The Artifact of Foex (28 page)

They dressed out of necessity in the cool
room and settled on the desk. It was hard and lacked covers, but
Chet dozed, warmed by the soft, perfect Flame curled in his arms.
He’d never felt this way about another human being. Not even Rory,
though he felt a twinge of guilt at the thought. A piano tinkled
upstairs. People were laughing and talking, their voices blurry
noise that merged together.

The windows were still cracked open, and cool
air moved over Chet’s bare feet, keeping him from sleep. An
occasional wisp of cigarette smoke drifted into the room. Chet
should really get up and shut the windows, but that might disturb
Aureate.

She was breathing evenly, her body curled
against him with implicit trust. Her crocheted sweater had an
interesting texture under his hands. He stared upwards, the lights
of Plainsdaugheau making strange patterns on the fabricated
ceiling. Chet closed his eyes and lolled against her bald head,
loving how soft she felt against his body. A breath of poetry sped
around his head like a cynodict on a race track. Who’d written it?
The Magician Zang? No, that wasn’t it. The Magician Tene, that’s
right. Something about eyes. Traitorous honey eyes, not of magic
but sex...

Chet’s eyes sprang open. His whole body came
awake, though he didn’t move. Tension rippled through him, his
muscles contracting involuntarily. “I know you.”

“Mmm?”

“I know you. You’re the traitor! The
affiliate turncoat.”

Aureate sprang up as if she were being
attacked, her hands reaching for weapons that weren’t there, her
eyes wide in the shadows. “
What?
What did you call
me?”

Chet could recall the whole verse now that he
was awake. He gazed at her, dark legend come to life. “The Magician
Tene wrote about you. I’m sure it’s you! You must be the Magician
who turned away from the fold...”

“Stop.” Aureate looked like she wanted to
leap out the window, glass and all. “You can’t—you don’t—who
are
you? Answer me! Answer me
now!
”

Chet blinked. She was shaking. Hard. He
realized what he’d said, what he’d done. “Aureate, I’m sorry, I
didn’t mean to scare you. I read it in a book years ago. Since I
met you, I kept thinking something about you was familiar. I just
figured out what it was.”

A pause, then Aureate began breathing again,
though her shaking grew worse. Chet hadn’t realized she’d been
holding her breath. She murmured, as if to herself, “That’s right,
Journey said you’re an archaeologist with a really good memory for
classics.”

“Is it... is it true?
Were
you a
Magician?” Now he was the one holding his breath.

She stared at him in the dark, then quietly
crept back into his arms. He accepted her—she was crying. “Yes,"
she said, sniffing.

He held the forgotten past in his hands, yet
she still breathed. It was strange and wondrous and scary as Abyss.
“Tell me about it. I—I think I need to know.”

Why
did he need to know? Such a
frightening question to ask himself. He’d been obsessed with the
past far too long with an intensity that had—for all intents and
purposes—kept his own life in check. Now that he was in a position
to learn the answers he craved, he wasn’t sure what question those
answers pertained to. It was like staring down the fabled Abyss:
Chet felt excitement and fear in equal parts with a sprinkling of
horror, though regarding what he could not say. If Aureate asked,
how could he assure her he was serious? He had nothing. Chet held
his breath, awaiting her reply.

Aureate was silent. Then she whispered, “For
a long time, it was easy. I liked it. Blood magic was... very
powerful. But there was this little problem, you see. I don’t think
anyone ever wrote about the problem. It’s not the sort of thing
most Magicians worried about.”

“What was it?”

“Death," Aureate said with a shaky laugh. She
sniffed again.

Chet found a handkerchief in his jacket
pocket, silently thanked Journey for its existence and offered it
to her. Aureate sat up to wipe her face and nose. He said, “What do
you mean, death? You face death as Flame, too. What’s the
difference?”

“As a student of the classics, you must
understand that Magicians, like Flame, were reincarnating
affiliates. Yet all Magicians were men. Did it never occur to you
to ask why?”

“Um.” Chet blinked. “No. I—I guess... there
aren’t too many women represented in the classics anyway.”

