THE MYSTERY BEGINS

Smelling salts waved under my nose brought me back. “Jonathan,” an unfamiliar male voice said over the sound of many people all talking at once, “how do you feel?”

It took a moment for my eyes to focus. Kneeling beside me was a half-blood Orku male dressed in a dark suit, his face thinner than any other half-blood Orku I had ever met, and less warty. The fingers taking my pulse were long, and for one with Orku blood, almost delicate. “Giddy and light-headed, like the time when one of my mates acquired a bottle of Eldarion summer wine and we all had a couple glasses.” Several of the people hovering over me chuckled as I asked, “Who are you?” The memory of Professor Bella returned and I added, “What happened?”

Professor Alar knelt down beside me. “This is what happened,” he said, holding out an object. It was a human hand with the flesh of the fingers and thumb stripped away to the first knuckle, exposing bone which had been filed down to sharp points. Sticking out of the palm was a stinger like that of a scorpion.

I instinctively jerked away as he went on. “This is an Eldarion Artifact, though not one any sane member of my race would ever use.” With his other hand he motioned up at Goro. “The half-breed Orku there pulled it off your back and his affinity for Terramagica neutralized it, preventing the Artifact from causing any further effect on you.”

I stared at the device in horror. “What did it do to me?”

“That is what we are going to find out. Je’kyll,” he said to the slender half-blood, “would you mind coming with us and monitoring Jonathan while I run some tests in my laboratory?”

“As long as his grandfather has no objections.”

Professor Alar got to his feet. “Je’kyll is the son of Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant, if unorthodox scientist, who wanted to prove that a merging of the Orku and human races could produce offspring at least as intelligent as an ordinary human, provided the child was given a proper upbringing.

“While I have fallen out with his father over the man’s more radical ideas, I still owed him for the help he gave me in the past, and used my influence to get Je’kyll into the Medical College of Edinburgh. Je’kyll repaid my assistance by graduating with top honors. Scottish law prevents him from standing for the medical boards because of his race, but he has made a name for himself treating Ogres and the few Orku that live in the lowlands, who all call him doctor.” Professor Alar gave him a firm nod. “He is the only one of his race who has my trust.”

“That is a good enough recommendation for me,” my grandfather said. “Royce, while Alar finds out what she did to my grandson, can you find out who this Bella person is and who she works for?”

“Straightaway,” the ambassador replied.

“I will come with you as well,” Starshine said, “in case there are Eldarions to deal with. Myste-”

“I’ll stay with Jonathan.” Her mother’s eyes narrowed and Myste added, “I won’t get in the way. I promise.”

“See that you do not.”

“Catherwood,” Professor Alar said, “would you mind coming along as well? I may need your skills in accurate drawing.”

“Go ahead,” Mr. Stephens said to him. “Shabaka, can you stay and help me manage the crowd?”

My grandfather hesitated, clearly torn. “It will take my mind off my worries,” he finally said. “But the moment any of you have information to share, come get me.”

Professor Alar and the ambassador both said they would as Baroda helped me get to my feet, letting me lean on him as we started towards the side of the stage. Much of the crowd still remained, and they broke into applause as we left, my grandfather raising his voice to tell them I was in good hands, we were going to get to the bottom of this attack, and would everyone mind joining him and Mr. Stephens in the lobby for a glass of champagne so they could answer any questions the audience had…

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

I lost the thread of his words as we walked through a side door into the evening air. I shivered from the cold, but Myste had run back to get my opera cloak, and before we had gone far, ran up and draped it over my shoulders. I gave her slender hand a quick squeeze, getting back a bright smile.

Ambassador Bannon and Starshine headed for the administration building where the Terramagica messaging devices were kept, while Professor Alar led the way to the Aethyr Studies department. He kept to a brisk pace I struggled to match, even with Goro taking my other side.

My head began to clear as we entered a large courtyard flanked by three large, brick buildings and followed the Eldarion into one of them. The room was paneled in dark wood and lit by gas lamps, illuminating the Gothic style arches over the hallways stretching to either side.

