Boots splashed and sucked through mud and brack­ish water.

Three cut­ters picked through a morass, wound about tufts of swamp grass and bub­bling pools scummed with algae. A yel­low sky hung close over­head, bore scant light on backs bowed under back­packs strapped with blades and ammu­ni­tion.

Some­one sniffed. “Eugh. What’s that smell?” said the mid­dle. He pulled a gri­mace over blocky teeth. “Sievart, are you fart­ing at me?”

Ahead, Sievart turned. She looked offend­ed. “Shove off, Porkins. It’s from the swamp.”

 “So the swamp is fart­ing at me,” said Porkins, step­ping onto and over a mound of wet grass.

Sievart rolled her eyes. “There’s dead things under the swamp. They fer­ment and make gas.”

“Should we real­ly be breath­ing dead things?” said the rear cut­ter, nasal­ly. He held his nose with a gloved thumb and fore­fin­ger.

“Methane’s non­tox­ic, and there’s not enough to asphyx­i­ate us,” said Sievart.

“Asphyxi-what?”

The lead cut­ter rolled her eyes. “Think about it like this. It’s in pock­ets, and there’s plen­ty of oxy­gen in between those pock­ets.” 

“Thank you, Doc­tor Dar­ling,” singsonged Porkins, mock­ing­ly. He drew a pack of cig­a­rettes from his coat, tapped one out, and attempt­ed to strike a rope lighter for it.

“Just wish,” said the third, tak­ing a pause to breathe. “We could detect the pock­ets. Go around them, like. Gonna smell like bad eggs by the time we reach the road­house.” He looked down­cast. “The molls are gonna make me wash.”

“Heh,” mum­bled Porkins, cig­a­rette in lip, still try­ing at his lighter. The cheap flint grat­ed futile­ly in wet air. “Send them my pity.”

Ahead, Sievart frowned as she entered anoth­er sul­phurous cloud. “I sup­pose they could be detect­ed.” She waved a hand under her nose. “It’d only require–”

At that moment, there was a whump, a fiery burst behind her. The lit­tle troupe stopped, turned in startle­ment to behold their mid­dle mem­ber. Porkins stood, dazed, eye­brows quite gone, thor­ough­ly scorched. A cig­a­rette hung, lit, in his mouth. “Bloody oouch.” He whim­pered.

Siev­ert sighed, fin­ished speak­ing:

“That.”

***

“Good morn­ing, Doc­tor Molestein,” said a woman in blue wool and brass but­tons. She offered a suede-gloved hand as the Doc­tor under­took the thresh­old.

“Good morn­ing, Sergeant,” replied Molestein, shak­ing it. He sniffed as he entered, waved away a flut­ter­ing cloud of dusty dox­bells descend­ed from the lin­tel. There was a yel­low musk of aged cig­a­rettes in the air, about the ceil­ing.

“And good morn­ing to you, Mas­ter Lin­pell. Deep­est, ah, con­do­lences.” He nod­ded to a teary-eyed young man who sat on a chest across the oak-pan­eled par­lor, removed a bat­tered black hat, held it respect­ful­ly over a pin on his coat which read Blystle Coun­ty Coro­ners Office. The man snif­fled, smiled sad­ly in greet­ing. 

“I hope you’ve brought arms, Doc­tor,” addressed the Sergeant, also wav­ing away dox­bells. She nod­ded to the clank­ing, slosh­ing bag the Coro­ner car­ried under one arm. 

Molestein frowned. “I was­n’t told the hon­ored depart­ed had been, ah, that way for any length of time, Perkins. Was I mis­in­formed?”

“No, you see, there’s–”

At that moment, there was a ter­rif­ic crash else­where in the house. There fol­lowed an undu­lat­ing tum­ble, as of falling books. Some­thing shat­tered. Lin­pell jumped, sobbed sud­den­ly.

“Oh dear,” said Molestein, blink­ing up at the yel­lowed paint of the ceil­ing. It had cracked, shed dust and fur­ther minute, drift­ing dox­bells.

