Calcifer

by E. R. F. Jordan

  “Someone is ready to take your place,” Pacifica called from thousands of miles away, leagues outside of her head. “Unless, of course, you wish to stay.”

  Mel yawned and fought to stand. I didn’t know my sleep on the boat was so poor, she thought. Another thought tried to follow, something about lavender, but it came unraveled before she could chase it.

  “Up, now.” A pair of hands settled on her shoulders, lifting her upwards. She realized that she was leaning dangerously to one side. She straightened her head and focused on what was in front of her––Father Pacifica, and his perfect white teeth. “You seem tired, doctor. Would you like to follow me to a room?”

  How did he get them so white? Mel thought glibly. She nodded, and Pacifica’s smile widened. Lavender and doe’s breath, her mind whispered.

  “Doe’s breath?” She blurted. Pacifica’s face twitched slightly, and his eyes fluttered, but he made no response, leading her away from the congregation and into the dark wings of the church.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  It was equally gloomy behind the door, but the pervasive smell of various bodily fluids hit July’s nose with the force of a horse’s hoof, singularly sharp in the absence of her other senses. As her nose adjusted, her vision began to catch up; a lump that must be the voice’s owner, behind the lateral shapes of bars, and a flat surface to her right, on which another contour rested. She groped for it and found the familiar shape of a candle. For a second she mentally searched her bag for matches or striking stones, then wondered if she might prefer not to see whatever this repulsive smell belonged to. She placed the candle back down on the table.

  “You’re from outside,” The thin voice said from the corner of the room, “aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m a traveler. Amoran. Lochmount?” She tried. He didn’t respond, so she continued. “Why are you locked up in here? What did you do?”

  “I borrowed bread from the cabinets. I was starving, I had no choice, I–”

  “So you’re a thief,” July said.

  “No, no, you don’t understand, you don’t––you haven’t seen him. You haven’t been here long enough to see.” He stammered, his thoughts spilling out of order. July was reminded of the summer her mother caught her and a girl from Lochan drinking whiskey in a far corner of her father’s fields. When she was dealing with her mother screaming at her, she didn’t stutter once, didn’t flinch, didn’t yield an inch of ground. But when her father returned home the next day and sat her down at the kitchen table, his voice as soft as the look in his eyes, the story tumbled out in mismatched phrases and almost childish fervor. The man spoke like that now, his voice petulant but desperate for understanding. She decided to be her father instead of her mother.

  “Slow down, pal. I’m on your side. What’s your name?”

  He paused, then sighed, “Paulo.”

  “Paulo. Explain it to me, from the start.”

  Paulo swallowed audibly, collecting himself, then launched into his tale. “I lived in a town east of here, on the water. Casford, it’s called. Mostly fisherman, but I was a carpenter. I had a workshop where I yanked open shipping crates and shellfish traps, smoothed the wood and turned it over, cheap-like. It was––well, I got by.” July recognized nostalgia, sweet with sorrow. “I only came into the sands ‘cause a neighbor turned over his caravan in the Rose Hills––and he was a long customer of mine, although he was an idiot. I s’pose I’m the idiot, following him into the desert when I could hear the whistle of a storm starting up. Thought we’d be in and out in time, but suddenly I was ass-backwards in the middle of a pink fog. Sneaks up on you. I knocked on the door––I still remember thinking how I wasn’t sure if I wanted someone to answer or not. But, sure as shit, Father Pacifica was there, praying––or preying, if you catch my meaning. I came in, sat with his merry assembly and fell asleep the minute I laid my head back. It had been a long day in the sun, and the room was cool, and dark, and––and the incense…” The man audibly wretched at the memory. July found that absurd, considering the aroma of their current surroundings, but held her tongue. “I’d rather be in here, in the dark and surrounded by piss and blood than out there with that flowery shit in my head. Fogs you right up, like a good drink or maybe a woman––pardon me for that, Miss, but that’s how it is. The storm ain’t out there, it’s in here, and it burns incense and wears blue robes.

