Ecdysis

Chapter 9. Warped Revelations

Aikerim Kiymetl Adal

“Do you have any idea what that would cause!? You have your head for a reason, instead, you keep thinking with your Tail!”

Aikerim rubbed her forehead, a healing spell took the pain and the nosebleed away but she knew that the pounding headache would return with vengeance later. This was not how she wanted to start the morning. The loud voice of her husband didn’t help it either.

“I made my choice.” Anaise retorted back at her father.

“First Amalric and now you? Do you actively seek to tarnish the names of Kiymetl and Enoch!? You should quickly apologize to your mother and call this insanity off or do you wish for Kiymetl Speaker and Matriarch to intervene personally?” Tarhunna turned around and faced her, “Aikerim, give me a few days and I promise I will properly educate both of my children.”

She sighed and waved his request away. While the actions of Amalric and Anaise weighed heavily on his position in the household, Aikerim had no plans on punishing him for this. Not for Anaise specifically, that was between her, her daughter, and Erf.

“I believe I asked you to take him into your sadaq.” She spoke over her husband to Anaise directly.

“Wha-” Tarhunna jerked backwards, clearly not expecting that kind of response from her. Unsurprising, actually. If it was a year ago, she would have probably punished her daughter most severely and stripped her of her title. And probably Tarhunna as well.

For forming a sadaq with a murk, that is.

Anaise pushed her stumbling father aside and faced her straight on. “I did what I had to do!”

“And why is that?” her eyes slid over her daughter’s body to pointedly stop at the obvious kink in her tail. Aikerim frowned, “Don’t you dare to say that you are with a child.”

Anaise blushed but held her gaze. “I am not… I made sure to confirm. But that is not the reason I made this choice. The sadaq is equal anyway it wouldn’t change a thing between us!”

“It would change everything between you and Emanai! I ask of you again — are you ready for that?”

The glossy but crooked tail of her daughter swayed, “They won’t need to know. During my Feast, I will present them as my sadaq.”

“And will your sadaq agree?” Aikerim pressed on with a hint of menace in her voice, “Answer to your Domina without a shred of lies. Are they in agreement with this ruse?”

“Not yet, but I started working on it already. And I have three tendays for them to accept it.”

“And if they do not?”

“Aikerim-” Tarhunna started.

“Not now!” She cut him off, “Tell me, oh daughter of mine, what will you do if they refuse. Because he belongs to me, and so do you. And I will not lose my Alchemist only because my daughter bit more than she could chew.”

“Then I will say nothing at all during the Feast and let them make their own assumptions. If I will be pressed for answers, I will state that I have joined his sadaq.” She spoke quietly within the stunned room. “I am not going to let him get away from my arms, even if I have to sacrifice my dignity as the Lady of the House.”

Aikerim groaned. The headache was back and she needed a drink.

She also needed to speak to Erf, which would likely cause even more headaches.

“What did he offer you?”

Anaise’s ears flicked, “Father?”

Tarhunna stood with his arms crossed, a frown on his face. “When I spoke to him previously he had mentioned that the estate was merely a gift for the good he had provided to Kiymetl. And If he wanted anything more from the Manor, he would find something else to give. Of equal or greater value. So I ask. What. Did. He. Offer. You?”

Her ears fell flat, “I… That is between me and him!”

The floor creaked under his hoof, “You don’t trust your own father!?”

“This is the sadaq matter, I will not speak about it until the sadaq had been approved.” Anaise ground out.

Her frown matched her husband’s. Their daughter was being obstinately secretive despite the pressure. This wasn’t mere stubbornness of youth nor desire to keep Erf for herself. Not in front of her parents. Anaise was hiding something for a different reason…

Aikerim’s eyes opened wide. A breath stuck in her throat as the headache slowly made itself known once again.

“Why you little ungrateful-”

“Enough!” The Domina’s palm slammed the table, sending the room into silence once again.

She sighed and turned to her husband, “Leave us.”

“Dear, this is a mere vagrancy of youth,” His horns swayed as he glanced between the two women in the room. “The rest of the House is still unaware of her rash decision. Don’t make one of your own.”

