by James Stone
‘I would.’ Magmaya thought to Anclyn with a frown. How many others had there been?
‘He was a handsome man, dressed in that pearly armour I had for so long dreamed of,’ the High Priestess continued. ‘He was everything I expected of the angels, and his voice lured me in like a trance. Though underneath his façade, he was the type of man who paid his cohorts to keep quiet about his dealings in slaving. They were hardly quiet around me, however; even less so when they beat my sisters and me.’ She scratched her cheek and blinked. ‘Sorry… I heard he was slain at Fleetfront anyway. No matter; he wasn’t the man I was destined to. That man was Torth Fulton. And he’s who I want you to meet today.’
‘Oh.’ Magmaya nodded. I don’t want to meet a slaver! She thought. What had she got herself into?
‘Torth, and his brother, Karth, had received quite the inheritance from their late father, you see,’ she said. ‘He was perhaps the only preacher of the First left in Inamorata… and he was heir to Belliousa. His brother had made a different life for himself, though; Karth married into Nemesis Palace—a grand estate upon the Ash Wastes of Inamorata where he still uses the Belliousan sciences he adopted from his father to practice his—well, whatever he practices.’
‘But Torth?’
‘Torth used his inheritance for gambling in the Sumps,’ the High Priestess explained. ‘If you’re with enough coin, a trip across the Kytheran border is as simple as an afternoon stroll. He made quite a name for himself at the playing tables and quite a reputation among the Inamoratan High Lords. But on one fruitless day, he lost everything: his wealth, his reputation—the clothes off his back. So, he turned to the only inheritance he had left in the world—the crumbling island of Belliousa. Here, he rallied the scattered devout of the First and brought a forgotten religion back from the ashes. Not that I knew all that as I stared him down that day—they were only faces then.
‘Anyway, Nurmian dismissed me before I had a chance to learn his name. He looked to my frostbitten neck and threatened to throw me to a whorehouse or back to the cold of Cecalia. Fasorn didn’t look at me twice—but Torth Fulton,’ Deih said, smiling, ‘there was something in his eye—some miracle by the First with which he found cause to pity me.’
‘And he brought you here? To Belliousa?’ Magmaya asked, frowning.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But when I arrived, already bewitched by my saviour, I was surprised to find the island was plagued with maidens from the Water like me—others he had saved from Nurmian and Fasorn. But I soon forgot about them. He told me I was perfect; he told me the First had sculpted me in their likeness.
‘I hadn’t heard of the First then, though. Before I came of age, I pledged myself to the Goddesses of the Long Summer. But when I arrived on the black shores of Inamorata, all the castellans and kings alike were devotees of the Maiden Gods—every action was taken in their name, only to be broken a moment later.’
‘The north had its gods.’ Magmaya nodded. ‘But they only existed so we had something to blaspheme about.’
‘It’s not much different here, girl,’ Deih said. ‘It is the nature of men to place their doubts and blames in the hands of someone else; each step they make is justified that way—and when it can’t be, they change the scripture.’ She paused. ‘I’d been taught to kill for my gods and kill other people’s imaginary gods to prove ours weren’t so.’ She shook her head. ‘This world was bloodied by angels long before the Divinicus came to power.’
‘So where does that leave the First?’ Magmaya asked.
‘They were the only gods to speak back when I prayed to them,’ Deih explained. ‘I let go of my fear, and they banished it. That led me to become engrossed in the old stories of Belliousa until I finally summoned the courage to tell Torth Fulton that his—our gods—were speaking to me. And then it didn’t matter how many maidens he’d had—I was his favourite. He told the world I was a gift from the First and gave me the seat closest to him on the Belliousan council; he dined with me, and he spared me from any work, while the others drowned in it because their heathen gods hadn’t saved them, Magmaya. But the First had saved me.’
‘You were Torth’s lover?’
