It would be many more miles before Margaret and Erin would cross into the silky, patchwork farmlands of outer Stockton. Static with crops, such as cabbage, potatoes, and tomatoes, or more exotic almond and walnut groves. Those farmlands altered the cuisine of Stockton and nearby towns. Almost all dishes included a smattering of chopped, salted, almonds, or ground walnut paste, a featured condiment with most local poultry dishes.
At last they were coming into Rio Vista, a farming hamlet a few hours from Stockton. Colorful banners waved in the wind, thick with humidity from the Sacramento river and farm manure. The town itself was pleasant enough, built around a fine collection of stores and depots, restored since the Collapse. Rio Vista even maintained a firehouse, complete with a rolling wagon and four-man pump.
That wasn’t what caught Margaret’s attention, however.
As welcoming as Rio Vista tried to be, it didn’t feel like northern California. It felt like ash and sorrow. There was grit to it, like soot in the throat or dust in the eyes. Something that couldn’t be shaken, the memory of a memory. It felt like Saint Louis for a moment, and Margaret’s mood shifted accordingly, asking Corporal Erin Abid to pull off and park further up the river by a quarter mile. It was quiet there. Lightly wooded and shady, rocks peppered the sand and small birds skipped away from the clamoring truck as its engine finally silenced.
Margaret stepped out of the truck, as awkward as that was, twisting her hips right so she could unlatch the battered door with her left hand, then releasing her arm back to the seat to push off and out. She looked up, squinting, the unrelenting sun in the corner of her vision, nearly obscuring a big blue sky that stretched above.
“Did you need to rest?” Erin asked, softly, as she climbed out of the cab. Her driver’s side door didn’t close correctly, and when she slammed it, the door just bounced open with a noisy crack.
Margaret turned to Erin, watching, choosing her words. The young woman’s Antecedent kit, molle and chainmail were in the truck. It was hot in the cab and she wore a tank top of mottled gray and black. It struck Margaret as odd that she hadn’t ever come to stink, despite days of open road, and not once in their weeks together had Margaret ever seen the girl bathe, or even wash her hands. It wasn’t worth further consideration, and she dismissed the thought before replying.
“What do you feel, here, in this place?”
Erin looked around for a moment, north toward the Sacramento river, then south. Relatively pain free, Margaret could feel Erin’s mind, whipping about the air like a panicked animal, blind, and fearful.
“Easy,” Margaret resisted the urge to use her voice to calm the girl. “Take your time. It's hard at first. Imagine that your mind is full of snakes. Imagine that they fall free from you, slithering around the dirt and sand, into the water, up the trees and down by the reeds. Don’t rush it, don’t force it, like you’d hammer a nail. Just listen.”
When Erin tried this, she lifted her hands, holding her index and middle fingers apart from her thumbs, as though she were painting in the air with her finger tips. Her chin moved slightly, and her brow twitched, but it was working. Margaret could see the tendrils of her energy spread out now, down the river, under the truck, and even past Margaret’s feet. It was slower, yes, but if she paid attention, she’d learn more.
While Erin practiced, Margaret crossed down into the shaded riverbanks. It was a quick drop off to the water, no mud or beach to speak of. The river was beautiful, a clear and moving channel that caught sunlight and made it dance. Only the obstruction of limbs below created a soft trickling sound. Margaret could have relaxed in this place, perhaps even slept under sweet, humid air. Unfortunately, the itch at the back of her throat hadn’t vanished.
“This place isn’t this place. Does that make sense?” Erin spoke louder for Margaret.
“Yeah. Yeah, it does.”
Turning back, Margaret gestured her closer, waiting for Erin to enter earshot so she wouldn’t need to yell, “That could be a lot of things. Maybe something is hidden nearby, or perhaps the place is owned by an old spirit.”
Erin bit down on her dimpled lower lip, eyes narrowed for the sun, “It's like if you hold a magnifying glass up and look at it, not through it.”
Margaret turned away from her, and back to the flowing Sacramento river, “That’s not a bad way of describing it. In this case, I think I know why.”