  “Never really woke up out there, not until I was in here, my stomach rumbling and my back all cut up. Whipped me, I think… But I remembered what he was up to. Nobody out there wants to be there––‘cept maybe him, and those scary muscular types that sit in the corner with rags over their mouths––sellswords, I imagine. He puts ‘em in a fugue, lets them pray, read, whatever they want, so long as that incense is burning. ‘Cause really, they’re not doing anything––anything of consequence, anyway. He sits and runs his mindless little mass, like the queen bee in her hive. Should’a been called Mother Pacifica, maybe.” Then, his tale told, he fell silent.

  July acknowledged a familiar feeling in her core––the singing of her blood, the fire in her nerves––that meant her sword was about to leave its home at her side. She felt for the door of the cell, and, finding the bulk of the lock, tried each key on the ring until one fell into place.

  “Paulo, you’re going to have to trust me. Don’t go into the chapel until I come back for you.” The third of five keys stuck in the lock, and July twisted, yanking the cell door open. She extended a hand, not knowing if he could see it, but he took it quite deftly, pulling himself to his feet. She supported his weight with her shoulder and hobbled in three-legged fashion into the hallway, where the light was perceptibly stronger, if still hopelessly dark. She could almost make out his face now––she saw the shape of long hair, and a scraggly beard.

  July set Paulo down on the floor, under the newly latched window, and fished her waterskin from her bag, placing it on his lap. “We’ll call this collateral,” She said. “You can drink from it, but I want it back.”

  She started down the hall at a trot, which gave way to a sprint, hand on the grip of her sword and eyes on the door back to the main chamber of the chapel. Somewhere, July had enough presence of mind to utter a quick apology to Saint Suna.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  On the other side of the door, July took a short moment to collect herself, then plunged headfirst into the crowd, eyes darting side to side, looking for Mel’s beige traveling coat. But now that she had heard Paulo’s tale, she realized this was going to be a needle in a haystack––many of these people, drowsy-eyed and lame, wore traveler’s garbs. I don’t have time for this, she thought, feeling her heart begin to pound as the mass of the crowd mumbled and shuffled lazily.

  “Where’s Father Pacifica?” A voice said, low and husky.

  “Is the storm passing?” Another, thick but feminine.

  “…In Suna’s name, her grace beseeched…”

  “I don’t see the Father.”

  “…should soothe the sleeping giant…”

  “Hush, child.”

  “That woman has a sword!”

  The voices began to blend into one massive hum, the sound of a swarm of insects in her ears. She felt the size of the mob begin to overwhelm her, and forced it out, still searching for Amelia––her coat, her medicine bag, anything that would set her apart. She needed to see their faces, she realized.

  July stepped onto a pew, bent at the knee and then leapt into the center of the prayer circle. Her landing was less than graceful, but she was up in less than a second, sucking in breath, tensing every muscle in her body. She released the loudest, most guttural war-cry she could muster.

  The room fell silent, its occupants reacting in waves; the members of the prayer circle looked up at her from their knees, shock painted onto their fatigued features; behind them, the tenants of the pews perked up, less shocked and more aggravated; in the very back of the room, two men with burly phys
iques and gaudy swords at their sides leapt to their feet, surprised but alert; and a sad handful seemed so deeply enthralled that, though their eyes were open, they did not react at all. July, feeling her heart stop, knew that this was the moment, and scanned the crowd faster than she thought possible of her eyes, glimpsing each face only long enough to deny something foreign and move on.

  She wasn’t in the crowd at all, July discovered with despair. Then the men in the back of the room shouted, and pandemonium broke out.

  With the spell of sleep broken, the members of the circle scattered, flooding the pews and pushing towards the outer walls in an effort to escape the violence. The sellswords fought through the tidal force of bodies, shoving the congregants against the pews in order to reach July. She, in turn, drew her sword from its sheath and assumed a low stance, ready to meet them.

  The wider of the two men reached her first, his sword raised. July noted how the thick blade ended in an inwards ‘V’ shape, approximately half a second before it was thrust at her midsection. She held her blade to the pit of the fork, directing the momentum sideways and throwing the swordsman off balance. She stepped in, tagging his leather-bound side with her blade before hopping back. He yipped in pain. They traded blows, metal against metal, until the second sword entered the fray, the red rag around his mouth bouncing wildly.