‘Something like that,’ Deih said. ‘A peculiar type of love, though; he was better versed in the Belliousan sciences, like his brother.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘When we did not share a bed, he worked on me—he told me I was made in the image of the First, but my likeness was not perfection enough. So, it was with his hermetics that he made me, Magmaya. He fished the weak bones from my body and replaced them with brass and copper. He—’
‘I don’t understand…’ Magmaya cut in, shuddering. If what Deih had told her about before wasn’t witchcraft enough, then this certainly was.
‘The doctrines of Belliousa dictate that we were crafted as imperfect beings,’ she explained. ‘Only with the removal of our weak flesh can we be made strong again.’
‘So, he cut you open and…?’
‘It was no matter,’ Deih said. ‘His clockwork didn’t change me half as much as his seed. Mere months after I came to Belliousa, I was bestowed with new life itself.’ She lowered her hands to her abdomen and cupped her navel with an empty smile. ‘Three children, we discovered quickly—his seed was strong indeed. I treasured them inside me, mothered them as if they were in my arms, and prayed to the First they would live prosperous lives.’
That didn’t much surprise Magmaya; since she’d met her, she’d thought Deih had a motherly look about her. Mothers do dangerous things for their children, as gods do dangerous things for their people, Magmaya was forced to remind herself. Be careful, dammit.
‘But as if overnight, Belliousa had decided they had had enough of being ruled by an outsider,’ the High Priestess continued, and Magmaya turned back to her. ‘They took to the streets with torches; the hillside bastions weren’t enough to stop them as the Temple Guard joined their ranks, and the First Temple was overrun. They proclaimed Torth a whore from the summit and burned his portraits. What of this did I know? Nothing—he had sheltered me from it all—so you can imagine my surprise when I awoke to a host of strangers setting light to my home.’
The closest someone ever came to taking my home was Vargul Tul, Magmaya thought. And there had been something unnerving about the way he had stood in her father’s boardroom, invading her space. She could never imagine waking up with him at the end of her bed.
‘There was no time to protest,’ Deih carried on. ‘I remember screaming and tossing about as they stole Torth from my bedside and drove a hot dagger through his mouth, but my pleas did no good. They stabbed him again in his heart and then his loins and then his eyes, and by the end of it, there was nothing left of my love but a bloody pulp.’ To Magmaya’s shock, Deih half-laughed at that. ‘I screamed so loudly then I couldn’t even hear my own wailing, all while they continued to defile whatever dead thing remained of Torth Fulton. That’s when they turned to me.’
‘And…?’ The High Priestess’ words had ensnared her.
‘And I can scarcely remember what happened. There was steel, and there were flaming knives, but I only felt the cold. All I could do was writhe and splutter like an ensnared hare.’ She frowned and looked to Magmaya, caught in the moment. Without another word, the High Priestess lowered her robes, exposing her belly, and Magmaya looked on her in horror.
What had once been the body of a fair maiden had become a tortured thing. Where there should have been divinity, there was a scar, black and wretched like a canyon across her navel. It was bloody and ruptured still, twisted with broken veins and shattered with skin like ash. And as she covered herself, that alabaster smile like a porcelain doll became hollow and cracked, and as she went to speak, her voice was hoarse. ‘The last thing I saw,’ she said, ‘was a knife in my swollen belly. But by then I had no voice left to scream.’
Some string of incomprehensible words lingered on Magmaya’s tongue—some sentence t
o validate her lamentation. But she couldn’t say a thing. Before she could speak—or drool—they turned a corridor and made their way down a set of stairs, finding themselves before a grand pair of clockwork doors, flanked by a myriad of Temple Guard.
Deih motioned to them, and they stepped aside. She fingered a small, brazen key from amongst the many on her wrist, and the door opened with a hiss as if whatever behind it was drawing an age-old breath.
Magmaya felt her blood turn cold and spine begin to ache, but once the Priestess led her forward, it became clear there was no beast to be found, but instead there was a chamber of endless stone pillars, hanging chains and glass. She looked to Magmaya, softly, and held her belly, tight.
‘The First made us,’ she whispered. ‘And I made them.’ She gripped her womb. ‘But who made me?’
