Arc 9: Chapter 3: Wurmwing |
Years pass
Ekasne fidgeted at my side. She had a particular way of fidgeting, twisting the rings on her fingers until the thin layer of green scales below her knuckles flaked off. I’d started to make her wear long sleeves to hide the rashes, but could see her doing it out of the corner of my eye.
“Calm yourself,” I whispered without looking away from the dais.
She hissed, the sound echoed by the serpents hiding beneath her veil. “How am I supposed to be calm? How can you be calm today of all days?”
She lisped more when she was nervous too. “It is only an introduction,” I reminded her. “Besides, the court will be impressed.”
“No they won’t,” she moaned and wrung her hands beneath her curtain sleeves. She’d dressed up for today, wore the gown and veil I’d picked out for her beneath an elaborate headdress to hide her living hair. “I told you we weren’t ready, Shyora! I need more practice.”
“You won’t get any practice without patrons,” I said in exasperation. We’d had this conversation what felt like hundreds of times. “Chin up, dear, we are almost to the finish line.”
That put terror in her, enough that she at least became quiet in her panic. The column of supplicants moved forward another handful of shuffling steps. It stretched down the length of the audience chamber, so long it vanished beyond the depths of the vestibule at our back. Seven hundred feet of emerald and amber was the length of that hall, with spiraling pillars fashioned into abstract, almost organic shapes to support its gemstone ceiling. Clay statues, vague and melted, hunched at the sides of the chamber, their forms long-armed and apish.
The line we stood in was a garish, mixed display. Lords and ladies from distant lands rubbed elbows with caravan princes and slave traders, kings breathing the same air and inching forward at the same pace as the vagrant-mages and hagmothers who’d come in stinking rags. The guards watching the procession to either side were homonculi, faceless creatures with three arms apiece, their rubbery blue flesh clad in faux-gold armor.
The porters shuffled behind us. We’d hired ogres, who were not well known for their patience. We could not find any humans strong enough to carry all the samples, and homonculi were too expensive. A group of na’morhai mercenaries stood before us in the line. They chittered to one another in their alien speech, their agitation directed at me. My serpent whispered their words to me and I smiled, thinking today will be a good day.
We went three more steps, and then only two other groups stood before us, the outworlders and a band of nomads draped in the trophy hides of monsters from the southern wastes. As I’d done with each group since we’d entered the audience chamber six hours earlier, I listened to what was said and sculpted my own words within my mind, evolving my approach.
“Oh, no.” Ekasne had lost hold on her nerves again, the bangles on her wrists clinking as they moved. “Oh, hear me, Mother Médousa, I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You will be fine,” I insisted, drifting closer and taking her hand by the wrist. “I am with you, darling, no need to pray.” I did not bother telling her that Médousa and the other gorgonmothers were in Hell, imprisoned by Zos’s acolytes for crimes against Old Heaven, and little disposed to benediction. Instead I said, “Just let me do the talking. If he does speak to you, it will be to ask about your work, and there is no greater expert in all Creation on that subject than you.”
My flattery made her fall quiet, and I knew she blushed beneath her veil. Then we were called forward, and there was no more time for fretting.
The dais was guarded by two tauromageir, the brass-skinned monsters which were the latest and most lauded beasts to emerge from the laboratories of the alchemist guilds. Their bodies were almost human, but grown huge and long-limbed, their iron horns and hooves glowing molten hot. I’d heard they imprisoned criminals inside each of them, that their agony powered the constructs, but had not confirmed the rumor.
The butcher-bulls glared at us with gemstone eyes as we were called forth by the chamberlain. It was a high-voiced creature, smooth-skinned and colorless, lacking eyes or nose, the only feature on its bald head a wide mouth that split the entire skull nearly in two. It stood at the bottom of the dais, beneath the harem. The steps about the throne were filled with exotic forms of every size and many genders. Some were homonculi or chimera, and even those who were not made by artifice had modified themselves. I’d rarely seen such a diverse range of disparate appendages and genitalia outside a yuggothian orgy.
And above them all, above all of us, sat him. The master of the squalor and the wonders of that blighted city, to whom even emperors would come as beggars seeking favor. The Lord of Kiln and Clay, Master Magi, heir to the secrets of Ramara, Ut’hoth, Morganthalr, and all the great names of the First Empires. High Archon and King of Rot Voraag.
