by Layton Green
“See things how?”
“Well, now, ’tis a clever question. Ye’ve heard, o’ course, about the philosophy of phrenology?”
“Of course,” Val lied.
“Power o’ the mind and all that. I don’t buy into it much me’self—me own noggin tells me when I’m hungry and tired, and that’s about it. But real gazers —not just philosophers but the ones who can go inside yer head, like the one I’m taking ye to—they can see all sorts o’ crazy things. How?” He cackled at his own question. “You’d ’ave to ask one of ’em. Won’t get a straight answer, though. A bit like the augurs when it comes to that.” He spat, then swiveled to cock another toothy grin. “Ye’ll see.”
As they passed through Ambassador’s Row and the rest of the Garden District, those enchanting colored spires looming in the background, Val relived the wonder and terror he and his brothers had experienced at seeing the sights of New Victoria for the first time.
The busy commercial district with its dizzying array of sights and races filling the cobblestone streets, lizard men and albino dwarves and cloaked, misshapen figures hinting at even stranger origins. The Bestiary, the silver gleam of the Spectacle Dome, the shops that had so excited Will: Gareck’s Alchemical Supplies, the Adventurer’s Emporium, the New Victoria Magick Shop.
The thought of his beloved youngest brother, of his innocent spirit and ability to be moved, caused a shudder of rage and grief to course through Val.
They can’t be gone. They simply can’t.
Forcing thoughts of his brothers away, he snapped his fingers as the carriage passed a bamboo walkway leading to an open door and a Phrenomancer Available sign hanging from the window. He remembered this part of the tour from last time, and knew he had seen that word before.
“We’re not stopping?” Val asked.
“I’m taking ye to the French Quarter. A little place known as Bo’emian Isle.”
“What’s wrong with this phrenomancer?”
“That shop’s for the tourists, lad.”
Next came the Guild Quarter, followed by the imposing monoliths of the Government District. As before, one of the enormous stone sphinxes guarding the bronze and marble Fifth Protectorate Capital Building tilted its head to regard the carriage as it passed. Val locked eyes with the mythological beast, searching for answers in its timeless gaze.
They passed through a section of fancy shops and cafes, then turned right on Canal Street. The pearl of New Victoria’s downtown, Canal brimmed with brocaded carriages and avant garde restaurants with velvet-draped entrances.
Instead of heading towards the silver bridge arcing above the river at the end of the street, the driver crossed Canal and headed into the chaos of the French Quarter. The change in environment was intense, even more pronounced than back home. This world’s French Quarter was bigger, dirtier, louder, more grim. Three and four story wooden buildings leaned over the street, creating an aura of perpetual gloom, and Val tensed as the carriage crept through the labyrinth of filthy streets and alleys, slowed to a crawl by potholes and crowds of degenerates. Women in low bodices—and some with no bodice at all—beckoned to Val from crumbling balconies.
Whenever the crowd grew too dense or aggressive, Val’s driver would stand and curse, and the throngs would shift to let them through. A few of the rougher types even gave friendly waves, and Val wondered what his driver did in his spare time.
Perhaps he was more useful than Val had realized.
They went ten blocks deep, turned left, and went ten blocks more before the street dead-ended at a canal full of brackish water. A footbridge crossed the canal, leading to an island of tightly packed lanes similar to the rest of the French Quarter, except the buildings were painted various shades of pastels that had long since begun to fade and peel.
“Bohemian Isle, I presume?” Val said.
The driver cackled. “Paradise on Urfe. See that street ’tween the green and purple buildings? Follow it right to the center. Take the alley across from the fountain, underneath the gargoyles, then ye’ll see the phrenomancy sign on yer left. Look close or ye’ll miss it.”
“You’ll wait here?”
“Aye.”
Val climbed off the coach, trying not to inhale the canal’s toxic odor of refuse, spilled ale, and human waste. Without his staff or a weapon of any sort, he felt as if he were walking into a courtroom without documents.
