Cultwick: The Science of Faith

by J. Stone

  The final rite that she had performed left Viola feeling hollow and drained. Every spell that was cast had an associated cost. Ridding the city of the malicious creatures left behind by Fiona had come with a price far too high for Viola to pay. The spell’s cost manifested itself in the form of a malignant blight eating away at her from within. She was in constant pain, and if she did not act, she knew it would eventually kill her, just as she had wrestled control of the empire from her mother.

  When she cut her hand, she used the open wound to channel her own blood and energy into her spell. Viola’s focus was the quite dangerous school of blood magic. She poured nearly the entirety of her being into her attempt to rid the city of the infected. By doing so, Viola succeeded in destroying all of what Fiona had created, but she also inadvertently tapped into a source of power that was not easily closed back. Now, her energy was slowly leaking from the widening wound in her palm.

  As she had done since she was a child, Viola turned to Kyra for counsel. Together, they came up with a plan on how to rid the empress of the void now tearing its way through her body. To help slow the release, Kyra had wrapped the empress’ hand in a special bandage used by her people to quickly heal injuries. They both knew, however, that the wrapping would only serve to stymie the outflow temporarily, not halt it entirely. Viola found herself with few choices on how to proceed.

  Everything she had done had been for the good of her people, but she had often worried that her methods would prove too extreme. Her success in ridding Cultwick of her mother’s evil would be short lived if she could not find a cure to her present malady. For that reason, she developed the plan she now found herself following. The cure would come at a high cost, but if it would bring lasting peace to her people, she would suffer it.

  The lord reverend finished with his prepared sermon, which signaled to Viola that it was now her turn to speak. Orating about her mother was not something that she wished to do, but again, her mother had requested it in her final testament. Viola stood from her seat and approached the podium situated at the front of the room. Salem stood to the side, waiting for her to join him near the casket. The look he gave her was not in the least hospitable, and she felt a hatred seething out from him. His emotion was certainly not unreasonable after she had chastised the church and its practices.

  The empress ignored his hateful look, as she approached the podium, but when she got close, Salem grabbed her arm with his bony, white fingers. He pulled her close and whispered into her ear, “I know what you are, witch.”

  Viola smiled at the comment, which she was certain was not Salem’s desired reaction. She pulled her arm free and continued to the podium. Viola knew the lord reverend’s comment was directed at a nickname she quickly found herself saddled with--the Pale Witch. She didn’t particularly dislike the title, as it quite succinctly summed up who she was and what she had done. As long as her people were safe, she would accept any derision from them. Such was the cost of her actions.

  The empress situated herself at the podium, gripping the sides of its paneling, as the old man took his seat. Looking out over the crowd that had come to attend her mother’s funeral, she spotted many faces she knew. The entire council, including its leader, Desmond Crowley, was in attendance. Many of the various scientists and doctors Viola’s mother had kept on staff to keep her young and healthy were scattered throughout the room. Markus Morrissey, the man responsible for much of the empire’s military weaponry had deigned to make an appearance. She spotted accomplished and high ranking corpsmen, distinguished operatives of the Reclamation Bureau, and the aristocratic lords and ladies that she found to be of little value to the empire. They were not here for her, but for her mother, she was certain. They all looked at her with a great deal of disdain, which she attributed to what she had said on the night that the Carrier Plague had come to an end. Her changes to the empire, however, were just beginning.

  “My mother and I didn’t always see eye to eye,” Viola started out. “For all our differences, though, I’d like to think that we did love each other in our own way. I take some solace knowing that wherever my mother now finds herself, she is not alone. My father, Joseph Arkmast, was also taken from this world too young. Indeed, I pray that they have found one another in the next.”

  She took a pause, looking behind her at the empty casket. Turning back to face the crowd, she continued, “Long have we all lived under my mother’s rule. If there is one thing I wish to take from her reign, it is faith. Faith that my every action is the correct one. Faith that our people will endure and persevere. Faith that all will be well again.