“Foex was a sexist asshole who didn’t like
women except to fuck them. Oh, and he also liked pregnant women
because they popped out babies to carry on the line of whatever
race he was sculpting. He tinkered with the flaxen race for
millennia; his hands are all over the roots of your racial memory,
did you know? Foex had no other use for women. But the thing is, if
you pick up a reincarnating soul over and over again, half the time
they’ll be born as a girl.”

“He couldn’t control that?”

“No. Don’t know why not. One of the larger
rules I guess the gods cannot break or sully. Pelin doesn’t
care—never has, never will—but Foex did.”

“You said... the problem was death.”

“When his Magicians were reincarnated as
girls, he killed them. Us.” Aureate took a deep breath. “Me.”

“Oh.”

“Usually, he’d bring the baby girl to a
practicing Magician to use in blood magic. That’s how Foex liked
it. He utilized every resource and didn’t waste energy. He had an
appalling amount of energy; that’s why I liked him as an affiliate.
But... sometimes the girl wasn’t a baby. Sometimes she was older.
Sometimes she
remembered
.”

“You remembered.”

“Oh, yes. I didn’t really think about it
until I was born female six times in a row. Foex was mindful about
finding us early, but I escaped once during that streak of lives. I
grew up and found a really good man. I miss him sometimes or at
least the memory of him, which isn’t the same thing. I was
pregnant—near term, in fact—when Foex found me.”

“He killed you.”

“Of course he did. He killed me the next time
and the time after that. By that point, I was going out of my mind.
Then I was born a boy. Foex was much happier. He let me grow up and
instructed me personally in changes in magical workings that had
taken place while I was out of circulation. I smiled and took his
instruction until his back was turned, and then...”

“And then?”

“I grabbed the first ship to Palister and
rode like abyss until I reached the first Flame node I could find.
The nodes are an old thing we used to have back in the Cobalt Era,
before our current system with the Flame Council. I
begged
them to hear me out. The Flame, I mean. Pelin was curious and came
down to talk with me in person. I was absolutely raving mad, but
she listened. And here I am.” Aureate took a deep breath. “Well,
here I am a few thousand years later. My eyes were permanently dyed
yellow by Foex, no helping that. They’re with me every lifetime,
thus my initiate name. Pelin gave me the name knowing full well
what I just told you. I don’t remember the last time I’ve told this
story to an outsider. I hardly ever talk about it.”

Chet could barely think or breathe with this
living legend in his arms, sharing real secrets from the past.
Nevertheless, he frowned. “They must not have liked that. The
Magicians, I mean.”

She chuckled ruefully. “You’ve been reading
Tene, have you? He was such a doedicu. He hated everything I stood
for, waging his own private smear campaign against me, to use the
modern phrase. I haven’t heard the accusation ‘traitor’ in
ages.”

“Oh.” Chet blinked. He hadn’t considered the
authors of his books as biased, somehow. As political.
I should
have,
he thought with a snort. No god affiliate on Uos had the
luxury of being apolitical.

“Chet, you said you needed to know all this.
Why?”

“Because... because I’m bound to this weird
Magician’s tool, and I don’t know why. I don’t know why it chose
me. Did Journey tell you what happened?” Chet was distracted by an
odd noise outside. Was that a motorboat? It seemed incongruent that
someone would be messing around with a motorboat in the middle of
the night. Well, they were at sea. The motor cut, and Chet ceased
worrying about it.

“Briefly. Tell me more.”

Chet explained how the Raptus had reacted
when he’d touched it during the tug-of-war. “I can’t get the
feeling out of my head that it
wants
me for something. It
didn’t bind us until I touched it. But I'm just a guy!”

Aureate grunted. “I have guesses, but you
have to understand I was never at that kind of skill level. Even
Zang and Tene were really pushing the envelope to create it. They
must have sacrificed a lot of girls to do so.”

“Oh. Yes, I can see that. Blood magic always
sounds so romantic in the abstract, but it must have been horrible
and messy on the practical end.” Chet chewed it over. “I was always
taught Foex’s brand of magic stopped working when he died, but the
Raptus is still operational.”

