Shivania, extending her heightened senses to encompass all they passed, kept up an awed commentary, which Solonaetz could tell soon began to get on Graian's nerves.
Palama House was situated in the heart of the Aromatics district; a sweeping pale leviathan of a residence, with many low, sprawling workshops to the rear. The air was so filled with the reek of perfume-blending, Solonaetz's and Graian's eyes began to water profusely. Shivania, being blind, did not experience this discomfort.
Presenting themselves at the soaring main entrance, its elegance enhanced by its classical simplicity, Graian and his companions were shown by an imperious servant into an understated yet exquisitely furnished salon near the front of the house. Refreshment was brought: pale, fragranced wine and tender wafers perfumed with local flower essences. Shivania exclaimed that Salome Nigra must be a world created solely for the pleasure of astropaths. 'The stimulus is for the nose, the nose!' she enthused. 'Who needs physical sight in such a place?'
Graian and Solonaetz, still wiping their eyes with kerchiefs, were inclined to agree with her.
Guido Palama made a grand entrance after a suitable time had elapsed. He was a tall, well-built man, his handsome face set in a perpetual smile. After a short, polite enquiry as to his visitors' journey, health and opinions of the city, he settled immediately to business.
'So,' he said, leaning back in his silk-cushioned chair, 'you essay an entreaty to the Dark Lady of Nepenthe!' He helped himself to a biscuit, nibbling thoughtfully. Graian and Solonaetz had both leaned forward expectantly. 'My family have captured the essence of the mystic flower for centuries,' he continued. 'Mysteria Hypno Morta - a prayer, her name, a prayer!' He sighed. 'We call her the lacrymata, the moonskin, the last breath of a favoured concubine. Mysteria - dark maid of the hidden caves. Fragrant, fragile bloom, whose fleeting kiss is spiritual joy, whose bitter juice is oblivion!' He smiled.
The speech was obviously a sales pitch, Solonaetz thought. However, the plain truth would be lacking in romance. The Palamas grew a rare flower in underground catacombs, whose perfume was highly narcotic and whose essential oil was a deadly poison if ingested. It could also be sold for ridiculous amounts throughout this corner of the Imperium. Naturally, such an honest description would not have excited Graian's desire for purchase as much, but then, why bother anyway? The Palamas were rigidly discerning about who they dealt with in the world of commerce. The fact that Graian was here at all indicated the sale had already been finalized with the Fiddeus clan back on Terra. Graian was just a courier. Guido Palama obviously liked to romance his merchandise.
Solonaetz noticed Palama was looking at him keenly. 'Naturally, you wish to see… for yourselves,' their host said, with a wider smile.
The catacombs were accessible via a single door in the heart of the Palama workshops. Violet glowstrips illumined the worn stone steps that led downwards into a damp murk. Shivania slipped her arm through Solonaetz's as they descended. 'Can you smell her?' she whispered. The navigator could feel her trembling.
'Is this what you came down here for?' he asked in an undertone. It was possible. Astropaths, being psychic and therefore mystically inclined, would be bound to be interested in the lacrymata. Shivania squeezed his arm. She did not answer.
'Here the beds of lesser maidens,' Palama intoned when they reached the bottom. Terraces of peaty soil, black as grave-dirt, swept away into the dimness, micred with pale stars; the blooms themselves. 'Mysteria Puella,' Palama said. 'She is destined for the warm throats of ladies of the grand houses of all the worlds. A decoration, merely mimicking the forbidden sensuality of her elder sister.' He plucked a single bloom and presented it to Shivania. 'For you, my dear. Press her well between the pages of your mea libra and she will greet you with a benediction whenever you go to inscribe your meditations.'
'Thank you, sir!' Shivania said. She sniffed the flower cautiously. 'Mmm. Here, Solonaetz!'
He leaned over to sample the perfume. Its first note was bright and fruity, descending for a brief flirtation with the carnal bloom of musk before rising to a final crescendo of riotous spring flowers. 'Excellent! You will look forward to your inscriptions from now on, I think!'
Palama led them further into the breathing dark. Solonaetz's skin prickled with a weird excitement. He felt as if a thousand sighing creatures of the night were shifting restlessly on black satin couches around him; vampire beauty concealed from sight beneath a venomous mat of narcotic flower flesh.
