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(Fifteen) ◀◀◀◀◀ Chapter Sixteen ▶▶▶▶▶ (Epilogue)
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He'd been here before.
Not quite here in the exact geographic sense; actually Sethys had only visited Pluthiss once, a handful of years before the Great Assassination, when he was just a boy on holiday with his family. He couldn't remember anything specific about the trip itself, only that everything seemed to be crawling with snails and that it rained nearly the entire time and there was nothing on the wireless but what his adolescent sister Svenjaja kept calling "old fogey death music". Chaosites her age thrived in a stupor of syncopation, of polyrhythms and countermelodies, of hearts beating out of time, of harmony unraveling like a loose ball of yarn rolling down a mountainside.
Rather, Sethys had been here in a purely mental sense: Ruminating over one thing or another while standing abaft a hob, poking a wooden spoon at a bundle of mandrakes while they perspired to goop in a pot of purified water. The blood moss would come a little later, after most of the water boiled off. Then, he would add the bran and some kind of disinfectant (usually macerated sage) and a thimbleful of triple concentrated ginseng syrup—that was how his temple made their most popular poultice anyway. Back then, he made so many of these that he no longer had to think about the process, freeing his mind to wander as it pleased.
How strange that so much time could pass, with so little change in sensation or memory. An incomprehensibly vast emptiness separated Sethys from his Back Then, an era as inaccessible to him now as a stranger's dream, with hardly anything left standing in the world to prove that it ever existed at all.
And yet there it was, living within the neon backside of every blink, electrifying every motion of his fingers and every syllable he uttered.
"Discipline, yes," he said, gazing into the saucepan while he conversed with the kitchen's other occupant, Stefano's automaton valet. "I visited Discipline as well. Shushuro was the temple master then, I think."
The automatons also served as a sapient reminder of what once was. They once lived as men—real human soldiers with real human souls and names, Serpent-blessed names, all of them! They were the Lords of Discipline, fearsome and flawless! Sethys wondered if the purported Life Mage who restored them even recognized that much. Wasn't Torrissio supposed to be the local expert in ancient history? Surely at some point or another he must have learned about the individual significance of Ophidian names? Or was he not interested? Did he never think to ask? To even wonder?
Then again, to what end did he rebrand all of his automatons "Marvello", save Elissa and Elissa alone?
This one was "Marvello VIII"; Sethys yet lacked the nerve to prise open his chest and look for the name engraved into his soul gem. Stefano had him all gussied up in a purple jacquard swallowtail coat with a cravat and a lemon-colored handkerchief sticking out of his front pocket in a neat triple peak. Worse, his manner was now so docile and ingratiating that even a former prisoner of Order would look upon this once tireless agent of unimaginable brutality and feel only pity.
A cravat, really…?
"I have not heard the name Shushuro in thousands of years," Marvello VIII responded civilly. "Master Shushuro was a great philosopher and author. A dauntless champion of Order. Take care that you do not further defile his name with your Disordered tongue."
"Oh. Sorry."
"Nevertheless, I cannot help but question: What circumstances would have delivered an acolyte of Tolerance to our Temple of Discipline?"
Sethys shook his head. "I told you, I was an acolyte of Harmony. I was on my plenary."
"What is a plenary? I have no lexical record of that word."
"It was a sort of a pilgrimage to all of the temples that all servants of Balance had to do at some point in their lives," he said, musing. "This would've been, oh, winter of 3154 I think. Definitely winter—I'd just turned 21. Year of the Abacus, it must've been."
Marvello VIII's eyes flashed as he registered the date. "Ophidian Year 3154. Abacus. The Forces of Order and Chaos were well at war by then."
"Yes, we were."
Sethys mashed at the mandrake a couple times with his wooden spoon, so mired in his own meanderings that he failed to notice the kitchen door swinging to and fro, furtively hailing the entrance of the master of the house.
"Oh! And the Order temples were so, uh, so very, uh…" He searched. "They were all so very Dedicated, I can say that much. Hardly any human initiates or warriors left at the temple when I visited, save for Isstanar. He was Master Shhh—er, the temple master's bodyguard at the time. Enormous fellow and completely unswerving in his self-control, to the point where he'd waxed every hair off his head, even his eyebrows. Well, he eventually had enough of the Chaos of my presence so he bunged me out the door," Sethys laughed. "Right out onto my backside, into the snow—"
"Ah hah! I knew you and I had to have something in common!"
"Stefano!" Sethys dropped his spoon.
"So that's where you went!" Stefano approached the pair, arms folded. "Chewing the fat with my valet while he's supposed to be serving our syllabub. Tsk tsk."
"Forgive me, I didn't mean to keep him."
"Likewise. My apologies, signore. I have been derelict in my duty," said Marvello VIII. "I blame an excess of behavioral profligacy."
"Pft! Oh, come off it!" Stefano waved merrily. "You know I don't care about all that! In fact, we like profligacy around here! Don't we, Sethys?"
Sethys raised his eyebrows. "You're the boss, Stefano."
