tSoaLC- Valentine's Psychic Vomit

Version 3- a work in progress

Abigail Holn stepped delicately through the entrance arch of the City Hall and surveyed her natural habitat with a little distaste. The grand hall was looking even grander than usual, bedecked as it was in velvet sashes and shining candles, but Abigail simply wasn’t impressed. She wanted more- always more. She did not have the cultural education that would have allowed her to marvel at the fine artwork on the ceiling, admire the gold-leafed statues that twined themselves decoratively around the support columns, and be made weak at the knees by the sheer magnificence of the architecture. So many people would have joyfully chewed their own hands off to be standing and surveying this splendour at their leisure, this epitome of what Thenek was, and Abigail would simply have given them all a disdainful look and stepped over them.

She looked down into the crowd thronging at the bottom of the steps. There was a crowd- disgusting, how could so many people have got themselves invited- and then the tables surrounding a dance floor, then the buffet and drinks table. She could see that vile boy, Valentine Lysival, surrounded by a gaggle of girls all jostling for his attention. And then she saw her Dune, her white-blonde, handsome Dune, seated at one of the tables. He was laughing, and bending forward, and looking at the boy next to him with the long, dark hair, which he flicked back to reveal-

Abigail let out a quiet growl. Predictably, it was Gabriel Lysival. He was just as bad as his brother, and worse. He with his stupid, pathetic puppy-dog’s eyes. He with his ability to infallibly put Dune in high spirits. He with his enormous crush on the boy she had laid claim to. Dune was hers. Hers. And she knew that now, only Gabriel could provide anything like competition. With a martyred sigh, she began to descend the steps. As usual, she would have to drive Gabriel away before she could continue to work her magic on Dune.


Gabriel jumped slightly when Dune gave a sudden shout. It wasn’t that his nerves were particularly frazzled that evening, he just hated that name and everything it meant.

‘Abigail! Look, Gabriel, there’s Abigail!’

Before Gabriel could reply, Dune had leapt up from his seat and scampered towards the staircase. Towards Evil Abigail. She was thin and pretty, and had somehow managed to hide from Dune the fact that she was a gold-digging reptile. It was Syrshe who had first come up with the nickname ‘Evil Abigail’, and somehow it had crept into circulation behind Abigail’s back. The nickname was hardly original; Syrshe got along with very few people she ever met, and so almost all of her acquaintances had an appellation consisting of an offensive adjective and their name.

Thus, Pratty Valentine, Pompous Thaddeus, Bland Valetta and Fat Sister (the name lovingly awarded to her sibling, Ophelia) were born. Gabriel could have snickered at this if he too had not been on the receiving end of one such nickname; Sweet Little Gabby. Only once had this name fallen upon anyone else’s ears. Dune, fortunately, had been tactful enough to pretend that he’d never heard.

He was jerked out of his reverie by Dune drawing a chair at their table for Abigail, before reseating himself next to his best friend. The two contestants exchanged venomous looks when Dune wasn’t looking.

‘How are we today, Gabriel?’ asked Abigail. ‘I hope you haven’t been too unhealthy recently.’

‘I was lucky enough to avoid any feelings of nausea until this ball,’ said Gabriel.

‘Well, I trust that you will soon enjoy the kind of health you know I wish upon you,’ said Abigail, her eyes poisonous.

‘And you,’ replied Gabriel courteously. He would never have been able to say this without the calming presence of Dune by his side- the other boy soothed him, effectively making his stutter disappear. ‘Syrshe Talfryn sends her regards.’

‘Oh, I didn’t know you got along with Syrshe,’ said Dune. ‘That’s great! Just think, she rarely gets along with anybody, and yet she likes you. Does she like her, Gabriel?’

‘Oh, as much as I do,’ said Gabriel jovially. Dune could only grin with joy. The boy was by no means naïve, but firmly believed that Gabriel and Abigail actually got along with one another. ‘You’re amazing,’ he said to Abigail. Gabriel smirked at Abigail’s warning cry of ‘Hair!’, but was then forced to look away as Dune kissed her.