  “I know that I am young to be taking over my mother’s empire, but it is thanks to her that I find myself ready for the task. She taught me the necessary traits of a good ruler.” What not to do, Viola thought to herself. “How to inspire.” Fear usually, she silently added. “To do what was best.” For herself. “There are none who cannot say that they were not touched by her rule.” Or sliced, prodded, vivisected, experimented upon… “I am certain I will often employ the lessons I learned from her.” One final look to the casket at her back. “Goodbye, mother.”

  Chapter 5. Pearl’s Home

  Ever since that drunken railway worker had come on far too strong, and Erynn had brained him with the butt of her pistol in the dance hall, Pearl’s life had been significantly lacking in any sense of normalcy. That wasn’t necessarily a bad turn of events, but there had been a number of awful situations the young woman had found herself living through and struggling to endure. On the positive side, she had regained her complete set of memories, though the negative was how she came to possess them and learning the horrors of her past.

  After being abducted from Pendulum Falls by the mercenary, April Lord, Pearl was handed over to Owen Sloan. During her former life as Anne Pearce, Owen had become infatuated with the young artist, as she painted sidewalk portraits. His twisted desires led to Pearl’s entire family being killed and her own memory being wiped clean. When he reclaimed her those years later, his lust for her had not waned in the slightest. He attempted to recreate those same circumstances that had caused Pearl to lose her recollection of being Anne in the first place by forcing upon her a new and fake set of memories. Hoping to instill in her a foundation of unconditional love toward him, Owen had Dr. Garland Webber erase all of her memories and subject her to the new ones of his own design.

  It had been thanks to Erynn and Rowland that any scrap of Pearl had survived the ordeal. Before the abduction, her companion had constructed for her a simple but beautiful bracelet. Contained within its shiny exterior was a memory-improving tonic developed by the chromesmith’s adoptive father, the transcription professor, Maxwell Rowland. Its periodic injections were all that kept Pearl’s mind from succumbing to the foreign conditioning of Owen and Webber.

  After the ordeal, Pearl and Erynn finally found each other again, as her companion had risked her own health and freedom to find her. The happiness of the reunion was unfortunately short-lived, however, as Germ, the genetically created rat man that had helped raise Erynn, was trapped inside a pocket universe created by Rowland, the very man that created him. Germ’s lifespan had been running out, and rather than simply allow his friend to die, Rowland contained the rat inside what he enigmatically called the Pocket to give him more time to develop a means to prolong Germ’s life.

  In the short time that Pearl had known the well-mannered and perhaps overly polite rat, she herself had grown quite attached, and she could understand Rowland’s unwillingness to let him go. He had been nothing but generous and kind toward her, and she was endeared by his general warmth. She realized that if she felt so strongly about Germ’s situation, that it was nothing compared to what Rowland and Erynn were going through.

  Rowland’s reaction to Germ’s potential death and current incarceration was much more obvious. He drowned himself in the attempts to not only prolong the rat’s artificially created life, but to even restore him proper to their wor
ld. The Pocket had become a repository of failed experiments that he feared were too dangerous to be allowed continued existence. Rather than dispose of the results, Rowland simply transferred them into his self-manufactured alternate dimension. Never had he bothered to pull something back out, and it had thus far proved to be a complicated and difficult task.

  Erynn, on the other hand, did not deal with Germ’s absence in such a direct way. The young chromesmith had all but refused to talk about Germ, and Pearl couldn’t help but worry about what her companion was going through. Pearl allowed Erynn to deal with his absence in her own way though. Since Erynn’s pardon by the new empress, that had meant fixing all the broken items in Rowland’s mansion. Because of the pardon, Rowland made the decision that they should all move back into her former home, and neither Erynn nor Pearl had too many objections given the end of the war.