“I know, Tar. I merely wish to speak to her. As Domina to the Lady of the House. In private. It will be quick.”

He sucked the air in only to sigh with relief, “By the Three-”

Aikerim glared, forcing him to stumble once again, and quickly leave the room after sending a bewildering look at their daughter.

The runes lit up on the walls as soon as the door closed.

Anaise sighed, “I know what you are thinking but I won’t speak. Not now.”

“Yes, not now.” She agreed with her daughter, “Because I wasn’t done.”

Her hand reached into her robes and pulled out a tiny scroll. After carefully unravelling it, she left it in her open palm.

“In his desire to learn more, Albin had made quite a blunder,” She spoke, noticing the confusion in the green eyes. “Not only did he bring the Sphere into my Manor and informed me about it, but he kept it active and, most importantly, visible. And I made sure to look.”

“You copied the pattern!” Anaise gasped.

“Some of it. It is as intricate as it is convoluted and I am nowhere close to keep it stable for long, let alone dare to think I could replicate the entire artefact. That is a task fit for the Gods. But I can replicate the core of its effect for a few moments.” She looked straight at her daughter, using her entire presence as her Mother and Domina to make sure Anaise understood the severity of her current actions. “Gather your thoughts as I cast it, and when I say a word you are to tell me everything. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Mother.” She made a resolute nod.

“Good. Now don’t disturb me until the spell is working.”

Aikerim turned her full attention to the drawing in her hand and tried to feel the Flow as she committed the lines to memory. This wasn’t a runic script, it wouldn’t activate with just her power alone or activate at all. What it did, however, was remind her of the patterns that she felt in the Sphere of Negation.

And in turn, she would see the Flow around her bend and twist with the similar eddies as the Spere once produced. Aikerim had no idea what each of them meant to do and how they worked together, what she did know is that they somehow worked. And that she would succeed in casting this hack of a spell today.

The headache was the proof of that. Aikerim had attempted to do it before and became familiar with the symptoms. Albeit the lack of general nausea led her thoughts astray and made her think it was caused by something else.

Slowly but surely she coaxed the Flow into the patterns that she wanted, and the tiny wisp of yellow smoke started to form above the scroll. She paid a scant of attention to it, however, still engrossed in the drawings of the scroll below. The wisp grew brighter and larger as the smoke started to coalesce into something solid. Something powerful.

Her daughter gasped quietly as it exploded outward into a bright yellow rune, suspended just a few fingers above her palm and the scroll. It held strong but Aikerim knew it wouldn’t last. The glow of the Flow was wrong for this kind of spell and was likely caused by her simply pushing as much power as she could to make it last.

But this wasn’t the time for it. “Well?” She asked.

“There is more to his math than meets the eye.” Anaise blurted out quickly, waving a stick in her arms. “More than even Grand-uncle realizes. I know this because I’ve felt it first hand. Remember the recent growth in my power? He…He taught me about lines that aren’t lines. Yet are. Lines that follow the surface.”

Her stick rapidly scrawled on the sand drawing a well-known task young mages were presented with. An impossible one.

“He told me to think of a sphere,” For some reason, her face was deep-red while saying that, “where I could walk in a straight line yet end up in the same place because what was locally a line was actually a circle. And then he told me — that is the geometry of the real world and not the questions that are drawn in the sand.”

“And as he spoke,” Anaise clenched her fist, forcing the grooves of sand to come alive and rise into the air like a knot of desert snakes. “I’ve felt it.”

Aikerim’s eyes widened as she watched the dance in front of her. So beautiful. So complex.

So simple.

“He knows more than that, I am sure of it!” Anaise growled, emboldened by her silence. “And I am not going to let him go. Not to the lamura. Not to other wermages! Not even to Sophia Chasya herself!”

The runes trembled in her palm.

A few jerking movements and the yellow bands of light started to warp.

Like a flower that started to get ready for a night’s sleep, the runes slowly folded into themselves. One petal into another. The colour drained from the spell. Her colour. But the brightness didn’t go away. Green came, brilliant like the determined eyes of her Little Moon, her Hilal.

