===Next: [Investigate La Petite Mort] or [Summon Sir Edwin to Claribel’s Manor]===
Ari pinched the space between her brows.
The ringing in her ears and the portal of darkness behind her made it harder than usual to read her options.
A motley figure vaulted out of the first-floor window and sprinted towards her, flattening a jester’s hat upon her landing. She’d know Natty’s run anywhere, shoulders square, arms swinging neatly, honed for the long distance by the threat of the Chief’s disappointment.
She was about to congratulate Natty on her new comedy routine when she caught the horror on her face.
Others were sprinting too, with a head-start from nearer-by: a gardener’s boy, trailing behind three of Claribel’s guards. Some of them were shouting, pointing at the portal behind her, almost as if they… could see it.
She turned, watching its jagged edges curl and shrink, black as the empty spaces between stars, mesmerising on those clear, still nights lying on a cool, dark mirror-surface. It’d soon die down to nothing: a fast-extinguishing flame. As far as Ari could tell, these portals were just another way to nag her into making her decision. They weren’t really portals at all. She just liked to call them that, because they’d always be shaped like shadows of her.
‘My lady! Get away from that foul magic!’ cried the youngest of the guards, unsheathing his sword, as if you’d need a sword to cut through the void. Had she looked like that – fear stirred with wild determination – the first time she’d seen the portal? Before the before the before the before the crystal. She clutched at her heart, greeted only by dampened silk. Now, she knew. She knew that if anything, they were a potent good-luck portent.
She ran her fingers through those dark flames, proving to the guard that they were harmless – and formless, uncuttable with a sword – which was when she spotted Claribel’s pale form squeeze through its edges, like mist. The ringing in her ears manifested into Claribel’s distorted scream.
‘Don’t touch that foul spirit, my lady! You don’t know what it may be.’ The young guard grabbed her in turn, phasing through Claribel, careening through the giant letters that called for her to summon Sir Edwin, and threw himself between her and the portal.
‘Do you?’ she said, sounding too calm even to her own ears.
‘It… It must be a foul spirit sent by… by…’
‘Lady Oriana, actually.’ The words that came out of her mouth surprised her too, and it wasn’t Claribel who’d forced them through. Somehow, it felt right that Lady Oriana should get the blame for sending unwanted presents her way. Without causing any political upsets. ‘In a friendly way. She sent it to me in a friendly way. It’s completely harmless. In fact, it’s… a new type of golem that she’s testing out. I decided to offer her some friendly advice on her golems, considering that I am a Lower Warden of the Guild of Mages, and she is…’ She swatted away the impulse to reference beaver hats. ‘…not. Anyhow, it appears that her latest experiment is not a success, as it holds no corporal form, but please rest assured: it is certainly no danger to me.’
‘She did also send you a dead boar, my lady,’ offered Sten.
Ari waited for Claribel to correct her and tell her to call him Bador. She blinked. The guard’s real name was as clear as the one she’d assigned him.
‘I guess you’ve sent it to the kitchens already.’
‘Yes, my lady.’
She leaned into the portal’s powers, erratically given, letting it gift her with intuition.
Natty skidded to a halt next to Claribel, who’d finally regained her usual composure. With a dip of her head towards them, Ari grabbed the option that called to her.
===Next: [Investigate La Petite Mort] ===
Clasping her hands together, even as Bador swept his cloak around her shoulders, she gave out her orders: no visitors to be allowed through the gates of this manor, and a carriage to be prepared for–
‘…Master Keating’s abode.’
Claribel drew in a trembling breath. ~But why do I know that we are planning to go to La Petite Mort? Why do I know that there is a letter awaiting me from His Grace, the Duke of Auster? Why do I think that Zarto is due to visit? Is that why you asked the guards to keep all visitors away? I… I even remember Sir Edwin’s footsteps creaking up those stairs, and… and…~
Those were more visions than what the portal had gifted Ari. Was it because Claribel’s spirit had been raked over those flames?
‘I will accompany my lady,’ said Natty, glaring at the last embers of the portal with as much good cheer as a funeral director. ‘I am sure that Master Keating is in need of a good laugh. It seems that the rest of Eirene are all getting a good laugh out of the situation between his wife and the carpenter. I will purge all wood-related puns from my repertoire.’
Just as the world had purged all portal-related evidence. It was just another winter’s morning, clouds thick, ravens cawing.
Bador shivered, cloakless, but no longer without a smile. ‘Careful with your favourite joke, Mistress Fabia! Why did Master Keating’s wife cross the city? To get to the other guy.’
‘And why did Master Keating’s wife cross her legs? Because it wasn’t the other guy.’
Bador slapped the younger guard on the back, grin now wide enough to peek through his beard. Was the golem excuse beyond believable, or was the portal back to how it should have been all along: Ari’s memory alone?
A glint of light flashed from Natty’s chest, too bright to be a reflection of the hidden sun. She blinked, and it was gone, but not the hardness that had set into Natty’s jaws.