"Despite his unfortunate lapse into the ways of Chaos, Sethys remembers the old ways quite vividly, signore. Much time has passed since I last conversed with another so willing to speak of them."
"Wait! You mean to say, you actually remember Ophidian times?"
"Does signore find this problematic?"
"No, it's just surprising. Morty told me that Torrissio tried to erase all of your memories, I guess so nobody would figure out that he wasn't the one who actually created you," said Stefano. "That's why none of you are actually any use for translating the old Ophidian runes."
Marvello VIII's eyes flickered in confirmation. "Your conclusions are correct, signore. However, the data contained in my memory bank is read-only and cannot be deleted," he said. "It can only be fragmented, corrupted, or otherwise rendered inaccessible to my cerebral emulator servos. At present, my cerebral emulator can access 12,702 recorded events out of a total 225,279,934 recorded events."
"Is that a lot?" Stefano asked.
"As an Echelon II-class Lord of Discipline, my memory bank has a maximum storage capacity of 256 million recorded events, with a remaining storage capacity of approximately 12%. Maintenance recommended," he added automatically.
"Oh. So… No, then?" Stefano turned to Sethys for clarification; the Ophidian only shook his head uselessly. "Er—yes? No? Well, whatever! No worries from me, but my guests are champing at the bit, Marvello. They want their syllabub."
The automaton nodded and lurched towards his trusty serving cart, currently loaded to sagging with approximately 1,237 Moonshade-style griddle cakes plus a modest selection of the Master of the House's finest cream sherries.
"I do not have the instructions titled Syllabub loaded into my algorithmic bus," he declared. "The closest match is titled Moonshade-Style Griddle Cakes."
"Indeed," said Stefano, inhaling through his teeth. "Probably the only match—I've really got to teach you something else to cook. Well, too late to bugger with all that now, you'd best get some kind of dessert on the table before my guests start paying too much attention to the pattern on the plates."
"Yes, signore. Right away, signore," he said as he dutifully wheeled the tea cart through the kitchen door.
Meanwhile, Stefano zeroed in on Sethys's saucepan like a titmouse sensing the presence of split peanuts. "Speaking of dessert! My my!"
Before Sethys could make any effort to stop him, he grabbed the nearest wooden spoon and dipped it into the mandrake reduction, helping himself to a generous sample.
"…eugh!" He spat and sputtered bitter regret, gagging on his own tongue while it turned somersaults in his mouth. "Pity the poor fool who's got to gulp this down! Tastes like old shoes."
"It's not a potion, it's a poultice," Sethys reminded him. "Miss Gwenno's foot, remember?"
"No, but I trust your sobriety."
"We've got to boil these mandrakes down to a thick reduction. Then add a few other reagents and some bran for bulk. Then we'll spread it on a cloth, wrap up the wound, cast a Vas Mani or two, then she should be good to go." He paused. "Just not on that foot. Not for a few days."
"What a lucky lady! Well, best get a wiggle on with all that too, to borrow the Avatar's own vernacular—we're departing this dump at sunrise. You are coming with us, yes? Good," said Stefano, watching Sethys bob his head affirmatively. "Back to the old Arabella for our merry band of misfits, though I've no idea why Giselle insisted on taking Hawk's old rustbucket instead of literally any other method of launching ourselves across the Strait. Hopefully the weather will agree with her decision. I'm not much of a sailor, myself."
"Neither am I. But speaking of open seas and the lack thereof, what's the story behind the little wave you've got stashed in your bathroom?"
"You mean the Enchanted Seashore? Beats the devil out of me. All of my guests ask me this question but alas, I come up empty-handed every time," Stefano admitted. "I reckon if I wanted the straight gen I would have to ask the chap who commissioned it. This isn't really my house, sorry to say."
"I know," said Sethys. "Gwenno told me that."
"Oh, she did, did she? Though I can't quite recall if I ever told her precisely how it got into my hands."
"You must've done. She told me it was a long story."
"Indeed! Well, I'll save it until we're all safely navel-gazing back on The Arabella. It is a long story, yes, but a good one, good and sordid!" Stefano began to scintillate at the mere prospect of getting to tell it to the one person left in the world who had yet to hear it. "It's got the lot, Sethys! Lonely and frustrated wizards, a jealously guarded daughter, forbidden love spells, enchanted underpants! But!" He raised a finger. "It also has a happy ending. At least for one of us…"
The sudden rise of metallic, feminine laughter coming from the dining room interrupted his reverie, followed by a few enthusiastic arfs.
Probably nothing to worry about. Not if it was still Torrissio's slipper in the dog's mouth, anyway.
Stefano stroked his chin, inquiringly. "By the by, Sethys. Why did you address Petra by that other name when you met?"
"You mean Elissa? Well, really, uh…" Sethys's eyes shifted upwards. His fingers tensed around the spoon handle. "Well, I know it's difficult to believe, but I actually recognized her face as belonging to somebody I once knew by that name. She's an automaton now, yes, but when I last saw her she was still, uh, flesh and blood. A human, like you and me."
"Ah ha." Stefano narrowed his eyes. "A bit funny, that. Also funny how she seemed to recognize you too."
