Chervin swept through the rooms in his new home breathlessly, looking for so much as a speck of dust out of place.
In the days since his fortuitous meeting with the Forna girl and the mysterious Mr. Rosso, his fortunes had completely shifted. No longer was he the ambitious but ridiculed foreign upstart! He was now a guest of the Orczy family, who went as far as to provide him with a new two-story home, a valet, a small staff, and a fully-stocked and equipped workshop.
In return? He merely had to hone his skills, work on his craft, and create things of beauty for his employer.
This was the dream.
Even better, he had a guest coming over. The extremely accomplished Master Agnolo, a major figure within the goldsmith’s guild who had graciously fixed the setting on Chervin’s masterpiece, was scheduled to visit. Not only was Master Agnolo a very talented and influential person, his abilities spread far beyond mere goldsmithing; he was an artist, sculptor, engineer, composer, poet, and scholar of ancient languages.
Needless to say, Chervin wanted to make sure everything was spick and span before the good master arrived.
A bottle of Ponte Nero wine? Check. Slow-grilled ribs with a spice rub? Check. Crystal goblets and silver cutlery? Check. A fashionable—but not gaudy—new velvet jacket and trousers over a silk shirt? Check.
A properly rehearsed introduction and a memorized list of all the master’s recent accomplishments? Check and double-check.
So excited was Chervin that when the door to his new home swung open, he did not consider why his very busy guest had arrived a full half-hour before the appointed time, nor why the valet outside had failed to announce him properly.
He simply jumped to his feet and raced to the door, already tripping over his words and welcoming in his guest.
At once, a few issues were apparent. To begin with, Master Agnolo was supposed to be rather short and wiry, but the silhouette in his door was tall and broad.
Master Agnolo was meant to be fashionable, well-groomed and composed, while the figure stepping over his threshold was unkempt and brutish.
Most importantly, Master Agnolo was not Chervin’s former goldsmithing instructor Benicio Cecchini, yet it was the latter and not the former that clapped a hand on Chervin’s shoulder.
“Good to see you too, boy. If you’d welcomed me like this before, I might have enjoyed teaching you more!”
With a barbarian laugh, Benicio stalked over to the Ponte Nero and poured a glass while Chervin stood stock-still, stunned.
“M-master?”
“What?”
“It’s… it’s you.”
Benicio looked at him askance, pushed the glass of wine into the former journeyman’s hands, and drank straight from the bottle.
“No shit it’s me, has your eyesight gone bad?”
Chervin took a deep breath and forced the swirling confusion into a numbered list.
First, his master was exiled from Anthusa. He’d up-and-murdered a rival sculptor when the Holy City fell, and capitalized on the confusion to escape the city. Only afterwards did Chervin learn that Benicio had a long history of violence, including against fellow guild members, and had some infamy as a bandit and mercenary during previous exiles before amnesties and favors from high-placed friends brought him back to Anthusa’s good graces.
That was just a few months ago, and Chervin seriously doubted the exile had been lifted so quickly.
Second, Benicio disappeared months ago. Despite his status as an exile, a man of his talents in both craft and violence never had difficulty finding employment, and he was noted in the town of Beroli just a few days after the Holy City fell.
Then, in the midst of some ungodly scandal and violence that befell the city, he disappeared. Chervin wrote to Lord-Vicar Phaero on several occasions recently asking after his master, but there was no trace of him.
More recently, Chervin received notice that, on the night of Benicio’s disappearance, a great wildfire had erupted in the forest nearby. In the ruins of an ancient fortress nearby, the Lord-Vicar’s men discovered signs of habitation, but unidentifiable human remains and signs of violence.
Benicio was presumed dead, and Chervin consoled himself with work, pouring all his effort into finishing the setting for his masterwork. He had even intended to thank Master Agnolo for perfecting what his master had taught him, and keeping a sort of legacy. Chervin had halfway fooled himself into remembering those apprenticeship days as hard but joyous times.
Now, the very man stood in front of him again, looking and smelling like a wild hill-man who hadn’t showered in his life, and all those illusions fell away.
“Master, may I ask a question?”
His master grunted approval. That did not,strictly speaking, mean that Chervin might ask without getting cuffed upside the head, but he pressed forward anyway.