He spoke to the human watchman sitting at a desk beside the entrance, then led us down a darkened corridor to a stout wooden door, which he opened with a brass key.

We entered his laboratory, a large room illuminated from the outside by the outdoor gas lamps lining the walkways, their flickering light shining through the lab’s clear glass windows. Professor Alar moved to a workbench near one of them and picked up an Artifact lamp sitting to one side. He spoke a word in Eldarion and the lamp began glowing with a blue light.

He hung it from a slender chain connected to the ceiling, doing the same with the lamp on the other side, before turning towards us. “I will ask all of you, except for Catherwood and Myste, to remain at least four yards away from this area at all times. Myste, I need you to be my laboratory assistant.”

“Yes, Uncle Alar. May I find stools for the others to sit on?”

The Eldarion blinked. “Yes, of course. The lot of you might as well be comfortable, as this is going to take a while.”

The rest of the laboratory lay in shadowed darkness, but Myste had obviously been there before, because she directed my three friends to where the stools were and made sure they were set the proper distance away. Everyone waited patiently as I was repeatedly tested, both medically and magically, by Je’kyll and Professor Alar.

Je’kyll, who also kept his distance from the workbench, drew blood from me at regular intervals, which Professor Alar placed onto a glass slide and examined under an Artifact called an eye-scope, a device consisting of a black tube connected with a viewer on one end and a transmuted eye on the other. Then he would have Catherwood peer through the device and sketch out what he saw as Professor Alar went on to something else.

In between testing me, he began examining the Artifact like it was part of a cadaver from an anatomy lesson. When I asked Professor Alar if the hand had been taken from a dead man, he shook his head. “Aethyr energy cannot transmute dead tissue. Wood is normally the only acceptable medium, as it remains alive for a time after being cut, allowing the piece to be carved before transmutation.

“However, on the rare occasion when a living creature is needed, as an animal was for the eyeball in this eye-scope, every care is taken to make the process as painless as possible. Because the creature must remain alive as the body part is being transmuted.”

We stared at him in horror. “Professor,” Goro said, “you’re telling us that some poor sod was still breathing when they made that thing?” He nodded, and Goro asked, “Does it hurt?”

“Quite a bit. This is why sane Eldarions use Aethyr vapor to anesthetize the animal, as it not only eliminates pain but also makes removal of the body part or parts much easier. You see, the vapor magically weakens the joints to the point where digits, and even limbs, can be snapped off without the loss of blood or-”

There was a knock on the door. “Professor,” a male voice said from the other side, “I’ve got the English ambassador and his wife here, along some fellow who says he’s the lad’s grandfather.”

“Let them in,” Professor Alar replied. There was the scrape of a key in the lock and the door swung open. The night watchman waved before returning to his post down the hallway as the three entered. The professor said, “Royce, did you find out anything about our mysterious Eldarion?”

Ambassador Bannon grimaced. “Starshine and I did and none of it is good. We were fortunate that the fellow on duty here has a passion for studying grisly murders, and remembered the Eldarion’s name when I mentioned it. He then patched me through to the Ministry of Security in Paris who gave us the tale.” He smiled at his wife. “I fear my French has grown rusty, living here in the far north, but I am grateful that Starshine’s has not.”

“Languages always come easy to us.” Starshine hesitated. “Alar,” she said, speaking in French, which my grandmother had taught me as a young child, “the facts of the case are gruesome, and I do not wish to alarm the young man.”

“He needs to know, so he can be better prepared.”

“As you wish.” Starshine turned towards me as she switched to English. “The Eldarion Bella truly is a university professor in Paris, who is wanted for the murders of several students.”

“Murder and cannibalism,” Ambassador Bannon added.

In the 20th Century, Eldarion have quite entrenched themselves in the natural sciences, yet we often forget what a recent phenomenon this has been, as well as the great contributions they made.

Take Professor Alar, for instance. His study of young Jonathan’s blood and the strange changes he found in the samples (more on that to come), led him to the eventual discovery of blood types, not only in humans, but in the other races as well.

His studies also led him down a dark path of madness, which is documented much, much later in the narrative…