But it didn’t last long either.

As the last leaf folded into place, Aikerim felt something break. Like a taut string from an old lyre, the Flow snapped, freeing her from the burden of feeding it further as if trying to fill a broken cup with wine.

And the blue replaced green, completing the spell.

She still had to hold it and it still took some effort to do, but this was a true spell now, not a hack that could barely last a heartbeat and keep her bedridden through the morning. It was her spell.

Aikerim looked at Anaise as she felt inside of her what her daughter was feeling all this time. Probably even more. While Erf’s insights, that she showed to her, were groundbreaking, it was Albin’s Orb that made them strategically critical. Critical enough that she would need to keep this knowledge hidden within her Manor.

This wasn’t something that could make her a Matriarch of Kiymetl. It was worse, worse enough to be considered heretical for claiming what was should be divine.

Anaise nodded with a satisfied look on her face. The voluminous tail swayed back and forth like a ribbon of crooked fire. “I knew you would see it. Whatever that it might be. And that is why he is mine. And I won’t let you nor my father take him away. Nor Grandmother Nanaya despite her being the current Matriarch of Kiymetl.”

Her knuckles cracked as she flexed her arms, “Not even the Gods themselves! Especially if he isn’t a daimon at all as he so vehemently claims.”

A moment of confusion and the headache was back. A normal one this time. For some reason, Aikerim wanted to punch Albin in the face right now, just enough to stem his stupid curiosity.

XXX

“Would you stop your snickering!?”

“Ah, my apologies, sister.”

XXX

“Domina wishes to see you,” Wrena spoke behind my back.

“Hmm?” I took my eyes away from the carved rod. “Should I head there now?”

I was still low-key dreading the next meeting with Aikerim. After all, she was the mother dearest, even if she orchestrated my turgid affair with her daughter and appropriate fears were in order.

“N-no.” She shook her head, “Domina didn’t sound angry at you but mentioned some changes about your furnace plans. You will see her tomorrow.”

I nodded. The fact that I was not dragged into her quarters right this moment spoke volumes already. Offhand mention about furnaces was curious but not critical enough for me to worry about. The first bio-printer had taken root successfully and would start becoming at least partially functional in the coming days. Even if she would completely ban me from playing with metals, I would have organic materials to circumvent the worst of it.

“Domina not only approved my new position but demanded that I would be your main carpenter! You could ask for more hands if necessary in the future but I will be the one making a selection.” She proclaimed.

“Oh? Good.” I returned to the meticulously carved threads. This was an exemplary work. Wrena knew what she was doing and probably was carving wood longer than I was alive.

“You are not surprised?”

I shrugged, “Not really, I expected something like that from her and you were the best option for that. You had the experience working with me before and as far as I can tell you are both loyal and beholden to Aikerim Adal. Your craftsmanship is also praiseworthy which is all I care about, not how much you end up learning in the process.”

“You know, I am still confused why you continue to do that.” She chuckled.

“Because it isn’t important in the grand scheme of things. Yes, I might show you something that you have never done before and elevate your skills among other artisans. But it is not your concessions I am after. I am after the tools that you are making in the process.

“I will be honest with you. I don’t fear you reneging on this deal or demanding more than I am willing to offer you. You didn’t comment on my sadaq after speaking with Domina which means you know that my previous words were true. If the need arises, I could always put pressure on you through Aikerim Adal or Anaise Hilal. Or both,” Wrena audibly gulped as I said that, and I extended the hand to her, “But I won’t. Because you won’t. Not because of fear but because of our lasting accord, where both sides would benefit. And, through us, my sadaq. My Lady of the House, and through her — the Manor of Kiymetl.”

She slapped her hand into mine, shaking it, “Damn right! There is no way I would let my Manor down! No wonder she likes you, if I wasn’t standing right in front of you I would have assumed you were a wermage with a few centuries under your belt at least. So, how do you like my creation?”

“Oh it is beautiful, I am actually amazed at how straight it is. I should’ve just asked you to carve it from the beginning and not bother with the surface plates.”