“What are you doing here?”
Not ‘How are you still alive?’ or ‘How did you know where I moved?’ or ‘How did you get in?’ or ‘Get out of my house you insane criminal!’ though Chervin was very tempted by all these possibilities. Best to be diplomatic for the moment.
Benicio finished gulping down the Ponte Nero.
“I need your hands.”
Chervin twitched. Despite his master’s utterly calm manner, he couldn’t help but interpret that in the most literal, bloody way possible.
“What-what does that mean?”
Benicio cuffed him upside the head.
“Where have your manners gone? Did you think I wasn’t coming back?”
“No, sir. Apologies.”
“Better.”
Benicio jumped into one of the lovely, high-backed and cushioned chairs that came with Chervin’s new house, and let out a contented burp.
Only then did the master take in his surroundings, noting the expensive and tasteful furnishings and the luxury of his former apprentice’s lodgings.
“What are you doing here? Did you, ehh,” he racked his brains for the Fleurish phrasing, “prostitute yourself?”
Chervin flushed.
“I was hired by the Orczy family, sir. As a jeweler.”
Benicio let out a long and understanding “Ahhhhhhhh. Very sad.”
“What’s sad?”
“Seeing my student become a whore.”
Chervin didn’t remember crossing the space between them. He didn’t remember grabbing his master’s shirt by the collar, or what he yelled.
He just remembered the fuzzy blankness, and the experience of coming to on the floor.
Unless his sense of time was completely fried, it hadn’t been more than thirty seconds. But his master’s jovial bearing had changed completely.
“Look at you. New house, new masters, you think you are successful. So rich and sophisticated.”
Benicio threw the empty bottle to the ground. Chervin felt like he could hear every individual shard of glass.
He knew, abstractly, that his master was powerful. His artistic achievements indicated a powerful soul, and the rumors he’d heard from others told him that he had seen many other strong men into the afterlife.
But a quick and powerful strike at the soul, precise enough to leave Chervin reeling without causing any permanent damage… he’d been massively underestimating his master.
“You are a whore. They flash money in your face, you go wherever they ask, make whatever they ask. You thank them for the opportunity, so you are a stupid whore.”
Benicio’s brute Fleurish gave way to his native Vintic, which Chervin only mostly understood.
“What did I tell you, Chervin? You do not need to learn humility! You do not need to learn how to bow and scrape and please the tastes of philistine clients! You have talent, boy, real talent, and if I ever catch you making pretty baubles again I will crush your hands and beat you senseless!”
Chervin did not dare to speak.
“You need ambition. If you don’t have enough of your own, you shall have a taste of mine.”
Benicio’s soul extruded from his body, filling the space between them. All of his deepest desires, everything that Benicio was, unfolded before Chervin. Amid this incredible display of vulnerability Chervin saw fury and violence and blood, and it was beautiful.
And at the very core, raised up on a grand pedestal, was the image of a woman covered in gore, her teeth stained with blood.
Then it was gone.
“Do you see it, boy? Inspiration, purest manna from heaven! I have been searching for years, and at last I have found my muse. My greatest work is at hand, and I need your hands.”
A knock came at the door, and the valet’s voice rang out.
“Announcing the honored Master Goldsmith Agnolo, Master Chervin!”
Chervin stumbled to his feet, still stunned by all he had seen.
“M-master? What do we do?”
Benicio looked at him like he asked what color the sky was.
“What does it matter? Turn him away if you like, or don’t. But don’t forget what you’re here to do.”
Then his master disappeared, and Chervin was alone in his ruined drawing room.
⚜ ⚜ ⚜
The Saint Massimo chapel in Anthusa had developed an odd reputation in recent months.
To be sure, nobody accused the priest, lovely Father Andrea, of any of the myriad offenses which corrupt priests normally merited. Nor was the chapel in any kind of ill-repair, thanks to the efforts of the Orczy family, who sponsored its construction many centuries earlier and continued to foot the bill for its maintenance. Nor was it attended by objectionable people who met there to discuss unsavory and unholy business.
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No, its reputation consisted mainly in the fact that, ever since the people of Inillo had come to Anthusa and settled in the abandoned homes nearby, nobody else could ever get in.
