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aegor-bamfsteel · 5 years

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So GRRM apparently said Bittersteel and Calla didn't have children, what do you think about this new information? What could be the reason for them to not have any child? Is it possible for either of them to have bastards? How does this information affect Aegon Blackfyre theory?

These are all fantastic questions, anon, and ones that my very patient followers/askers in my inbox have been waiting for me to talk about! I’ve been out of the loop on new asoiaf info due to feeling a little bummed out with fandom for a few months, so GRRM’s Summer 2018 interview actually slipped under my radar. I didn’t find any print transcripts of it when I did a hasty Google Search, so here’s a reddit thread talking about the revealed information; the only part that’s relevant to my answer is that when asked if Bittersteel aka Aegor Rivers had any offspring, GRRM replied with “No, I don’t think so.”

And now, to answer your questions under the very long and probably wanky cut:

Question 1: What do I think about this new information? Well, what GRRM said is a little different than Aegor and Calla not having children; he specifically said he thinks that Aegor probably didn’t have children. We have to consider whether or not GRRM would give out highly plot-relevant information in an interview years before the possible Big Reveal, so he might simply be lying (although I don’t recall whether or not he has directly lied before in an interview). Yet assuming this is the truth, I’m personally rather disappointed that Aegor probably didn’t have children for a few different reasons. Not because I support a theory with a ton of gaping holes in it that nobody else likes to talk about, but because I like Aegor Rivers as a(n idea of) a character and a lack of a close family life is just another personal tragedy of his.

However, the idea that Aegor never had sons (that reached fighting age/were able to fight) is from my point of view pretty clear from the text of twoiaf. I had pointed out to warsofasoiaf prior to making this account that the fact that Aegor’s sons were never mentioned in twoiaf is a strike against the Aegon Blackrivers theory; we don’t know much about Aegor, true, but we do know about his devotion to the Blackfyre cause and how Blackfyre family members personally fought in the rebellions in Westeros, so it would be out of character for Aegor not to have any putative able-bodied sons take the field. While perhaps they were too young to fight in the Third Blackfyre (especially if Aegor’s wife was in fact Calla, at least 13 years his junior), there is no excuse why they were not mentioned fighting alongside Daemon III or Maelys. The way Yandel describes leadership of the Golden Company is another strike against Aegor having sons or even later descendants; he writes that until Maelys the leadership was held by the descendants of Daemon Blackfyre rather than Aegor Rivers, and if the leadership was as nepotistic as Yandel implies, you’d think male descendants of Aegor Rivers would be the among first ones acclaimed captain-general after 241. But all of the known captains-general were Blackfyres rather than Aegor’s descendants (there was no way Aegor’s descendants would’ve been allowed to take the surname Blackfyre given the fear that he was wielding too much power over the cause, as both Daemon II’s failed Rebellion and Aenys’ arrival in Westeros demonstrates). I find it implausible that if Aegor Rivers had descendants the Golden Company would’n’t’ve known and kept them as safe as possible in anticipation of them at least joining the Company, if not fighting for the throne (certainly older exiles like Harry Strickland use their exile ancestry as a form of seniority over others, and a Bittersteel descendant would surely use his ancestry in Company politics).

But I would’ve liked Aegor to have had daughters. I think it could’ve been a bittersweet parallel to the Bracken sisters; that the sexual violence done to them by Aegon IV would give rise to women proud of their female ancestors who sought revenge on the Targaryens. After Aegon IV tortured and executed Bethany and her father and lover, Bethany’s lover Terrence Toyne was avenged by his biological brothers who killed Aemon the Dragonknight, but who was there to avenge her? She had no biological brothers, only a sister who had a son who grew up to spend his life trying to kill and displace Targaryens. It seemed that nobody cared what had happened to Bethany but Aegor. But if Aegor never had children, that lineage is dead and the cruel injuries done to Bethany and Barba can never be avenged by a direct descendant.