Aurora’s gown was long since garbage, left behind in Fish Rock. Margaret had accepted a simple black dress made of smoked linen after her surgery. It was sleeveless and tied at the waist with a long chain of narrow links, smooth iron, turned a deep shade of rusted cerise. The garment was cool for long hours in their truck and allowed her wounds a chance to breath less painfully. She released the chain around her waist and the weight of the metal tugged part of the dress off.
“Oh,” She heard Erin cough, then shuffle, turning around.
Margaret almost laughed but thought better of embarrassing the girl. She wasn’t naked, she still wore simple, high-cut pantaloons, corded above her knees so she could adjust them for comfort.
In memory of Saint Louis, Margaret looked below her left breast, at the jagged scar across her ribs and stomach. Exposed to the fetid Mississippi, the wound festered for nearly a day after Saint Louis. It had almost killed her more certainly than Amihan’s flame.
True to the Maul surgeon’s word, her flesh was now covered with fish skin, cut and placed like tiles across her shoulder, collar bone, breast, and ribs, obscuring the worst burns. It was Tilapia, a crosshatch of a silver that caught light and reflected it back in varied hues. The skin itself shifted colors with light or angle, shades of deep blue, malachite, and violet moving around her upper body like ferrets at play, darting, dodging, weaving.
The Tilapia skin had been stitched with care, fine thread holding it in place about her frame. It was ragged at the edges, curled up or twisted where her dress had worn on it. According to the surgeon, she’d need to wear the skin until her own flesh began to form scar tissue. It would reduce the disfigurement, and physical pain. It had turned her stomach at first, but here at river’s edge with reflected sunlight prancing, she found an elegant beauty in it.
Margaret looked back, away from her colorful carapace, and let her eyes unfocus and drift in the river currents. There was a voice there, wordless and without language, an ebbing thing that politely demanded she come close, much closer than the river’s edge. It was the key to what was shifting in this place, the division that tickled the back of her throat.
Condatis is here. The old river god from Saint Louis.
Margaret was fully in control of her person when she thrust her left arm behind her and allowed herself to fall, below, into the river. The water was a cold shock and she shrieked once, cursing, trying to acclimate. Her bare feet caught the river bottom, and she held herself up, surprised by the current strength. Once she habituated, she could allow herself to relax a second time, tilting her head back to the bright, rolling sky.
“Um,” Margaret could hear Erin above, “What are you doing?”
Truly focused now, she didn’t respond to the girl. Instead, she pressed her palm with care to the river’s surface, listening. This wasn’t her vocation, her métier, and it took many minutes to quiet her mind and synchronize with a simpler energy. Drab in so few shades, offering no sweet seductions for Margaret’s spirit. She found no joy here, even her meditation was false, a spurious effort no different from a menial task, doing dishes, or sweeping.
The sort of thing she paid servants to do.
Margaret and the river finally reached an accord, and she was able to spread her mind wide, across the wetlands of Northern California. Part of her pressed past San Pablo Bay and kissed the salty ocean. Another part of her climbed up the narrow ship channels and into chilly Sierra Nevada run off. This connected, she could speak his name, speak directly with him.
“Condatis.”
Gods of the physical world were more disconnected from human c
ondition than those vain creatures who could command flesh and visit beyond the Veil. They paid little heed to witches like Margaret, and Condatis didn’t reply immediately. When he did; however, the Sacramento River slowed, and finally the current went still, wholly a giant puddle around her.
Margaret opened her eyes, allowing something like a disjointed smile, “Hello.”
The water of the river pulled and twisted up, dark green and brown, giving way to bright reflections and shimmers. A shape, humanoid in form, coalesced up and out, head, neck, arms and torso, rising many feet above Margaret. So large was this arthropod that the river itself fell past Margaret’s breasts, exposing most of her torso, and glistening fish vellum.
“Little butcher, Bête Noire,” the towering form gurgled, vowels and consonants were chirps and slaps of water, a pitter pat, leaking, snap-snap-snap noise.
