brambled heart. No matter where your memories be, your charms remain, pretty thing…”

“Nay, it is your charms that persist, beautiful Ravel.”

“Of charms, enchantments, beguilements… all these Ravel has mastered… yet, there is much it seems you could teach I…” She paused in thought for a moment.

“Ahhhh, yessss. The third and last question… is this…” As Ravel opened her mouth to speak her final question, I was suddenly gripped with the terrible realization that this final question had murdered many others to whom it had been asked. I knew what it was, and I felt it welling up within me, and I felt compelled to ask it.

Echo: “What can change the nature of a man?”

“I see you have not forgotten…” Ravel smiled, her yellowed fangs gleaming. “What is your answer?” I wasn’t sure if it could change the nature of a man, but there was something I had felt almost from the time I first learned of the actions of my previous lives.

“Regret.”

“And that is your answer…?” The veins in Ravel’s eyes began to shift slightly, and she gave an evil smile. “Be certain before you say.”

“It may not be your answer, but it is my answer.”

“And that is all I wished for, my precious man.” Ravel’s smile relaxed. “A simple answer, and in the end, many are the men have I laid low while they sought my answer.”

“That’s it…? I thought…”

Ravel cackled. “Countless times has the question been asked, and not once did the pathetic shells who came a-fore me answered with their answer, but always sought to creep inside my mind and find what I thought… tchhh! There is no truth in that.” I knew she was lying.

“I… don’t believe you. In fact, I don’t think they ever could have answered you true, even if it was true to them.” Ravel fell suddenly, strangely, silent. She was watching me warily.

“You never cared about any answer other than mine. Ever. Did you? Yet still you asked the question, knowing that no matter what the answer they gave, they would die by your hand.”

“Of course your answer was the only one I sought, for you were the only reason I asked the question! Did you think I cared for them…? Tchhh! Did you think I even cared a fraction of the amount for them that I cared for you, my precious man? Answer me that!” It was obvious she already knew her answer. I instead asked another question.

“Why did you make me immortal, Ravel?”

“It’s what you wanted, seedling, and you asked so sweetly… now how could Ravel say ‘no’ to one such as you? Immortality was your solution and your challenge to me.”

“My solution? But why?”

“I don’t know, seedling. Time has chipped away at my memories as well, it would seem… seam? If you remember, tell me… I'm a-curious myself. It must have been something important… isn’t it in the nature of a man to want to live forever?” Dak'kon quietly spoke, replying to her question.

“Only if what lies on the other path carries greater pain.” I glanced at him, surprised he had said anything, that turned back to Ravel.

“Ravel… this is very important: do you have any idea why I asked you to do it?”

“Death was a thing you needed to dodge. An easy thing to say, mayhap, but to do, it is not! Immortality, even with its flaws, was the best solution this withered mind could untangle… Lead is not easily a-changed to gold, but it is possible, thought the unwise… un-whys? …Ravel. If water can be drawn from blood, mortality can be taken from a mortal, peeled back like a sticky film….”

“The gulf between man and unman is great. You traveled the distance. I provided the means, but you crossed on your own.” Ravel slapped her head and raked her hand through her hair. “Bad Ravel! Mortals are too flawed to be made to last. Still they break! They must be dragged kicking and screaming into an unhealthy new mold.”

“Unhealthy…? So the ritual was flawed?”

“Shortcuts must be made, and they can break the molded… for it is not always the mold that breaks, but the substance poured within it. Force something into a shape it was not meant to be, and it breaks! I thought the material was of stronger stuff, but you have been broken.”

“But I am immortal — surely that was a success?”

“You have survived long, immortaled one, but you have become the prey of the creature that is life.” She cupped her hands, then reversed it, forming a canopy with her hands. “The body is but a hut for the soul. But now no one dwells in your hut.”

“What went wrong with the ritual?”

“Puzzle-fleshed broken, beautiful, beautiful mortal man, the ritual was not… knot? Knot… not a finished thing.” Ravel’s brows wrinkled, and her talons picked at her hair, tugging on a lone strand. “The ritual gave you what you wanted, but great were the costs… the casting of shadows, the quiet, violent deaths of the mind, and the pain-taking emptiness… these things, a-dangerous were are in such a fragile vessel, no matter how strong a mortal man. Regret them and the ritual do I.”

“Ungrateful shades… but ungrateful without cause? The shades… they hate you, Nameless One, for they are fathered by you, your children, once forsaken, they will never forgive. They will do everything they can to destroy the parent… such is the way of children.”

“How do I father shades… these shadows?”

“You cast shadows on existence, Nameless One. With every death, a shadow arises fresh from the fields of your flesh. They a-wander for a time, but always they a-return, looking to murder their parent. Such is the way of many offspring…” Ravel pursed her lips in disapproval, then suddenly poked me in the chest with a talon. “…and thankless young men such as yourself.” I felt a numbing despair at her words. I had been treating death almost as a game, a brief interlude that was little different from sleep for a mortal man. Instead, each death had consequences. Ravel must not be telling me the whole truth, or had forgotten it. These shadows couldn’t spring solely from my substance, something else was involved. I brought my attention back to her words.

“A thousand deaths, and you recover from each. Not so the mind, the mind is much more fragile. Its scars run deep and do not heal. The brain is encased in a hard bone shell, difficult to breach, but with no defense against that which eats at it from within. You have a whole where… wear? Wear your mortality once lay within your shell.” She made her hand into a fist and shook it. “Rattle-rattle goes the hollow man, a baby’s plaything, with naught but a tiny stone that a-clatters and clacks in your frame.”

“Despite these problems, it seems like the ritual worked…”

“Do you doubt Ravel? Of course I delivered on what was promised! Not long after the spell a-drew to a close, I killed you to see if it had worked. You struggled so, but I kept my grip tight and watched you die your first of many deaths.” Ravel clacked her teeth. “Then was I a-learned in its flaws… Ego enwraps us like a prison. Forgot I did that it ofttimes serves as a shield.” Ravel clicked her tongue. “My pretty, pretty thing, there is much wisdom and understanding in the truth that life is a preparation for the ultimate goal: death. Our life is a means by which we learn how to die. If we forget such things…”

“So that’s when you discovered I lost my memories when I died…”

“Yess…” Ravel nodded. “Unfortunate… without the mortality to hold such memories tight, the shell a body is…”

“So you took my mortality from me, Ravel… is it still intact?”

Ravel seemed surprised, then alarmed. “Yes, yes, yes! Fear not for a broken mortality… if you are here… hear? Hear a-talking at me, intact your mortality must be. Such a thing can not… knot… not be destroyed as long as you exist. You are an anchor of your mortal soul. As long as you are intact, so shall it be. Made to last are you…” Ravel smiled and gave a wheezing laugh. “For life swallowed you and spit you out!” Morte couldn’t resist that line.

“It swallowed him, but I don’t know if he came out of that end.”