He tried to play it off. “Anti-magic would be the ultimate catalyst in alchemy, with limitless applications. That novelty is the key to my research.”
“Limitless applications? Such as nullifying celestial magic?”
“We at the tower would never pretend to…”
“Don’t insult my intelligence. Just take him and get out of here.”
Slowly, he pulled the two documents away from each other. The contract stopped beating, and the onlookers breathed a sigh of relief. He plunged them back into the deep waters of his robes where they vanished from sight.
Licking his thin lips, he looked over Acantha hungrily. “I will depart in the morning.”
He stepped behind the high priestess and set his moist fingers upon her shoulders. “Since you have inconvenienced me by forcing me to come out here personally, surely you will repay me with some of your famed hospitality.”
Acantha trembled at his touch.
He reached up and tore the hood of her costume away, the furry material shredding in his hand. Acantha let out a little yelp of fright, her body shaking as he leaned in close and flicked the tip of his tongue against her neck. “I would like her to be my companion for the night. Have her join me in one of your worship rooms.”
He turned away and floated down the corridor. Acantha looked pale, like she might throw up.
“Oh, and after her, bring me someone else,” Kólasi cackled as he threw open the door. “Someone younger.”
He floated inside and closed the door behind him.
Acantha looked up at her goddess with pleading eyes. “Surely you don’t plan on honoring his request.”
Ambera looked away, unable to return her gaze. “I’m sorry, but he has me by the throat this time.”
Acantha couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “But, worship rooms are for celebrating your glory. All he wants to do is satisfy his own vile desires. This is profane!”
Ambera held out her hand. “Clear the room.”
Slowly, the guards and courtesans filed out, confusion on their somber faces. Only when they were alone, did the goddess speak candidly to Acantha.
“I know what I am asking is a difficult thing, but I don’t have any choice right now. If he enforces the contract, I’ll lose everything.”
Acantha shook her head. “But, what you’re asking would defile this holy place.”
“So we’ll just re-dedicate it when he’s gone. It’s not a big deal.”
Her mouth fell open aghast. “But, it doesn’t work that way. You can’t ask me to…”
Ambera’s eyes flashed red and her voice roared with anger. “Look, my explanation was a courtesy in light of your years of service. I don’t have to explain myself to a meat-bag. Now, I am NOT asking you, I am telling you. Your goddess requires you to perform a service and you will do it!”
Acantha bit her lip and straightened her back. She forced her trembling hands to unfold, and she gave a deep bow.
“As you wish, my goddess,” she said in a shaky voice, her eyes growing moist.
Ambera watched as Acantha set down her slate and walked down the corridor.
When she reached the door, she put her hand on the golden handle, then looked back.
“You know, I just realized something.”
“What’s that?” Ambera asked, smacking her gum angrily.
“You don’t actually believe in any of this, do you? I’m here because I believe in the divinity of creation, but you’re here because this position was assigned to you. This is just a job to you, isn’t it?”
Ambera said nothing.
A tear fell free from Acantha’s chin, pattering on the cracked marble floor as she opened the door and stepped inside.
* * *
His head shaven, young Storgen fumbled around naked in the dark.
Needles in his arms, piercing his veins, every time he squirmed he could feel the tiny sharp tubes swirling inside of him, rooting around like stiff worms, making him sick to his stomach.
Probes, probes shoved into his spine, forcing his body to flex against his will, making his legs tingle and his fingertips ache. The days of darkness had acclimated his eyes to such a degree that he could make out the smooth featureless floors, the cold smooth walls. And the tank. The slowly filling tank.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
It was amazing how excruciating such a simple sound could be with enough repetition.
One drop at a time, it filled with his blood. The sound was maddening, like fingernails scratching against the inside of his eyeballs. He tried to scream, but his voice had long ago gone hoarse. Still, he forced more air through his throat, managed a raspy squeak, anything to break the droning metronome of blood filling the tank.
His panicked eyes flicked as something moved. Deft, subtle--nearly imperceptible.
He struggled against his bonds anew. This was wrong, the room was much larger than this. He turned his eyes the other way and found another wall too close.
They were closing in on him from both sides.
He began to panic, his chest growing tight. Soon, they would return and freeze him again. He had to get out, he had to break free. He bounced up and down, knocking the table he was strapped to onto its side.
He hit the floor with a wet slap, one of the needles popping free and skipping across his face, splattering him with something warm and thick.
A slit of light appeared at the far end of the room, landing on Young Storgen’s face. It was like a sharp stab of pain entering his eyes. He fought to close them, but the thin metal specula beneath his eyelids held them fast, the harness holding his head firmly in place. He screamed from the pain, blinded by white-hot agony entering his skull.
Through the slit he could see those two eyes. Those two horrible, milky-pink eyes.
Scuttling footsteps drew near, rough hands grabbed his body, attempting to right him.
“This is what happens when naughty children try to escape,” a voice taunted. “Promise me you’ll never try it again.”
Young Storgen screamed as needles pierced his body in a dozen places.