“I don’t believe in perpetual motion, so my
best guess is that they must have linked it to its victims in an
endless loop. The more blood it spills, the more powerful it
becomes. There are problems with that theory, the most obvious
being that the Raptus has been mired in lucid mud for three-hundred
years, yet it hasn’t run down. Don’t know how they did
that
. I would have been curious about it—once.”

“Aureate, I hate to ask, but is it possible
for you to find out? Journey said back in Wetshul that you were the
best consultant on why the Raptus is acting this way.”

She looked away, fiddling with her crocheted
sweater. “Yeah, Journey asked me before we went on stage.”

“What did you say?”

“I told her no. I really don't want to meddle
with the Raptus. I expect she and Knife will ask me again, try to
talk me around. But my answer is final.”

Chet jerked back, then glared. She didn’t
want to
meddle
with it? He and the others were linked by
an invisible umbilical cord by a mind-control device—like being
strapped to a ticking time bomb—and she didn’t want to even try?
Screw that,
he thought. “Why not?”

Aureate looked him in the eye. “Because I
don’t want to kill someone to find out.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“You can still...
does
blood magic
still work?”

For a long moment, he wasn’t sure whether
she’d answer. Her shoulders slumped, her athletic, dancer’s body
curled away from him. Then Aureate nodded once, her eye downcast.
“I don’t practice it. Much. Hardly at all. Only in dire
emergencies, and most the time not even then.”

The answer seemed to cost her much. It
occurred to him that Aureate’s reaction—her whole being—was
consumed by shame. Based on everything she’d said, he could
understand why. “I see.”

“Obviously the Raptus isn’t a toy just anyone
should be using, or using at all. I’m glad Knife and Journey are
set on destroying it. Good riddance.”

Chet sighed. “Did Journey have you unlock it
with your words and blood, backstage earlier?”

“Yep.” Aureate stretched, then climbed down
from the desk. “I gotta take a piss, Chet.”

“Is there a bathroom around here?”

She snickered. “There’s the ocean. Flame can
aim and fire just like a guy, you know. When I come back, maybe we
can play some more. Me on top, this time.”

He grinned at her. Though she hadn’t
specified a gender, he rather thought she’d be fantastic as a man.
His cock stirring at the thought. “Sounds good.”

Chet hummed under his breath as she strode
out, leaving the door open behind her. The summer breeze was a
little too cool. He rolled onto his belly. If Journey could do all
sorts of tricks with a penis, maybe Aureate could, too. Maybe
they’d...

A scream, a splash. Chet scrambled to his
feet, eyes wide. There was more screaming outside. Real
screams.

Chet raced outside and slammed against the
waist-high railing, staring down at the water. Elderbeth had risen
in the sky hours ago, green and luminous, three of her moons
visible. In her light he could see... Chet gulped.

Something human shaped was thrashing in the
water. Chet caught a glimpse of a bald head and face, nearly
unrecognizable. Almost a horror mask, covered in lumpy boils. Chet
couldn’t believe it. Was that—was that
Aureate?
She was
struggling, screaming in the night; even her eyelids had erupted in
boils.

I see,
Chet thought breathlessly as
her instantaneous transformation from sexy Flame to horror show
sank in. He couldn’t imagine how much pain she must be
experiencing; even a few drops of water had made Journey and Knife
whimper.

Chet looked up and down the deck. He was
alone, he’d have to save her himself. He checked his first impulse,
which was to dive in, grab her and pull her back to the ship. The
best possible way to drown. Aureate was panicked, out of her mind.
Chet raced along the deck, looking for floatation devise or even a
decorative donut-shaped life preserver. This was a ship, there had
to be
something
.

He gaped. A motorboat was tied up just around
the corner. Chet recalled the noise he’d heard earlier... maybe
someone had lowered a lifeboat into the water? If so, it was to his
good fortune. The boat was tied to one of the emergency ladder
rungs along the ship’s hull. Chet swung over the railing and
scampered down, grateful beyond measure that he was at home in all
manner of boats. His family’s vacations by the lake had done that
much good, anyway.

Aureate was still screaming. Why didn’t
anyone come? Chet needed
help
, for Pantheon’s sake.“Knife!
Journey!
Help!
” he screamed at the top of his lungs as he
untied the rope.