Chapter V: The Birds, the Bees, and the Spiders

I’d probably rate the brunch we had as a solid five out of ten. It was brunch, after all, which means it was very hard to mess it up. There was blood pudding, a selection of fruit which I could name maybe half of, comically tiny sandwiches, the works. I nabbed a plate for myself, did a quick scan of the room, and sat down as far from Lady Burnardor as possible. Halflance sat down across from me, eyes flicking about the room, nibbling away at a tiny sandwich, with a glass of the orange stuff perched in her other hand. 

Normally I’m very happy to let awkward silences lie, but in this case my curiosity got the better of me. “So… who is Dr. Ironseed?”

“Something of a celebrity, I think,” she responded. “Though I suppose it’s better she be a celebrity than Burnardor or I.”

“I get to meet a celebrity? Nice.”

Halflance gave me a disapproving glance. “Don’t let it get to your head.”

I returned the glance with interest. Compound interest. “So how does an anthropologist become a celebrity? I mean, I definitely couldn’t name any anthropologists from Earth. Well, besides the one professor, but that doesn’t count, really.”

“Well, she wrote about it, I suppose,” Halflance said with a shrug. “Never read any of her books. They’re probably full of shit anyway. But there is quite a demand among some for tales of life among the distant jungle savages of Procellarum, the whale-hunters of Infrigis, the mountain-dwellers of far western Imbrium, and so on.”

“You think she’s trying to get an opportunity to write another one by going on this expedition?” I asked.

“Almost certainly.”

I slouched a little lower in my chair, continuing to eat. Halflance definitely didn’t have a very high impression of Dr. Ironseed, but I had gotten an entirely different impression from her in the few seconds we’d been able to talk. I scanned the room again; Burnardor was still in the same place, thankfully, but Ironseed herself had migrated towards one of the windows on the other side of the room. Now was my chance. 

Quietly, as if I could sneak away without Halflance noticing, I got up and maneuvered through the various other tables towards Ironseed. Other than a few times where I bumped into clusters of talking people, it went fairly well. In fact, this whole party was going fairly well by my standards; no giant mechanical spiders, and nobody had challenged me or anyone else to a duel yet. Of course, fighting a giant mechanical spider was nothing compared to figuring out how to break the ice with Dr. Ironseed. Maybe I could apologize for my behavior towards Burnardor, or thank her for separating her and Halflance, or I could ask her about her books, or —

I ran directly into Ironseed’s back. It would have been worse if she weren’t six inches taller and substantially stronger than me, but as it was she only had to take a step forward. “Who in the… Oh. Emma?”

I froze. “Have you met Dr. Charcharias? Amina Charcharias, that is.”

Dr. Ironseed furrowed her brow in some confusion. “The name sounds familiar. Do you know a Dr. Charcharias?”

“Uh, yeah, she’s Lady Halflance’s personal doctor,” I said, clearing a lock of hair out of my eyes. “She should be around here somewhere, she’s on the expedition.”

“Wait, Amina Charcharias the medical doctor? The one who claims to be part shark?”

I nodded. “I’m pretty sure she is part shark. Don’t know how you could… really…”

“Well, clearly there is something unusual there,” Ironseed said, “but I don’t buy the story about liquefied shark tissue being injected into her first mother’s womb. That’s how you end up with a dead fetus and a mother with sepsis, not a shark-human hybrid.”

I decided not to press the issue. “So you do know her, then?”

“Oh, yes, of course. Only as an acquaintance, but we did go to university together, in Rasslock.” Ironseed stopped talking, as if she expected me to say something. I didn’t. “So why do you ask?”

“Why do I — Oh, you just sound similar to her. Similar accent, I guess. Was wondering if there was a connection there.”

“Ah,” said Dr. Ironseed, with a nod. “So about this brain fever -- is it really true that you have no memories of Selene at all?”