Except in this court, you got stabbed if you weren’t prepared.
After a final glance at the chaos behind him, Val stepped across the footbridge, entering the slightly less manic atmosphere of Bohemian Isle. As he delved into the heart of the neighborhood, he saw the same taverns, opium dens, gaming houses, and brothels as in the rest of the French Quarter, but he also saw minstrels playing for groats on street corners, artists working on canvas sheets, jugglers and flame throwers practicing their art.
And then it got weird.
A snake charmer coaxing a three-headed cobra out of a basket. Two street artists collaborating on a wall mural, starbursts of color worked into an impressionistic desert landscape—only the artists didn’t have any brushes, and appeared to be painting with their minds. A cross-legged swami levitating above the ground, his topknot floating three feet above him. Groups of lizard men tossing dice. A shop that sold various goods appearing to be hybrids of magic and technology: model pirate ships that circled the shop in the air, an ornate grandfather clock with a human face that spoke the time, a selection of globe orbs for the home.
A few streets in, Val passed a sign depicting a voluptuous naked woman with fangs and claw-tipped wings. Soft mocking laughter emanated from an open second story window.
Come in, a voice spoke in his head, the whisper of flesh on satin. Val felt a sensation of overwhelming desire course through him. Come in and try me.
He pushed air through his teeth and hurried forward, thinking it would be best if Caleb never stumbled across that particular establishment. Jittery by the time he reached the circular fountain that served as a drinking trough in the central square, wondering how they purified the water, Val paused to scan the crowd of artists, drifters, and street urchins. True to the driver’s word, Val spotted an alley across the square, flanked by two gargoyles leering off of waterspouts.
As he surveyed the scene, a woman came striding out of a side street, dressed in a simple gray caftan and clutching a scroll. Three blue dots formed a triangle on her forehead and the backs of her hands. The crowd quieted, and the people who noticed her scurried to the side as if she carried the plague.
The woman walked straight towards the fountain, speaking with the self-assured tone of the converted. “Abandon your ways, sinners and nonbelievers. Turn to He who ruleth from above the mountains and below the seas, He who formeth the heavens, He who sprangeth from the Void. Embrace the power of Devla. Embrace Him or perish with the wicked, in the golden fire that shall consumeth the earth.”
That’s a comforting theology, Val thought.
The woman was almost to the fountain. The center of the square had emptied, and Val hurried around the perimeter to the entrance of Gargoyle Alley, joining the rest of the crowd as they watched the woman. The crowd seemed apprehensive but eager, as if they knew something titillating was about to happen.
The woman climbed onto the lip of the pool and raised a fist. “The Disciple of the One True God hath come to the Realm! He shall lay His enemies low, sayeth the Prophet, in a storm of spirit and lightning!”
Two helmed guards in gold and crimson uniforms burst into the square, heading straight for the woman with raised halberds. She kept speaking as they came, her expression unchanged, fist raised.
Just before the guards reached her, she dropped something into the fountain, and it erupted into molten blue fire, immolating herself along with the guards. The men screamed as they burned, but the woman stood calm and composed while the flames engulfed her.
As the smell of crackling flesh filled the square, some of the bystanders
began shouting and pointing skyward. Val followed the line of fingers to what looked like a blazing arrow coming from the direction of the Wizard District. The shape coalesced as it drew closer, until Val could see a wizard in a red cloak, riding a ten-foot wave of fire with vaguely formed head and limbs.
The pyromancer hovered above the square on his fire mount, then passed a gauntleted hand in the direction of the burning guards and woman. The flames died. The pyromancer clenched his fist, showcasing a giant ruby in the center of his gauntlet, and the woman flew towards him as if shot from a cannon. The wizard’s fire mount secured her with cords of flame—Val assumed they were heatless—then returned skyward, blazing out of sight like a comet in reverse.