“A rather bad bunch of top­ples about,” fin­ished the Sergeant. “The old man was a copi­ous smok­er of pep­perelle.”

Molestein sniffed, frowned at the deeply sour, ashen odor of cig­a­rettes. “I might have, ah, sus­pect­ed.”

Sergeant Perkins leaned close, and, glanc­ing to the weepy Lin­pell, whis­pered behind a hand. “They did him in, see?”

“Did him in?” said Molestein, turn­ing, incred­u­lous, at full vol­ume. Lin­pell sobbed, buried his face in a hand­ker­chief.

“Shh.”

“Ah. Sor­ry.” He, too, whis­pered. “What did it, ah, do? Push a lamp on him?”

“You’ll see,” she turned to a short hall­way. Its arched ceil­ing swarmed with lit­tle black puffs: swarm­ing dox­bells. “Do fol­low.”

On her way out, she turned to Lin­pell, who had start­ed to rise, said sweet­ly: “Do stay here, young Mas­ter. You’ve had enough of a shock for one day.”

“I’ve my ser­vice pis­tol, if need be,” said the Sergeant. “We should be fine, if it shows up.”

“I did bring my, ah, aspergillum,” * frowned Molestein, fol­low­ing. Ahead, the Sergeant opened a door, passed through. The Coro­ner took the knob, said as he entered: “But what top­ple’s so bad you need a gun t–” 

He qui­et­ed abrupt­ly. They had entered a library, lit by tall, lead­ed win­dows cloud­ed by yel­low stain. In the room’s mid­dle, near a desk cov­ered in books and ash­trays, was an immense hick­o­ry book­shelf knocked on its front. Molestein had shut up, for neath it, sur­round­ed by fall­en books, emerged a pair of veiny feet clad in slip­pers.

“Ah.”

“That bad,” said the Sergeant, nod­ding to the feet.

Molestein approached the corpse, frowned at the pool of dried blood midst the crum­pled books. “I’ve heard a toke is bad for the lungs, but not, ah, for your every­thing,” he joked, kneel­ing. “Eh, Sergeant?”

The Sergeant did­n’t respond.

 “Perkins?” Molestein stood, jumped. Some­thing like a spindly bear made of toe­nail clip­pings and cat hair had sped, quite large, behind a near­by shelf. Its foot­falls pat­tered like a dog’s on hard tile.

There was a creak behind him. “Perkins?”

The Coro­ner turned, just in time to see a top­pled book­case descend atop him. 

Pepperelle

From the vol­canic slopes of Illa Sicá­da hails an herb of some con­cern: Pep­perelle. A plant, com­prised of scent­ful and leath­ery stands of wide leaves that some cen­turies ago turned the col­lect­ed heads of civ­i­liza­tion.

Near the turn of the Fourth Mil­len­ni­um, explor­er Las­ti­mo Corero Enscen­za Nic­o­cera, on a voy­age to prospect exploitable resources mongst the Track­less Isles, first encoun­tered on rainy Sicá­da that curi­ous weed. ** His pub­lished jour­nal recounts how the folk of that island, who wore stone for their cloth­ing, habit­u­al­ly put to their lips and inhaled the smoke of a par­tic­u­lar herb burned in stemmed, gran­ite bowls and seashells. Nic­o­cer­a’s men, fond of cul­tur­al exchange with the hos­pitable Sicádeens, quick­ly adopt­ed the habit, found the pep­pery smoke apt to bright­en the mind and tem­per the nerves. They enjoyed it immense­ly, returned sev­er­al spec­i­mens of the plant, which they dubbed pimien­terel­lo, for its pep­per fla­vor, to their sun­ny home­land.