They called him the Exalted, but no one knew his true name, or if they did they dared not utter it. He had ripped the bones of this city from a deep layer of the Abyss, it was said, and I could believe that story, for there were many demons in its deepest crypts and catacombs. Others said he plucked it from the stars, reached through the fabric of the cosmos to claim his dark jewel.
He sat upon a throne of clay molded into a shape reminiscent of a mutant heart. Eleven arterial branches surrounded the bowl of the seat, white ridges like veins in a diseased organ snaking over them. Pale gray was that seat, fused to the dais as though grown from it rather than crafted, more petrified arteries rippling outward.
Here, I knew, lay the center of the strange clay-forms that dominated the city, those structures that seemed molded by some godlike hand. His hand, perhaps.
The Exalted shrouded his body in bright yellow robes so long they tumbled down the steps in ochre waves. He seemed human in size and shape, judging by the indentations in the cloth, though I could not see his face beneath the hood, only a depthless darkness — a common trick amongst practitioners of the arcane. In his right hand he held a tall staff, fashioned of some thin silvery metal and rough in shape, with a sulfurous yellow crystal levitating bare inches above its upraised end.
There were enormous crystals behind his throne, a wall of them, all pressed together like the fractal eyes of some enormous insect. They ranged in color between amber and violet, glowing with an inner light. I sensed an awareness in them, as though they were lens’s through which something unseen and unspeakable peered forth.
If I’d possessed any doubts as to the truth of the Exalted’s power, they were dispelled in that moment. Here was a true wizard, Magi, the Dark Lord of Rot Voraag in the flesh. I suddenly needed to swallow and take mastery over my breathing, lest I embarrass myself.
The eyeless creature with the large mouth spoke as we stood then alone before the dais, its fluted voice carrying across the audience chamber. “The Exalted recognizes the glyptis Ekasne and her patron. You may plead your desire and be heard.”
I could feel Ekasne’s nerves beating off her like heat. Before she could faint, I stepped forward and curtsied low to the Clay Throne, the gesture and my words directed toward the one seated upon it rather than to his slave. “My deepest thanks, O’ Exalted. We come before you today to present the skill of one of your city’s talented artisans, to share with you the fruits of the society you have so long labored to build, and to ask a boon such that this talent may continue to flourish, and thereby add to your own glory.”
I’d practiced that introduction for many long nights, and delivered it with perfect volume and inflection, never once raising my eyes from the floor. Only at the end did I look up, raising only my eyes so my face remained downturned, to study the hem of those yellow robes. I was dressed in the latest fashion favored by the city merchants, in a stola and palla dyed in shades of carmine and sable, both long enough to trail along the floor behind me. My arms were bare save for narrow ribbons of red cloth wound about them in spirals, my fingers and wrists adorned with bands of painted ivory. I wore not a scrap of metal.
I normally walked about the city in human guise, but today I allowed myself to be the demoness. My wings were carefully folded so as to almost blend with the fabrics — I’d selected their colors for that very purpose — the hooked claws at the largest joints linked beneath my breasts, so an unobservant eye might mistake them for some macabre accessory. My tail-serpent slithered beneath the robes, listening to the mutters of the court and watchful of danger.
I’d even indulged in a pair of small, sharp horns at my hairline, mostly hidden by a headscarf. My face was exposed, for I had no need to hide my eyes as the gorgon did. They gleamed darkest blue-black, like slivers of night, with white pupils. Ekasne had assured me the effect was quite haunting. My hope was that it would haunt the one upon that clay throne.
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If it did, I could not tell. The Exalted did not so much as shift or fidget on his seat. He may as well have been an ochre statue. The harem, on the other hand, was in constant motion — some of them were even writhing together in that very moment, and their quiet moans drifted ghostlike through the air.
The chamberlain-thing bared its fangs and hissed. “Continue.”
I began by making an elegant gesture with one hand to my companion. “Ekasne is a glyptis, my lord, one of surpassing skill with a unique method. You see, she is one of the daughters of the Gorgon — there are a few amongst your subjects, as I am sure you know. Her race possesses a unique magic, one that causes those who meet their gaze to turn to stone. They are greatly feared for this reason, but some enterprising souls amongst them have taken to using their curse — or gift, depending on how one looks at it — to their advantage. The city alchemists have learned how to reverse the process, returning stone to flesh, a technique they originally developed for the creation of gargoyles. It was discovered to be an effective means of transporting human chattle.”