It’s just one more horrible thing that happened to Aegor Rivers, a character whom I admire because of his continued survival despite all odds, and it makes his character less interesting: Just like his mother’s, Aegor Rivers’ life was an unending string of tragedies; a permanent exile from 2 weeks old, at age 6 his aunt and grandfather were murdered by his sperm donor without due process, he was raised close to a disputed territory (the Mother’s Teats) that bore the scars of Targaryen cruelty (Daemon Targaryen’s dragon Caraxes had burned Bracken land in 129), and that’s not even getting into what the Targaryens/Brynd3n Riv3rs did to his chosen family the Blackfyres (they essentially slaughtered Daemon and his descendants like they weren’t human). I’d just like some hint that he could’ve been content; that maybe he was more than just an enemy for the Targs/Brynd3n Riv3rs to beat down over and over, but a character with his own life and loving bonds outside of war and tragedy. The idea that he had a wife and daughters introduced a possible different dimension to him; his descendants would’ve been a physical manifestation of his survival to live on in the face of hardship. Yet assuming GRRM speaks the truth, he was just as miserable in his personal life as he was in his dealings with Westeros.

Aegor Rivers having offspring would’ve further made him a foil for Brynd3n Riv3rs. Not because I don’t think Brynd3n Riv3rs didn’t have offspring (although I do believe he was childless), but because BR is very much associated with death and destruction. Every time he’s mentioned in D&E and aDwD, he is compared to a corpse. Each institution the Powers That Be put him in charge of he utterly ruins or dishonors, whether that be as Hand, Lord Commander of the Wall, or the Last Greenseer. By contrast, Aegor Rivers is shown to be a creator of institutions, founding a mercenary Company unusually known for its dedication to discipline, brotherhood, and honor. If he had had children, it would’ve forced the Aegor=life Brynd3n=death symbolism even harder, as Aegor would have physically created a bunch of children who lived beyond his own lifetime.

It just irritates me that GRRM seems to care so little about Aegor that he might not have even thought about him having children. That’s another interpretation to GRRM’s “I don’t think so” answer; that he put so little thought into the life of one of his more influential historical characters that he wasn’t even sure if he’d sired offspring (this is assuming, as I do, that Aegor’s possible descendants aren’t really relevant to the plot of asoiaf). GRRM has answered with “I’m not sure. I need to check my notes” to some questions about his secondary characters, such as where Oberyn Martell was during Robert’s Rebellion; and as of late he seems to have had trouble keeping his facts straight (he endorsed Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson writing twoiaf because they apparently knew canon better than he did. Which does not make me hopeful for future book releases), but he doesn’t seem to have even had notes on the subject. And either in the same interview or one shortly before/after, GRRM confirmed that in the face of all logic, Brynd3n Riv3rs was allowed to take Dark Sister with him to the Wall despite being a criminal to the Crown with the only Valyrian sword the Targaryens had in their possession. So not only did GRRM flatten and dismiss Bittersteel’s character, but he further nullified one of the few times Bl00draven ever got comeuppance for his atrocities. There’s no sense of balance to their conflict; everything somehow goes BR’s way while BS is condemned to live a life of misery and fade away into nothing. And, contrary to what GRRM likely wanted, this double standard only makes me pity Aegor more and pray for BR’s painful death.

Question 2: What could be the reason for [Aegor and Calla] not to have a child? We know so little about what happened between Aegor and Calla that I think it’s best to look at what we do know—that shortly before the First Blackfyre Rebellion, Daemon I agreed to wed Calla to Aegor—and then examine possible answers to the outcome of Aegor+Calla being childless. Solutions that I can think of, in order of how plausible I think they are:

The marriage was never consummated: Aegor had a Targaryen sperm donor, sure, but he was raised by the Brackens and spent his life fighting against Targaryen supremacy. The idea that incest (one of the most obvious parts of Targaryens believing themselves above others) disgusted him isn’t impossible. That Calla was at least 13 years his junior and knew him since she was a child could’ve disgusted them both further. Also, Aegor was often away fighting in mercenary companies, which decreased the amount of time the two spent together to consummate. Therefore they could’ve had a sham marriage meant only to bind Aegor and the Blackfyres closer together. However, I consider this the least likely answer because 1) Yandel implies that Aegor suggested the marriage in the first place and 2) Aegor is characterized as being very focused on the Blackfyre Cause to the point of losing many of his scruples by the Fourth Rebellion (referring to his ineffectual alliance with Torwyn Greyjoy, a traditional enemy of his Riverlands home), so he’d hardly balk at uncle-niece incest.

Either Aegor or Calla were biologically unable to have children: If this is true, my money is on Aegor, since female fertility in GRRM-land seems to be passed on from mother to daughter. They stayed married until Aegor’s death in 241, and because Calla was 45-56 at the time, she never had any other children.

