Ch 2, reg 5: The Method of Election

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Chapter 2 - The Legislature

Regulation 5: The Method of Election

A Senator is elected by the occupants of their domain, chosen through the method of election as prescribed within that domain’s internal practices and by-laws.

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From the depths of the tunnel's darkness, the gilded silver frame of a train carriage emerged. The sleek curves of metal stretched down the rails, grand windows reflecting the light of the sky. It glided to a stop at the centre of the platform, the slightest hint of a blue steam wafting from its exterior walls and fading back to the tunnel’s mouth. Gemma and Eve crouched amongst the crops off the main path, watching Madame S and the two-faced receptionist as they waited upon the platform. Madame S was still. The receptionist clasped their hands behind their back, muscles tense as if ready to pounce. The pearly doors of the train slid open with a soft hiss and a chime.

“It’s been a long time.” First came the voice, a rolling boom contained like a cloud withholding a storm. Then came the man, who stepped out onto the platform with thudding steps. The giant figure wore a three-piece suit of ivory white; trimmings the colour of cream and eggshell. Two great wings of smoky-grey feathers emerged from his shoulder blades and brushed against the weeds growing through the platform's concrete behind his feet. He stood before Madame S, staring down at her with a grinning smile.

“Yet never long enough.” Madame S replied.

The man chuckled at the sardonic remark. The hacking sound carried throughout the domain.

“Alas. All good things must come to an end.” He said.

“Indeed.” Madame S responded drily.

Gemma looked to Eve who had gone silent. Her deep hazel eyes were wide open, stark against her shocked-white complexion.

“Are you okay?” She asked.

“It’s Him.” She replied. She pulled at Gemma’s sleeve. “We need to get back to the inn.”

“May we ask the purpose of your visit?” Madame S asked. “So that we might expedite your return.”

“Need I a reason to visit an old friend?” He asked.

“For a friend, no. But let us not pretend that we are what we are not. We did not invite you here, nor will we welcome you. We will hear your purpose.”

The man sighed, like the sound of a hurricane’s roar.

“Never one for pleasantries. I shall not waste your time then. I have come to assert my claim.” The man gestured to the fields and the inn. “To this once-storied domain that you have twisted and tainted into a patch of rurality and dirt.”

“You have no claim to our home.” Madame S said.

“Ah.” He raised his giant finger to catch her thought. The attendant by his side stepped forward eagerly. He was a squat man wearing a suit of many shades of grey, and whose complexion had taken the same pallor. He produced a document from a long leather tube and unfolded it before himself. He gave a nod with smiling eyes to his master as he found his spot, and the memory of her most despised colleagues flashed into Gemma’s mind. He cleared his throat, puffed out his chest which his long tapered beard draped over, and spoke in as loud of a voice as he could muster.

“An excerpt from a document entitled ‘Rules of Our Domain’.” He shouted in a sound like a restrained sneeze.

“Penned by your old man.” The man in the white suit added.

“We are aware.” Madame S seethed.

“Part six, section thirty-four-point-one-point-one.” The attendant continued. “The method of election for a Senator within our domain, for the purposes of Regulation 5, is to be decided by the Law of Contest.”

Gemma felt Eve startle next to her.

“Please Miss Gemma, He is bad news. We need to leave.” Gemma did not respond, attention rapt on the orator.

“What’s the Law of Contest?” She whispered back.

“A relic of the Old Days.” Eve said. “And we'll be right in the middle of it.”

“Now, does this document specify the qualities of a potential contestant to the Senator’s position?” The man in the white suit asked, his unflinching smile a reflection of the answer he knew would come.

Eve was pulling Gemma up the path. Gemma could feel the fear in her shaking hands, and could see even the receptionist move unsteadily as he circled by Madame S’s side. The sky darkened, heavy clouds sweeping in with a chorus of crackling reverberations.

The attendant paused for half a moment, then spoke half a beat faster at half a notch quieter.

“No, sir. This document does not.”

It was a fraction of a second, but Gemma caught it.