“Nothing before about seven and a half weeks ago, no,” I said, rolling my eyes. I’d had this conversation too many times, pretty much every time someone visited Halflance manor, and I could recite all of the beats by heart because they always asked the same things. First they would make a show of pity, then they’d ask if I’d had any luck finding my “real” family, then they’d wish me luck finding my way in the world.

“So what do you think of Selene?” Dr. Ironseed asked.

I hadn’t expected that. “Excuse me?”

“Well, it seems to me like you have your wits about you, and you act like an adult,” Ironseed said. “Except you have no memory of the world; it’s as if you emerged fully-grown into the streets.”

My esteem towards Dr. Ironseed immediately increased, purely because she had asked me a new question. “Well, it’s certainly beautiful, in the architecture and the clothes and things. It’s violent, too, too violent, with all these duels and grudges and prejudices flying around. I love some of the incredible things here, the things that you and Dr. Charcharias work on, I just wish it wasn’t all mired in cruelty. Cruelty towards the poor, especially.”

Ironseed smirked, slightly, a sparkle in her eye. “Well, that’s more than I’d expected.”

I shrugged. “You asked for my opinion. So I gave it to you. “

“Oh, that was not an insult,” she said. “I’ve met members of parliament who were less insightful than you, and they’ve had more than two months to figure things out.”

“Oh, thank you, I guess.”

Dr. Ironseed looked away from me for a moment, and I instinctively followed her gaze. She was looking out one of the windows, at a breathtaking view of the Grantval. From up here, it all looked nearly insignificant, the streets and buildings fading into a vague texture, like grass on a field compared to the massive towers nearer to us. 

“How did they even build these?” I said. “I can hardly imagine it.”

“Maybe they weren’t built,” Dr. Ironseed replied. “Maybe they’ve just always been here. The first settlers arrived here and found them, standing as tall and proud as the day they were built, sticking up out of the forest.”

“Like the Archopolids?”

Ironseed nodded. “Exactly like the Archopolids.”

“Do you think they were made by the same people?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s almost certain,” she said. “The real question is who those people were and how they did it.”

“Well, whoever they were, their programming language was completely awful.”

Ironseed chuckled, then very swiftly perked up. “You speak Archopolid? How do you speak Archopolid?”

I shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of free time since I showed up here. I had to pick up a hobby at some point, or I’d lose my mind for a second time.”

“You really are a clever girl. What’s it like? I’ve never been much for engineering, but I’m all for interdisciplinary discussion.”

I started explaining it to her, and once I started I found it hard to stop. The conversation went from Archopolids to various theories about the origins of the Archopolids, from there to talking about Sir Margaret, and from that to talking about her wife. There’s little point in writing it all down.

We talked for hours, slowly drifting from the original ballroom and into the outer rooms of the tower floor. The other people at the party did the same thing, slowly diffusing like smoke, spreading out as much as possible. This was a good thing, because one of those people was one Lady Genesis Burnardor, whom I would like to be as far as possible from at all times. As the afternoon wore on, things became a lot more languid, the conversation slowed down. The very smell of the tower changed, as what was left of brunch was taken away by the servants, and the smell of tobacco and other smoked products which I couldn’t recognize became more prominent.

Ironseed had a lot more energy for talking to people than I did, or do, so she rapidly drifted away to go talk to someone else. I found a nice sitting room, albeit a very gray sitting room, and went right back to my novels. Then the grandmother clock in the corner chimed four o’clock and I instantly passed out. I blame all the walking, or maybe the unusually thin air from being in that tower. 

I drifted back into consciousness slightly over an hour later, propelled by a sense of overwhelming nausea. Heavy rain beat against the outside wall of the tower, and a high shrieking wind flowed around the higher levels. Ever since my arrival on Selene, strong weather had always made me deeply sick. When a bolt of lightning struck the lightning rod at the top of the spire, I could tell, because I’d usually have to swallow a bit of vomit immediately afterwards.