Dune Raven had never been a sensible person. He had never ascended to the dizzying heights of exuberant stupidity reached by Gabriel’s brother, but he still managed to put himself in unconventional danger quite frequently, until recently in search of hedonistic and increasingly more illicit pleasures. Fortunately, he had come back from the edge, reconciling himself with his loved ones and re-forging bonds lost.

He had entered the glittering, whirling and, most importantly, entirely legal social life of the young, rich Thenekian with apparent ease. Unfortunately, he seemed to have completely lost all sense once more when he had first been introduced to Abigail. It was like- like that one and a half year period when he had stopped talking to his friends and family, and had barely been seen around his house at all. Now, this madness with Abigail was lawful- and sickening. Stirring Gabriel to ever increasing fits of jealousy, Dune would rave about his new (and only, which was a first) partner. These trials would push Gabriel to the limits of his mild-mannered patience, and it was often all he could do to prevent himself from leaping to his feet and throttling his fiend for his immense fat-headedness.

‘Why don’t we go the drinks table?’ suggested Dune from behind him.

‘Oh, yes, darling, you must try the latest craze. It’s a drink they’ve brought in from outside the Ring Mountains! Imagine,’ commanded Evil Abigail.

‘Will I like it?’

‘Of course you will, darling. You like everything that I say you will. I can predict you so well.’

Dune smiled. ‘All right. Come on Gabriel.’ He reached down, taking his friend’s hand. Gabriel’s stomach promptly transformed into a jumping bean.

‘Don’t be a silly boy, darling,’ said Evil Abigail, giving him a stern look. ‘Gabriel won’t want to waste his time with a couple like us. I’m sure it would only embarrass and confuse him,’ she added, giving the subject of her sentence the kind of look normally bestowed upon unsightly beggars by the upper classes.

Gabriel could not follow Dune- with the intention of protecting him- without appearing to be a very strange person indeed, so he sat back down.

‘I think I’ll just stay here,’ he said. ‘Have fun.’

He brushed Dune’s soft sleeve with his fingertips, and then his best friend had disappeared into the crowd.

He could already feel his agitation returning.


He woke up lying on something cold. He moved his head, which seemed to be much larger than it should have been, and found the surface beneath his cheek pleasantly cool, lightly textured, and slightly sticky. He opened one eye experimentally.

Acres of wood grain whipped away from him. Its undulations made his stomach turn. What was this place?

There was a sudden booming noise. It must be a message from the gods. Gabriel smiled happily to himself, flattered that they had chosen him. He had secretly suspected that it was only a matter of time before they chose to contact him, but had not expected it when he was so ill prepared, lying drunk on his main room floor.

‘Snflbrap,’ he mumbled.

There was another booming noise. It seemed to echo around him and make the floor and door shake. And then a godly voice cried out something unintelligible.

‘What?’ Gabriel cried back, raising his head from the polished floorboards.

‘Open up!’ shouted the gods. ‘Open the damn door!’ Gabriel realised, with some consternation, that the gods sounded an awful lot like his brother, Valentine.

Upon which, the door slammed open and his brother, Valentine, barged in, shattering Gabriel’s dreams of divine contact.

‘Don’t you knock?’ he mumbled, and giggled.

‘I thought I did,’ said Valentine, pausing for thought. ‘Oh well.’

‘What do you want?’ asked Gabriel.

‘Somewhere to sleep. Move over.’

Gabriel smiled smugly. ‘I knew it. You’ve finally been thrown out of the house. I knew you’d go too far one day.’

‘Wrong,’ said his older brother, dropping to the floor next to him. ‘I’ve just been locked out of my room. Don’t ask me how.’

‘All right, Valentine.’ Gabriel could smell the alcohol on his brother’s breath. The ball hadn’t been so bad after all. They lay still for a moment.

‘Why are we on the floor? ’ asked Valentine. ‘It’s not very comfortable.’

‘Dunno, Valentine,’ said Gabriel, and promptly fell asleep.