Typ­i­cal of Alagóran expe­di­tionary ven­tures, lat­er vis­its to Sicá­da were less cor­dial. Pimien­terel­lo had proven extreme­ly pop­u­lar on the Coast, where folk smoked it through wood­en pipes and tubes rolled of whole leaves. The island was quick­ly annexed, the islanders abused, plagued by dis­eases car­ried by the lat­er wave of Alagórans, and forced to flee on vol­canic stone canoes to lands deep­er in the Isles.  †

Sicá­da became the first of many islands to host sprawl­ing plan­ta­tions; to host rich and unsta­ble cul­ti­va­tor-republics devot­ed to the grow­ing and sell­ing of what would lat­er be known Coast­wide as pep­perelle. †† On these plan­ta­tions, the herb is brought up on balmy hill­side trel­lis­es, air-cured, and fired over smol­der­ing fires of hick­o­ry, sage, bal­sam, and savory ash. It is export­ed as sheets and grains for the man­u­fac­ture of cig­a­rettes and for pipe smok­ing.

When smoked, pep­perelle acts as a warm­ing stim­u­lant. Its smoke indeed car­ries a pep­pery fla­vor. Habit­u­al­ly smok­ing it even­tu­al­ly stains one’s teeth, and sur­round­ing walls, an opales­cent yel­low, and also leads to a nag­ging, intense depen­dence.

Of all the sorts of folk fond of pep­perelle, it is per­haps the ven­ture­some cut­ter who finds it has most use. In addi­tion to adding small, civ­i­lized com­fort to the awful climes in which cut­ters typ­i­cal­ly oper­ate, the herb finds a host of uncom­mon uses:

• As med­i­cine. Cut­ters, when poi­soned or rid­dled by gut worms, will chew and con­sume a cig­a­rette or a tea of pep­perelle. Usu­al­ly, the result is eme­sis. Those who can keep their dry, nico­tine-seep­ing meal down expe­ri­ence a sim­i­lar, intesti­nal result short­ly after. For severe stings, some cut­ters will apply a poul­tice of pipe pep­perelle and grey salt to aid in heal­ing and ease irri­ta­tion. Whether this works, only they can say.
• As a sur­vival tool. Cig­a­rettes make accept­able, if expen­sive firestarters, in a pinch. Steeped pep­perelle “tea,” or, more unpleas­ant­ly, chewed leaves, are also smeared on the skin to repel mos­qui­toes. They are also used, though grudg­ing­ly, to detect flam­ma­ble sur­faces and atmos­pheres.
• As a ward against the Oth­er. Pep­perelle is tox­ic to älves, and älves tend not to know this. Sto­ries abound of clever humans who, in order to ban­ish a pesky älf, beguile it into tak­ing a draw from their pipe. Again, an älf prob­a­bly would­n’t know or care about this, and would rather steal your snuff­box for a laugh. For Oth­er­some crea­tures of a wari­er sort, such as sprig­gans, pep­perelle smoke serves as a repel­lent. It may also draw their ire.
• As cur­ren­cy. Where lan­guage or avail­abil­i­ty of neu­tral cur­ren­cy may fail, there usu­al­ly exist cig­a­rettes. Sol­diers and cut­ters alike are apt to trade smokes, espe­cial­ly those of for­eign make, for val­ue.

For most, pep­perelle depen­dence is usu­al­ly a non­is­sue, so long as the smok­er can afford the mild­ly steep price of more leaf. And, of course, so long as they don’t mind being sur­round­ed by a cloud of pesky dox­bells.

Cigarettes

Pep­perelle’s pop­u­lar­i­ty has explod­ed in recent decades, enhanced by the pro­lif­er­a­tion of the paper cig­a­rette and the machine that enabled its pro­duc­tion at scale: The Dunnbock Roller, patent­ed by Miles Dunnbock of Bock Har­bor thir­ty years ago. The con­trap­tion took in smok­ing paper and pep­perelle grains in vast quan­ti­ties, rolled them into a sin­gle, long cig­a­rette, and cut it into many indi­vid­ual smokes, all at a prodi­gious rate. The thing put out 200 cig­a­rettes (ten packs) a minute. The first pep­perelle man­u­fac­tur­er to invest in this inven­tion was Wax­man Com­pa­ny. Short­ly there­after, the sig­na­ture brown-and-green Wax­man cig­a­rette pack came to dwell on drug­store shelves and vest pock­ets Coast­wide, and has remained there since. It is still, today, the most pro­lif­ic cig­a­rette in the North.