At the same times that every other chapel in the city welcomed worshipers for ceremonies, sermons, and prayers, whether morning, noon, or night, a crowd of Inillians would be found blocking the entrances refusing to move aside.
This was not criminal, nor was it a great offense. There were many chapels in Anthusa and many priests, and neither the Saint Massimo nor Father Andrea were greatly esteemed in their respected camps. This state of affairs only bothered those who, not accustomed to attending ceremonies, decided to attend one on a lark and happened upon a chapel where the crowd simply did not part to let them pass.
Suffice it to say that there was a good reason for this, though not one to which the people of Anthusa were privy.
When the first sun hung low in the sky and the city gathered for vespers, nearly two-thousand worshipers gathered at the Saint Massimo, choking the pews and spilling out to the street, where they formed such a dense clump that no passerby could enter. But when Cato arrived, supported by Sergeant Remiro and the former shepherds Inna and Myshkin, as well as a doctor, Agatha, of whom stories were rapidly spreading throughout the community, they melted through the crowd as if it were not there, and made their way to a forward pew that waited for them. A young man and his mother sat there already, the boy swaddled in bandages and unable to move his lower body at all.
Those sitting in the aisle reached out to take Cato’s hand, and many closed their eyes and prayed as he passed. Father Andrea spoke with him for a few minutes before the sermon began, and when the dozens-strong amateur choir that the people of Inillo had cobbled together sang, they sang in his direction.
It should not be surprising given this reverence that, when the time came to take communion, Cato stood alongside Father Andrea and briefly touched every man, woman, and child that came up. Those moments of direct contact were precious for each and every one of them, and only the great mass of worshipers behind them in line kept this contact brief.
Well after the fourth sun dipped below the horizon, the last of the worshipers accepted communion and Cato retired to the vestry along with his inner circle.
Only then did he allow himself to collapse.
“My lord!”
Father Andrea was at his side first, with Remiro hauling him onto a cushioned chair immediately after.
Cato had performed just such rites dozens of times in the last several months, ever since he led the people of Inillo on the road to Anthusa.
But things had changed in the last few days.
“I’m fine! It’s just my wounds flaring up again.”
Nobody spoke against him, but neither did they believe him.
“Remiro, Andrea, go tend to the people. Inna, Myshkin, go fetch a book from my room, the one with the metal covers.”
One by one he waved them away over their objections, and he was alone with Agatha.
“How did that feel?” she asked.
Cato grinned, fighting through the pain and exhaustion. “Like rubbing my insides with sandpaper. How does Diogo look?”
He sat with the boy for a long time and did his best to heal him, but his wounds were severe, and they had lost several days in treating them while Cato was laid up in bed.
“Some improvement, but… his eighteenth vertebra was shattered and the nerves severed. While the surrounding damage is healing more quickly, it’s hard to tell if any progress at all was made in reconnecting them.”
They sat in silence for a time.
“I’ll be frank, Cato. I don’t think I can heal either of you.”
“There’s no way at all to reconnect the nerves?”
“Oh, there are ways. But if you trust me to cut him open, remove his bones, and weave them together by hand, you have far more faith in me than I deserve.”
Cato gritted his teeth. “So all those healing elixirs and magic fruits I keep hearing about don’t exist?”
“They exist.”
“So?”
“So besides the fact that they’re extremely rare and expensive, they wouldn’t work on him. Elixirs flood the body with spiritual energy to accelerate the healing process, but that energy needs to be absorbed and directed to be used properly. Give them to someone unconscious, too injured to manipulate their own energies, or someone whose body isn’t sufficiently reinforced to withstand the flood, you’ll just kill them.”
“But if he could cultivate his body to the second or third stage-”
“No.”
“But-”
“No! Never mind the resources it takes to cultivate to that extent, never mind how much more slowly he would accomplish it because someone who can’t move below the waist isn’t in the right state of body or mind to cultivate, even then there’s no guarantee it would work! Unless we manage it very, very carefully, his body might take its own state to be natural and reinforce that injury instead of healing it.”
It was so frustrating. Here Cato was in a world of magic and wonder, where he had just seen people cast spells with their souls and fought alongside people who could speak to angels, but a boy not even twenty years old would go the rest of his life unable to walk and there was nothing he could do about it.