“Come on.” Eve said, straining against her.

“Wait.” Gemma said, watching him. She had seen men like the sycophantic attendant countless times before. Not physically similar to the puffed-chest pigeon of a man, but identical in spirit and character. They had spoken over her to the point that she had spent her life honing a highly specific brand of listening.

“I need to read that document.” Gemma said, not knowing herself why she said it. Yet, the foreboding feeling of an unfolding tragedy was upon her, tumultuous and unsettling. She still wasn’t certain how she felt about the so-called ‘afterlife’ she had found herself in. However, her blood boiled into a festering rage at those with an abusively selective interpretation of the law, fuelled by the memory of those she had to suffer and endure in her life. She knew that the glimpse of a fantasy she had found here was on the verge of being taken from her, and she would not allow it.

“Is that really necessary right now?” Eve asked.

“Yes. If what you said about this place and the weight of its regulations is true, it could stop this.”

Eve stared at Gemma, who stared back. She shook her head in resigned defeat.

“There'll be a copy in the Archives. We best move quickly.”

“And so, dear,” the man in the white suit continued, “would you do me the honour of this Contest?”

Madame S stared at him. Higi leaned up and whispered something to her ear. She could hear him, but did not process what he had said. She was watching the man’s grin, and wondered if he might smile a bit harder to crack a tooth and choke on it.

“Very well.” She eventually said.

“We have the two required witnesses, in my attendant and yours.” The man said.

Both Midari and Higi went to voice an objection but Madame S raised a hand to cut them off, directing them back to the edge of the platform.

“Will she be alright?” Gemma asked as she ran alongside Eve up the path to the inn. She glanced back at the scarlet form of Madame S, which seemed almost diminutive next to the man in white.

“We’re the ones we should be worrying about right now.” Eve said. “Madame S can look after herself.”

They burst through the side door. The burly man from breakfast stood in the central hallway, peering out through the window towards the station.

“Where are the others, Bolton?” Eve asked.

“They've hunkered in the cellar.” He said, voice like a handful of rocks.

“Good, you best get there too.” She pulled Gemma past him and through a side door into the winding passages. As she moved, she called to her, “What makes you think you’ll find something?”

“The way that man spoke.” Gemma called through shallow breaths. “I’ve seen it before. He spoke like he hoped nobody was listening. Like he didn't want anybody to realise.”

“Realise what?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

They reached a junction in the passageway. A grand door was set into the wall, marked with an intricate carving of a bone-white skull that peered over an engraving of figures in a grand revelry.

Eve gripped the door knocker, formed from the chinbone of the skull, and knocked strongly against the wood. The knock reverberated through the corridor, shaking Gemma’s bones in solidarity.

There was silence. A sound of a distant boom echoed from outside. The floor jerked into a tremor beneath them, knocking them to their knees. They scrambled back to their feet.

“Come on, Caper.” Eve said, exasperated. She reached for the knocker once more.

A sound of cracking bones grinded throughout the corridor as the skull upon the door’s face widened its jaw in a great yawn. It turned slowly in its cavity, scraping softly against the carved wood, and looked to Eve.

“Alright there, Eve? Looking as old as the last time I saw you.” It spoke in a creaking echo.

“We need access to the Archives, Caper. Urgently.”

“Hmm. I see.” The sound was a dry rasp. “And you are…” It asked of Gemma.

Gemma stared at the talking skull. The racing of her mind from the rushed retreat stilled into serene bafflement and stunned silence.

“...not very talkative.” It concluded. The skull eyed Eve sternly despite its absence of eyeballs. “And what would you be needing the Archives for, then?”

“There’s a Contest. Miss Gemma here thinks we might find something to stop it.”

“A Contest?” The skull called Caper said. “Well, I’ll be damned. Haven’t seen a Contest in quite some time. Don’t suppose you could ask them to bring my door up for a view?”

“We’re in a rush.” Eve reiterated.

