Faetaera: A Triumvirate

 

A Triumvirate

Brairton’s minions slipped through a barely noticeable fissure.  The tear would close shortly.  Despite the increase in their regularity the breaches rarely stayed open very long.  To the three insidious spies, the stink of the new world was almost unbearable.  But in time the triumvirate would each become so used to it they would scarcely notice it at all.  That it poisoned them they did not know.  Brairton was not in the habit of informing his operatives of fatal consequences.  Their programming precluded any thought beyond the mission they must complete.  In this Brairton had been exact and had performed the necessary rituals himself.

Each had their mission branded into their being.  They would travel together for some time but then slip off to their secret destinations one by one, never to see each other again. The threesome latched on to their individual targets and began their particular brand of individual mischief immediately.

Minion one skulked off to ensconce itself in the office of a little known psychiatrist.  His stock in trade was medication over analysis. It was extremely lucrative on every level. Alongside this paragon of an ethics-less human, the minion found a goblin still smarting from the injustice of the time that was. It was more than willing to sprinkle copious quantities of the dust of despair. 

The second, wobbling a little; settled in for a very long stay on the shoulder of a man tall in stature but weak in nature, nursing a dirty family secret and struggling to leave behind the mind-set of a thirteen year old boy growing up in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.

And the final minion snuggled down between the pages of a partially empty notebook where it relished the bitterness residing in the discordant rhythms of the scattered words on some of the pages. Its flicking tongue licked at the grief, hostility and enmity bound up in the swirling script. Then in true parasitic fashion, it vomited more venom onto the empty pages, smeared and contaminated further, imagined the bile to come and the vile thing rejoiced.

In Faetaera, Brairton's thin black lips twitched with satisfaction at the buzz report in his left ear.  The triangle of circumstance was in place.  Nothing short of a miracle could stop events now.

He dismissed the wasp and turned to his other duties for the day.  One of these was a visit with Aurelia.  He marvelled at how she always seemed abreast of what went on around her.  Perhaps he was underestimating Lac Taal's capabilities.  He thought again of Taal’s clear obsession with the queen. He was a bumbling buffoon, controlled by the waves of desire he always gave off in her presence. It would be Lac Taal’s downfall.  Of this Brairton was certain.