*
There had, indeed, been a visitor to turn away from the gates. She glimpsed Zarto, the musician, as her carriage rolled past him. He waved at her atop his horse, swamp-green eyes oozing with a smile that chilled her.
Ari only tore her gaze away when Natty cleared her throat. ‘Have you ever wondered where we come from?’
Had the dark flames scrambled Natty’s brain? She sped past all the grounds she could cover, and ended up at, ‘Monkeys?’
‘I expected you to go as far back as Africa, but to go back to the origins of humankind is–’
~What did you say? That humankind came from monkeys?~
‘Look, I don’t have time to go Darwin and Wallace on you now,’ Natty snapped. ‘What I’m getting at is, like, where did we come from? You… I’m talking about Ari, by the way, because we all know where you came from: privilege. You and me, Ari, where do we come from? What’s your earliest memory?’
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
‘We… were by the waters, running away together. You were running from your family… Your mother, maybe?’ Ari winced, excavating memories that felt more ancient than half the exhibits in the British Museum.
‘I don’t have a mother.’
‘But I…’
‘Do you?’
‘No…?’
‘Because I remember you running from your family. Your mother, I would have said, if you’d asked. Me, on the other hand? It’s as if I’d just popped into existence. On average, your earliest memory should be from when you were three or four. Seven, at most, if you’ve had a shitty life, trauma, childhood amnesia and that bag of fun. We weren’t three, running past those canals. We weren’t seven either. We were, like, nearly young teens.’
~Children.~ Claribel’s whisper swam through her head, unwilling to offer her anymore than a simple assessment of their ages.
She shouldn’t have gulped down her morning feast in quite such a rush, desperate to fuel the magic and outrun the bad ends lurking in their unwritten futures. It had formed a cold lump in the pit of her stomach. ‘Are you suggesting that the Institute had brainwashed us?’ she said, clutching to the possibility that the truth could end there.
Because what were the other options? That they’d been created, golem-like, living sculptures loaded with a standard edition of origin stories? She wanted to push those thoughts away, to bathe in the good luck that the portal had brought her, because now was not a good time. When was it ever a good time for an existential crisis?
*
Master Keating’s manor was more like a castle, its slit, barred windows glared under square battlements, protecting the red-tiled roofs behind them. She was glad of the gates opening to let her carriage through, for she didn’t think she could run a sub five-minute-mile in Claribel’s gown, just to get her past the manicured cypresses and cascading fountains.
Two of his guards marched along with them, letting another fleet-footed guard run ahead to announce her visit.
‘In here please,’ said the guard who’d returned from an arched gate, ushering them into a hall with breath-taking wood carvings, so beautiful that she merely glanced past the tapestries and gold-gilt chandeliers. For a moment, she could forget that she hadn’t been questioning the fabric of their reality just moments ago. But then again, the world could only churn on, whatever the world really was. So what if they were robots or golems? She’d been her all along. Did it really matter, when nothing truly did?
Yes.
The figures formed onto those pillars and panels were laughing, screaming, fabric streaming in a wind that she could almost feel against her cheeks. She stopped in front of a wooden statue of a woman, fingers entwined in her hair, each strand meticulously chiselled into the painted surface, smiling up mid-bath. Ari could almost hear the statue hum a contented tune. Well. If she really was created with preloaded memories and skills, why couldn’t they have given her the artistic talent of this sculptor?
At her feet, the sculpture had been signed with a ‘T’ and a ‘C’ that curled and leaned like a child’s first attempt at letters, so much that it looked almost like a misshapen ‘M’. At least the sculptor hadn’t been blessed with good handwriting.
‘Wait, I thought you said this is supposed to be some teacher’s house,’ Natty turned to Claribel, straightening her jester’s hat. ‘Isn’t this bigger than yours? I’m all for teachers getting paid their due. In fact, yes please to a teacher with a bigger house than a duke’s daughter, but this hasn’t been that kind of world so far.’
~He is also a viscount, but his mother was once a Warden of the Mercers, first of the Great Guilds, which grants him membership from birth, and his wife Alisoun is Duke Carnell’s daughter. Granted, she was disgraced by the damning rumours with the carpenter, but her dowry was still enough to attract suitors as eligible as Lord Darien from House Auster.~
Something must be really wrong with this Darien guy if Master Keating seemed the better option.
As if on cue, Master Keating bobbed through the far side entrance, which looked to be a good one-hundred-metre sprint away, flanked by two girls.
‘Master Claribel! What a surprise. A pleasant one, of course, because you are exactly who I wanted to see today. It’s as if I’ve mastered the art of summoning you with my mind. Hard to say if I’d trade that for the power of incineration, but we are not here to talk about hypotheticals, but truth. Come, come, join me in my solar so that we can discuss this further.’ He dipped his bald and browless head at a door to the side. The girls, too, dipped their hands into a bowl and sprinkled lavender-scented water over Natty’s head. ‘A special welcome to Mistress Fabia, who seems to enjoy bathing so much. What an honour. Why doesn’t the Church like the so-called scum-of-the earth to enjoy their time in the bath houses?’