“Why do you call me that? Bête Noire?” Margaret replied, calmly, her one arm stretched wide from her body.
“Bête Noire is such that we name you. Such that you are.”
Vividly aware of how cold she was now, a breeze dancing across her wet skin, Margaret shivered in reply, “Why do you swim in my rivers Condatis? You're far from the Mississippi.”
The water darkened around her, turning a deep shade of blue, oily black where the light didn’t catch, bold in refraction. “Such as ourselves repay such as yourselves when we wish. How we wish. It's time to settle our debt.”
Margaret was aware that Condatis was angry. More than feeling it, the river slid around her ankles and thighs, discontent, agitated. The concept that Condatis owed Margaret anything seemed to rile the very air and humidity she breathed, slicing at her lungs and eating away at her sinuses with sooty bite. “Condatis, you said you would owe me a favor. The favor of a god. You said, I freed you. I didn’t ask for this favor.”
Condatis didn’t answer immediately, and Margaret could feel turmoil against her flesh. She supposed that he could simply drown her, if he so pleased. “You paid dearly to kill the old Bête Noire.” He answered, simply, in a ripple and slosh of syllables.
Margaret considered her reply, “I have thought warmly of you, over the years. If it can be done, I release you from any debts you think I’m owed.”
Once more Condatis paused, neither moving, nor offering Margaret any sense that he heard her. When he finally spoke, he leaned over, dripping water across her face and eyes.
“Little butcher, Bête Noire. You are at the center of a spiraling path. Other gods seek to use you. You’re not free, you’re crippled, hobbled.”
Margaret licked her lips, water streaming down her face.
“This is true, river lord.”
“Little butcher, Bête Noire,” Condatis continued, shrinking away, water churning about Margaret’s belly and spine, “I cannot return you an arm, but it is within my power to free you from your hobble, and make us equal. Without debt.”
Condatis collapsed. The suspended form of water fell back into the river as though a giant bucket had released its contents across Margaret. That much water returning to the Sacramento was catastrophic. The force slammed Margaret back into the riverbank and pulled her down ten, perhaps twenty yards, from where she’d jumped in. An adequate swimmer with two arms, this departure was so violent that Margaret found herself drowning, unable to surface, with water filling her nose and mouth. She panicked, briefly, before realizing Condatis would wish her no harm, and she simply eased into the sensation. By the time she clamored up the bank, and onto the shore, she was coughing up water, and gasping hard. All the while, her mind was immersed in the cacophony of a thousand waterfalls spilling and splashing about.
He’s laughing at me.
“Lady Mayhem?” Margaret could barely hear Erin above her own hacking cough as she spit up water, heaving, trying to regain her breath.
“I’m here.” She replied, as loud as her throat granted.
Erin approached Margaret, taking her left hand, pulling her up from the sandy beach, south of where the two had parked.
“What did you do? The whole river, drained,” Erin’s voice changed pitch with awe.
To be fair, Margaret thought, I’ve never seen anything like that either.
“An old friend,” Margaret coughed again, and looked over at Erin, eyes wide, “‘friend’ is maybe an exaggeration. An old river god who owed me a favor. A story I might never tell you.”
“River god?” Margaret’s Corporal was aflame in excitement over this notion, before she looked down, releasing Margaret’s hand and taking a step back. “...your skin.”
Still breathing hard, trying not to gasp, Margaret looked down to her naked torso. The fish skin that had been stitched across her ragged burns and tattered flesh was no longer a patchwork quilt of Tilapia. Rather, all her burns were now coated in a carapace of silver scale. Narrow threads were gone, so too was the bumped and rounded edges of where her fat boiled up. Flesh given at birth simply met fish skin somewhere in the middle, merging like a lifting fog in San Francisco, at noon day.
Margaret reached down with her left hand, running index and middle finger across her sternum and right breast. It felt like Tilapia skin, the colors shifted all the same, but meat and muscle underneath were firm, solidly a part of her. Applying pressure, then digging her nails in, there was no pain from the burns.
