34. RIEKA
34
RIEKA
T hat morning the new work roster had been posted. I was now to report to Sal in MedCom .
When I arrived right after morning training, which Rhydian had been very absent from, Sal had been waiting in the doorway for me, her leather case at her feet.
“How’s that chin of yours, I didn’t get to ask yesterday?” she inquired when I stopped in front of her. I absentmindedly touched the now-healed skin of my chin. It had healed so long ago that I’d barely noticed. Even the rope burn around my neck had healed.
“Good. The salve did the trick.”
“Told you it would.” She stretched down, her hand searching for the leather and lifted the case towards me. “Welcome to morning rounds.”
I should have been less shocked that Sal knew her way around. But since I’d met one other blind person in my life and they were mended very quickly after we’d met, I didn’t have much else to compare it to.
Sal walked the halls as well as any other passenger. She knew exactly which carriage we entered and who she was after once we were there, stopping by the very bunks of the passengers she was there to see.
The only time I saw her trip was because of a toy that was in her path. She’d stumbled, reached down and after feeling the teddy in her hands knew exactly whose it was, chastising them for not taking better care of their belongings.
Sal used her blessing on an old woman with a sprained ankle, a man with a freshly healed scar that Sal made disappear at his request, and half a dozen scrapes, bruises and breaks from that morning’s sparring session, including one I’d incurred on a Prowler myself. It made for awkward conversation, especially when the woman continued to hiss at me for being within her vicinity.
Sal also chose to administer more of those green tonics. There were others too. The orange ones she handed out for those with runny noses. A red one was given to a woman who was trying to conceive whilst a purple one was given to a woman who did not want to. She even gave out a few yellow ones to passengers who struggled to sleep at night.
The last passengers we saw, however, Sal could do nothing for. We’d travelled to the back of the train to the carriage where the Aquatics slept. Two children, ages nine and twelve that I recognised from Hentirion’s classes were sick. They were the ones I’d noticed were missing. They were pale, the scales that existed on ones this young flaked around their necks and brows. According to the words their parents spoke to Sal, they couldn’t get them to drink much, and they were barely eating. Dark circles around their eyes made them look almost hollow.
Sal’s hands hovered over each of their chests for a few moments, the pupils of her pale green eyes expanding to consume all colour before returning to normal. She combed the hair back on the children’s heads as they rolled into the covers of their beds.
Words of reassurance and comfort were given to the parents as well as Sal’s word that a new tonic would be with them in the morning.
Sal said nothing to me as we walked back to The Greenhouse . Once there, she gave me instructions on which plants to locate, what to cut from them and how much. The other passengers who were tending to the hydroponics and food crops continued with their work ignoring us as we stood at a work bench where Sal had me cut and crush what we’d collected.
Her hands were so careful and so deft in her work. If I had human eyes I would not have noticed how the plant before her grew incrementally under the influence of her blessing. Bio-Architecture was a rare skill for an Organic to possess. Not even those I had been acquainted with in Deos were skilled in it. It had to be taught, but from what I knew of the passengers, Sal had been the only Organic onboard since she was a child. “I can feel your eyes on me Rieka. What is it you want to ask?”
I continued to crush the alborn weed stalks as I spoke. “Why the ancient remedies?” Herbal medicine was considered antiquated in Deos. I’d never met anyone who thought it useful except the Kanahari.
The plant before Sal sprouted a new stem as she responded. “You may have noticed I’m the only Organic on the train.”
I nodded and then realising my mistake I replied aloud. “I have.”
“Kensilla is considered to possess the largest population of Organics on the continent, in part due to the fact they have state-of-the-art medical facilities in every major city in the Republic. And Organics in bad situations seek out the Republic in the hopes of a better life.”
I gathered the stems in my hands and placed them in a small bowl I had put aside for them. “Even though everyone knows that crossing into the Republic is a death sentence for a Devolved Human?”
The word still felt odd on my tongue. I’d decided during Rhydian’s first absence from the train to become accustomed to everything unfamiliar to me. That included using the language of the kingdom I intended to reside in when I was finally free of this prison. Devolved Human was the name the first Prean Emperor had declared as the title for my kind.