As the guards writhed in pain, the bystanders muttered in subdued voices, as if the pyromancer might still be watching. Val backed away, shuddering, then turned and strode down the alley.
The problems of this world were its own. He had work to do.
Gargoyles marked every peaked roof on the claustrophobic lane, as if the building code had required each owner to hire a macabre artist to complete the structure. Unlike the rest of the colorful streets of Bohemian Isle, these buildings were grey and decrepit, creaking with age.
The street was deserted, but Val felt an uneasy sense of not being alone. He didn’t feel as if someone or something were watching, but rather as if traces of old magic had collected in the grime of the windows and door stoops, humming with forgotten power.
The phrenomancy sign was halfway down the street, carved into a wooden doorway in a tight, archaic font. Val stepped close to read it. The residence looked abandoned, three angular stories of worn stone and boarded-up windows squeezed between its neighbors.
He knocked. No one answered.
After a few more moments, he turned the knob, eased the door open, and stepped into a windowless parlor with a low ceiling. A half-cracked interior door faced him, with an Open sign hanging from a hook. Val opened that door and traversed a stone hallway lit by guttered candles set in sconces overflowing with melted wax.
After passing four closed doors, he encountered a beaded entryway at the end of the hallway. He pushed through and saw a man lounging in the center of a small den strewn with tattered rugs and cushions. Candelabra provided illumination, the wax again overflowing and collecting in coagulated mounds on the floor.
The man’s smile was as lazy as a summer day. A mass of dark, tangled hair spilled to his waist, stubble shadowed his face, and his threadbare clothing, navy pantaloons and a white dress shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, looked as if it had once been of fine quality. “Yes?”
Val’s eyes swept the room and picked out a battered gourd on the floor next to the man. Though disheveled and at least forty, the man was still quite handsome, and his red-rimmed, mandarin colored eyes simmered with a penetrating intelligence.
“Are you the phrenomancer?” Val asked.
“I am a phrenomancer.”
“I was told you’re good.”
“That depends.”
“On what?” Val said.
The man’s eyes were unfocused, as if half-dreaming. “On what you’re looking for.”
Val stepped closer and folded his arms. “I’m looking for my brothers.”
“Oh? And where might they have gone?”
“They might be . . . .” Val took a deep breath, unable to say the words. “They fought with a wizard. I don’t know the outcome.”
“That does not sound promising.”
Val didn’t reply.
The phrenomancer shifted an arm that was splayed across a cushion. “You haven’t yet inquired about the cost. That is everyone’s first question.”
“I don’t care about the cost. I care about results.”
“Is that so?” The man leaned over to sip from a copper straw protruding from the gourd. Then he leaned on an elbow, his eyes suddenly focused. “Where are you from?”
“North. Beyond the snows.”
The phrenomancer’s smile faded to a neutral expression. Val could tell he didn’t believe him.
“Have you seen a gazer before?”
“No,” Val said.
“Do you understand what phrenomancy is? What we will do here? Why they call it gazing?”
Val hated to admit weakness. It was the cardinal sin of a negotiation. Unfortunately, he needed knowledge more than he needed leverage. “I assume you’ll look into a crystal ball, or read tarot cards.”
The phrenomancer chuckled, a low and throaty sound. “No no no, my friend. Oh no. That is not at all what I will do.”
“Then what?”
“I’m going to enter your mind. Gaze into your soul.”
Val stared at him for a few seconds before responding, his expression unchanging. “How will that help me find my brothers?”
“Good,” the phrenomancer said, with an approving nod. “Most flinch at that knowledge. Either you have no secrets, or you are desperate. My guess is the latter, since every man has secrets. My name is Alrick. And with whom do I have the pleasure of doing business?”
“Valjean. Val.”
“And your brothers?”
“Will and Caleb. You never answered the question.”