He found himself standing in a bright green room, which was unexpected. He looked around, stepped forward, and, to his bemusement, found himself waist deep in a pond. A duck swam past, giving him a friendly smile. How nice. Maybe he should ask it something- but he couldn’t talk could barely breathe something on his back was cold and his head was swimming, perhaps where he could find the nearest gentleman’s club. Before he could say anything, the duck handed him a map and he went to climb out the pond. He could see a circle of girls sitting near the water’s edge. Someone was saying something to him-No, don’t twist like that, don’t, stay still and hold on, stay with us- ‘Gabriel! Gabriel! You can join us! We’ve even got you a shirt!’ ‘Oh gods, oh gods, please, Noooo!!’ The shirt was ugly, blue and white, a stupid checked pattern. He took a step forward to take it and found himself standing in the archway of the City’s Cathedral, the sunlight warm on his back as he looked into the dark interior of the building. Flames flickered behind him, so, in dreamlike detachment, he turned to look at the burning city. The sky was flushed red and gold and grey and the white towers stabbed at the heavens in their agony. Swivelling away from the destruction, he stepped into the cool interior of the cathedral. It was still intact, but he had the feeling that it had been in disarray before someone had come in to tidy and decorate it. There were candles, candles everywhere even though the city around the mourners was seared beyond recognition. Everyone was dressed in black, faces pale, their red eyes standing out in painfully harsh contrast. The atmosphere around him was so beautiful and sad he could have cried. Instead, he stepped lightly towards the altar, to the coffin.
As he drew closer, he could see all the people standing around it. Octavian, covered in cuts and bruises, with his eyes shining. Leaning heavily against him was Thaddeus, jaw set firm, blinking a little more often than was necessary. Wull, crying quietly but unashamedly. His parents and sister looked like the world had ended. And there stood Gabriel –me–, his little brother, shaking silently in Dune’s arms. So where was he?
Slowly and with a terrible foreboding feeling, he lent forward to look into the coffin.
There he lay, pale and peaceful in death. The scar across his face ran dark with dead blood. His hair was brushed neatly, all away from his face. And someone had taken the time to dress him in a neater version of his favourite outfit. He even had his best tie knotted around his neck.
And so he saw. He, Valentine was dead.
Gabriel jerked awake, panting. In the darkness, he heard his brother inhale sharply beside him. A figure suddenly lent up in the darkness, ragged and breathless. They looked at each other.

‘It’s all right,’ said Valentine, trying to get a hold on himself. ‘It was just a dream.’ His eyes were wide and glittery in the darkness.

‘Just a dream,’ echoed Gabriel. ‘Just a dream.’

He lay back down on the hard wooden floor, wondering why he was actually there. He didn’t sleep again until dawn had begun to flush the sky.


The room was dark and smoky, even though it was barely midday. Grey, ghostly wreathes meandered lazily around the ceiling, a souvenir of the night before. The walls were stained and dirty, yellow and grey and brown and black in turns. Worryingly, there were holes in the plaster that looked as if they’d been caused by blades of varying sizes. Evidently, the nightlife in this place was interesting. On one wall, the bar extended from the left wall to the right. The wood, too, was stained to a very dark brown, and the bottles behind the bar were mostly tarnished, with faded and peeling labels. There were brown-leather booths on the wall opposite the bar, and several battered tables and chairs stood in between.

The door opened, surprisingly silent on its hinges, and sunlight strayed querulously into the tavern, alighting briefly on a few of the tables and nervously glinting off the bits of broken glass that the barkeeper had failed to sweep from the floor.

Valentine closed the door behind him, and the daylight gladly fled, leaving behind only the unobtrusive glow of the oil lamps.

Few of the taverns in the city were open at noon, but Valentine knew all of them.

He walked to the most shadowed booth and sat down opposite an even more shadowed form. The figure shifted and eyes glinted in the gloom. Valentine picked vaguely at the table with a chewed fingernail.

‘Last night you had a dream. You Saw. Other people Saw too. The future visited you with a message of death.’