“Even then.” Sal waved her hands over the plant in that oddly orchestral way Organics did causing the plant to grow a little more.
“And the other part?” I asked.
She slid one of the other bowls I’d prepared earlier across the bench to rest in front of me and handed me the pestle. “Like you, if they’re found, instead of collared they are recruited.”
“You mean enslaved.” My knuckles turned white as I crushed the seeds in the mortar.
“Perhaps. We’re not entirely sure. Organics tend to every mending needed within the Republic. And their medical goods are sold on the black market for an exorbitant amount of money. We can’t afford those and the supplies we purchase under the Runner’s false identities aren’t nearly enough. So the Runners find me old healer manuals whenever they travel beyond the Republic’s borders. And anything I can’t find in those, I create myself.”
“And if you have the seeds, can you grow anything?”
“Within reason. Nature is balanced. To create a new herb, I must know the properties of fifty varieties of plants just to have a specific outcome if I am to use it to heal. And there are so many plants that are just not compatible with one another.
“For example, to induce a coma for an injury that required more time to heal, I would use thatcher’s wart. It gives me three months to mend a patient. But to make the effects irreversible, to ease someone’s pain because they are beyond my capabilities, I’d need to splice the seed during germination with vallow apple. Anything else and the death is excruciating.
“If I have water, I can make any seed become what nature intended it to be. But to make a new seed, I need a garden.”
I couldn’t decide if I was terrified or impressed with her. Probably both.
“This doesn’t feel right.” Sal leaned in slightly. “Tell me, are the petals on this flower blue with orange streaks or just blue?”
I looked down at the plant before her. There were indeed petals forming on the short stems. “They are blue. At least they look blue to me.” The idea of Sal knowing the colours was a little confusing.
She leaned on the table swearing under her breath in Seja. “It won’t be ready for tomorrow.”
“The tonic for the Aquaticus children?”
“Yes.” She took a deep breath. “Let us just hope they’ll live through the night.”
But they did not.
During the night Sal was forced to declare both children dead. The train come morning was filled with the melancholic sound of over a hundred Aquatics lamenting. The children’s bodies were dropped from the train as we travelled across the bridge over Slaver’s Bay.
When I accompanied her to The Aviary the next morning, it was such a contrast to the rear of the train that it may as well have been another country.
Sal tended to a young teenage Alatus who was undergoing his chrysalis transformation. His breed of Brute were wingless until puberty when their bodies developed a hard shell on their backs that accommodated the growth of wings.
I stood off the side watching as Sal’s hands floated over the surface of the shell. I’d known two Slyphs like the boy as a child and of the two, only one chose to undergo this process to join The Celestial Guard when he came of age. The other chose to destroy their Chrysalis as an act of devotion to The Celestials.
A few more weeks and the boy would have delicate opaque moth-like wings sprouting from his back. His hair may even change colour from the pale blonde he naturally possessed. When that happened, he would be taken under the wing of another Slyph, his father maybe and be taught to fly right here in The Aviary.
It was such a large space. The glass dome overhead extended well beyond the ceiling height, providing those within a sense of the outside world. I’d asked Hentirion if he knew what purpose the room served and he’d theorised it was a kind of temple for the ancient Kensillans to observe the God Sphere. Now the space served as a training ground for littles and a second home to winged Devos.
The floor was covered in thick green grass, both entries planted with wildflowers, an array of pinks and blues and yellows. Trees stretched up towards the skylight, reaching for the sky they would never touch, their limbs climbing the wall, growing at beautifully obscure angles.
I spotted Saska leaning under one of those trees just inside the carriage. He watched a small group of littles, Slyphs no older than five or six with wings like Amida’s attempting to fly by jumping off a small grouping of rocks in the centre of the compartment.
“That part was always the hardest,” Saska said when I stopped beside him. He rarely spoke in Prean, preferring his own tongue to those across The Narrows, but his bunkmates had been the exception.