'And here,' Palama whispered reverently ahead of them, 'the boudoir of the lady herself. Have care, my friends, she sleeps and dreams.'
Solonaetz heard Graian gasp. He himself was holding his breath, but not for long. Ahead of them, a gloomy crypt spread into infinity, its tiers snaking between massive columns and arches. Each tier was overflowing, indeed gravid, cancerous and alive with convolutions of shimmering fleshy whorls. Bloom upon bloom crawled over their sisters, engulfing, tumbling, sending out whippy suckers festooned with tumescent buds and the perfume…
Solonaetz had to suppress a groan. The sorcerous elixir of it seethed and flexed upon the tongue, the throat, reaching down with limber fingers to the belly and groin. No simple cadence here, but a hectic symphony of aromatic notes. The first was fruity too, but this was the over-ripe, giddy eruption of autumn in full swell, sweeping lustily down to a dark woodland of musk and sandal spiced with civet and ambergris, rising orgasmically to the exuberant scream of spring; jasmin, asphodel and creamy rose. Flowers of the flesh. Solonaetz swallowed thickly, dizzy with the aroma that was playing havoc with his sense of reality, never mind his more carnal senses. At his side, Shivania was motionless. Her touch had become vague upon his arm.
Palama let them all sample the agonizing ecstasy of it for a few moments before clearing his throat and saying, 'Well, I trust you are satisfied, Captain Fiddeus. Perhaps we can repair to the salon once more to arrange delivery of your consignment.'
Rather overcome, and silent because of it, Graian, Solonaetz and Shivania eventually emerged into the streets once more. Shivania toyed gently with the bloom Palama had given her, settling it safely behind a talismanic pin on her robes. They reached the tourist quarter, almost unaware of how they had got there. Cafes and bars lined streets that radiated out from quaint squares, discrete alleys limned with globes of deep red light leading to areas of more lascivious delights. The aroma of cooking food did something to dispel the enchantment of Palama's crypt, and Solonaetz suggested the three of them choose one of the cafes to sample local cuisine. Shivania agreed enthusiastically, but Graian, looking sheepish, mumbled something about going to find the rest of their party. Solonaetz, fighting the urge to poke fun and discomfort the captain, merely smiled and told him he and Shivania would meet him back at the spaceport in three hours, ship's time. Graian gratefully scuttled off down one of the alleys.
'Are you sure you don't want to go with him?' Shivania asked, clearly aware of what Graian was looking for. 'I don't mind. I'll be quite happy sitting here alone. Really.'
'No!' Solonaetz insisted, firmly tucking the girl's hand through his elbow. 'Come along. This looks an interesting place. Glazed fowl hanging everywhere! Take a sniff!'
Shivania laughed delightedly and they went inside.
'I wish I could see you,' Shivania said wistfully as they sat drinking a dessert beverage after the meal. 'I mean, really see you. Your aura is handsome, navigator, and yet…' She shrugged. 'Silly of me. It must be the effect of this little lady here!' She touched the bloom in her robes. 'I suppose I must be ugly to you, blind as a cave bat as I am!'
'Shivania, stop that,' Solonaetz said. 'You are a very pretty girl, as you well know, and I am a rather haggard spectre of a man. Drink your dessert!'
'You haven't seen me without this,' she said mournfully, indicating her mask.
'So show me then!'
'You won't scream?'
Solonaetz laughed. She was joking, of course. 'Only behind my hand. I'm not squeamish, Shivania, really.'
Impulsively, she reached up and untied the strings of her mask, lowering it swiftly, with an air of challenge. Her eyelids drooped over blind milky orbs sunk deep into her skull, as if shrunken. Thin, almost pencil-drawn, brows shadowed the sockets. It was not gruesome, however, which Solonaetz knew the girl must be aware of. A test then? Was she inviting a physical response from him?
'Disgusting,' he said, with a laugh. 'Dress yourself at once!'
She smiled and replaced the mask. 'I could ask you to remove yours, navigator, but there'd be little point. Doesn't it itch having to keep the eye under a band all the time?'
'Not at all.'
'Would you be able to see into the warp now, from here, if you removed it and opened the eye?'
'What I would see is the otherworld of our reality. In a place like this, it might be educational, but rather upsetting, I feel.'
'Strange. I wouldn't have thought you'd be so squeamish.'
