The Past
Len'Falas sat motionless on his mattress, his right arm extended straight out, level with his shoulder. A jewel-scaled serpent, its eyes like glittering rubies, was coiled tightly an inch behind his elbow. Oren watched the snake, which was finger-thick and banded black and scarlet, slowly contract, tightening around the elf's arm.
"Come then," the elf cooed caressingly to the pale, waxy scorpion poised in the center of his upturned palm. "Come." The creature swayed its dark claws and scurried up his arm, its feet tracking the faint dark telltales of veins. When it reached the inner elbow, it halted and seemed to vibrate. Len'Falas made a soft hissing sound. The sting came up, quivered, and sank into the skin above the bulging vein. The serpent relaxed, and Len'Falas sighed slowly, relaxing in turn.
Then the illusion was gone, and he held a steel and glass contraption from Zaichaer in his left hand. "'If the Gods made anything better, They kept if for Themselves.' You know the expression, Oren?"
"Yeah," Oren said. "I've heard that about lots of different things. You always make it into a little show?"
Len'Falas loosened and removed the silk cord from his arm. "Yes. It's more fun. Anything worth doing is worth doing right, no?" He smiled, his eyes distant now, cheeks flushed. "I have the finest little ward laid over the vein so I never have to worry about dirty needles."
Oren thought he could see that bit of magic with his barely controlled seeing trick, a tidbit he filed away for future use. This was a new way to intoxicate oneself, and he was interested.
"Doesn't hurt?"
The bright eyes met his. "Of course it does. That's part of it, isn't it?"
"I'd just... you know, smoke, drink, pills," Oren said.
"Pedestrian," Len'Falas sneered, and laughed, putting on a white cotton tunic.
"Must be nice," Oren said, refusing to bristle at the Hytori hauteur.
"Get high yourself, Oren?"
"...yeah."
*~*~*
"Freeport," Galeas said, eyes gleaming with light reflected from the image Len'Falas had spun out of thin air. The glamour shivered into focus, nearly ten feet from tip to tip. "Taverns, casinos here." He reached into the island floating before them even as the actual place floated in the Aetheric Sea. "Hotels. markets. Blue areas are lakes." He walked to one end of the model. "Like a cigar. Narrows at the end."
"We can see that fine," Ava said drily even as Oren murmured, "Lakes?"
"Mountain effect, as it narrows. Ground seems to get higher, more rocky, but it's an easy climb. Higher you climb, the lower the gravity. Sports up there. There's a hippodrome... velodrome ring here..." He pointed.
"A what?" Oren leaned forward.
"They race," Ava said. "Chariots with alchemical engines and no tires. Slaves being chased by mistspawn. Bicycles."
"This end doesn't concern us," Galeas said with his usual utter seriousness.
"Shit," Ava said, just as deadpan, "I'm an avid cyclist."
Len'Falas giggled.
Galeas walked to the opposite end of the illusion. "This end does." The interior detail ended here, and the final segment of the spindle was empty. "This is the Villa Luminaria. Steep climb out of gravity, maybe out of reality, and each and every approach is rigged and trapped. There's a single entrance, here, without gravity."
"What's inside, boss?" Len'Falas leaned forward, craning his neck. Four tiny fingers glittered, near the tip of Galeas' finger. Galeas slapped at them as if they were gnats.
"Ambal," Galeas said, "you're going to be the first to find out. You'll arrange yourself an invitation. Once you're in, you see that Ava gets in."
Oren stared at the blankness that represented Luminaria, remembering the Phergus' story: Schmidt, Jimmu, the talking head, and the assassin.
"Are details available?" Len'Falas asked primly. "I need to plan a wardrobe, you see."
"Learn the streets," Galeas said, returning to the center of the illusory model. "Street of Desires here. This is the Avenue of Explorers."
Len'Falas rolled his eyes.
While Galeas recited the names of Freeport avenues, a dozen bright boils rose on his nose, cheeks, and chin. Even Ava laughed. Galeas paused, regarding them all with his cold empty eyes.
"Sorry," Len'Falas muttered, and the sores flickered and vanished.
*~*~*
Oren woke, late into the sleeping period, and became aware of Ava crouched beside him on his mattress. He could feel her tension, sense it even with his wonky magic tricks. He lay there confused. When she moved, the sheer speed of it astonished. She was up and through the sheet-wall before he'd had time to realize she had slashed it open.
"Don't you move, friend," she said, her voice as dead as Galeas' eyes.
Oren rolled over and put his head through the rent in the sheet. "Wha...?"
"Shut up."
"You the one, man," said a local voice. "Foxeye, call 'em, call 'em Dancing Blade. I'm Caelum, sister. Brothers want to converse with you and Foxeye."
"What brothers?"
"Founders, man. Elders of Utopia, you know..."
"We open that hatch, the light'll wake the bossman," Oren whispered.
"Make it special dark, now," the man said. "Come. We visit the Founders."
"You know how fast I can cut you, friend?"
"Don't stand talking, sister. Come."
The Present
Aurin stood on the balcony of his office at the Golden Peacock Theater. Lately, he paid Timon to do the theater's books to give him more time for his international shenanigans. His eyes were closed, and he let the summer sun touch his face like a lover. A few years ago, he wouldn't have felt comfortable enough to close his eyes out in the open like that. It wasn't that he had suddenly achieved fearlessness; no, he had made a clever marriage between wards and glamours, and so even as nosy a sembler as Arry's mother would have difficulty seeing him from the street, let alone get a crossbow bolt through his eye, an eventuality he had imagined painfully on more than one occasion.
Thank the Gods, the Mistlords, whoever else had empowered people to solve the mysteries of the trees and towers that had unlocked the tides and the celestial bodies. Torin had intimated that his Lady Kala had been involved with one; Aurin wanted to know more, but hadn't yet figured out how to suss it out without endangering Torin's relationship with his liege. Perhaps he would just get her drunk and ask her outright.
He hadn't been back to Freeport since Valencia had initiated him in Traversion and taught him how to make distance a non-issue. Sometimes, he wondered whether he ought to contort himself through the hoops it would require to get back, to find the threads of the slipstream that would connect him to that island in the Aetherial Sea. He shuddered involuntarily and sipped his spirits from the heavy tumbler.
Either Rivin's demon was more devilishly deceptive than his brethren or he just didn't know who he was. Aurin thought he might be able to dig up answers without having to find out what had happened to the Villa Luminaria. He just didn't want to confront his past. He had made it his life's purpose not to confront his past.
He tossed back the rest of his drink and let himself back into his office. Straightening his layered attire, he laughed quietly to himself. Even in full summer, he wouldn't call Kalzasi hot, not like the humid river heat of Cathena or the blasting desert heat of Atraxia.
In any case, his apparent cares melted away from his face as he opened his office door and went out to be seen by artists and administrators. He didn't take quite as much joy in the work anymore, not with Arry's future on another continent, the confidence game to achieve the job long passed, and the angel investor and artistic director dancing to his tune. But it was a good position to hold all the same, even if he was farming out most of the work and overseeing the place. Nobody could complain. Its books were in the black and its shows were successes.
Aurin was gracious with the kudos, but more and more, they were coming to rest at his feet. The impresario would have been at a loss were he treading the boards, but he played his role well, playing the part of the upstanding businessman. Usually, it was gratifying. Certainly, the rewards were numerous. And yet sometimes it made him sick; he wanted to break things, burn bridges, walk away and start over as someone else.
Sometimes he just wanted to burn it all to the ground.
He smiled pretty for the people.