“That young, you’re only just learning what fear is. When jumping off of things used to be fun. When you get to that age,” he added, indicating to the observation deck on the second level. A group of Alatus teenagers were staring off the edge, their wings nervously flittering behind them as an older winged couple instructed them.
“You’re worried you’re going to get hurt. You’re worried when you jump your wings aren’t going to beat like they do when your feet are firmly on the ground.”
I looked over to the littles. They were jumping up and down like little fleas, their wings clumsily beating at the air. The moment one rose, a beautiful string of giggles would fill the air.
“So what’s the trick?” I asked him, daring a glance at his back where I knew the scars were.
“To convince your feet you never left the ground.”
Just as I was about to leave, he spoke again, “You and Emil are both from the Ecclesiarchy. I understand why you fled. Controlling priesthood and religious fanaticism are not my thing either, but Emil, he—”
“He still practises Celestisum,” I said, confirming his path of questioning, noticing for the first time the pastel-green regrowth of hair around his ears.
“Yes. He’s off now doing something he called Intercession.” At Saska’s words, my chest tightened.
Was it that time of year already?
I pushed the thought down for a later time. Saska’s eyes were still on the flyers. “He’s told me that before he was captured by the slavers, he was banished from Deos. Do you know why?”
“You ask as though all Deogns know one another,” I said jokingly, but his face remained serious, the hard lines of his jaw clenching.
“I ask because you two are more familiar than you let on.”
I was honestly shocked no one else had noticed until now. A quiet kind of acknowledgement had fallen between Emil and I, one we never spoke of aloud. But I shouldn’t have been surprised Saska noticed. He and Emil were more married than Rhydian and I were.
I took my time, glancing over at Sal and finding her still ingrained in her work so I answered him, careful with my words. “That eyeshield he carries around, we call it a pesai. His marks him as an Artisan. In Deos their work is praised by all, some are so well known they can be raised to the level of The Devout and be commissioned by the Celestials themselves.”
A single dark eyebrow on the Pazgari’s face rose. “Emil’s met your Celestials?”
“He is a Smith. They create all things mechanical in Deos. Elevators, rail systems, art, works of architecture. All in the name of the Celestials. What they are forbidden to do is create life.”
His forehead furrowed. “How does a Smith create life?”
“The media called it an Automaton. The Offices called it sacrilegious treason—to create life against the will of the gods.”
Saska’s scent shifted to annoyed, though his expression gave away nothing. “But if he created it, does that not prove that your gods aren’t all-powerful?”
I watched a little girl lift off the ground four feet and float back down in a fit of laughter. “Why do you think he was banished.”
“Why not kill him then?”
“Pain,” I told him. “The worst fate a Devoted can suffer is to know their creators have abandoned them and let them live with that knowledge. That no prayer they ever spoke will be answered.”
Saska asked no more of me after that, so I returned to waiting for Sal who upon finishing her examination of the young man, had me accompany her through to The Private Sleepers.
“Wait here,” she ordered me, taking the leather case from my hands and proceeded to walk into one of the private sleeper compartments. As the door opened a familiar fragrance escaped accompanied by an equally familiar voice.
“Morning Sal, before we start would you mind, someone’s been pinching them.”
I turned just in time to see Kosha walking towards the door to close it and saw Sal lifting her hands to a small fruit tree by the door. As Kosha closed it, greeting me in the Seja way before he did, the branches on the tree bloomed under Sal’s blessing.
Never had I expected to encounter the red fruit so far from home. Even after the door had closed, I found myself lingering in the scent of Deogn Sweet Limes. I hated that I found it comforting.
It took another scent to finally snap me out of it
A smell I’d been waiting a year for.
Kharee!
It was accompanied by the scent of parchment, and ink, and charcoal.
With my stomach taking the lead, I followed it. Down the sleeper to the stairs that lead to the lower lever rooms and into another corridor. There were no rooms here, instead halfway across there was a door that bore a sign that read “Storage Closet.”
It was indeed a storage cupboard. But there was no parchment, no pens and no kharee. Yet I could still smell them, as if the scent was seeping through the floors. After a minute of searching, I found myself with my head wedged between a broom and a mop, my nose pressed up against the timber wall at the back of the closet. I ran my hands over the surface until my fingers snagged on a small square in the wall. The button I found inside gave a metallic click when I pressed it and the wall popped open.