"Why is it funny?"
He shrugged. "Oh, I just thought it was funny, that's all. I mean, what are the odds, right?"
"It is a small world," Sethys agreed and looked back down into the saucepan.
There it was again, that uneasy Plates In The Cupboard feeling. Stefano would be the first to admit his near-total ignorance of the inner lives of the automatons. Furthermore he had no desire to bring up the issue with the one adept in town who could possibly illuminate him, who also happened to refer to that automaton as Elissa. The experiences he gleaned from Giselle's employ taught him enough—that the Ophidians created the automatons many centuries ago, and that the sapient models all used human souls to power their artificial brains.
Frankly, when he considered the issue from that perspective, the whole thing became a bit creepy—like ghosts in shells, even one as sweet as Petra. And whether they called her Petra or Elissa or something else entirely, the fact remained that the spirit of some long-dead soldier haunted her body, animating it, informing her decisions and influencing her will.
But who was that soldier? And what became of her? Did Petra remember anything about her?
Obviously she remembered something…
Stefano leered a little closer. "So. Was she someone special? Eh?" He nudged an elbow into Sethys's working arm. "Ehh?"
"No," he gently returned. "Not like that. Not in the way you mean."
"Just friends, then?"
"Sort of. Back then, she was a mage-inspector with the Martial Forces of Order, stationed at one of their border outposts."
Stefano boggled at the thought. "Petra was a mage back then? Our little Petra, seriously?"
"A good one too; First Rank. I suppose that'd be equivalent to the adepts you have here. And I—uh, well, I certainly wasn't a mage of any rank, just a humble scholar," said Sethys, giving the sad mass of mandrakes a little squeeze with the edge of his spoon. "And yes, a nitwit too. Even moreso back then, believe it or not."
"Worse things to be, Sethys. But how does a nitwit scholar end up getting involved with someone like that? A First Rank mage-inspector at a border outpost, you said?" Stefano frowned. "The Martial Forces of Order? Sounds much too constabular for my liking. Were you in some kind of trouble?"
The lad's shoulders sank. "Well…"
"Dearie me, am I prying too much? Look, you needn't mind me at all if you think I'm prying too much. I've always been a bit of a stickybeak."
"No, no. It's alright. It's just—"
"A long story?"
"Far too long."
Stefano raised his eyebrows. "Happy ending?"
"Hopefully. I mean, our story isn't over yet, is it?" Sethys said, smiling faintly. "But to keep it short, Elissa and I sort of worked together once. But we eventually encountered, uh, an insurmountable conflict of interest. You could say we had a falling out."
"That's too bad." Stefano relaxed and leaned against counter beside the hob; now here was a subject he could talk about. "Well, women can be like that sometimes, you know? Fungible. Fickle!"
"Perhaps. But not Elissa. Elissa was unfailingly steadfast, even ruthless in her pursuits. The Order Hierophant herself named her a Paragon of Ethicality and Discipline, and she had the medals to prove it. I suppose she…" Sethys rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. "Well, obviously she must've gotten her wish in the end."
"Eh?"
To Stefano's relief, Sethys only smiled again and shook his head, mum as ever; he was probably even more eager to drop this particular subject, and who would blame him?
"Don't worry about it. If she's Petra the Barmaid to you, then she's Petra the Barmaid to me as well," he said. "What I speak of, it's ancient history, nothing more."
"Ancient history! Funny words, coming from your mouth. You're a very funny lad, you know that?"
"You think so? Why funny? What do you mean by that, anyway?"
"By the by, Cousin Seth. What was that thing the old blister had you transcribe for him?" Stefano resumed. "I trust it wasn't anything too cataclysmic. Hah! Void knows we don't need any more help in that department."
"Mm. No worries there."
"Good, good. So what was it? Uh, part of an unfinished novel, perhaps? Some maiden's mash notes to a secret lover? My old history homework, back from the dog that digested it?"
"It was a bit odd, actually." Sethys lifted the saucepan and gave its contents a little shake before replacing it on the hob; not quite done yet… "I can't say I'd understand the appeal to today's readers. Fairly niche subject, even for the Ophidians."
"But what was it?"
"On the other hand, I wonder if Torrissio might be the sort of scholar who appreciates simply learning something new about the world? Hm. Then again, he seemed a little tetchy about it."
"Tetchy about what? What was it?"
"You know, it's a bit sad, really. Torrissio has so much sway in this town but so little regard for others, the malingering cockroaches of society, he said, as if he sees his own neighbors as little more than a burden on his comfort, as if that's the only thing that matters in the world. He could do so much for them but he actively chooses not to."
"Sethys."
"He could help so many people here. Why doesn't he? I don't understand it. I'll never understand it. If you ask me, it's building a community, learning how to get along, how to care and help each other survive, that's what's going to save this world in the end, not—"
"Sethys!" Stefano swatted the lad clean out of his filibuster.
"Huh?" He blinked.
"The document, man! What was in the document?"
Sethys turned and, for perhaps the first time in so many centuries, met someone else's eyes with his own.
He produced a small, uneasy laugh. And he kept his secret.
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