The chamberlain let out an almost catlike growl. “We are aware of the use of this method in the slave trade. Do you mean to waste our time?”
Despite the growing impatience of the chamberlain, my attention remained fixed on the Exalted. He had not stirred, that shadowed gaze not so much as shifting to one side or another. It felt like looking into a bottomless pit, or a patch of night sky, but something looked back. Or through.
“I simply provide context, good chamberlain. While this method is an effective way of transporting bodies, saving cost in feeding them and preventing the risk of escape or premature death, the process of transfiguring living cargo back to a usable state is expensive, and not without risk.”
Indeed, I’d learned during my preparations for this interview that slaves were made to curl into a fetal position before being petrified, to minimize the risk of breakage, which was often difficult with rebellious subjects. It was also inefficient. There were four gorgons in Rot Voraag, all médousai, and there might have been no more than a score in the entire continent. They were not a society, but the bastard descendants of an accursed and ancient demigoddess, reclusive and rare as a rule. Their cousins, the sthenai and euryalai, were even rarer.
I paused just long enough to let my narrative sink in, not just with the chamberlain and the Exalted, but also with all the other wealthy and influential personages listening in. Representatives from every greater guild and faction operating in the city were in that room, listening to these proceedings, poaching investments.
“You see, my lord, Ekasne here possesses a particular talent for wielding the very curse that she and her sisters are so abhorred for. Wrongly so, in her case.” Ekasne shifted at my side. The chamberlain was clearly losing his patience, so I soldiered on quickly before he could dismiss me for the next in line. “You see, the curse of a gorgon’s gaze is not exactly instantaneous — all it requires is a glimpse, eye to eye contact, and the process will begin. The change comes on quickly enough, but a brief look can take minutes to take effect, all the while a frightened subject is usually in motion. Even prolonged eye contact, which can completely petrify in mere moments, tends to occur with no small amount of struggle on the part of the beholder. The statues created tend to be rough, cracked, covered in a rather course grain, and not exactly aesthetic to look upon.”
The chamberlain hissed again. “And why would it be necessary for a petrified slave to be easy on the eyes?”
“Ah!” I smiled openly, pleased that he’d asked the very question I’d hoped for in my rehearsals. “Ekasne here is no slaver, but an artist. A sculptor, to be exact. There is no substitute for statuary made by a gorgon, even with the imperfections I previously described. Indeed, many wealthy collectors will pay atrocious sums for the intact prey of a gorgon. So the obvious question stands, what if that very quality could be enhanced? Perfected.”
The chamberlain did not retort this time. I’d drawn his interest. Did that mean I had also drawn the Exalted’s interest? He still hadn’t moved, nor spoken.
I lifted my hands, paused for dramatic effect, then clapped twice. The ogre porters moved forward, grunting as they set their burdens down. Two objects, both covered in tarp and tightly wrapped in rope. At another gesture, these coverings were removed and two statues were revealed.
A collective murmur went through the court, from both those courtiers watching from the sidelines and the ones waiting for audience behind me. Even the harem, at least those who were not actively engaged in play, seemed impressed.
And how could they not be? The two statues had little in common with the forlorn, gray ghosts that were usually a gorgon’s leftovers. They were both a near pristine white, smooth as marble — indeed they weresomething very similar to it, though no alchemist had been able to tell me exactly what — and almost shone in the dimness of the audience chamber.
One was a tall, angelic man stripped down to his waist, the watery folds of a toga petrified along with his well-muscled skin. The second statue had been a full-bodied woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy, her gaze downturned and locked in a peaceful expression, one hand laid fondly over her round stomach.
Everything from their eyelashes to the most delicate strand of hair had been preserved, all of it glass-smooth and clean.
I began to speak again, this time walking a slow circle around the two statues and pointing out various details like I were a teacher in front of an attentive classroom. “As you can see, there is no sign of breakage or fracture. Everything is preserved, and not only preserved, but solid. While I would not take a hammer to them, I assure you they are quite durable in their current state. Neither emperors nor dragons would snub such decorations in their halls, I think. This was done by maintaining prolonged eye-contact with willing subjects in a state of calm, something that is in its own an art.”
I paused, facing the stone woman’s downturned eyes, wondering what final thought passed behind them even as Ekasne’s luminous gaze looked up into hers. “After all, it is a terrifying thing, to become this. Ekasne has a particular knack for keeping her customers at ease during the process, which I have observed myself.”