Storgen sat up in his bed, sweat dripping down his face, his heart racing. The walls of his cabin echoed with his rapid, frightened breathing.
Instinctively, he reached up and touched the insides of his elbows. He could feel the scars, the little hard calloused nubs where the needles had pierced him for months on end.
Even now, he could feel them beneath his skin, his body refusing to forget the sensation, even after all this time.
It took him a moment to remember where he was. He could feel the steady pulsing of the steamship’s engines beneath the floor, the rhythmic turning of gears and pistons behind the walls. It was like being inside a living thing.
Storgen looked out the porthole. Even in the dim light of the early morning, he could see the bow of the ship ending in a massive conal screw turning in the water. A second screw made up the stern of the vessel, and together they pulled and pushed the ship through the ocean as it belched out green alchemic smoke from its fat heavy stacks.
Storgen stood up and wiped the sweat from his brow. Beside him was a nice soft bed, still unused. After years of sleeping on the hard ground, beds just felt wrong to him, no matter how many times he tried to use them. Gáta was sleeping happily, her little chest moving up and down as she slept.
“Well, at least one of us can sleep.”
For a moment, he thought about trying to go back to sleep, but his body was scared fully awake. With nothing to occupy his time, he feared his thoughts would drift to things he desperately wanted to forget.
Lighting a candle, he sat down at his desk and got back to work on the stack of files Ambera’s priestesses had carefully compiled for him. Journal clippings, birth records, census tallies, and tax records from all across the Erotan Empire. Anything that so much as hinted at an individual with lavender hair had been meticulously combed and gathered from among countless source
s. It would have taken Storgen seven lifetimes to do what they had done in just a few weeks.
He reached out and touched the rough surface of his faded map of the empire, now studded with pins, each representing one of the possible leads the priestesses had found. He would need to be very careful now, one mistake and he could easily spend decades backtracking. He resolved to only remove a pin if he was absolutely sure.
The Salmon Keys had already been crossed out. He placed his fingertip on the pin resting on the town of Psári and closed his eyes. He sat there in silence, meditating, willing his heart to slow down, forcing his mind to clear. He prayed for the Fates to bless him. Then, slowly, carefully, as one might hold a delicate grain of gold, he sifted through his memories.
It was four years ago.
The harsh sun beat mercilessly down on the dry land. Dusty mud brick shacks with dry stale roofs, arid cows chewing their cud in the shade, their ribs visible beneath their thin skin. Even the people here looked dried out, glancing at Storgen as he passed with dusty eyes and parched hearts.
Storgen adjusted the poncho he wore to stave off the sun. As he passed a thirsty field, he found an ear of corn lying beside the road, dropped from the recent harvest. He scooped it up and pulled back the husk, breaking off the rotten tip and flicking away a few nesting beetles, looking forward to enjoying his first real meal in days.
He came upon his destination. A slumped hut of mud and straw, a pair of dirty little kids playing in the dust as a kindly older woman dyed sheets in a slurry of sápios berries to ward off fleas and hung up the thin and pockmarked material on a clothes line. The kids herded themselves when they saw him approach, huddling behind the old lady and peeking out with a combination of fear and fascination.
“Good morrow,” the old lady greeted, her voice thick with the regional accent.
“And to you,” Storgen replied, taking off his hat respectfully. “I was told by the folks in the next town over that there lived a woman here with lavender…”
Storgen noticed the woman’s hands, dyed purple up to the elbow from the sápios berries, her grey hair splattered with purple from the splashing dye.
“…hair.”
The old woman laughed. “Oh my, I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never heard of a woman with lavender hair, young man.”
“Yes, my mistake. Thank you for your time, ma’am.”
As Storgen turned away, he went to take a bite of the corn, but then he noticed the two kids looking at him. Breaking the cob, he held out the two halves, and they snatched it up hungrily, gobbling down the juicy corn as Storgen walked off into the distance.
Back in his cabin, Storgen opened his eyes. He was sure of it; that was the same woman mentioned in the census report the priestesses had found. He removed the pin from his map.
Next, he reached over to the crossed out island of Velóna Rock, a pin resting in the Enkataleífthike Fortress. Touching the pin, he closed his eyes.
It was three years ago.
Storgen slammed down against the wet stone floor, already his eye swelling shut as the guard yanked on the chained collar around Storgen’s neck.
“Is this what you want?” the guard spat, the torchlight illuminating the putrid black mold on the walls. “Do you WANT to get thrown in the dungeon?”
Storgen tried to stand again, but a kick to the ribs by a second guard sent him back down to the floor.
“I think this sicko gets off on it,” the second guard snarled. “Takes the fun out of it, if you ask me.”
“I’ll ask you one last time,” the first guard shouted. “What is your name?”
Storgen coughed up some blood, then looked up at the prison guards. “Screpio.”
The guard took out his slate. “And how do you spell it?”
“S…C…R…E…”
“Yeah.”
“…W…Y…O…U.”
The guard blinked. “That’s wrong.”
“You didn’t ask me the right way to spell it, you asked how I spell it.”
“All right, that’s it!”
