Young Writers Society

Skinweaver

Part 1

Prologue

The towers of the Tailory reached far higher into the sky than those of the Imperial Palace. Pern noticed that as soon as he entered the gates of Derethed. It was easily the most magnificent of all the cities in the empire of Elnemora, and the capital seat of the Emperor himself. So why is it that His Most August Majesty, Conqueror of Time and Space, Lord Over All That Lives and Breathes, is letting himself be upstaged by his Tailors? Pern had no clue, but he was busy making all the right noises and gestures to set the guards at ease.

Once through the gates, Pern set down the largest and most crowded street in the capital, the Ældsway, situated next to the Ældsbreath river. Packed with people buying and selling wares of every kind, guardsmen struggled to maintain order. It was just the sort of delicious mix of chaos and order that Pern loved-

No, Pern corrected himself. I have a mission. The Mortifiers are depending upon me... I mustn’t let my Skin slip. She, no, he shook his head. Acknowledging that the Skin existed was almost as dangerous as letting somebody see your Bones.

Pern took a deep breath to gather himself beside some vegetable stalls before pressing onward. Collecting himself allowed the man to center himself and remember his story. Pern found the crowds abhorrent, so unabashed in their irreverence of the dead. As a messenger for the Mortifiers of the City of Censers, he was here to impress upon these heathens the gravity of their error. They could not frolic in so carefree a manner, and commit heresies of such towering arrogance without being punished. And to punish the City herself? They would soon know the wrath of the Gravekeeper. That was Pern’s mission. Straight through to the Skin.

It was an otherwise uneventful stroll the next few kilometres on to the Imperial Palace, which loomed like some unwieldy dragon-bat. The wings of the structure cast long shadows from the twisting spires, and the battlements were riddled with arches that all seemed to coalesce into a snarling face. Pern gazed at it in open awe, feeling truly dwarfed by the scale of the building. Despite this however, the Tailory loomed still higher.

Incredibly, while she could barely make it out, there appeared to be clouds brushing the topmost point of the Tailory’s highest tower. The other two were not far behind in height, and all three made the palace seem positively pedestrian. Where the former was dark and foreboding, the latter stood tall and proud. Its many bas-reliefs depicted beautiful murals and massive landscapes which could not possibly have been created by human hands. Despite the Tailory’s immense age, it looked as though the first brick had been freshly laid yesterday.

While he could ogle the Elnemorean buildings all day, Pern’s mission required him to press on. Clothed as he was in the stately robes of a diplomat, the guards at the doors to the palace could plainly see his purpose. Nevertheless the question came, “Sir, what is your business with His August Imperial Majesty?”

“I beg your pardon?” Pern asked, his voice indignant with disbelief. “Do you know who I am?”

The captain of the guard returned his stare blankly, offering silence as his only response. Pern cleared his throat and fluffed his sleeves. “I’ll have you know, that I am the most esteemed Mortific Ambassador of the City of Censers, come in all of my reverent power, to take to task your most insolent of leaders!” This exclamation was punctuated by Pern sticking his index up the captain’s nose.

The captain spluttered a handful of excuses. After many apologies he eventually dragged him by the fingers of Pern’s right hand, richly adorned in jewellery, towards the Emperor’s audience chamber at the heart of the palace. At the very least, that was the request that Pern made of him. He had never had occasion to visit the emperor’s palace or even view a map of the building’s layout, and so he could only guess that the captain was complying with his request. 

Inside the building was even more grin and austere, covered with all the hard edges of power, but none of the soft cushions. Pern was led by a group of very intimidating bodyguards into a vaulted chamber that was crisscrossed by shafts of light. Beneath the dozen daggers of light, in between the shadows and the sunbeams, there stood a man cloaked in twilight. Immediately, Pern felt uneasy, knowing that at the very least, the emperor would have had a couple dozen attendants and some form of furnishings in this utterly stark room.

“Where did you find her?” The cloaked man asked.

“Her..?” The captain asked, in confusion. Meanwhile, Pern felt her insides turn to mush as the panic rose up in her throat. She started backing away slowly when she felt herself thunk into the muscle-bound chest of the rear guard. Fighting to keep her, his, convictions from petering into nothing, Pern cleared his throat.

“What the heck are you talking about, old man?” Pern winced when his voice cracked painfully at the end of that outburst, making it into more of a frightened inquiry than an intimidating retort.

“My my, what a little vixen I’ve stumbled upon,” the man in twilight tisked. “You’re bold, but reckless too. Wearing only one Skin is liable to get you killed. As soon as I say the words, your entire plan falls apart.” The man stepped forward, the dazzling beauty of his cloak only half-noted by Pern as he balled his fists and squared his shoulders, in a stance that proved slightly too narrow. The guards pounded Pern onto the hard stone floor and he groaned with pain.

“Your Skin is not your Bone, the first a boy, the second a girl. I’ll be back, little vixen. Just remember to tell better lies next time, if a young woman such as yourself is even capable of such. After all, whomever betrayed you into my hands must be quite the weaver of Skins.” And with that, the man walked out of the vaulted room, a dungeon, and left Pernissa alone. The sound of heavy lead locks in the door clanking shut echoed hollowly.

Pernissa is my name. I’m 17 years old, and an urchin on the street of the most bedeviled city in the world. I’m not some high and mighty ambassador from a powerful rival kingdom, and I’m not even a boy. I’m a girl. Despite how sour events had become, Pern held a savage smile even as tears washed the dirt from her face. Whatever that old man’s claims of her ability to lie, for that short afternoon in mid-summer, she had been a boy. She had felt it in her skin and her muscles, in the way that she thought, and felt, and had lived. Pern had woven a Skin...

Her Skin had fallen apart, along with her other machinations. All she had left to her were her brittle Bones, and even those felt broken. The smile disappeared, but the tears remained.