‘Lucky me,’ said Valentine, placing his hand on the table. ‘But- other people saw?’

‘Yes,’ said the figure, inclining its head towards him. ‘Not just me. Other Seers in the city came to me this morning, before you contacted me.’

‘I think my brother- we slept in the same room- he woke up at the same time as me, he looked so scared’. Valentine stopped and drew in a shuddering breath. ‘So scared. Will it happen?’

The figure was still for a moment.

‘Yes,’ it said finally. Valentine sunk down in his seat. ‘It’s very hard to predict when, but from people’s appearances, I guess within the next year.’

‘But why? Why was the city burning? It had been destroyed!’

For the first time since Valentine had entered, the figure lent forward so that the soft light revealed its features. The face suited the deep, quietly intimidating voice, a day’s worth of stubble grazing over a strong jaw. He had the typical Talfryn colouring, combining green eyes and auburn hair with unusually tanned skin. However, his hair was no longer auburn, but coloured a dark brown. He was glowering. He always glowered.

‘Do you have any idea as to why? Because I don’t’. Valentine lent back. ‘It must be a surprise attack of sorts.’

‘We need to tell someone. The City Lord-’

‘-knows nothing and won’t listen to us. You are an infamous cad, and as for me… Well, everyone knows that I am a violent and dangerous outcast. Not to be trusted’. There was not a little trace of sarcasm in his voice. ‘There’s very little we can do.’

Valentine sighed. ‘Well, I’m glad you’re on my side. I’m glad you’re here, Rafael.’

Rafael said nothing, although the lines on his forehead deepened.

Meanwhile, Gabriel too had sought some advice and council in the form of Dune. He had woken early from a dreamless sleep and had managed to stumble to one of the family carriages, which had taken him to the Raven House.
He had a hangover.

The Raven’s butler, a stoic, mirthless man named Hamson, opened the door and gave a stoic, mirthless smile.

‘Master Lysival. Here to see Master Dune?’ he asked heavily. Gabriel nodded, the motion making his world distort and slide around him.

‘He is in his rooms, sir.’

Gabriel scurried to Dune’s door as fast as his headache would allow him, and knocked hurriedly on the wooden panelling.

‘Come in!’ cried a joyful voice from within. Dune had obviously drunk a lot less than Gabriel the night before.

Gabriel sidled in and smiled wanly at his friend. The grin that was returned could have been used in a lighthouse. Gabriel felt slightly ill.

‘Gabriel! Gabriel, I’m so glad you came! You look ill. Have some water! Wonderful night last night, wasn’t it? I had a great time. I was just about to come to you house to tell you the good news!’

‘What news?’ asked Gabriel, his brain pounding with Dune’s every exclamation.

Dune told him.

Gabriel could have sworn that his heart had stopped beating. He felt his throat tightening and his eyes beginning to burn. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe.

He managed to make his legs work and stumbled back to the door with some guttural sound in his parched mouth. The world reeled around him.

‘Gabriel? Gabriel?’ he heard someone called mistily after him as he blundered from what had come to be his second home.

Only later, when he had come out of the shocked grief that had swallowed him, did he realise the full connotations of Dune’s engagement to Abigail.


Lunchtime, at the Lysival dining table. The residence was large, and housed the majority of the Lysival family. It would have been impossible for them to eat at the same table at the same time, so lunch began at one o’clock and ended at four. In any case, there were very few people in the family who would have wished to share a table with all their relatives.

Gabriel, for one, was glad of this arrangement, because it meant that he wouldn’t have to see any of the Dreaded Aunts. It was an ordeal which he avoided under any circumstances, but one which he found the prospect of particularly depressing in his time of grief.

He ate like a horse normally, but today was repulsed by just the sight of the food on his plate.

He was prodding wretchedly at his salad when the door opened and his brother entered quietly. Their eyes met, and nothing began to stretch out silently between them, like a cat.

Gabriel was the first to look away.

‘Good food,’ he said, spearing a potato and waving it around without passion.