Even as Captain Apostolis announced Cato had been awarded a pension, he also said that Diogo’s family was offered compensation for their son’s injury.
Ten gold anthems. More money than they had ever held in their lives, enough to keep the boy fed and clothed for the rest of his life.
When his family looked at Cato, there was no blame or hatred. They were thankful, above all, that Diogo was alive. He had served under Cato, nearly died the very first time he saw combat, and received an award which, by their standards, was immensely generous.
But all of that was worthless when Cato looked into the eyes of a young man who had trusted him, and saw that all of his dreams were dead.
“What about a miracle?”
Agatha was astounded.
“My god! I never thought of that! By all means, let’s use those free miracles we all have. Why did I ever consider anything else?”
“I’m serious.”
“This is the opposite of seriousness.”
“You said it would take a miracle to heal my soul, right?”
“To be clear, we’re in the market for two miracles now?”
“Just one.”
Cato let that hang in the air.
“I felt his injury when I was trying to heal him. I was trying to restore his body to how it normally was, but it was too complex. Too many elements that were too fine, that had to be handled in a careful order. Because the body couldn’t fix this injury on its own, I wasn’t able to accelerate the recovery.”
“That sounds right. And?”
“During the battle, I saw Captain Apostolis burn out poison and seal off his own blood vessels. Someone like him could heal a spinal injury just fine, right?”
Agatha gave a tentative nod. It would take time and focus, but manually stitching nerves back together from the inside was on the upper end of what a cultivator in the third stage could do.
“So if I can become as powerful as him, I’d have enough control over my own body to fix those kinds of injuries in myself…”
“... and because you have some absurd spiritual connection with Diogo and the others that lets you heal their injuries like they were your own, you could heal him then. Fine, you’re right. Your logic is impeccable. You’d still need to reach the third stage, and I’d bet alchemic transformation isn’t enough; your connection to these people is mediated through your soul.”
Which put them right back at square one.
“So I can fix myself and then Diogo with just one miracle, right?”
“Where are you getting a miracle to begin with? You’re putting the cart before the horse, Cato.”
“Well, the Holy Son can effect miracles, right?”
Agatha didn’t respond, wary of where this line of thinking was headed.
“Well there’s two of them right now, so it doubles our chan-.”
Agatha grabbed a nearby rod and rapped him on the knuckles with it. Cato was astounded at how familiar that sensation felt.
“Don’t go saying things like that outside. If you need me to keep you from accidentally spouting heresy, your theological fundamentals are worse than I thought.”
“Fine, fine, point taken. Besides that, the archbishop was a hopeful for the Holy Son as well, right?”
“He was a hopeful for the next conclave, not this one. He’d still have to be made a cardinal, and becoming Holy Son in the same cycle as one is raised into the cardinalship is almost unheard of.”
“So there is a chance?”
“A small one. Maybe not as small as most. He reached the fifth stage before his first century, so in terms of raw talent he’d probably be the foremost among the younger cardinals. Assuming he was appointed to begin with, that is.”
“That’s three chances for a miracle then. Hell, I can start charming the archbishop today!”
That was it. Agatha couldn’t handle any more. She burst out laughing in the face of the ridiculous, lunatic overconfidence displayed by a man who could barely get out of his chair right now.
“It’ll be that easy? Just charm the pants off one of the most influential men on the planet and get a miracle from him once he becomes the Holy Son.”
“Why not?”
She had no response to that.
“Am I supposed to give up? Am I supposed to despair? No. I’m done with that.”
Cato stood, his knees trembling.
“I don’t care how difficult it is, or how bad my chances are, I’m going to keep pushing forward. If you want me to stop, you’ll have to kill me.”
The door creaked open. Inna and Myshkin stepped in, their faces bright and grinning.
“Agatha,” Inna began, “I know you don’t have faith in him, but I do. If anyone can make a miracle happen, it’s going to be him, and Myshkin and I will help however we can!”
Agatha turned to the two of them, seeming to loom over them both despite being shorter by a head.
“I suppose nobody taught you two not to eavesdrop.”
Yet despite her flat tone, there was warmth in her expression.
“Fine. If you want to help, come to my laboratory tomorrow. I’ll work you both to the bone, and I don’t want to hear a word of complaint!”