Wax­man’s cun­ning adver­tis­ing schemes fur­ther pro­lif­er­at­ed cig­a­rettes’ pop­u­lar­i­ty. Unlike South­ern com­peti­tors, who pro­mot­ed their hand-rolled cig­a­r­ros with ads sug­gest­ing refine­ment and qui­et gen­til­i­ty, Wax­man chose far more spe­cious cam­paigns. ‡ They embraced sex appeal, afford­abil­i­ty, and a far more exis­ten­tial argu­ment: They embraced an old myth that pep­perelle smoke repelled the Oth­er­world and all its med­dle­some fairies. Their adver­tis­ing pic­tured sexy, hap­py, mod­ernist folk—dressed and coiffed to match the styles of tar­get markets—enjoying the fruit of Wax­man’s green and brown pack­ets. For more tra­di­tion­al­ist crowds, they issued seri­ous news­pa­per spreads mod­eled after gov­ern­ment pub­lic safe­ty advi­sories, each elu­ci­dat­ing how the smoke of pep­perelle, with its fairy-ban­ish­ing prop­er­ties, was a gen­er­al ben­e­fit to mankind (and afford­able, too.) Wax­man is deemed one of the pio­neers of mod­ern adver­tis­ing, and their tech­niques are wide­ly mim­ic­ked, today.

Oth­er brands coin­cide with Wax­man, today, and are equal­ly mighty in their wiles and inno­va­tions. Apia, a Lea­han brand, was the first to include cork fil­ters in their sig­na­ture bee-print­ed redtip slims. Col­lier’s Toasts, a Forten­sian brand by Col­lier and Sons, were the first to include col­lectible cards in their packets—first fea­tur­ing sport­ing sub­jects, then expand­ing to include attrac­tive young ingénues (of all species and sex­u­al­i­ties) in time to be enjoyed by sol­diers entailed in the mod­ern Belvirine-Lothrheim war. Even old Wax­man has made new devel­op­ments, mov­ing into the pro­duc­tion of bel­ladon­na cig­a­rettes meant to sooth the lungs of tuber­cu­lo­sis suf­fer­ers and over-indul­gers in Wax­man’s tra­di­tion­al smokes.

Of course, Wax­man and its imi­ta­tors were also con­demned. Pub­lic intel­lec­tu­als of a con­ser­v­a­tive bent decried the cig­a­ret­te’s seem­ing­ly unceas­ing pres­ence in the hands of the pub­lic, espe­cial­ly the youth, and pro­claimed that smokes would enfee­ble the con­sti­tu­tion and morals of an entire Coastal gen­er­a­tion. No doubt, much of this crit­i­cism stemmed from the cig­a­ret­te’s asso­ci­a­tion with cut­ters and sol­diers of for­tune, who were seen to smoke often, and who already owned a rep­u­ta­tion among the learned and elite as rakes, ne’er-do-wells, and moral repro­bates. Most notably, the Fet­tleist Onto­log­i­cal Com­mit­tee, an influ­en­tial ide­o­log­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion, and per­haps clos­est-pos­si­ble thing to a church in the athe­ist North, pro­claimed cig­a­rettes to be “among the great­est mod­ern obsta­cles fac­ing any­one aspir­ing to a Fit and Fet­tle body and mind.” ‡‡