‘Is that potato salad?’ asked Valentine, the bags under his eyes the colour of a fresh bruise.

‘Mmm-hhm,’ said Gabriel.

‘Excellent,’ said Valentine listlessly.

They avoided each other’s eyes as Valentine moved along the lunch buffet. Gabriel was afraid to raise the topic of portentous dreams that predicted the dreamer’s death and the destruction of their home, and evidently Valentine was not keen on discussing them either. They sat in silence, pushing the food around their plates, but taking a mouthful whenever they felt the other’s eyes on them.

After a long, uncomfortable period of not speaking, there was a respectful knock on the door, and Smithe, the butler, manoeuvred in.

‘Master Valentine?’ he said, obviously preparing to impart a profound revelation. ‘Young Master Levant and Mister Thaddeus Raven are here to see you. Shall I show them in?’

Valentine nodded, not looking up from his plate even when Thaddeus and Octavian appeared.

‘Hello,’ said Octavian.

‘Looking alert and cheerful today, I see,’ said Thaddeus, raising an eyebrow.

‘Yeah,’ grunted Valentine.

‘We’ve got something that will cheer you up. You know you’ve been pestering us for weeks to take you on another hunt? We’ve decided that we’re to,’ said Octavian, pulling out a chair opposite Valentine and sitting down. Thaddeus moved to the buffet and picked fastidiously at a lettuce leaf.

‘That should reinstate your usually ceaseless flow of prattle,’ he said.

Gabriel was rooted to his seat. Valentine couldn’t go on that hunt! He’d be killed! He thought about the state of the city. Maybe that was his brother’s fault. He wouldn’t be surprised.

‘So, how about it?’ asked Octavian. ‘It’s tomorrow evening, so you’ll have time to prepare. Go down to the symbol-smith’s, that kind of thing.’

Valentine considered this information carefully. Gabriel could almost see the cogs in his brother’s head turning. He had to say something.

‘Nh-’ he managed. Octavian and Thaddeus both turned to look at him. He shrunk back into his seat. He quite liked Octavian and his predictable conversations, but Thaddeus scared him deeply.

‘Well, look who we didn’t notice,’ said Thaddeus.

‘Hello. What did you say?’ inquired Octavian, in a much friendlier manner.

‘I was j-just going t-to say, um, V-Valentine. I’m not sure. Um, that’s wise,’ stammered Gabriel.

‘Whyever not?’ asked Octavian. Thaddeus narrowed his eyes. Gabriel looked back and forth between them and his brother.

‘Valentine-’ he started, almost pleadingly.

‘Look, it doesn’t matter, Gabriel. Whatever you think you know- it doesn’t matter. It’s going to happen,’ said Valentine, just avoiding his brother’s panicky eyes. ‘I’m going.’

A lump in his throat, Gabriel blundered for an exit for the second time that day, leaving the three older boys in a confused silence.

As the door slammed behind him, Thaddeus turned back to the others and said, ‘What was that drama in aid of?’

Octavian shrugged, and no-one noticed Valentine wipe his eyes on his sleeve.


Gabriel spent most of the night pacing around his room, unable to sleep. He was worried sick about his brother, but his agitation over Dune’s engagement made him so guilty his stomach-churning. What was he going to do? What? And what about his brother?

As dawn started to seep into the sky above the white city of Thenek, he finally crawled into bed and fell asleep fully clothed.


He woke up on the floor again. This time, his bed was towering over him. Drawing the obvious conclusion that he had rolled out of it, he sighed heavily and heaved himself upright. His shoulders were stiff and there was a dull pain in his lower back.

Now he was conscious, he had to apply himself to the task of first choosing his priorities, then acting quickly and decisively to separate Dune and that girl-

Of course, he knew that he was actually more concerned about losing his brother, but what could he actually do?

It was certainly a portentous dream, no doubt about that. Gabriel had heard other such sleeping visions described, and the searing clarity of what he had experienced, lying drunkenly next to Valentine on his floor, fitted the bill perfectly.