Calla died before she could have children, perhaps in childbirth: I hate, hate, hate this possibility since it reduces and then fridges a female character for her ability to bear children, but given GRRM’s track record of killing off married female characters in childbirth, it’s a plausible explanation. Aegor never remarried after her death and so also died childless.

Daemon I only agreed to wed the two; he didn’t even officially betrothe them, let alone had a wedding. Thus the marriage never took place at all because…

Calla died before they could wed. I also hate this possibility for creating and killing off a female character to be a cheap red herring, but again I wouldn’t put it past GRRM. In this instance, there’s a historical parallel in the figure of Princess Louisa Stuart, James "the Old Pretender” Stuart’s sister who died unmarried at age 19 from an outbreak of smallpox that struck both siblings. The same results ensued as in part C.

There was no political advantage for it to occur, so Calla married someone else: If you think Aegor was a bad match for a would-be Princess when he was a landless knight dependent on the charity of the Brackens/Blackfyres, think of how much worse he was as a landless exile in a society where knighthood and birth were largely irrelevant, he was geographically and doubtlessly monetarily cut off from the Brackens, and the Blackfyres themselves were desperate for wealthy allies. Although Calla had at least two other sisters (Calla was the eldest rather than elder daughter, implying that she had more than one sister), Rohanne was not going to waste her marriage potential on a penniless sellsword while the Targaryens were trying to curb her influence in Tyrosh via wedding two of their princes to Kiera. No, Calla and her siblings needed to make matches with powerful Tyroshi or other wealthy Essosi families in order to get the funds, ships, and armies to invade Westeros. Remember that Aegor’s chief strength, the Golden Company, didn’t materialize until 212 when Calla was 16-27 and very likely already married to an aforementioned noble.

Calla had children and her descendants still live in Tyrosh: GRRM’s response doesn’t indicate that Calla never had children, especially since it wasn’t made clear that she and Aegor even married. Bear with my tinfoil for a second, but her name indicates that she did have children. We’re supposed to pay attention to Calla’s name because it’s non-Valyrian, unique in book!canon, and above all, a flower name. GRRM loves his flower significance, most famously with Lyanna’s blue roses (unattainable, mysterious, rare beauty) but also with Jonquils (desire, vanity, a happy marriage) and the white water lilies of Maidenpool (purity, peace, spiritual enlightenment). In Calla’s case, the calla lily is a symbol of peace, Christ’s resurrection, and rebirth in the springtime. It’s also known for being able to survive harsh elements and is an odd misnomer (technically neither a calla nor a lily, but its own genus). Considering the strong rebirth connotations calla lilies have, I believe that Calla is the most likely Blackfyre child to have living descendants. That’s not to say that she is the only child of Daemon I to have them (see section 4.4.1 for further speculation on that front), but the implications of her name plus general Nominal Importance (she’s the only Blackfyre descendant we know of not to die horribly and she’s the only named female) indicate that she’s the person through which the Blackfyres survived.

Question 3: Is it possible for either [Aegor or Calla] to have bastards? If 2b is untrue and both Aegor and Calla were fertile, then it’s certainly possible for them to have bastards. After all, we know little about Aegor and even less about Calla. There are rumors that Aegor was in love with Shiera Seastar, and he was so often away from Tyrosh that it’s possible he had an extramarital affair. As for Calla, it is less likely for her to have a bastard (you’d think that if she did, Yandel would’ve mentioned it to discredit Aegor and the Blackfyres even further), but I guess it’s possible for her to have been like her grandmother Daena in that respect. But is it likely? I don’t think so. Maybe it’s just my headcanons firing away, but my idea of Aegor is someone who’s incredibly insecure about sex/sexuality due to what happened with Barba and Bethany; ergo, I don’t believe he would have recreational sex with a woman not his wife. As for Calla, she was part of a family under a lot of pressure to behave appropriately so as to give neither the Tyroshi nor the Blackfyre exiles cause for complaint. I do believe she had legitimate children (see 2.4.2), just apparently not with Aegor.

Question 4: How does this information affect Aegon Blackfyre theory? Compared to GRRM’s answers regarding other fan theories, this one is a pretty direct NO GO. Granted, it’s somewhat cagey (he simply said he probably thinks Aegor he didn’t have offspring, not any other Blackfyres), but think about how he’s responded elsewhere:

Example 1: When asked about Jon Snow’s death, he responded with a dry “You really think he’s dead, do you?” so he’s not afraid of acknowledging a twist most readers already anticipated.