It took me a minute to find the bathroom so that I could give myself a chance to recover. It worked a little, but not enough. And, just my luck, while I was hugging around the toilet bowl, Lady Halflance hammered on the door and told me that it was time for dinner and the sending-off ceremony. I held back a stream of profanity and stomach contents, struggled to my feet like there was a bunch of lead on my back, and shuffled over to the ballroom.

Since I’d drifted out of the ballroom a few hours earlier, the servants had apparently been at work redecorating it. The small tables scattered around the room had been replaced with two gigantic long tables, festooned with white napkins and pink stoneware plates from one end to the other. Most of the women in the expedition, at least the ones who were considered important, were already there. The fact that I was considered important, but Anna and Unity apparently weren’t, didn’t sit well with me at all. 

I spent a few seconds circling the outer edge of the ballroom. There weren’t any seat labels, or anything like that, and even if there had been, I doubted that they’d have one for me, considering how late I had been crowbarred into the whole proceeding. I suppose I should have been glad that they had a seat for me. In fact, they had a few seats for me, or at least a few seats that were open for me to sit in. There was one gap up at the end of the table, near Lady Halflance, Sir Margaret, and Miss Rook. I considered sitting down there for about ten seconds, until I saw Lady Halflance’s face and decided otherwise. Searching for any other options, I circled around to the far side of the table, and suddenly found another empty chair, this one between one of Halflance’s guards and Dr. Ironseed. I circled around the chair and sat down. 

Ironseed broke off her conversation and turned around at the sound of chair scuffing on wood floor. She raised her eyebrows at my presence. “Good to see you, Emma. Where have you been?”

“Asleep,” I said with a shrug. “Sick. Never was much for extended celebrations.”

“You’ve missed quite a bit, I’m afraid. There were several important ceremonies, and a lot of hand-shaking, too.”

“Really? Did I miss anything important?” I asked.

Ironseed shook her head. “The mayor of Grantval arrived, to much hubbub,” she said, gesturing towards the foot of the table. “She thanked Ladies Halflance and Burnardor for their service, wished several others luck, etc. I believe the official ceremony will be after dinner.”

I rolled my eyes. “This is a lot of excitement for a diplomatic mission. Don’t diplomats get sent off to do things like this all the time?”

“To the Miranian principalities, yes,” said Ironseed. “To the ivory queendoms on the northwestern coast of Procellarum? Of course. But never to the Urcos plateau. The Urcos plateau is different.”

“How so?” I asked.

“The people who live there are known as the Durkahns, or the Durkahni people. They are… old enemies of our own race, the Cassandrans and the Jalerans. They spent centuries raiding down from the mountains.”

“So Bluerose and the Durkahns hate each other?” I asked.

“More of a mutual mistrust. Well, unless you’re one of those people who thinks the Durkahns are a lesser race of beings.” Ironseed lowered her voice to a whisper. “Stupidity like that is too common these days.”

I sighed. “I hate racists.”

Ironseed nodded in agreement, but before we could have any more conversation on the topic, dinner was served. Servants poured in through the doors of the ballroom bearing plates upon plates of food, jugs of something that looked a little like water except for being just a tad too green, and on the shoulders of two of the larger women, an entire turkey. A turkey with too many limbs. Huh.

The food was incredible, of course, in the way that food you only get to eat once a month usually is. Very starchy, very meaty, everything cooked in butter and bright red herbs. The turkey, in spite of having too many limbs, was very good, as was the jet-black fried potato and the curry that, to my surprise, looked and tasted exactly like curry. Fortunately for me, the green water was mostly just water, albeit with a subtle fruity taste. 

I didn’t actually eat that much, focusing more on getting a little bit of everything inside me and keeping it there. The thunderstorm hadn’t calmed down, and that meant that neither had my stomach. At least the insulation from being in the center of the building meant I could eat something, even if it wasn’t much. The long periods of clutching my stomach and hoping that my hubris hadn’t caught up to me did give me the opportunity to see an odd scene going on at the foot of the table, opposite from Lady Halflance. 