By the curious voices I heard around me, I knew they had not missed my choice of the word customers. That was the trick of seduction — it wasn’t just about flashing leg or inviting with a coquettish smile, but encouraging the mark to peel back the colorful petals of the jimsonweed a leaf at a time, never knowing their fingers strayed close to the spines of its seedpods.
I stopped next to the statue of the athletic man, laying my fingers on his rounded shoulder. The material was cool to the touch. “They are perfectly preserved and shall continue to be for centuries, perhaps longer if kept in clean conditions. There are many, lacking the immortality of elf-kind, who long to know what the future holds. This way, they can, waiting through the centuries as stone until the time comes to wake them, still young and healthy in a new age, a new life.”
More murmurs across the audience hall, more excitement in those muffled conversations. I allowed a calculated pause in my monologue, slowed a step. “Did you know that the process by which alchemists restore the frozen, if done properly, reconfigures the body to account for wear on its outer shell?” I traced the man’s chiseled jawline with one sharp nail. “They are completely solid throughout in this state; no arteries, organs, or bones, so if the flesh is reshaped with care and finesse, it will cause no disfigurement upon restoration. Should a noble gentleman wish to sharpen his jawline or a gentle lady alter the shape of her eyes, it can be done — but a span of hours as stone, and you can wake with the beauty only a sculptor may grant you.”
I gestured to Ekasne through another round of muted excitement. “My glyptis here is a master of her craft. You see the evidence before you! I but ask, humbly, that the city grant her the attention her art is due. With your blessing, Exalted, and an official writ granting us leave to open a studio on the mesa, we will bring this service to those with the taste and foresight to appreciate it.”
The hall echoed with a hundred different conversations, as the guild representatives and courtiers who hung on the Exalted’s indulgence held their secret councils. I kept my attention on the tumbling folds of those ochre robes, waiting, knowing that the worst thing I could do was be certain of success.
Just an introduction, I’d told Ekasne, but I had not admitted that first impressions were vital.
The chamberlain lifted a hand and the hall fell abruptly silent. The homonculus stepped forward, lifted its split skull high, and spoke in a voice of clarion authority. “The court recognizes the talent of this glyptis. She is hereby granted sanction to conduct business upon the mesa. She may take patronage with any of the greater Lodges, and her name shall be inscribed into the tablets of the city’s known personages. Congratulations, Kyria Ekasne — as of today, you are a citizen of Rot Voraag.”
There was little fanfare over the announcement. The court muttered and gossiped, the ogres shuffled forward to move the two statues, which would be given over to the Exalted’s household as gifts. Ekasne’s shoulders sagged in relief.
I only allowed myself a brief closing of the eyes, little more than a blink. After all, this was just the beginning.
As I ushered Ekasne along and allowed the next group to move forward and plead their wish to the Clay Throne, the chamberlain stopped us. “Wait!”
I turned back toward the dais. Ekasne lingered as well, and I knew she was worried despite the layers of opaque cloth shrouding her features. I simply folded my hands and waited.
The chamberlain’s wide mouth stretched impossibly wide as it addressed me. “You have not appeared before this court before, yet you bring us talent and treasure. We would know the name of this sculptor’s patron.”
Somehow, I knew the words came from the lord himself, a question merely filtered through his servant. Only then did I allow myself the faintest of smiles, for here lay my true purpose in that day, in all the long years of work to stand in that place and reveal myself to the powers of the city.
I spread my hands out and curtsied, in the specific method used by the city’s female-presenting merchants — the right arm and left leg extended, the left arm crooked, head falling in a shallow dip. The motion was not so formal as that of a noblewoman’s, and neither was it groveling in the fashion of a servant. Elegant, yet somehow rough, a particular flavor of pride for the prideful mercantilists and artisan-patrons of Rot Voraag, where everything is for sale.
And in that same motion, I unclasped the hooked claws linked at my sternum, allowing my wings to stretch out in a way complementary to the curtsy. There were some gasps in the hall, murmurings of a darker tenor than those from my presentation before.
“I am known to many in the slums and trade-districts of your great city, Exalted.” I raised my eyes to the Clay Throne, and for the first time looked directly into that black pit beneath the wizard’s yellow cowl. “They call me Lady Wurmwing.”