The chamber flickered to life with an orange glow from a mountain of candles beyond. There were bundles of flowers about the room, alive and ripe with colour, and despite the dust and grime, it was clear the place had been visited often; someone would have had to have lit the candles and kept the flowers fresh. But this was no tomb of the living, nor shrine for Belliousans.
It was a secret; Magmaya could tell from the High Priestess’ swift and hushed movements across the grey, oval floor—the whimper on her lips only served to seal her suspicions.
Magmaya felt drawn forward as Deih stopped abruptly by a small mausoleum where many of the wreaths and candles stood. She smiled to her and pricked her fingers against one another, unlacing those woeful black gloves as if everything evil was to be unleashed once her skin was.
‘Where are we?’ Magmaya asked, her low voice still loud enough to echo throughout the chamber.
Deih shook her head and pressed a finger to her lips. And then, with a movement like a ballerina’s stride, she courted Magmaya closer, closer to the mausoleum so there would be no return.
‘I died that night,’ she said, still unlacing her gloves. ‘I felt it within me—I felt the life slip away until there was nothing left. Nothing, except for a dream of coloured lights and stars that melted in my palms. And then the darkness and the cold.’ She drew a breath. ‘I was dead for eleven hours and nigh on five minutes, and during all of it, he was there.’
‘Torth Fulton?’
‘Torth Fulton.’ She nodded. ‘Every step of the way, he walked with me as I died, speaking of things I couldn’t understand, nor remember. His face was fresh and young, though—younger than he’d been when I’d first met him. But he was afraid as if he too feared what would happen at the end of my dream. For so long, the last thing I thought I’d ever see was the First as I kneeled before their divinity, but in fact, the last thing I remember is his smile—oh gods that smile.’
Deih froze and unclenched her fingers from the lace. The gloves began to slide down her fingers, slowly, and then all at once, fluttering to the ground like birds taking flight for the final time.
But the gloves were no longer of any interest; all that concerned Magmaya were those hands. Where little, pink fingers should have been, there were only wretched, bloated things, translucent and stained beneath the skin—below that, an inky black mass had spread like a nest of veins below her flesh.
‘I died that night,’ she said again, spearing the gloves from the ground with shaking fingertips. ‘And when I died, my body forsook me. My skin grew frail and cold, limp and heavy as if I’d never been inside it, all while my blood escaped to my fingers and feet. Perhaps when I saw him in my dream was the best time to forget—to drift into the arms of the First and into the endless sleep beyond. But what kept me awake was a ticking, Magmaya—a ticking that never began and never ceased.’
She moved over and pressed her chest to Magmaya’s ear. And she heard it! There was a timepiece against her head—a metronome hammering on which threatened to never end.
‘What…?’ Magmaya asked, but her voice was wavering.
‘The ticking never did stop, save but for a second when I awoke. At first, there was only the cold. It enveloped me like nothing else; no matter how warm the fireplace before me was, the cold wouldn’t leave.
‘I couldn’t see, and I couldn’t pretend to; there were only formless faces and splashes of colour like a painting gone awry. But there were words—I could hear at least. And then there were the red hoods of Belliousa, chanting—chanting that I was their saviour. They showered me bouquets of colours I had forgotten existed and words which had long escaped me. Escaped me so that the only two I remembered were Torth and Fulton. But he was a tyrant to them, and they’d killed him.’ She paused for a moment. ‘And he did not wake up.’
‘But you did?’ Magmaya stammered, her head growing light.
Deih nodded with half a smile, running her hands across the roof of the mausoleum. ‘This is what I must show you,’ she said and trickled her delicate, black fingers against her trinkets on her hips, finding a key amongst the treasures. She slipped it into a crevice in the tomb and heaved it open.
As if in response, darkness spilt out of the mausoleum like it was a solid thing—like an inky blackness made of thorns and granite. It extinguished the candles with an otherworldly breath yet coated the room in a tantalising warmth.
And within it all, there was Deih standing tall and scarlet in the rushing smoke, chanting some whisper of the ages.