Sitting at the end of the table was a full-figured woman wearing an elaborately embroidered cream-yellow dress, with her auburn hair piled on her head in big knots and rolls. I assumed, correctly I’d later find out, that this was the mayor of Grantval. Towards the tail end of the initial serving, the mayor leaned over and whispered into one of the servants’ ears. What specifically she asked for I don’t know, but I caught her doing it while I was feeling too ill to eat, and continued to glance in her direction every so often. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the same servant brought out a bowl of something unpleasant-looking, a leaf-yellow speckled gruel that she started eating almost at once with a nod of thanks. 

I mostly forgot about that for the rest of dinner. There was a dessert course, which I didn’t avail myself of because I was already at risk of throwing up anyway. Dr. Ironseed and I kept talking, sporadically, talking about bad weather and local politics and our anxiety over the expedition to come. Eventually, bored out of my mind, I started drifting around the room. I had a novel in my hand, no intention of reading so much as a single word, and a head clouded with thoughts. In other words, the perfect mood to wander randomly around a room for no good reason. 

There was, apparently, supposed to be one more thing to do before the end of the night, even though dinner was well and truly over. I didn’t really care, and vaguely wanted to be back in the cramped confines of the train car. Everybody else prepared for whatever was incoming by forming into small clusters and gossiping. 

Leaning against the wall with my head down, I happened to latch onto a specific conversation going on between two people I sort of cared about. “I don’t get why she would do it so… openly,” said Lady Halflance in hushed tones.

“You know, not everyone is as uptight about these things as the southerners are,” responded Dr. Ironseed. “It’s a good thing for her, and if she decides to let the rest of us know, that’s her choice.”

“I agree that it is a good thing,” hissed Halflance, “but that does not mean she should broadcast her family status to the entire table. It’s improper.”

Halflance was being a judgmental prick again, which meant that it was my sacred duty to interrupt. “So what are you two talking about?”

Dr. Ironseed perked up, while Halflance shut her eyes and made a noise like she was about to put down a dog. “We were just discussing Mayor Reedlock’s… unusual dietary habits.”

“Oh, yeah, that yellow soup,” I said. “Seemed like you were also making some kind of comment about her personal morals or something, how’s that related?”

Halflance’s jaw tightened, and Dr. Ironseed’s face went ever so slightly red. “Your ability to switch character between that of a perfectly ordinary young woman and that of a nosy six-year-old child, often within the same sentence, is at once awe-inspiring and awful.”

“Thanks, I guess,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Still not sure what soup has to do with your weird hangups.”

Dr. Ironseed managed to become even more red. Halflance started glancing around at the other nearby clumps of guests. I, on reflex, did the same. Nobody else was paying attention to us. “This is always the problem with you, Emma…” Halflance muttered.

Ironseed took the initiative, leaning in close and whispering intently at me. “So, Emma, when two women have formed very close bonds, usually those of marriage, they may decide that the time is right for—”

“I-I know what sex is!” I whispered, stomach suddenly stuffed full of butterflies.

Halflance closed her eyes and started rubbing at one temple. “Trust me, she knows all about it.”

“I’m just not sure what soup has to do with it,” I continued.

Halflance and Ironseed both looked confused, eyes shooting back and forth between me, each other, and the people around us. “She’s trying to… become radiant. It’s just that Reedlock either wants everyone at the party to know what she’s doing, or she doesn’t care.”

My mouth fell open slightly. “The soup makes you get—”

Dr. Ironseed’s interrupted me with the energy of someone stopping a toddler from walking into a campfire. “No no no no no no. It’s a dietary factor that, it erm, induces certain physiological changes that cause, erm, that make a woman receptive to genetic material during… certain…” She sighed. “It’s not always necessary, but I have to imagine in this case that Reedlock’s wife isn’t possessed of… you know.”

It took me a second to parse through the rambling stream that Ironseed had just given me, especially with the little voice in the back of my head screaming that I should probably go somewhere else and stop asking stupid questions. “That seems like a lot of intention to extrapolate from her not eating the same meal as the rest of us. Are you sure she doesn’t have a dietary issue or something?”