“Ah,” She scratched her head, “I used them, the straight edges that were made from them that is. Which just makes me wonder, what are you trying to do with this?”

“Surface plate gave me the linear precision, making the precision lathe would give me the circular one. I could carve tubes and cylinders that would have a gap less than a hair wide, yet fit and slide into each other perfectly. Do you know how steam works?”

“I’ve seen a few toys from the coppersmiths that would spin,” Wrena frowned, “Are you making all this for a toy?”

“Oh absolutely not, I wish to use the steam as the motive force to drive other machines just like the loom you’ve made. You know it would take very little to make it work by itself, especially with plain weaving pattern.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to use the water from the aqueduct? Or get some animals to move it. Why steam?”

I shrugged, “It is quite efficient and, most importantly, scalable. There is only so much power and speed I could gain from the aqueduct and each new animal would cost me in space and feed as well. Steam can give me an enormous amount of power with very little space. I just need fuel and water.”

“Exactly, fuel. You would be using heat for something you could gain elsewhere. It would be like throwing cuts to make a river flow. You should use the fuel for things that require heat!”

“Ah, I see what you mean now. Since movement and heat are separate it is wasteful to convert one into another.”

“Exactly, and don’t tell me about rubbing a stick with another, all you would ever make would be a mere spark, which would need the fuel to burn afterwards anyway.” I could see the frustration and curiosity fighting within her as we spoke.

“Fine, I won’t.” I smiled back, “I will tell you about rocks that attract iron.”

“Lead stones? What about them?”

“Lead stones, lodestones, magnets. They are another bridge between movement and other types of energy. Including heat. Do you know where they come from?”

Wrena shrugged, “They are the fruits of the earth. Like all ores, they grow underground. But many say that they possess a young soul within them that makes them special.”

“Well, I won’t talk about ore genesis, apart from saying it takes thousands of years for many of them to form, for some — millions. But lodestones are different — they are the product of lightning strikes. And you can say that they carry the soul of the lightning within them, which you could spark,” I couldn’t help but snicker quietly, “into a new lightning.”

“That…Hmm. If someone else would tell me something like that I would suggest to them to lay off the wine and stale bread. But in your case, I would probably wait and see. Especially how this threaded wooden rod fits into all of that.”

“It is a template. We will use it to carve a similar one in steel or bronze and use it to convert the rotational movement into a horizontal one. Precisely so. And gain the ability to dial in the measurement with the twist of a rod rather than measuring it by eye. And we will continue to improve our tools until they would exceed the precision of our eyes and fingers. Magical or otherwise. And when we do so — I will show you how powerful the steam can be.”

“You wish to carve one in steel?” Wrena asked incredulously, “With what?”

“Hopefully stronger steel,” I murmured, “Or I will just have to rely on bronze for now. Here is a thought — we can just strengthen the chisel with Flow!”

“And who is going to do it? This isn’t going to be a quick task if you want it to be as neat as this rod.” Her ears fell flat on her head, “If you think you can order Anaise to do your bidding I will refuse to work with you at all and demand you punished by Domina herself!”

“Stay your horses, Wrena. I will not demand anything from my wife-to-be. I have another wermage for that?”

“What!”

“You saw that Lamura envoy that arrived with Tarhunna and his son a few tendays ago? Well, she tried to kill me and failed. Lost her freedom in the process. And in her boundless generosity,” I rolled my eyes, “Domina gifted her to me.”

Her eyes opened wider than Albin’s ever could. Wrena took a step back only to stumble and fall on her butt.

“What are you, Erf? What did you offer Domina to get so much?”

“I don’t know exactly, there were quite a few offerings. Which only proves to you that I don’t need to barter my inventions for your favours, wouldn’t you agree?… What am I? Well, it is a long story and not the one I wish to speak about in public. A traveller that was washed ashore, perhaps.”

I offered a hand again and lifted her from the floor, “Feel free to start working on the frame for the lathe, we would have to use lumber until we will get bronze or cast iron to replace it with. I will see you tomorrow.”

The busy and hectic day was almost over and I wished to see my sadaq.

So that I could tell them of my past.

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