17 June 1875
Having survived transport out of this world, attacks by pirates,
transport back to this world, a battle to the death with Wu Chang's
fleet (<i>his</i> death and not ours-- though we did lose
many good men in the battle) and a confrontation at the crossroads that
would influence the destiny of the world for years to come the transit
to Bombay was quite anticlimactic.
The Selene managed to
stay afloat, though there were
a few worrisome moments-- especially when we saw dark clouds gathering
on the horizon two days before we would make landfall.
Fortunately for our battered ship the storm held off until Lady
Cowperthwaite's foot touched ground. There was a flash of Kali's
power, then the skies opened up and the monsoon season began.
In addition to the rain, reporters were waiting for us. Lady
Cowperthwaite could not resist the temptation to speak to them. I
followed along, and tried to give out the party line that we had been
attacked by pirates and done our best to defend ourselves. I
think the state of our ships and our clothing gave better support to
our story than our own words.
Sir Spencer's contacts in port had heard of his arrival and arranged
both drydock space for our damaged ships and a bungalow large enough
for our party. Once the bulk of our party was settled at
the bungalow, Sir Cosmo, Sir Spencer, Inspector MacGreggor, and
Lieutenant Wooster departed for various parts of the city to give
reports to their contacts.
I sent a note off to the local representative of the Lord High
Warlock's office attempting to arrange a time to make my own
report. A great deal of import happened while we were out on the
water and I think the locals should be kept abreast of all that we
encountered.
18 June 1875, Friday
After a quiet, restful night's sleep followed by a hearty breakfast the
Ladies of the League took to the dress shop recommended by Lady
Ambridge and ordered several dresses. We have already received an
invitation to a reception Monday night this coming week but the
seamstress assures us our evening dresses will be ready in time for the
reception.
We made a day of it-- including stopping a jewellery store (where we
argued with Miss Moriarty about appropriate displays of wealth for
15-year-old girls) where we had an odd encounter with Allan Alsworthy
Vaughn, Viscount Vaughn of Wiston, Baron Mullengar. He is mage of
sinister but excellent manners. Mrs Cuthbert knew him from her
courting days (before she married her late husband) and seemed quite
surprised to find him at loose ends in Bombay. Given his mode of
dress, I was surprised he had not succumbed to the heat. He
favours black and silver with a snake motif. I am certain all of
the the young things out in society in London would find him darkly
fascinating.
19 June 1875, Saturday
Today was not quite as restful. After a brief expedition into
town for more shopping (this time at a bookshop, where we again met
Lord Vaughn), I took on watching the children so that Violet and
Daru could do some shopping of their own. Luckily I was able to
draft Mr Salmalin to patrol the perimeter of the nursery and thus keep
escapes to a minimum.
I was worn out by the time Violet and Daru returned and even more firm
in my resolve to find a nursery maid of my own to add to our
staff. The four first-children are definitely a test for any
guardian. Galen and Caroline have no fear, Robert has a first
class strategic mind, and my own Octavia is as wilful as her mother and
as determined to follow her own path as her father. Violet and
Daru will need assistance once the next round of children arrive.
Fortunately, ever since the attack on the nursery in which both
nursemaids were injured, the children seem to have made it their
responsibility to take care of the girls and this seems to have
manifested as sticking close and doing what they are told (for the most
part-- when they can be bothered to remember). However, they feel
no such obligation to me.
I am looking forward to Church tomorrow. The chance to sit in
quiet contemplation is quite appealing.
20 June 1875, Sunday
It seems that trouble dogs our footsteps even during our much-needed
rest. The day started with breakfast and a more complete report
of the Saturday activities of the Frazers, MacGreggors, and
Moriartys. A quiet expedition to the mangrove swamps by
Lieutenant Pellew, Miss Moriarty, Mrs Frazer, George, and Albert turned
into a gun-fight between a Count Lindrom and Mr von Klatna and agents
of the Shadows or “La Ligue des Ombres”, whom the league has faced
before. No one in our party was hurt. George reported that
Mr von Klatna is a mage of some power who cast a spell during the
fight. Both of the members of the League of Shadows were killed.