‘Because nudity might encourage criminal activities?’ said Natty, making eyes at Claribel for help.
‘Because the Church doesn’t want them to make a clean getaway.’ He cackled, slapping his thigh, ushering them into a solar filled with yet more wooden statues. Even the antlers hanging from the walls swirled with wooden grains, bearing the same crooked ‘TC’ signatures as the statue in the hall. ‘Look, I don’t like to beat around the bush – though I may make an exception for my wife’s – so let me ask you this: did you know about Mistress Fabia’s visits to Aron’s bathhouse near the apothecarists’?’
‘Yes?’
Natty’s shoulders slouched a touch too much, a tendency to overcompensate for nerves that’d once landed her in an extra session in the Cube.
‘And did you authorise those visits?’
‘Yes,’ lied Ari and Claribel, voices in unison.
Master Keating stared at her, silent and still for so long that he might as well have turned into one of those wooden statues, but Ari wasn’t afraid of silence. She let it drag on until he gave in and shook his head. ‘You are here for a favour, aren’t you, Master Claribel? You never visit this close to midwinter, what with your wish-granting. Tell you what. Grant me a wish and I’ll grant one to you.’
‘I must decline if you wish me to visit that bathhouse. Not even Zarto himself performing his latest compositions could tempt me to soak in a tub near others without my gown.’
‘Oh no, no, no, don’t get me wrong, Master Claribel. If that really was going to be my request, I would have asked Lady Oriana instead. No. You see, his Majesty doesn’t seem to grasp the weight of my words.’ She couldn’t seem to grasp the weight of Natty’s revelations either. ‘He sees a viscount and his ears become filled with a maiden’s sighs instead of my words.’
‘I must decline, once again, if you wish me to sigh in his ears.’
‘If that was going to be my request, I would have asked Lady Jehanne. No, no, no. We are beyond sighing and talking. I am, in fact, very close to getting into a spot of trouble through owning a perfectly legal establishment.’
‘It’s yours?’
‘Aron is my subaltern, yes, but unfortunately the trail will come to light sooner rather than later. I need to sell it, for a very good price, of course. Are you in need of a bathhouse?’
It was Claribel’s turn to stare into Master Keating’s eyes, not that he could see her. ‘No. If whatever is happening there is enough to get you in trouble, legal as you claim it is, it is still enough for me to steer clear. There are, however, other parties in Eirene who are not as guided by the words of law. I am, in fact, here to discuss the guild-approval status for La Petite Mort.’
‘You think I should sell it to Madame Lucretia?’
‘I think that her attendants look better-trained than your guards and mine, and I think she goes around threatening to break people’s legs. If you explain the bathhouse issue to her, perhaps she could be tempted by your very good price. In fact, I am here due to one of her requests. I believe their new, mage-tailored food deserves no less than a silver status. You have often advocated for Hesperus. He is as capable as most Masters, if not more so. Will you support me in requesting a silver status instead of a bronze, as he was there to represent the fire mages?’
He scratched his chin. ‘Madame Lucretia, hey? Perhaps… But if you make that argument about Hesperus, you’d never get that motion passed.’
‘But…’
‘Which earth mage did I send you again? Lord Bernan, wasn’t it?’ He winced. ‘I’d better stop voting against the approval of his masterpiece then. Master Bernan it is.’
‘But… He’s nowhere near as worthy a mage as Hesperus.’
‘Look, do you know why Hesperus is not a Master yet?’
‘Because he has not been blessed by Sailan and Merta to arrive at a meaningful masterpiece?’
‘You must have missed it because you left Eirene. The others know it too. Rodber, Symonem, Malote. It’s because he went to the tanner’s quarter during the Battle of Eirene.’
‘For defending it against the treasonous Duke Lyoness’s fire mages? Why would he…’
Master Keating shook his head, eyes filled with a sudden sadness. ‘Why would Duke Lyoness attack the tanner’s quarters?’
‘I… am not well-versed in war tactics.’
‘It’s some way outside the city walls, not much going on for Duke Lyoness’s soldiers to ransack, but they might if they were desperate enough. No. The narrative is that Hesperus single-handedly killed five fire mages, not common foot-soldiers. Since we are brokering deals and speaking truths today, I’ll tell you this: I knew those mages. They were my students too. I sent their memories down the River Whye, claiming that they’d died at the hands of Duke Lyoness’s men, but no, those five were mages who fought alongside the Royal Guards.’
‘Did he lose his senses?’ Or did he activate some sort of a bad branch, forcing his hand against his fellow mages?
‘Perhaps he was the only one who didn’t.’ Master Keating rested a hand against a wooden statue of a dog and sighed.