  After Erynn won the lottery and subsequently escaped the empire’s clutches, the Cultwick Corps had devastated the mansion in a fruitless attempt to find her and the professor. She started with mending the dozens of shattered windows, resetting the doors into their hinges, and cleaning the two stories of whatever had been tracked in since their absence, and then Erynn next set to work on getting the heating system working once again in the large home. The chromesmith had finally managed to get it working again, so Pearl was overindulging herself in the warmth. She wore a sleeveless dress with a pink body and striped brown and pink long skirt. She had on no shoes or socks of any kind because of the excessive heat now blowing through the mansion. Strapped tightly to her wrist was the gold-colored, metal bracelet that Erynn had constructed for Pearl.

  Her time as Isabelle had greatly altered her appearance. Her skin had once been covered in a great number of varying tattoos, many of which she had inked herself. As Isabelle, she had been stripped of all the tattoos. Thankfully though, she didn’t recall the memories of the acid burning off the ink from her flesh. Before being transformed into Isabelle, Pearl had dyed the very tips of her dark, black hair bleach blonde. Owen had apparently not approved of this alteration and had made Dr. Webber change it back. Her hair had also been cleaned up in terms of length, making it more uniform. Among the first things she had done after her escape was to take a pair of scissors to her hair, making it less orderly and giving her the more chaotic and unique look that she was accustomed to. She had not yet re-dyed anything, though she had begun to think about what colors she might like to try next.

  Since moving into Rowland’s mansion with Erynn, Pearl had spent quite a lot of her time returning to her love of painting. She’d considered getting back out to the city streets to paint portraits, but she conceded that winter might not be the best time to start up again. While Erynn and Rowland each kept busy in their respective work areas, Pearl had set up a small area to paint in a seemingly unused sunroom. Splattering the various colors onto the canvases brought memories of her youth to the surface. The artwork served as a way for her to reconnect with the family she had lost and the young woman she had once been.

  Pearl had spent most of that day, however, in the kitchen and had finally donned an apron over her dress to prevent any of the various ingredients from staining her clothes. After only a few days in the mansion, Pearl learned that both Erynn and Rowland had grown to rely on Germ to manage the household. Though she was not eager to replace the rat butler, she was willing to do her part in his absence. From her gathering, the rat’s responsibilities had primarily consisted of cleaning up after the pair and preparing the occasional meal. Rowland, in particular, seemed just as likely to go a day without eating as he was to work through the nights in his lab. Concerned with his wellbeing, it had become her responsibility to make sure that he was taken care of, as his focus on his work seemed to keep him from doing it himself.

  After scrounging through Germ’s things in the kitchen, Pearl found a notebook of various recipes that he had kept. Picking one out that she thought sounded good - pasta, chicken, and a marinara sauce - she had begun preparing it for dinner that evening. Her hope was to get them both away from their work for at least a brief time, though she wasn’t completely certain of its potential effectiveness. As the chicken finished cooking, Pearl placed out three servings on three separate plates and set them out on the neglected dining room table that she’d had to clear off.

  All that was left was to retrieve her dinner guests. She expected Erynn would be easier to convince and that Rowland would take much longer, so rather than run the risk of Erynn wandering off, while she gathered the professor, she started with him.

  In the middle of his lab, Rowland read through notes, searching for more details on Germ’s serum. Apparently, however, he had not realized or bothered himself with the now working heating system, as he still wore a heavy coat along with a woolen cap with insulated flaps hanging down to his shoulders. Over his legs, he wore simple gray slacks, and he had on thick wool socks on his shoeless feet. Since they’d come back to the city, Rowland had been without his respirator and spectacles that she had always seen him wearing. Hearing the story from Erynn, they had been taken by the empire and were unlikely to be seen again. Pearl suspected that underneath all that excessive clothing, Rowland had worked up quite a sweat. The dripping beads on his forehead indicated as much anyway. She’d found that he was frequently singularly focused on whatever task he set out for himself, and that almost nothing could distract him. Getting his attention could take some finagling, she realized.