“Gods be fucked,” Erin took one, two, and then a final step back, clutching her mouth closed with a palm, as if her words might bring down a lightning bolt.
Although her right arm was missing, Margaret’s burns were gone. Wholly replaced. When she twisted her neck, rolled her shoulders, the Tilapia moved with her, no longer pulling or pinching, flaying her alive.
Margaret laughed out loud, as genuinely as Condatis had laughed at her. She’d been a great fool, not just today, but for a very long time. She’d believed the world to be a static and predictable place, governed by the laws of nature and magic. Within those laws, Margaret had done her finest, for decades, to avoid gods, and all their entanglements. It was, at this moment, that Margaret realized how little control she had. The power to bend matter around her had been so simple for the Mississippi river lord.
Words failed Margaret, she couldn’t speak, couldn’t summon words to answer this gift. Condatis wouldn’t even remain to accept a thank you.
How would I thank a god for new skin?
Only in the shadow of mutilation had Margaret learned how much of her confidence kept rest in physical beauty. Only in the den of unending pain did she realize how much of her life she lived in the threaded glow of magic. This gift was beyond thanks, it was a distillery of hope, the chance to make good on her dreams.
Without word or warning, Margaret leapt forward, covering the paces between her and Erin, clutching the androgynous girl with one arm. The strange and glimmering skin felt the texture of Erin’s tank top, the heat of her flesh, the movement of breeze at her shoulder. It was a freedom in the purest form, and Margaret could only giggle. A child again, holding her Corporal.
Holding, perhaps, her friend.
“Lady Mayhem,” Erin squeaked, clearly uncomfortable with this unmitigated display of physical affection, “that’s good enough.”
Margaret pulled away, silver crosshatch on her lower lip stretching into a smile, “This is good enough, Corporal. Do you hear that? Do you fucking hear that?”
Erin’s eyes jumped around, she was trying to hear that, “No?”
Laughing, Margaret ran her tongue in a full circle of her lips, “I can hear it. I can hear the sound of Amihan Lopez begging me for mercy.”
4:04pm March 17th, 39 Veilfall
Thornton, California
From Rio Vista it was only about an hour to Thornton, one of the major land liege hubs north of Stockton, then a straight shot back into the capitol. Crossing Rio Vista put Margaret and Erin squarely in the rich heartland of House Owens. These barons had passed their land through family bloodlines since the Collapse. Their children and grandchildren now r
uled landholds stretching across thousands of acres. Most of the hands that worked those fields also lived there, allowed free residence, safety, and security for their traded labor. Those families ate well but were essentially owned by the minor nobility of House Owens, who’d grown wealthy over the decades, supplying crops of every variety beyond Stockton, to the Nevada ranges and Central Valley waste.
A highway, rail, and river port, Thornton was ruled by the Leavitt Tillage, a trade hub with a ticking heart. Every building, every hotel and hostel, market, shoppe, tavern and diner belonged to the Leavitt family. Whether it was traffic guards or cooks, street cleaners or tanners, they all wore blue and yellow, groomed themselves to Leavitt standards, and spoke proper English as the Leavitts demanded.
Outside of the double-carrier diesel rigs that the Tillage owned to move crops and goods, the little 4x4 truck that Erin drove was the only petrol drinker in town. Most offices and keeps maintained tie and tack for horses. Indeed, much of the town smelled like boiled cabbage and the dusky aroma of horses. Blue and yellow banners flew on each street corner, and concrete sidewalks were lifted perhaps a foot above the street below. Two plumes of blackened coal smoke, further east of the highway, signaled freshly embarking or disembarking locomotives, along with the whine of their steam whistles.
As Erin drove into town it seemed far busier than would have been expected, walks thick with foot traffic. Much of the clamor seemed to be Stockton citizens, dressed to their own devices in the colorful hues of the capitol. Woven tapestries of lady’s long skirts in shades of yellow and orange were dingy from soot and rail wear, blouses unlaced, and sleeves rolled, they were followed by men hauling crates of possessions, or parcels of food, while children drug their heels in somber dismay.
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