Example 2: On a more important and impactful theory, R+L=J, he refused to confirm or rebut any useful information; specifically, when asked if any Stark other than Ned had children, he said that Benjen was at the Wall, Brandon could’ve sired Snows, and Lyanna died. That non-answer regarding Lyanna was often toted as evidence in favor of R+L=J until the show confirmed it in Season 6.

Example 3: When asked on his blog whether or not those who believe Sansa Stark and Jon Snow will reunite and get married/rule Winterfell together by the end of the series are right, he responded “Not going to say anymore than I have already” which is not the outright dismissal a supposed crackship (or not so crackship, as he’s outright dismissed more popular ships before) would’ve merited.

Thus: GRRM could’ve chosen to avoid or subtly answer the question like he did in these three examples, but he chose to outright confirm that Aegor likely didn’t have children. Up to this point, the most popular subtheory of Aegon VI’s alternate parentage was that he was a descendant of Aegor and Calla, based on Illyrio Mopatis’ claim that Maelys was the last male-line Blackfyre and the fact that Aegon VI has the support of the Bittersteel-founded Golden Company. Now GRRM’s response seems to have brought that theory down; Aegor had no children, so Aegon VI could not be his descendant.

However, rebutting Aegon Blackrivers is not the same as rebutting Aegon Blackfyre. There are several of Daemon’s children who are not confirmed to have died childless: Haegon had at least three sons who may’ve had daughters, Aenys may’ve had daughters, the two youngest sons of Daemon I may’ve had children, Calla may’ve had children by someone other than Aegor, Calla had at least two sisters who could’ve had children, and Captain Daemon Blackfyre and Maelys could’ve had daughters. The potential candidates for female-line Blackfyres is still rather large. The idea that the Golden Company would allow their king’s descendant to grow up apart from them on a poleboat amidst a bunch of Westerosi exiles rather than in Tyrosh actually learning statecraft from his noble family is a strange one, but I leave those explanations to those who actually believe in the theory. (For my part, I believe Illyrio when he said no Blackfyre will take the Golden Company home, but a Targaryen will. He just may not be the Targaryen Westeros or the readers expected.)

In conclusion, I am disappointed that Aegor Rivers was confirmed to not have had children due to character- rather than theory-based reasons; I would’ve preferred that a character that had faced such adversity had a physical representation of his survival in some descendants, but I can live with the Golden Company being his legacy. There are any number of reasons why he never had any legitimate children, but I like to think it was because he remained unwed and devoted to the Blackfyre Cause while Calla had children with someone else. I’ve read some writings by those who subscribe to the Aegon Blackfyre theory, and I can only hope that this new information teaches fandom to speculate a bit more kindly. If someone disagrees with your theory for whatever reason, never call them delusional or say that they are “just fooling themselves.” Never take any theory as obvious, as everything is speculation until confirmed by canon or Word of G-d. Always consider other people’s arguments and try to build your theory based on the text rather than warp the text to fit your theory. And above all, listen with compassion.

Thank you for your interesting set of questions, anon. I hope that I have done them justice in my response.

#ask #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #aegor rivers #Calla Blackfyre #Bittersteel #asoiaf theories #fandom critical #aegon vi #aegon vi targaryen #GRRM critical #GRRM criticism #house blackfyre #asks #anti bloodraven

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the-magnus-archives-archiver · 5 years

Text

Strange Music

Case: 0051701

Name: Leanne Denikin Subject: An antique calliope organ she possessed briefly in August 2004 Date: January 17th, 2005 Recorded by: Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London

Let me be clear: I'm not scared of clowns. I don't find them funny, either. Just a bit baffling, really. I've never understood why people would find grown men in stupid make-up and wigs funny. Or scary. It's the same with the dolls. People talk about their cold dead eyes, but they don't seem to have any problem with statues. I suppose now I've got good reason to be scared of both. I just want you to understand, I wasn't seeing things out of fear. This happened.