Curi­ous­ly, the least pop­u­lar oppo­nents of smok­ing were those who accen­tu­at­ed its most press­ing issues. Less sen­sa­tion­al, less class-obsessed doc­tors con­fessed con­cerns over the effect of pep­perelle smok­ing on the trans­mis­sion of tuber­cu­lo­sis and plague—dis­eases, already wide­spread, which they claimed became even more trans­mis­si­ble in smok­ers. Philoso­phers and researchers of pub­lic health and san­i­ta­tion alike attempt­ed to draw atten­tion to the recent explo­sion of dox­bells in coastal cities, cit­ing exper­i­ments indi­cat­ing that cig­a­rettes, which burn at a high­er tem­per­a­ture than pipes, hatch mul­ti­plica­tive­ly more dox­bells from the dor­mant eggs with­in the herb. They warned the pub­lic of wors­en­ing pestilence—and of increas­ing inci­dents of top­ples push­ing peo­ple’s grand­moth­ers down flights of stairs—but were large­ly ignored, for dox­bells were deemed a most­ly aes­thet­ic issue by the pub­lic, and top­ple exter­mi­na­tion ser­vices were bankrolled in part by the pep­perelle com­pa­nies.

Today, cig­a­rettes are well set­tled into soci­ety (or, per­haps soci­ety is well set­tled into the clutch­es of cig­a­rettes.) Fan­ci­ful pep­perelle ads lurk in every peri­od­i­cal and street cor­ner. Doc­tors give most­ly weak guid­ance on the mer­its of non­smok­ing, pre­fer­ring to pro­mote the impor­tance of tak­ing one’s salt. Even the Fet­tleist Ontol­ogy has changed its tune, pre­fer­ring to pro­mote cig­a­rettes to sol­diers as a healthy alter­na­tive vice to pros­ti­tu­tion, drunk­en­ness, and oth­er, more excit­ing drugs.

Dox­bells flit around the light fix­tures of near­ly every room, deposit­ing dust on every­thing, and top­ples go bump in the attic.

doxbells

Dox­bells, known as “dust­bun­nies” to chil­dren, are a species of dusty, grey, moth-like pest. They lay their eggs with­in the thick veins of pep­perelle leaves. Said eggs hatch when lit on fire, as both dox­bells and pep­perelle are native to the excit­ing­ly-vol­canic slopes of Sicá­da.

Smok­ers of pep­perelle tend to amass a cloud of juve­nile, fly­ing dox­bells about their clothes, home, and per­son. They fly about on minute wings, eat­ing dust and mould, grad­u­al­ly grow­ing in size. Even­tu­al­ly, they become mar­ble-sized motes of dirt, lint, toe­nail clip­pings, and oth­er such detri­tus before being swat­ted and slain. Harm­less, if annoy­ing.

Dox­bells, though they rarely sur­vive to grow large, become quite a nui­sance when ful­ly grown, for adults of the species are pos­sessed of hands and enjoy tip­ping things over. At this stage of growth, they are called top­ples, and they are a nui­sance indeed. 

Top­ples bring woe to civ­i­liza­tion. Name­ly, a pen­chant for tip­ping over lamps, salt shak­ers, vas­es, and peo­ple. At excep­tion­al­ly large sizes, they are deeply mali­cious. They seek out oppor­tu­ni­ties to drop items on peo­ple (with accu­ra­cy,) and sneak up on and upend them over ban­is­ters. Addi­tion­al­ly, faced with a lack of liv­ing pep­perelle plants in which to lay their eggs, top­ples are prone to deposit their ova in utter­ly annoy­ing places, such as peo­ples’ ears.

Though dox­bells and top­ples are regard­ed as a nec­es­sary evil of civ­i­lized life, some find they are a sign of some­thing more wor­ri­some. Some philo­soph­i­cal minds of the Coast view dox­bells as an anthro­pogenic form of entropy; as a self-induced destruc­tion of soci­ety by way of its own vices. These are the same philoso­phers who orig­i­nal­ly warned that smok­ing pro­motes plague, § and who were sneered at, unwise­ly, from the start.

Of course, no one much lis­tens to them. No one stops smok­ing, either, so dox­bells keep matur­ing into top­ples, and top­ples keep tip­ping over peo­ples’ grand­moth­ers.

The world goes on, minus a few lamps, and it like­ly will con­tin­ue so. So long, that is, as it has enough pep­perelle.

⁂