The MacGreggors were brought into it when the investigation (and the
one remaining body) was turned over to the local constabulary.
According to Mrs Frazer the body was horribly bloated and discoloured--
with a pair of close-set punctures marked the delivery of a venomous
bite in the centre of the chest. Mrs MacGreggor has extensive
experience with poisonous snakes and she and the Inspector were called
in for a consultation. Inspector MacGreggor managed to also bring
Mrs Cuthbert along, and she was able to talk to the dead man and
reported with great delight her success in guiding him toward the light
and away from the strange pit of reincarnation that awaits most League
of Shadows members (and makes them a particularly insidious bunch).
After our briefing and breakfast the Frazers, MacGreggors, Cuthberts,
Octavia, and I departed for church. I was quite surprised that
Mrs Frazer decided to attend, usually church services hold no interest
for her. The sermon was mediocre, but did not run too
terribly long for all that. If I had known at the time what
excitement awaited us, I would have wished for a longer sermon,
regardless of its quality.
As we were circulating after the service we fell into conversation with
a Lady Smythe, wife of the Bombay's Chief of Police and she told of us
two murders, the discovery of which had called her husband from his bed
in the early hours of the morning. After hearing that, there was
nothing for it but to shoulder the burden of the League of the Golden
Clematis once more.
We set out to investigate.
The contacts that the MacGreggors had made with the local force over
the past few days served us in good stead. Upon arriving at the
scene of the two murders we were very surprised to note that the shops
were two that we had visited on Friday. The jewellery and
book shops were just down the road from one another. Each
contained one body that had an oddly distorted look to it.
Mrs Cuthbert was so overcome by the evil in the æther that she
had retired to the carriage in a near-faint. This proved most
helpful as we were able to assign the children the job of watching over
here and thus keep them from the crime scenes and attendant bodies.
The Frazers both agreed that dispite the oddly contorted look to the
bodies, both men had been killed where they were found. Inspector
MacGreggor was able to keep the local police running back and forth
enough that I was able to cast history spells in both locations.
What I saw in the visions was most disturbing.
Each proprietor was killed by a mystical constrictor-like snake that
wrapped around them at the command of a shadowed man (likely shielded
by a veil spell). Both men had been at their shops very early
(before dawn) and had been waiting for someone. Neither of them
were surprised to have a visitor. The man with the mystical snake
stole a tome from the book shop and a jewelled dagger with a snake
motif from the jewellery shop. He managed to find both with very
little searching.
I was just completing my researches when I heard I heard Robert say
clearly, "Don't come any closer." Not knowing what the children
might decide to do if feeling threatened, I hurried to the
carriage. Mr Salmalin was watching alertly as Viscount Vaughn
stopped in his approach. Much tiresome banter ensued, with Mrs
Frazer attempting to discover what had brought him to the scene of two
crimes without giving away too much of our own activities. For
not the first time I desired to just tell someone the full story rather
than dance around the truth as we are so often forced to
do. I came away with the feeling that Lord Vaughn knew more
than he was telling, but then so did we.
We had learned all we could by this time and I was quite willing to
join Mrs Cuthbert in the carriage for the ride home, the horrible
atmosphere of the shops having taken its toll on me as well. This
is a time that I am grateful that my mystical senses are not as sharp
as Mrs Cuthbert's. Her ability to read auras accurately is, dare
I say, uncanny, but comes with a heavy price at times.
Once home and refreshed with tea, Inspector MacGreggor revealed to us
two items he had found at the scene. One, a quill pen, and
another, what appeared to be a scale from a snakeskin. Revived by
food and good company (and in Mrs Cuthbert's case, a bit of sherry) we
cast yet more history spells upon the objects a few more shreds of
information were revealed to us.
While we were working, the Frazers and Lady Cowperthwaite departed for
an appointment with a professor who is known to both of the Frazers
through their naturalist connexions and who, by some happenstance, knew
Lady Cowperthwaite's parents when she was first born. Naturally,
Lady Cowperthwaite is very excited to have found a link to her past and
nothing will keep her from this appointment-- not even a budding murder
investigation.