“Of course, of course. Wouldn’t want to keep you waiting.” The skull said, in a laboured sigh that suggested that it was entirely unfazed by whether they were kept waiting. “It’s not as if I’m left to maintain a passage through divine space each time you fall asleep in there after reading three sentences.”

Eve had the courtesy to at least seem somewhat embarrassed.

“Please. It’s Him.”

The skull was silent.

“Well, you should have led with that.” It said, and a carved knob in the side of the wood jutted out to project a handle. Eve gripped it without hesitation and pushed through the door. As Gemma followed through, she looked back at the skull.

“My name is Gemma Beck.” She finally stammered out. “It’s a pleasure.”

“I’m sure it is, Jemima.”

“It’s Gem-”, but Caper had ceased its animation and settled back into its groove, staring placidly out into the corridor. “Thank you.” She said, and stepped through the door.

The room on the other side was impossibly immense. Broad shelves stretched from the polished hardwood floor up to the high, arched ceiling, dozens of metres above them. Each one carried a burden of books and papers in a kaleidoscopic range of colours and materials. The shelves stood in orderly files and rows, like soldiers of a grand army armoured in leather and cloth. Their lines stretched into several rooms beyond, sub-sections divided by stone and timber partitions that blocked Gemma’s attempt to ascertain how far back it spread. Gemma took a deep breath, and absorbed the scent of the Archives: that comforting smell of dried ink and dust. There was a long reception table at the centre of the grand space that Gemma and Eve had stepped into. A line of figures sat at it, busy in their work, filling the room with sounds of clacking and scratching. They were in the midst of a working chain, each one fulfilling their respective role. The first prepared the paper, another penned the words, yet another bound them, and on the chain continued until a final document was handed to a runner who dashed with it through the towers of shelves to find its home. The figure in the centre of the table looked up at their approach, staring at them from empty eye cavities. They wore a deep navy headscarf about their exposed skull, crafted into a bow that seemed to droop ever so slightly as they neared. They placed down their stamp to rest upon its holder and gave a seated bow to the two.

“Welcome to the Archives.” They said, with a voice that soothed, oozing a trained professionalism.

“Hello.” Eve said.

“Good morning.” Gemma followed.

“My name is Eve. She is Gemma. There’s a Contest about to begin in our domain, and we’re hoping to find some way to stop it.”

As Eve continued to speak, the skeleton made slight flicks of her head towards the already increasing stack of papers upon their side of the table. Their bow flinched microscopically each time another was added to the pile. Gemma felt a pang of sympathy for the skeletal clerk, knowing all too well the terrors of the inbox.

“We’re looking for a copy of the domain’s rules.” Gemma interrupted. “And a copy of the Laws of Contest if available.”

The clerk nodded. They pulled a wooden tag from the box in front of them, and penned a combination of letters and numbers upon it. They passed it to an attendant waiting at the other side, who glanced at it and took off at a jog down an aisle. The clerk gestured with an open palm, the thin bones of their fingers directing through the passage to Gemma’s right.

“You will find a room through that passage and the door on your second left. The attendant will bring the documents to you shortly.” They said, watching Gemma carefully to ensure she understood.

“Thank you very much.” She said.

Satisfied that they had been seen to, the clerk quickly pulled the document from the top of their stack and set about reading through it, tackling their backlog with a vengeance.

Gemma and Eve followed the clerk’s directions into the room. It was sparsely decorated with a round table and several chairs set about it. As they took a seat, a short knock came at the door.

“As requested.” The squeak of a voice said as the small attendant placed two sheafs of paper upon the table. They were bound by cord and the paper was aged, stamped with a seal that Gemma could read to note they were officially translated copies.

“That’s incredibly fortunate that they knew which language we needed them in.” Gemma said.

“I would presume they’d base it off what language you asked for it in.” Eve replied. Gemma attempted to contain the feeling of foolishness as she opened the first package.

‘The Laws of Contest, as decided by the congregation amassed on this day-’ She began to read.

Eve could do little but watch as Gemma let her training and years of practice inhabit her, transforming her mind to pierce the documents before her for the truth she knew was hidden within.