It didn't come as a surprise when my grandfather died last August. I'd been living with him for almost two years at his home in Bootle, looking after him through his illness. My mother was having her own difficulties at the time and my good-for-nothing father wanted nothing to do with any of it, so looking after my grandpa came down to me. It wasn't so bad, really. My grandpa was a strange man at times. He'd been a carnie for most of his life, working with travelling circuses and freak shows all over Europe, and was something of a recluse in his later years. He could also swear a blue streak a mile wide. Get him behind the keys of a piano, though, and I don't know anyone who could play as beautifully as he could. Like I say, it wasn't a surprise when he finally died, but I still found it difficult. As you may have guessed, I don't have a great relationship with my parents and have always had some problems making friends, so... when he went it hit me hard.

I didn't go out that week. Or the next. I saw Joshua, my... partner, I suppose you'd have called him, but aside from that, I didn't see anybody between grandpa's death and the funeral. It was just me, Josh and my mother. Grandpa had never been a churchgoer, but my mother had a lot of faith, so paid for a Methodist funeral, such as it was. It was a hot, muggy day, and I remember wondering whether the stinging in my eyes was from the tears or the sweat. As it turned out, grandpa had left me his house. It didn't really sink in for a while – the house had been the most home I'd had for so long that I'd always felt it was mine in some ways.

Going through my grandpa's old papers and possessions was harder than I had expected. It was only reading some of his own letters that I discovered his birth name was Nikolai – he'd always just gone by Nick. Eventually I sorted through everything. I had a small box of memories I wanted to keep, but... I just wasn't up throwing the rest away yet. I decided to store them in the loft. I knew the house had one, although I had never been inside. It had always been locked. It wasn't a mystery or anything, just that my grandpa hadn't needed to get anything from up there while I was living with him. At least, I thought so.

It was only then I realised I had never been inside it. More annoyingly, I quickly discovered that none of the keys I'd been given for the place were for the padlock. No luck searching for it around the rest of the house, either. In the end I had to cut the lock off with a pair of bolt cutters I found in the garage.

There was also a ladder in the garage, so getting up through the small, square hole wasn't a problem. I realised then that I didn't have a torch, and it was very dark. Despite it being the middle of summer, the loft was cool, almost cold. I considered heading back down to get a torch and a jacket, but as I reached out my hand, it brushed against something which felt like a pull-cord. I gave it a tug, and a small, weak bulb came to life, and I saw what was inside.

When I had first remembered about the loft, I'd been annoyed. I thought there'd be so much more stuff up there, days more sorting to go through. But when I turned on the light, I saw that it was almost completely empty. The only things there were an old steamer trunk, a small stool and a bright red calliope organ. The ceiling was higher than I expected as well. I could stand at my full height without stooping. I walked slowly towards the old steam organ. It was bright red and in excellent condition except for a thick layer of dust. There was a small brass plaque simply reading “The Calliaphone”. The brass pipes that stuck out from the top still shone faintly under the dust, and I noticed that there was writing, carved onto the cover of the keyboard. It read: “Be still, for there is strange music”.

I went to the steamer trunk next, and was surprised to find it unlocked. Opening it released a cloud of dust and I coughed a few times before I got the heavy lid up. Inside were dolls. Lots of them. They looked old, with ragged, limp cloth bodies topped with oversized round heads and large, painted eyes that stared up from their shadowed trunk. The hair on each was intricate and woollen, and while they certainly weren't the sort of dolls a ventriloquist would use, the heads had similar mouths, wooden blocks that would have opened and closed to simulate speech. At least, they should have had. Almost all of them had had their jaw block roughly torn off, leaving nothing but jagged splinters between their cheeks.

There were 23 dolls I counted in total, and only one of them still had its jaw intact. It was the oldest looking by far, and was a small clown doll. Its threadbare body was white and purple polka-dot, with three pompoms down the front and a ruff just below the head. It had no woollen hair left, but instead had a tall, pointed white cap on top. Its face was painted a pure white, and its eyes were shut, with black lines drawn across them. The only colour was a splash of red across the hinged jaw. A smile.

Like I said, I'm not scared of clowns and I'm not scared of dolls. The thing was ugly though. I was kind of relieved, actually, to have found some of my grandpa's old things that I would have no problem throwing away. Or maybe selling. They were definitely antiques, so they might have been worth something. In any case, I put the nasty-looking clown doll back in the box and closed the lid. I definitely closed the lid.

I went back over to the calliope. There was—

[Sasha: I thought it was pronounced “Ka-lee-o-pee?”