She outstretched her dead hands and beckoned Magmaya forward; fingers ran through her hair, and blood rushed from her head as if her very life was slowly being drained from her. The tomb engulfed them both until the darkness fled, and all that remained was a flickering light above, marble pillars, and an armada of ivory draping from the ceiling.
Magmaya found a bed of stone in the centre of the mausoleum, and on it, a casket of glass. Past the shimmer, she could make out all manner of bubbles and inks in the sepia foam, swelling as the light touched them. And as she approached, it became clear there was something amid the darkness—a corpse within the endless amber; there were bleached bones, a few lose sinews of flesh, half an eyeball—a remnant of a face.
‘Torth Fulton,’ she couldn’t help but stammer.
‘My love,’ Deih whispered and rushed to embrace the dead man’s liquid sarcophagus. After she was finished, she went about tidying the flowers (roses), and then the tattered books and prayer leaves that were scattered around him. Seeing her do that almost broke her.
‘You died.’ Magmaya felt a throbbing rise in her head. There was almost no point in trying to make sense of it all; her strength had left her with her sanity. ‘You said you were dead—you showed me your scars—I’ve seen your hands.’ Her fingers shivered as she pointed to her. ‘You died!’
‘Magmaya—’ Deih started, but she cut her off.
‘You’re worshipping a corpse!’ she shouted. ‘Calling him my love?’
‘My girl,’ Deih started, ‘if you’d too seen what I have…’
‘You died!’ she repeated, but the High Priestess just took her hand with a warm smile. ‘Let me go. Let me go! I’ll—I’ll go back to the Divinicus. I’ve heard—no! I’ve seen enough of this!’
‘Please, Magmaya, let me finish.’
‘There’s nothing more you can surprise me with.’ She pulled herself away. Her head was spinning—no, the room was.
‘It’s not about surprises, it’s about the truth.’
‘The truth?’ she spat. That’s what the angels had said! ‘What do you want from me?’
‘Listen, Magmaya, please.’
‘Why?’ Magmaya exclaimed. ‘Why me? I can’t stand here any longer—and—and—take advice from a dead woman.’
‘Then what about a dead man?’ The High Priestess gestured to the casket.
‘It’s the same damn difference!’ she screeched. ‘Your lover is bones and sleeps in formaldehyde. And you? I don’t even know what you are. I can’t be part of this any longer.’
Deih sighed as if disappointed and offended at the same time; there was a wistfu
l frown about her. She reached out and pressed her dead, black finger to Magmaya’s own lips and dragged it down to her chin with a soft hush.
‘I did die—I died as equally as Torth Fulton did.’ She shrugged. ‘But thanks to him and the First, my heart continued to tick and click and whir, and it hasn’t stopped since. It kept me dead until my wounds had closed, and it brought me to life. But Torth—when I look at him, I realise I’m living on borrowed time—his time.’
‘Spend it wisely then,’ Magmaya said. ‘I don’t need to hear any more about him.’
‘For over a decade I have watched him bathe in bleach and waited for those eyes to snap open,’ she said, half-crying.
‘And you chose to lead the people who killed your love?’
‘What would you do if you couldn’t die, Magmaya?’ Deih asked. ‘If no mortal blade could touch you?’
‘I don’t know,’ she stuttered. Perhaps I would sit, I would think, I would rest. Maybe I’d even live long enough to forget all of this. ‘It doesn’t matter, I—’
‘But it does! The gods forged us with lives like candles to the stars,’ the High Priestess remarked. ‘Our world is ripe with famine, rape and murder. I have outlived my lover, my children were ripped from my belly, and I’ve slept in the corpses of my sisters—I can only live to suffer more. And now, those who killed my love worship me as a goddess—the Angelica, born again from the ashes of Belliousa. And I believe their worship, in truth, for the First have not stopped their whispers. They tell me secrets, riches; they speak to me still of my daughters. But I would give it all a heartbeat to hold him in my arms again.’ She looked to the casket in despair.
Magmaya thought to Rache alone in his crib, half a world away. What she would’ve given to be back with him, but this was what she had chosen—to give herself to a witch.