'I'm not, just careful. So, tell me, what was your interest in coming down here? You intended to accompany Fiddeus to his client all along, of course.'
'Your warp sight lends you a sharp perception, navigator,' Shivania replied. She was enjoying herself immensely, he could see. She sipped her drink daintily. 'Lacrymata is a legend. I was curious. Also, if the fables surrounding it are true, it possesses innumerable properties which haven't even been guessed at yet.'
'Really. And which of these legends concerns you?'
Shivania laughed. 'You sound like an inquisitor, navigator. Aren't I allowed a girlish curiosity?'
'Allowed it, certainly, but I doubt that is your motivation.'
She shrugged. 'The interest was casual, really. It was only a rumour. I heard the lacrymata stimulates psychic sight - far beyond what a humble astropath can imagine.' She shrugged again, jerkily. 'However, I've smelled the stuff now, and my inner sight has not improved significantly.'
'I should hope not!' Solonaetz exclaimed. 'Whatever properties the perfume has, it is also very dangerous, and possibly attractive to hostile forces.'
'And that, dear navigator, is probably just as much a fable as any other connected with the lacrymata. Palama has to sell the stuff, doesn't he? It was all just talk.'
Solonaetz remembered the effect the lacrymata flowers had had on him and suppressed a shudder. He did not share Shivania's apparent scepticism.
'Anyway, I'm bored with the subject,' she said. 'I'm more interested in you. How old are your injuries?'
'What?!'
Shivania smiled slyly. 'Oh come now, navigator, you should know I see more than others, lacrymata or not. Your aura has scars. How did you get them, and where?'
Solonaetz was impressed. 'It happened what seems a long time ago, and my name is Solonaetz - remember?'
She shrugged. 'Well?'
By the time he'd finished pouring out his life history to the girl, they had scant minutes to return to the rendezvous point with the others from the Brava. Solonaetz felt as giddy as an excited boy as they hurried through the streets; purged and renewed.
He'd been waiting for someone with whom he could exorcise the past to come into his life, someone free from the drippings of cloying pity. Whoever would have thought this young, quirky girl would be the one? So much for the pleasure-vaults of Assyrion. Solonaetz had no doubt that what he'd experienced by simply talking in the dim-lit cafe far superseded any delights of the flesh Graian and the others had experienced.
Of course, she came tapping on his cabin door while he lay restless in his sleep cell, weary to the bone, yet unable to rest. Of course, she came with words of reassurance. 'Rest easy, Solonaetz. I ask no more than this of you.' Of course, it was a lie. And she, lithe avatar of release, cast a shawl of tawny hair across his breast and stroked his brow, saying, 'Look upon me, navigator, with the eye that sees my soul!' She removed his bandana and kissed the closed lid, bringing a fragrant memory of the lacrymata to his throat. She was so beautiful and skilled with such dark voluptuousness that, in the midst of their love-making, he did open his eye.
Is this woman, he thought, this that I see?
Pure female, her overlapping currents of spirit rivalling even the chaos of the warp. He had never thought to do such a thing before; no one had requested it. His eye was a danger as well as an intrigue; a glance could kill. Shivania, in her blindness, was immune, but she cried that she saw the light of him unveiled, his forehead shedding radiance which she claimed shared the same brightness as the Emperor's own beacon. Heresy. Maybe.
'If we only had a sample of the cargo,' she said, close to his ear. 'Think, Solonaetz, what ecstasies we could share!'
'Or what pain,' he added. A shiver of presentiment summoned a vision of the next warp drop: he, alone, in his pod, with the dark, moving liquid of the lacrymata, in the vaults below, singing its insidious song to the ever-vigilant powers of Chaos.
'You fear it!' Shivania laughed. 'Ice and passion of the wounded navigator!' She stroked the scars on his chest and belly. 'I envy you your sight,' she said.
Afterwards, she curled into his arms, humming a strange little tune, running her fingers over his smooth, white skin, reaching up to wind them in his long, fine hair. 'Divine mutant!' she said.
'Hush, don't say that!'
'Well, you are! As I am, in truth. Both of us tolerated for our uses. Blessings upon our Imperial Father that we may find solace with each other.'
'Sometimes, Shivania, I think you say dangerous things.'
She scorned him gently. 'Faithful navigator, always quick to obey, to bend his back before the whip of Imperial doctrine.'