John: Sasha? You're... back early – I thought you were trying to get hold of those police reports for the Harold Silvana case?

Sasha: Tried and succeeded. They were actually quite helpful.

John: Oh... well. Good work.

Sasha: So, do we know if it's pronounced “Ka-lee-o-pee” or “Kuh-ly-o-pee”?

John: I have also heard it said as “Ka-lee-ope”.

Sasha: Seriously? By who?

John: Americans.

Sasha: Ah.

John: As far as I can tell there isn't a “correct” pronunciation. But they were originally named after the Greek muse Calliope, so...

Sasha: Are people going to understand that it’s from Greek mythology?

John: If they're working for the Magnus Institute, then I would hope so.

Sasha: I’ve just heard it more often as “ka-lee-o-pee”.

...

John: Statement continues.]

I went back to the calliope. There was no lock on the lid, or any switch that I could see on the outside. I opened it, and the keys inside shone as though they had just been polished. Now, at the time I didn't know how a calliope worked. I just thought it was like a weird pipe piano. I didn't know that there needed to be a blower working for the thing to play, and even if I had I wouldn't have known where to find one or how to use it. By rights, when I sat in front of it and pressed the first key down, nothing should have happened. The four tall rows of brass whistles should have remained silent. Instead, there came a loud, howling tone from one of the pipes and I almost fell off my seat in surprise. I remember once, hearing the sound of a steam organ could be heard from over a mile away, and when that shrill whistle sounded I could believe it.

I started to play a tune. My grandpa had had a piano once. It had broken years before and he'd never had the money to replace it, but he had taught me the basics. There was one tune that, when I was a child, I always insisted he play to me. He never told me its name, if it even had one. I always used to just call “Faster Faster”, by way of a description. A cheery, upbeat circus melody that started out almost unbearably slow and gathered in tempo, getting faster and faster until my grandpa's fingers were a blur. He always indulged me when I asked him to play it, and now I played it for him. The wailing whistles were almost deafening in that cramped space. I knew I'd probably be hearing from the neighbours about it, but I didn't care. I just played.

The tune got faster, more frantic, and I felt something building inside me. It was like final closure for the loss of my grandpa was just out of reach, and if I got faster, if I played with enough speed I could catch it. But my finger slipped and the music abruptly became a discordant cacophony. I never was as good as Grandpa Nick. I sat there in silence for a minute. When I turned to leave, though, I saw that the old steamer trunk was open, and the clown doll lay on top of the pile. Even though its painted eyes were still shut, I felt like it was looking at me. Its smile seemed slightly wider than before. I shut the trunk and climbed down the ladder.

I didn't really think about the weird things in the loft over the next week or so. I had too much else to do. It was only when Josh was next round, and asked me why the small hole into the attic was open, that I remembered. I told him I had something cool to show him, and got the ladder out. He was suitably impressed by the calliope, but freaked out a bit over the dolls. I didn't realise he was scared of them. He made me shut the steamer trunk almost as soon as he saw them, and kept looking over to make sure it was closed. I decided not to tell him about the first time it had popped open.

He asked if I could play anything on the ancient steam organ, and so I sat down and began to play my grandpa's old circus tune. Again I began to pick up speed, to play faster and faster as the whistles began to shriek. I felt a hand touch mine firmly, abruptly stopping the music. Josh stood there, shaking slightly, his face deathly pale. On impulse I looked over to the chest of dolls, but the lid was firmly shut. I asked him what was wrong and he said he didn't know. He just wanted to leave. Now. So we did. Climbed back down out of the loft, and I lowered the wooden trapdoor behind us.

The next few weeks were... unpleasant. I don't want to go into detail. Let's just say I discovered that Josh was just another asshole after all. Our relationship was already going through a rocky patch. It didn't help that in those last weeks he became moody, short-tempered, constantly on edge. When I finally found out that he had... It doesn't matter. We broke up. It left me pretty much destroyed, coming so soon after my grandpa's death. I just tuned everything out again.

Eventually, it was tripping over a box that did it. One of the ones I'd put all my grandpa's stuff into, and never actually got round to putting in the loft. I decided to just get it over with. I guess I hoped a tidier house would give me more space to think. So for the third time, I got out that ladder and climbed into the loft. If didn't take as long to store all the boxes as I'd thought, and within an hour I was done. I had been so intent on packing away all my memories that I hadn't even looked at the old steamer trunk. As I went to climb down I glanced over, and I froze.