In the meantime Mrs Cuthbert and I managed to learn something about
each of the objects. The snake scale was very interesting,
belonging as it appears, to a warrior under an ancient Snake
King. The Warrior Snake has been sent to help an ancient
sorcerer. The Snake King once ruled the world back in primordial
times but was defeated by Kali and Shiva working in concert.
The pen had been used to write a letter to a Count Kolinzeki in
Madras. The letter mentioned a rare book that the Count was
searching for and seemed to indicated that the proprietor of the book
shop was very near to acquiring a copy. The letter also mentioned
that the book would cost more that originally thought, as the cost of
procuring it had been more than expected.
After conveying this information to Inspector MacGreggor, Mrs Cuthbert
and I decided to visit the courtyard of Mahalakshmi Temple, one of the
largest temples in Bombay. As mentioned earlier in this
record, Monsoon Season coincided with the arrival of Lady
Cowperthwaite. The season is celebrated with a tremendous
gathering of fakirs and holy persons in the courtyard of the goddesses,
Lakshmi, Kali, and Saraswati. The goddesses are considered to be
in seclusion for the first 3 days after monsoons begin, as though they
were troubled as we women are. Lady Cowperthwaite has already
embarrassed our local guides by correcting their sanitized
'translations' of various Hindi terms. I have found it helpful to
pretend to be less fluent than I am in the language. It is very
interesting what people will say around one when they have no
expectation of being understood. Of course, my husband has
remarked upon this very phenomenon, only in his case, he is frequently
surprised by the things guests of Sir Cosmo will say in the presence of
servants who one should know perfectly well share the same language.
~Later~
This afternoon was not without its excitement. The gathering at
the Temple reminded me of nothing so much as a local fete back
home. There were a wide range of activities from rope climbers
(who Mrs Cuthbert particularly wanted to see) to holy men and from
pickpockets to sellers of dubious food on sticks. After
visiting several different stations and meeting many odd and wonderful
people we came across a man who nearly lost his wits at the sight of Mr
O'Flaherty (who had decided to accompany us). Given that the man
was floating a good two feet off the ground when we first spotted him,
we were rather puzzled that such a one would feel threatened by such an
unassuming and good-natured man.
After he recovered from the worst of the shock. The man told us
that he had mistaken Mr O'Flaherty for Rip Chigwidgeon. Imagine
our surprise that this holy man would know of Rip. He said he had
a message for Rip's daughter. The request was as odd as the
man who made it. I consulted with Mrs Cuthbert and we decided it
would be best to use the DFT to alert Lady Cowperthwaite to this
opportunity to learn more about her past. I did not want to let
the man out of our sight until milady had a chance to speak with
him. I had an irrational feeling that something horrible would
happen to him if we left before he had conveyed his message to Lady
Cowperthwaite. Perhaps the events of earlier in the day were
wearing on me-- I had, and still have, no basis for my fears.
Fortunately for my nerves, milady arrived within the hour and spoke to
our holy man.
This is the conversation as best I can remember it:
He said the message was from the Dark Mother and went as follows:
It cannot rain all the time
but it must
you will find the dagger
near the source
but beware the serpent.
He then asked if she was here with her father, to which she replied she
was not. He continued by saying: “I am really really sorry
and I am glad you survived.
When she asked: “Survived what?” He said that his former master
had tried to sacrifice her to the bring back his god. The god was
the Vrita, the Snake King Naga. The former master was Count
Kolinzeki who has been dead now for twenty years. He was killed
by Rip and Manjula Chigwidgeon during the rescue of their
daughter Namaste, our our dear Lady Cowperthwaite.
He also recognized Mrs Frazer's parrot and claimed that the parrot had
been in on the rescue. His master was sacrificed to stop the
coming of the Vritra and Rip Chigwidgeon had spared his life with the
condition that he must serve Kali in all things and do good works for
the rest of his life.
Since this strange encounter we have returned to the bungalow for a
late supper. It is difficult to believe all that has occurred
today and even more difficult to comprehend that we must get up
tomorrow and follow this investigation wherever it might lead.
Our seamstress has promised our dresses will be ready in time for the
reception hosted by Lord and Lady Ambridge-- but will we?.
Proceed to An
inappropriate match
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