  There was a second of pause. The three combatants formed a triangle; one on point, July, her body turned to show only her side and her sword to her dueling partners; on the other two, the sellswords, with their forked blades and heavy leather padding. July recognized the disadvantage, and favored a time-honored, battle-proven technique; running as fast as she could in the opposite direction. By the time the two men realized what was happening, she was already across the room and through a second doorway, blindly traversing the dark of the narrow hallway. Their thumping footsteps followed in unison, only seconds behind.

  July knew that she could only keep up this race for another moment before her advantage was lost. Seeing a junction in the dim light of the hallway ahead, she jerked abruptly to the left and pressed herself against the wall, holding her breath. The footsteps grew closer, along with the sound of tanned leather flapping against moving limbs. Just as she suspected, the men charged headstrong into the dark––right past her.

  She turned and delved further into the labyrinthine church.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  Mel’s hand twitched.

  She let out a silent breath, relaxing her arm against the wooden struts of her chair. The amount of effort to move just her wrist was gargantuan––she didn’t know how she was going to walk out of here. But she decided she would cross that bridge when she got to it, and continued to work on her right hand.

  All the while, she never took her eyes off of Pacifica’s back. He was silhouetted against a myriad of candles, emptying her medicinal bag jar by jar onto the table. He examined each one with the careful interest of a painter choosing their colors––imagining what kind of scenes they might create. If he knew even half as much about herbs and sedatives as she thought he might, she shuddered to think what he might do with some of her more valuable ingredients. She focused again on her hand with renewed vigor, working each finger until she could clasp the hand open and shut.

  “My, my, doctor. You’ve been bad, haven’t you?” He lilted the words with soft menace. She stopped, afraid of being found out, but he didn’t turn around; only continued to examine her medicines. “Brackenwood trees are a dying breed––and a jar of sap this big must’ve killed the poor thing.”

  “Harvested ethically,” She managed. The muscle in her jaw, all considered, was relatively intact. She wondered if that was by design. “There’s a grove, in–”

  “San Porta, I know.” He placed the glass container on the table with a gentle click. “But brackenwood sap is a prohibited substance under Amoran medicinal law.” He looked back at her now, and she froze her hand in place, mid-pinch.

  “Helps with arthritis.”

  “I would bet,” He tutted, turning to the table again. She continued to pinch her fingers, ignoring the acid burn of her muscles. It was becoming increasingly apparent that she wasn’t going to acrobat her way out of this situation––not that Mel was particularly athletic to begin with. She changed tactics, still subtly flexing her arms and hands.

  “Doe’s breath, lavender and murkwood. Potent. Did you come up with that yourself?” She posited. She thought she heard some kind of commotion far off in the distance, but Pacifica had led her deep into the wooden halls, down two flights of stairs. There was a disparagingly thick layer of dirt and stone between her and freedom.

  Evidently, he heard the noise too, because he paused in his examination, hand hovering over a box of blue spotted mushrooms. Perhaps ten seconds of silence passed, both captor and captive in perfect stillness. Then he relaxed, dismissing the noise and continuing his inventory. “Not quite,” Pacifica responded, returning to the shrooms. “My mother was an antiquarian in Lhordan––she dealt in exotic books, but spices and incense were her secret passion. She always had a pot of lavender and murkwood burning, and on the occasion of a particularly wealthy suitor, she would add a touch of doe’s breath––made them more flexible.” She could detect his smirk without seeing it.

  Doe’s breath, Mel remembered, was a sedative, used by battlefield medics for its fast and heavy sleep-inducing properties. It was also horribly addictive––it was common practice in wartime to treat a prisoner’s wounds with doe’s breath, then use it as leverage to loosen their tongue. Judas Bachman’s teachings swam to the front of Mel’s head––battles have been lost and won using doe’s breath. Pacifica was luring travelers into his sadistic colony, hooking them on doe’s breath and robbing them blind, she surmised.