He also knew that your Fate was your Fate, no matter who you were. However you tried to avoid it, no matter what measures you took, your destiny would inevitably catch up with you. He had heard legends where people had somehow managed to challenge the actual entity of Fate to a battle over what was to happen to their sister- or was it their mother? He rather suspected that this was wishful thinking rather than actual fact, and anyway, the challenger had lost and been sent into death.

Nevertheless, the most viable course of action would be to go to Zinc and West’s, the most respected symbol-forge in the city, and find out from them whether there was such a thing as an invincibility symbol, and would his brother be able to channel the magic? It was bound to be very strong, and everybody knew what happened when you tried to channel power beyond your ability. Goodness, maybe Valentine himself had decided to try that, and he would be killed by his own magic.

But even as he considered this, another plan occurred to him; he could postpone the hunt. The dream had, after all, not been specific about the exact time of his brother’s demise, which of course left the possibility that tonight’s hunt would not bring it. Still, Gabriel had a bad feeling about it. A very bad feeling.

He had to put off the hunt. In fact, he had to go to Dune’s and persuade him to dissuade Thaddeus from taking his brother out.

Dune…

The thought of once again facing that oblivious demi-god, that betraying epitome of perfection, made him feel queasy. But now he had to sacrifice his remaining nerves and throw himself completely into the jaws of angst by going back, back there, to that place.

With a heavy heart, he made his way down to the stables. His path was perfectly clear to him.


The bell above the double doors of Zinc and West’s tinkled, and a superficially identical pair of young men entered. However, upon the observer’s second glance, the twins separated into two distinct entities, the major difference between which was that one was short, and one was tall.

Valentine Lysival was the former youth. His shoulders and chest were broader than his companion’s, and his hair was dark, messy, but cut in a fashionable style. He shared his younger brother’s freckles, though Gabriel’s were darker and less sparse. A faded purple scar, the remnants of an unmentioned and unmentionable accident suffered in his earlier years, ran from his brow, down his nose and onto his right cheek. Normally, his skin would not be as pale as it was that day.

The other youth was impeccably dressed, long-legged, with a strong jaw and grey eyes. His hair too was dark, but with more of a curl in it than Valentine’s. Although he was the same age as his friend, there was a wedding ring on his finger. His name was Willium Eryls.

This ring signified an extremely fortuitous marriage on his part, one that had made him a Lord and one of the richest men in the city. It sounded extremely impressive, but in reality, people rarely afforded him the kind of respect his position should have gained. He had, after all, been a member of the lower classes before he had wedded Lady Roma Eryls.

She was thirty years his senior. Willium was what was politely referred to as ‘an enterprising young man’.

‘Master Valentine! And Lord Eryls! How splendid to see two fine young men such as yourselves on such a fine day,’ said one half of the symbol-forging partnership, Pinny West. He creaked obsequiously out from behind the counter and offered them a toothless but pleasant smile. They were amongst his best customers.

Many people would have been amazed to discover that Valentine was actually not banned from such a potentially dangerous shop. He was banned from so many others in the city, as well as the homes of several of his friends and the majority of the city’s public and official buildings. The Grand Library still bore the scorch marks on the walls of the third floor, as well as having a completely unusable corridor on the fifth, as a memento of the time when the city had been innocent of Valentine’s ‘inclinations’ (as his mother called them).

‘What will it be today, sirs?’ asked West.

‘I’m going out on a hunt tonight,’ said Valentine, without energy.

‘So just the usual tips woven into the wrist guards?’ confirmed West. ‘Very good, sir. And you, Lord Eryls?’

‘Oh, I just enjoy being in the classiest symbol-forge in town,’ said Willium, grinning. ‘But now you come to mention it, I need another linking ring for my Summons box. The old one’s worn out.’

‘So quickly?’ ejaculated West, looking alarmed and seizing Willium’s hand to inspect the ring. ‘Why yes, so it is. I think Linus should incorporate a longevity symbol-tip with your present symbols.’