The lazy smile reappeared. “To try to locate your brothers I’m going to take a journey, Valjean. Inside your mind.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Who does? We may not understand it, but we can still try to perfect it. The mind is the gateway to the universe. The mind, the soul, the realm of spirit, we are all one. And if you follow the pathways far and deep enough, and manage to survive the journey,” he spread his hands, “who knows what you’ll find?”
Val had to work to keep the disbelief from his voice. Trying to understand this world was like trying to complete a business deal in Chinese without an interpreter. “So you’re going to go inside my head and search for my brothers?”
“Not just your mind, but theirs. Following the pathways. Looking for connections. I can’t promise we’ll find them,” he took another sip from the gourd, “but I can promise you I’m the best there is in New Victoria.” He ran a hand through his hair and gave a low chuckle. “At least that’s the reputation. Who can really say? Perhaps there’s some mad gazer rotting deep inside the Fens, locked in his own mind, talking to the Great Architect as those around him boil leather for supper.”
“Will you be able to tell—” Val’s jaw worked back and forth—“if they’re alive?”
“Is the connection between you strong?”
“Define strong.”
Alrick waved a hand. “You’ve seen them in the last year? More than once? Are you close in spirit?”
“Yes to all,” Val said. Despite his strained relationship with Caleb, he loved both brothers equally, and more than anything else in the universe. “Very.”
“Then I will know if they’re alive.”
Val felt a wave of both fear and relief at the knowledge. At the very least, he was going to know that.
“So how does it work?” Val said.
The phrenomancer pushed to his feet. “Come.”
After locking the door at the other end of the hallway and switching the sign to Closed, Alrick led Val into a windowless room the size of a large closet. The walls and rear of the door were painted glossy black.
The only objects in the room were two chairs placed on either side of a square wooden table. Atop the table was a curious device: a brass stand that rose a foot off the table and then branched into two circular apertures spaced a foot apart, and sporting adjustment knobs and leather chin pads.
Alrick, still moving as if underwater—Val assumed he was intoxicated, which did not inspire confidence in the procedure—produced a stopper of amber-colored liquid.
“Secure yourself in the oculave,” the gazer said, nodding towards the device on the table, “and I’ll insert the drops.”
Val hesitated, and Alrick said, “Forgive me, it’s your first time. As they say,
the quickest route to the soul is through the eyes, and it just so happens that it’s true. After inserting the glow drops, I’ll secure myself across from you, and our gaze will be locked. You can sever the connection at any time by removing yourself from the oculave or simply shutting your eyes for a prolonged period. But I counsel you to maintain the soul gaze until I sever. I’ll know when we’ve gathered what we can.”
Val sat and placed his chin on the padded square, so that his head was leaning slightly forward, like a visit to the optometrist. “Ready.” I think I am, at least.
Alrick lit a candle and placed it on the table, then shut the door. After gently tilting Val’s head back and inserting two drops from the stopper, he tightened Val’s oculave by rotating the knob. Val couldn’t move his head, which unnerved him, but after loosening and retightening the knob himself, he felt comfortable he could escape if needed.
The drops caused a brief sting and then settled. Alrick inserted his own head into the opposite oculave, then adjusted the height until his and Val’s gazes were locked a foot apart. Just before Alrick blew out the candle, Val saw an alertness in the phrenomancer’s eyes that had not been present before, an eagerness bordering on hunger that left Val feeling unsettled, as if Alrick was about to gain some illicit pleasure from the procedure.
Then there was darkness.
“Can you see my eyes?” Val asked.
“Perfectly. Count to ten as I lock in my gaze, think of the last time you saw your brothers, and then don’t utter another word.”
“Don’t you need more information? What they look like?”
“Your memories will tell me everything I need to know,” Alrick murmured. “Now count.”
One, two, three
Val looked straight ahead and saw the red-rimmed, pale orange eyes of the phrenomancer staring back at him. As Val counted, he thought of the battle with Zedock in the cemetery, just before his brothers dove through the portal.