“No, miss Agatha!” they both yelled.
Cato grinned. “Thanks, you two. Now, if I could get some help here…”
He halfway toppled over before three pairs of hands steadied him and pushed him back onto the chair. Agatha sent them away once more, this time with the metal-bound pages of the Book of Zevon in her hand.
“I’ll expect your best as well, you know. You’re not off the hook.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. You help me reach the third stage, and I’ll help you research the plague.”
“Just so long as you realize you’re a test subject, and not a researcher.”
“Fine. But as long as we’re here,” Cato took the Book, heavy in his weakened arms, and opened it on the table, “you’ll have to help this poor research subject with his… what did you say before?”
“Weak theological fundamentals?”
“That’s it. First of all: ashlachma morkolyo ehlnofey…”
⚜ ⚜ ⚜
Teresa whispered her bedtime prayers in the silence of the Orczy estate.
She’d had a very strange dream a few nights earlier: she saw Mr. Otto and someone else bathed in light, and Mr. Otto was really badly hurt. It was like they were ants at the feet of huge angels. She knew they were there, in the dream, but couldn’t see them. She just knew.
Then her uncle came, and saved Mr. Otto! He was also bathed in light, but it was easier to see his angel: it was tall and powerful, with wings that shone like the rainbow, but it was also terribly sad. Teresa had never seen somebody so sad in her life.
There was also something else. It looked like a little kid with tiny wings, but it hid behind the rainbow-angel’s leg, and nobody else seemed to notice it was there. But she noticed, and it looked at her.
The rest of the dream was loud and scary, but she woke up right after. That morning, she learned that Miss Myra had gone home and wouldn’t be coming back; one of her relatives was sick, and she needed to go and take care of them. As much as Teresa begged for Mr. Rosso to bring her back, it was impossible.
She had a new babysitter now, Miss Delia, but it wasn’t the same.
Otherwise, things went on as usual. Mr. Otto sent some more gifts to say sorry for not being at her party, but she saw him even less afterwards. She was starting to think he didn’t really care about her.
So she prayed. Adults didn’t always listen to her, but God and the angels did. Although, when adults did listen, they usually did what she said, while the things she prayed for didn’t always happen. So it wasn’t a sure thing either way.
She prayed for Miss Myra and Miss Myra’s family, and for Mr. Otto to visit her more, and for Mom to come out of the tower soon.
When she opened her eyes, she saw it again. That little kid with wings from her dream!
It floated lazily over her bed and waved to her with a big smile.
“Hello!”
Its voice was small and musical, and just listening to it Teresa felt like she could do anything.
“Hi!” she responded. “I saw you in my dream!”
It tittered behind one wing. “I saw you in my dreams too! Not a lot of people can see me, though.”
Teresa puffed up with pride. “Of course I can! Mr. Rosso says I’m the smartest girl he’s ever taught!”
“Wow!” It floated down and twirled around her, as if examining. “You’re really smart! No wonder you can see me, Teresa.”
“You know my name?”
“Of course! Do you know mine?”
Teresa thought very, very hard. Then she struck a pose and pointed at him.
“Your name is Petruccio!”
It floated, dumbstruck. Then it laughed like the tinkling of tiny bells.
“That’s a fun name! Okay, from now on, I’m Petruccio!”
“Are you an angel, Petruccio? You have to tell me if you are, angels can’t lie.”
It flitted about, frustrated. “Fine! You’re right, I am, but you can’t tell anyone! Nobody else knows I’m here.”
“Can angels have secrets?” Teresa was utterly shocked.
“So many secrets! We can only tell them if you solve riddles.”
“I’m so good at riddles!”
“Teresa?”
The door swept open and filled the room with candlelight, with the nursemaid Delia right behind.
“You should be asleep, dear. Off to bed with you now.”
“Sorry, Miss Delia!”
Teresa jumped into bed and allowed herself to be tucked in, pretending to fall asleep as the candlelight and footsteps receded.
“She didn’t see you at all!” she whispered!
“Told you!” said the angel which was now called Petruccio. “Will you keep my secret?”
“Can I hear your riddles? I bet I can crack them!”
"Deal!"
And thus was their deal struck.