Halflance chuckled. “She was eating suttlegrand. It tastes like death and acorns, and no woman in her right might would touch the sop if she wasn’t trying for a child.”

“Okay, I guess that logics out. I’m with Dr. Ironseed here, I don’t see why this is an issue. If she wants people to know, it’s no worse than making a tweet about it.” I paused, realizing that I’d just referenced social media again. “You don’t know what that is, but trust me, it’s an apt metaphor.”

“Of course you would say that,” Halflance muttered. “Knowing any better would require that you have a sense of propriety, which you clearly do not.”

I didn’t really have a response to that. So I didn’t bother. I turned around and walked away.

The rest of the evening was much less interesting. After dinner and dessert, there was a short ceremony for Lady Halflance and Lady Burnardor, with the mayor of Grantval presenting. Both of the Ladies got a medal, and there was a very long speech about the responsibility placed on their shoulders, the advancement of the Bluerose state, the bravery required, droning on and on until I felt like jumping out the nearest window.

My sanity, thankfully, remained intact through to the end of the ceremony, at which point we were all bid good luck and told to go. The tower emptied itself of guests at speed, while the servants remained behind to clean up. I volunteered to help them with that, all the better to be away from Lady Burnardor, and was swiftly turned down. It’s not like I would have left much later if I had been able to help; with all the people leaving the tower at once, there was quite the line to get on the elevators. I pitied the operators. 

We spent that night, for once, in a hotel. And a good hotel at that, with clean sheets and a free mint. Anna, Unity, and I all had to share a bed, of course, but the bed we had was so big that it only got awkward one time in the whole night. The next morning we all packed ourselves back onto the train, packed being the operative word, because now Lady Burnardor and her staff were riding the train as well. The only respite there was that it was well beneath Lady Burnardor to so much as set foot in the rear portions of the train, and her staff were perfectly nice people. My door had been fixed as well, allowing me to keep the door nice and shut all day. 

The train continued north for another day or so, the temperate forests slowly changing, growing darker and thicker, oaks replaced by tall pine trees. We stopped at around noon in a smallish city called Krassach, nestled in a small river valley in the foothills of the Urcos plateau. We stopped there for lunch, which was when I found out that Krassach was the end of the line; we would be walking the rest of the way. 

This was a surprise to me, but it was also not a surprise. After all, there was no way train tracks could extend all the way into the mountains. So we spent most of the rest of that day unpacking everything that we had packed onto the train five days earlier, loading it into a combination of heavy backpacks and draft animals, mostly mules and donkeys, with a few huge beetle-like creatures called bessels. Also coming along with us, on top of the hundred or so people, was a small scouting zeppelin, crewed by two women who were much braver than me, designed to use the altitude advantage to keep a watch for ghoul bands, bad weather, collapsed segments of path, and other bad things. 

We stayed another night in Krassach, some women getting drunk, spreading out across the small vacation town. Some of the soldiers, and Sir Margaret, got utterly wasted in preparation for the challenges ahead. Most of the more refined individuals remained inside, eating and drinking and listening to performers and having refined conversation. Personally, I struck a balance point, finding a nice place outdoors to eat hot sausages, look up at the brilliant sky, and wonder what the hell I was doing here.

The next morning, wrapped up in a thick cloak and with the straps of a backpack digging into my shoulders, Anna and Unity behind me and a mule in front of me, we set off into the mountains. The huge grey stone mountains of the Urcos plateau loomed over us like ancient guardians standing before a colossal gate, and I could feel unseen eyes watching my back.

SaffronDragon

Thank you all so much for reading the chapter, and I hope you all enjoyed it! Remember to favorite, leave comments, leave a rating or a review if you haven’t already, because those are the things that motivate me to keep writing more and keep writing well! If you want to support the author, read several chapters ahead in all of my stories, as well as gain access to a discord community where you can speak to me personally and read several exclusive short stories, subscribe to my Patreon at patreon.com/saffrondragon