  Starting with the basic, she called out his name, “Max?”

  Nothing to indicate the word had even made an impact. Pearl repeated the act, but with no better results. She watched him for a moment, as he examined a beaker of fluid before jotting down notes in a notebook held tightly in his hand. Walking to him, she grabbed the notebook and attempted to wrench it out from his hand, but Rowland reactively clenched the pages, holding them firmly within his grip. Frowning, Pearl moved onto her next plan. The liquid he was observing was placed at the center of one of his work tables. She grabbed the glass containing it and watched, as his eyes traced along its path.

  Holding it beside her own face, she added, “Max!”

  The professor’s eyes ratcheted to awareness with several blinks, and he asked, “Pearl? Is something the matter?”

  “I’ve made ya some dinner,” Pearl explained. “Come and get somethin’ to eat. Ya’ve gotta be hungry.”

  “I will eat later.” He began to return to his work before looking around wildly. “Who turned up the heat?”

  “Ryn,” Pearl replied. “Now, let’s go. Germ circled the recipe. I take it that means you’ll like it.”

  Rowland took off the winter cap, tossing it to the floor, as his stomach made a loud growling noise that even he couldn’t ignore. Looking down at his stomach, he agreed, “Perhaps you are right.”

  Smiling, Pearl said, “C’mon, it’ll be good to get ya away from yer work fer a bit.”

  Nodding, Rowland placed his journal of notes down on his work table and accompanied Pearl back to the dining area. She seated him at one of the plates and told him, “Just wait while I grab Ryn.”

  Pearl was sure that Erynn was hidden away in her workshop that she had set up since returning to the mansion, piecing together some invention. She ultimately found her at her workbench constructing something that looked like a glove. Erynn had taken off her top hat, hanging it on a hook on the wall, and her wavy, red hair hung loosely to her shoulders. She was hunched over the device, with her eyes shielded by black goggles from the sporadic sparks that shot up toward her face.

  Standing idly in the corner of the room was Tern, who Pearl had already seen rebuilt twice since she met the automaton. Each time, the construct looked stronger and more capable of standing up to anything that was thrown at him. They kept finding ways to test his endurance though. Composed of parts ranging in color from silver to bronze to gold, the automaton stood roughly six feet tall with a sturdy torso and spindly limbs built from long pipes and covered by ha
rd, metal plates with various wires poking out from underneath. He stood there silently, seemingly quite at peace with his surroundings.

  Upon seeing her enter the workshop, Erynn removed her goggles and said, “Hey, Pearl.”

  The muck had accrued under the tips of her fingernails, resulting in black-tipped nails, and there was a clean spot where she had worn the goggles over her eyes that now hung below her neck. She wore a loose fitting green button-up shirt that Pearl had mentioned she liked some days prior. Erynn had worn it more frequently since that comment, and Pearl found it endearing that she had such an effect on her companion. Her jeans were faded, and the thighs were caked with black smudges, where she had wiped her dirty hands on them. And as always, Erynn’s emerald necklace that had been bequeathed to her by her mother hung down, gently resting on her chest.

  “Come eat dinner with me and Max,” she requested.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Erynn replied. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You haven’t eaten all day,” Pearl pointed out.

  “That’s not true,” the chromesmith said. “I had…” She trailed off, trying to think.

  “Name it,” Pearl challenged her.

  “Uh…” Erynn scratched her scalp with her dirty fingers and narrowed her eyes. “Oh! I had that sandwich you made.”

  “Yeah, that was yesterday, kitten,” she explained. “Come eat.”

  “That was yesterday?” Erynn repeated.

  “Sure was,” Pearl said.

  “I guess I could eat then,” the chromesmith agreed.

  Together, they walked back to the dining area, where Pearl hoped to get them all to sit down at the same table and away from their various projects. Instead, they found that Rowland had already managed to devour his entire plate full of food and go back to his lab. Though, he had left the empty plate where Pearl had placed it.