Through the gap, I saw what looked to be a library. There was a wooden desk covered in open books, a wall covered in parchment papers and on the floor, just behind the desk was a sack. There were words printed on the side. My Pazgari was still very limited, but I recognised one word. Raysem.
Raysem was the kharee capital of the world, the original producer of the bitter bean beverage.
Which lucky prick managed to secure themselves kharee on a fucking train!
My kharee-deprived mind made me open the door another inch.
Right there, basking in the morning sun that streamed through tall windows in the compartment, was a big, beautiful copper tub.
I took another step forward. “Rieka?”
Sal’s voice cut my reverie short. She had finished with Kosha. I quickly fled the small space of the closet, closing the door behind me, an idea forming.
If Rhydian had no intention of keeping to his promise of granting me the use of a tub. I would have to commandeer one myself. It wasn’t a crime if I didn’t steal it.
I found Emil in The Pipe Room after Sal excused me for the day. Celestial doctrine dictated that three times a year we were to perform Intercession. To pray to our gods on behalf of another. But Emil couldn’t do that. The practice required a party of two.
He knelt on a blanket on the lower level, a row of twelve copper figurines lined up before him. Each one a representation of the twelve Celestials of Deos.
I stood there watching him as his lips moved, mouthing a prayer I’d spoken so many times in my life I’d memorised it by the age of ten. He stopped and glanced at me over his shoulder. “I didn’t think you’d come if I asked.”
“I didn’t expect to find you without your eyeshield,” I said, taking the space beside him, moving into that familiar position.
“I traded it for this.” He opened his palm. Inside was a copper coil. His token, the item he’d chosen to represent himself.
He then offered it to me and spoke the very words I had been avoiding since we had met.
“May the Treasured One shine bright, may their words be headed and may my own words find welcome ears. Will you accept my token for Intercession?”
Tears welled in my eyes. “Emil. I do not serve them anymore.”
His hands dropped to his lap in defeat. “Then why did you come?’
“Because,” I said as I wiped at my tears. “You’re not supposed to spend Intercession alone.”
I knew how hard it was to leave Celestisum. For twenty years it carved itself into my very bones. I’d left it so violently that a part of me still felt like something was missing, a phantom limb.
It did not surprise me that Emil felt abandoned by them. But what broke my heart was that he still had hope.
“It feels wrong.” He stared down at the coil in his hand. “To have this day pass without prayer.”
I knew he’d have to make his own choice about our gods, but at least for today, I could make an exception. “Perhaps there is someone else we can pray to.”
I opened my hand to request his token. Slowly he placed his coil in my palm and waited.
The custom was to speak the prayer aloud, I just hoped, even though Taren never taught me how, his invisible gods would accept my words. “I accept this token on behalf of Emil Kal and ask that the Eldertides hear his prayer.”
Emil looked confused, but I urged him to pray as he’d intended. He took a breath and began.
“I pray for my parents and that they haven’t suffered in my absence. I pray for the one who felt it was his duty to reveal my sin and ask that he find true purpose in his life instead of seeking the downfall of others. I pray for my bunkmates. For Tira to heal and for her antlers to grow strong so that she may run free again. For S’vara to one day return to her ship and her ropes and for Farox to return to his sisters. I pray for Hentirion to receive the acknowledgement he deserves and for Saska. I pray he will fly once again. I pray for Rieka. I pray she finds those she has lost and that she once again finds someone worthy of her devotion. And I pray for the passengers of the Kensillan Territory Rail. May they find their freedom. This I ask of the…The Eldertides.”
As Emil motioned to end the prayer, I silently added one more name. I pray for Emil. That his kindness is rewarded.
The moment I’d said those words I felt it, the breeze that shouldn’t exist in this windless space. We were alone in this carriage. No Pneumatics and no wind and yet something tickled my cheek.
Emil sucked in a breath. “Did you feel that? It felt like someone touched my face!”
I handed him back his token with a smile.