The second guard kicked Storgen in the head, the two dragging him down the spiral stone steps into the deepest part of the dungeon.
“Dead man walking,” one of the prisoners shouted from a cell as they passed.
They clapped irons behind his back and threw Storgen inside. He landed atop a pile of rotten straw as the iron door slammed home behind him. The guards laughed as they walked away, slapping one another on the back drunkenly.
Storgen shook his head and looked around. Prison cells all looked basically the same, except this one had a second occupant chained to the wall in one corner.
“Never had a cellmate before, he commented as he righted himself.
“So, what are you in for?” came a female voice.
As Storgen’s eyes adjusted, he was able to get a good look at her. She was covered in gnarled tattoos and piercings. She had a lazy eye, and skin that looked like she lived in a wasp’s nest. She smelled like ammonia, her bright lavender hair glowing from the tiny beam of moonlight that crept in through a flaw in the ceiling above.
“I said, what are you in for, wretch?” she asked again.
Storgen shook his head and coughed. “Uh, failure to pay. Apparently the channels road is also a toll road.”
The woman laughed, her voice ragged and phlegmy. “You’re in here over a toll road?”
“I’ll remember to bring more change next time.”
“There won’t be a next time,” she laughed darkly. “This is a special cell, reserved for those to be hung in the morning.”
Storgen scooted over and leaned against the wall. “Ah, well then, I’m in the right place, and just in time it would seem.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I had heard there was a brigand in here with lavender hair. This was the only way I could get in to meet you.”
“My hair isn’t lavender, you idiot.”
“Oh, thank goodness, ahem, I mean…It--ah, it’s not?”
“My hair is brown, it only looks like this because some witch put a curse on me.”
Storgen leaned his head back against the slimy wall. “Huh, well, I guess there’s only one thing left to do, then.”
“What’s that?”
He looked around. “Bust myself out of here before they hang me in the morning.”
The woman stared at him as if he were an idiot, then began to laugh. “You’re all right, you know that? You got a name, convict?”
With a pop Storgen dislocated his thumb and slipped his hand out of the irons, stretching his fingers and carefully easing the digit back into place. Next he rubbed his throat, teasing something inside higher and higher up. With a painful belch and a cough, he spit a key out into his hand.
“The name’s Screpio,” he said. “You wanna’ come with?”
She smiled roguishly. “Call me Mov.”
Back in his cabin, Storgen opened his eyes. Assured that the bandit he had met was the person in the criminal reports the priestesses had found, he removed the pin from his map and moved onto the next.
* * *
Philiastra sighed contentedly as she stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself. The gentle rhythmic thrum of the pistons, the steady rotation of the screws, the tug of pulleys and the whirring of gears. She couldn’t recall ever sleeping so peacefully as she did on this steamship. Everything around her was a harmony of mathematics, even down to the positions of the bed and dresser in her cabin, following the perfect proportions of the golden rectangle.
Her appetite hadn’t quite woken up yet, so she went about unpacking her suitcase, socks in the top drawer, shirts in the middle, pants in the bottom. Her tool kit on the desk, her solar compass and sextant on the nightstand, her alchemy grimoire on the bookshelf. A place for everything, and everything in its place.
As she grabbed a wrench and began tying up her leafy hair, she noticed something she hadn’t packed. A brightly wrapped pa
ckage tucked beneath her spare coveralls. She took out the fine golden foil and noticed how roughly it was wrapped, at least three extra layers of tape being necessary to hold what was essentially a bundle of foil together.
“Mom, what did you send me?”
Her curiosity got the better of her, and she found beneath the outermost layer a handwritten card from her mother.
“It’s going to be a long trip. If you look, I think you’ll find plenty of opportunities to use this.”
“Use this?”
She unwrapped the second layer and unfurled a sleek little black dress. It was backless, strapless, with a low cut front and a dangerously short skirt. In fact there was so little material it barely counted as a dress at all.
Philiastra rolled her eyes. “Ugh, mom.”
She picked up the card and flipped it over to the back.
“I used a dress like this to hook your father’s attention.”
She threw the card away. “Mom, gross.”
She walked over to the waste bin and was about to toss the dress inside, but as she saw her reflection in the mirror, her curiosity got the better of her.
It took her a couple minutes to work up the courage to come out of the bathroom once she got the dress on. She had never thought of herself as particularly attractive, and she feared she would see the usual frumpled freckled awkward kid she always saw when she looked in the mirror.
Closing her green eyes, she stepped before the full-body mirror and held her breath. When she opened her eyes she couldn’t believe what she saw. The dress flattered her figure beautifully, emphasizing her curves and giving her a sense of balance and proportion. Her cheeks a little flushed, her hair still a little damp and pulled back, she looked beautiful. Like a real lady.
She turned from side to side, admiring how graceful it made her look. She fished around in her suitcase and found a pair of matching shoes, likewise wrapped in foil and tried them on. She had never worn heels before, and these were certainly no stilettos, but even just a little heel changed the shape of her leg, making them look long and elegant, the flexing of the muscles showing off just a little bit of tone.
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