'Shivania!' He tried to ease himself away from her, suddenly feeling she had become a twining, suffocating thing. 'What are you saying? Listen to yourself!'
'I have done that for years!' she said sharply. 'Always listened to myself, from the day the blackship came and took me from my home!'
'You are an astropath. Privileged, honoured! Your very soul is bonded with the Emperor's!'
She sneered. 'Hah! A bonding that burned away my eyes! Bonding is another word for slavery, is it not?'
Solonaetz shook his head in confusion. 'I will not argue with you, but when you say these things, remember what your fate could have been!'
'And you think this is any better?' She sat up, brushing back her hair. Her voice possessed the dry quality of some seasoned, jaded assassin; a woman whose flesh was laced with scars. Solonaetz reflected how you never came within a whisker of knowing someone until they'd shared your bed. 'It is easy for you to be so complacent,' she said bitterly. 'A ship here, a ship there, flitting around, cushioned by the influence of your great family. What am I? In comparison, a mere slave, leased out by the Scholastica. I do not choose my commissions, navigator. Your life is your own. Mine?' She turned her face towards him and the white eyes between their slitted lids looked snake-like. 'I belong to Fiddeus and his clan. My freedom aboard this ship is an illusion.'
'No good can come of this talk, Shivania.'
She shrugged. 'Whatever. I have offended you, shocked you. For that, I am sorry. I like you. Still…' She sighed, her voice taking on a wistful note. 'Perhaps it was a mistake to leave ship. I did not want to come back, you know.'
Solonaetz reached to touch her. 'Forget this. Say nothing else. Come back to me.'
Reluctantly, she curled against his side. 'Sometimes,' she said, 'a great fear comes to me. I feel as if a depthless abyss waits to open at my feet.'
'Not for now,' Solonaetz whispered, and held her tight.
Graian Fiddeus supervised the stowing of his cargo, restlessly pacing the cargo vault as members of his crew carefully secured the crates. At Graian's insistence, Brother Gabreus came puffing down the access ramp, clutching a smoking censer of his recently-purchased, potent Assyrion incense and a handful of newly-etched talismans to drape around the cargo.
'We cannot be too careful,' Graian said. 'This stuff, for all its value, is a seductive substance. I am concerned what may occur should warp-leakage st
eal its way inside the ship. Gabreus, I want the whole of the Brava consecrated again; every corner, every duct, every rune re-blessed and anointed. Is this clear?'
'As the bloom of a nebula, captain. Never fear, Gabreus's unparalleled spirit will quell and subdue any effluvia seeking entrance!'
Graian smiled and patted the priest's bulky shoulder. 'I know I can trust you, brother. Now, I must hunt down our little communications system and ask her to transmit a message to my father. I intend to ask him to have a banquet ready for my crew courtesy of Clan Fiddeus!'
Gabreus grinned. 'He could breed whole generations of prime beef by the time we get home!'
It had not gone unnoticed by Graian that some kind of carnal transaction was taking place between his navigator and his astropath. For some reason, this caused him deep discomfort. Shivania, he decided, had a streak of insolence inside her. Perhaps it was this that made him distrust her. Sometimes, when he issued a command, he sensed a wry malevolence in her expression; something about the mouth. It worried him she might alter the sense of his messages when she sent them, just out of mischief, to cause him embarrassment and inconvenience. Why should this be? Shivania might be a laser in comparison with Bassos's steady but small candle-flame, but he could not bring himself to have faith in her.
He also feared she might be bad for Solonaetz. After all, who knew what went on in the navigator's head? It was no secret he'd been horrifically wounded and had suffered a serious breakdown afterwards. Gomery had instructed him to treat Solonaetz with care, look out for him. Graian felt his instincts bridle at the thought of the quick, incomprehensible Shivania having him in her clutches. He intended to speak severely with his father on return. There was no way he would have that girl on board again. The crew of a ship were an enclosed community, mostly removed from time and space itself; the universe rolled inexorably on without them. It was, therefore, intrinsic to the ship's well-being that the crew resonated harmoniously with each other. One jarring note and the whole delicate structure could fall apart; entirely the kind of occurrence that foul influences from the warp could get a hook into. This possibility alarmed Graian more than that of engine failure or facing a warp storm. Dea Brava was his kingdom and he was sensitive to its ambiences.
Lacrymata - Storm Constantine Page 2