The lid was open again, and the clown doll was on top. It wasn't looking at me this time. Instead, it seemed to be facing a doll I hadn't seen before. This one still had its jaw as well, and I swear it looked just like Josh. Same tatty brown jacket, same old jeans. Its black, woollen hair even did that flicky thing he always spent so long getting right. It was lying against the side of the box, and I swear it looked like the clown was reaching for it. I slammed the box lid down and got the hell out of there. I bought a padlock the next day.

Now, I've brought a copy of the police report I gave, because you have to believe me that I did not play that calliope again. I had nothing to do with what happened to Josh. I came home from the cinema about a week later to find that my grandpa— my house had been broken into. Here, it's all in the report on the burglary I gave to the police. The front door lock was shattered and it swung gently to and fro.

At first I ran into my living room, my bedroom, but nothing had been taken. The electronics, my jewellery, it was untouched. I felt my stomach drop as I realised and ran towards the loft. Sure enough, it was open, the padlock torn from its hook. The calliope and the steamer trunk were gone.

They questioned my neighbours about it. None of them had seen anything except for Mrs. Harlow next door, who said she noticed two people taking out pieces of red sheet metal and brass pipes. She didn't remember any details, just said that they “looked legitimate” and she thought I was having some things moved. The police never found them.

I just need you to believe that. To know I didn't play the thing again. It wasn't my fault, what happened to Josh. God knows I hated him enough back then, but... I could never called anything like that upon him. Not like that. I don't suppose you need me to tell you how they found him. Four days later, dead in his room. His throat was crushed. And his jaw was torn clean off. The police never found it.

I wouldn't have thought of it, really. Wouldn't have... put it all together even then. Not if it hadn't been for the fact that, in the last days of our relationship, Josh had broken down. He told me that he still heard that calliope music. Far off, when he was alone. And it had been getting gradually closer. I mean, they say you can hear one from almost a mile away.

Archivist Notes:

While I have what I would consider to be some natural reservations about a tale of murderous clown dolls, there are a few things that make me more inclined than usual to believe this statement. Firstly, as Ms. Denikin mentioned, she did provide a copy of the official police report into the burglary, which includes testimony from one Irene Harlow that appears to confirm Ms. Denikin did possess both a steamer trunk and calliope organ, so those at least existed. The death of Joshua Drury is also at least as mysterious as she made it sound. In addition to his jaw being torn clean off his skull, residual evidence indicates that his throat was crushed with some sort of rope, apparently woven out of thick wool. There was no evidence of a struggle or of forced entry, no DNA evidence of anyone in the room aside from himself. No-one was ever arrested for the crime.

When discussing this case, Tim said it reminded him of some articles he'd read on travelling circuses in Russia and Poland during the early 20th century. On a whim, I hunted down a few of the volumes he mentioned in the Institute's library, and sure enough on page 43 of Gregory Petry's Freaks and Followers: Circuses in the 1940s, I found a reproduction of an old black-and-white photograph. It shows a small group of carnival workers: a contortionist, a fire-eater, two strong-men, a ringmaster and a organist sitting behind a calliope. The photograph is labelled as being from 1948 and taken in Minsk, Russia. Only the ringmaster and organist are named: Gregor Osinov and Nikolai Denikin. The name of the troupe was Цирк другого [[Tsirk druh-grova]] – the Circus of the Other. The name rings a bell, but I can't find any other reference to it.

Ms. Denikin emigrated to South-East Asia two years ago, so was unavailable for any follow-up, but I'm sure there must be more on this somewhere in the Archives. Because I know for a fact that sitting in the Magnus Institute's Artefact Storage, is a bright red Calliaphone steam organ. When I asked Elias, he just told me that the record of its acquisition was “probably in the archive somewhere” and no-one else knows anything beyond the fact that it was acquired somewhere in 2007. The keyboard cover is firmly locked, and scratched into the surface are the words: “Be still, for there is strange music”.

Source: Official Transcript and Podcast (MAG 24 Strange Music)

#the magnus archives #magnus archives #MAG #MAG24 #MAG 24 #Strange Music #StrangeMusic #Statement #The Stranger #The Circus of the Other #Цирк другого

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