  More thumping passed overhead. This time neither of them acknowledged it. Pacifica laid out the last package in her medicine bag––a box of ground sweetgrass, wrapped in twine––and stepped back to look at his haul. Mel was painfully aware that Pacifica stood within arm’s reach, and she could do nothing about it; her brain screamed for movement, but her arms hardly lifted off the chair. Still, it was an improvement. She dropped them again before he could see her struggling.

  At last he did turn, a satisfied grave-robber ready to deal with the corpse. “You are truly a gift from above, my dear. You’ve saved me a long trip to the mainland for supplies.”

  “Saint Suna is generous,” She remarked.

  He chuckled, brief and dry. “Indeed.” Amelia noticed that her foraging knife, a short wicked thing with a curved blade and redwood handle, was resting in his hand, his thumb propped against the dull back of the steel. “I would be happy to throw you back into the prayer circle and let you sleep with the rest, but you know far too much about my little operation. If you ever woke up, there would be…”

  “Unpleasantness?” She flexed her arms again, finally feeling the thrum of blood under her skin. It seemed adrenaline went a long way in waking up her body. “I wouldn’t cause any trouble. I’m a pacifist, I don’t incite insurrections.”

  “That’s a fib. Pacifists are the highest form of insurrectionists.” He moved closer.

  She flexed harder. “I’m also a physician. I know more about alchemy and medicine than anyone else you’ll come across. I can be useful.”

  He paused, the knife’s point dipping in his grip. “What are you proposing, doctor?”

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  July crept along the wooden floorboards, careful to step around boards that bent and creaked under her weight. At first, it had been the sound of voices that drew her––one high and gentle, the other lower and huskier––but as she descended into a subterranean level of the complex, a gentle glowing light waived away the darkness. She navigated by the dwindling dark, leaving her other senses to patrol for her burly sellsword friends.

  The tonal voices began to sharpen into words as July approached a bend in the
hall. She crouched and listened.

  “What are you proposing, doctor?” The high, rich voice said. She recognized the man who greeted them at the door––and if he was talking to a doctor, he could only mean Amelia Saul.

  “Keep me here as a prisoner, sedated. When you need advice,” The husky voice rationalized, “bring me down here and let it wear off. I know sedatives you could only dream of. Common things,” She added. Mel was being unusually chatty. July recognized that she was buying time, and stepped around the corner, careful to stay in the shadows cast by the doorframe.

  Figures, silhouetted by candlelight, came into her view. The larger, male figure seemed to deliberate for a moment, then shook his head. “As tempting as that is, I don’t know if you’re going to prescribe me a sedative or a noxious gas that will turn my stomach inside out.”

  “I’ll test it on myself,” Mel countered. “Call it a free sample.” July stepped into view, slowly and deliberately, about five feet from the door. She was forcibly reminded of their encounter with a couple of bandits on the farmland in Raoh, and how Mel’s eyes had lit up like candles on winter solstice. Maybe it’s a good thing she’s sedated, July thought, with a touch of opportunistic guilt.

  “My mother had a saying, you know,” The man started. July didn’t let him finish. She closed the distance in two leaping bounds, drawing her sword and slashing high in one swift motion. By some devilish luck, he jerked forwards, avoiding the killing brunt of her swing but still taking a deep cut at the shoulder. He turned, and at the same moment he moved to retaliate, Mel’s arm swung like a pendulum, her closed fist knocking the foraging knife out of his hand. She let out a pained shout at the effort, dropping off the chair and onto one knee.

  He was facing her now, and though blood was cascading from his open shoulder, he didn’t make a sound. Ludicrously, he grinned, stepping into July’s space in one long stride. She swung again from above, but he reached up and caught the blade with his hand, sending another river of blood pulsing down his body. He reached across and twisted July’s wrist, ejecting the blade from her grip. It clattered to the ground loudly next to Mel, who eyed it with shock. Again, the man didn’t acknowledge the gash, instead silently shoving July into the wall, where her head bounced with a sharp crack.