Chapter Sixteen: Sidoade Island

The city of St. Arbalest was a city of some three million souls occupying some sixty square kilometers of prime river delta. By all accounts, it should have long since sunk into the brine and muck of the encroaching sea - but, obviously, it hadn't. Powerful magics that only the most elite mages could grasp undergirded the city, triangulated between the House of Parliament in the east, the Grand Palace in the south, and the Old Basilica to the east of the Old City. Should one of those fail, the city would begin to subside within years, unless the city's many mages managed to recapitulate the ancient technique. Even by the standards of the Old World, St. Arbalest was a large, dense, and prosperous city - though many of the truly prosperous chose not to spend much time in her crowded streets or along the stinking stretch of the Bastian River.

Eighty kilometers northwest of the city and opposite the east-flowing plume of the city's stinking efflux was Sidoade Island, an islet of rolling hills and genteel woodland twice as large as the city itself, area-wise, but far less populated. In fact, about the only people who made their permanent residence upon the island were the twenty thousand or so servants, caretakers, and petty merchants who maintained the retreats and vacation estates of St. Arbalest's elite. Beyond the small port village of Juzulali - 'little sister' in Unilog - there were no public ports nor private housing for the less well-heeled on the island…

There was however, considerable diversity among the island's wealthy, part-time residents, from the lords of Parliament to the kingpins of the Underworld and everything in between. You weren't living well in St. Arbalest if you didn't have some small claim upon Sidoade Island. Before that day, though, Ezra had scarcely heard of the place.

+++++Ezra+++++

Ezra supposed it was better to be on the ferry than to be pursued by three angry and dangerous parties through the streets of Portside. Unfortunately, it wasn't all that much better, because there was no mystery as to where the ferry was going: every hour, on the hour it crossed the channel between Portside and the Old City, churning over two kilometers of channel in fifteen minutes.

From their spot on the deck of the ferry, he could see Planakton's lieutenant, Berhu, piloting a commandeered fishing vessel toward them - she was slowly gaining but, if she reached the ferry before they made port on the other side, Ezra wasn't sure how she'd climb up the side. Maybe she could magically vault up that, too.

They'd lost Gladion's men when they broke into an outright brawl with Fenrik's goons but, if they managed to stop fighting, they could send an aerogram to Gladion. It would probably reach him before they got ashore and, if it didn't, it wouldn't be long after. No, they'd only delayed the inevitable.

"Looks like you kids are in a stew," one of the passengers said. People didn't eat pickles much in St. Arbalest, so that was what people said when you were in a complicated situation: you're in a stew.

"Yes, we're in a stew," Ezra sighed.

"Hmm… don't see that every day." The kao-etema woman pointed a clawed hand skyward… despite her poor vision, the approaching airship was pretty unmistakable.

After a while in St. Arbalest, you grew used to the airships - there were always a dozen or so in the sky, more on busy days, circling back and forth between the city's districts or coming in or floating out afar. The rich and in-a-hurry took them for transportation, and valuables and perishables were often transported in their cargo holds. They could move pretty quickly but, most of the time, they just hung there in the sky, bringing people or cargo up and down via carriage-sized cable cars. They sat there, ruddy or tan, block-long cylinders of gases and alchemical fumes tapered at either end like great, flying cigars. At some point, you stopped noticing them… but when they were approaching your ferry at a particularly low altitude, the alchemical engines droning their vibrato whine, they were hard to miss.

"Do you think they're here for us?" Rill asked.

Ezra figured it was a good bet. Airships didn't often approach passenger ferries for fun. What could he even do? In the middle of the bay, on a ferry, with a monster of an airship moving to intercept, he didn't have many options… in fact, as far as he could tell, he had exactly three:

1) Give up then and there.

2) Fight whoever was piloting the airship and then give up after his inevitable defeat.

3) Jump in the water and see what happens.

He was a decent swimmer… he figured he might as well try option three. He climbed the ferry's railing, steeled himself to jump into the murky, smelly waters of the bay, and was promptly dragged back to the deck. By Rill.

"What the hell…"

She pointed. Two dorthek wearing glide suits and bulky goggles had just landed on the deck, followed by two more, accompanied by long draglines of rope still attached to the great airship now roaring overhead. Rill handed him a piece of paper from one of their visitors… a neatly-calligraphed invitation.

Mr. Ezra Wormwood & Ms. Rill Ifrit,

You are cordially invited to the estate of Msr. Teak at his retreat on Sidoade Island. Your attendance is requested but not required. Should you decline, I am told that Mr. Stomen Blose has men waiting at the Old City Quay.

Greenest Regards,

Mr. Losha Dryad,

Steward, Teak Estate

"We accept," Rill said. Ezra just nodded.

+++++Ezra+++++

Losha Dryad was a human infernic in Mr. Teak's service, but Ezra was willing to bet he didn't have a thrall-plug. He had the bearing of a man who was used to bossing other people around, his affect flat when speaking with the dortheks, kao-etema, and even humans of the flight crew, only pitching upward when it was clear he was expecting a particular answer. And, always, they were quick and deferential toward the man. He had lime-green eyes and a patrician face worn by time - he looked middle age, but with infernics, it could be hard to tell since they aged like human mages of equivalent elevation.

"Will you have some wine?" he asked them.

"Yes, thanks," Ezra said.

A human attendant poured him a glass, and he took in the aroma before taking a sip. With his nose, he probably could have told you what hill the grapes grew on and whose feet stomped them if he'd had a little more experience with enology. No time like the present to start… and… the wine was awful. Its flavor was absolutely overwhelming… Ezra fought the urge to vomit. This was, he realized, the first time he'd ever drunk wine in this body. There simply hadn't been many opportunities. With a deep breath and a pool of focus, he tamped down his sense of taste and… it was a bit tart, a bit fruity, but not too bad.

Rill, who had read a pamphlet on wine tasting (she read pretty much anything she got her hands on), was busily swishing the stuff around and searching for a spittoon to deposit it in. Ezra mimed swallowing and, after a moment, Rill shrugged and swallowed the stuff like a Philistine. She seemed to think it was pretty decent also. She finished flipping through the pamphlet she'd found on her seat and handed it to him: The Green Hills of Sidoade Island…

The Green Hills Resort of Sidoade Island is a rustic expanse of Sidoade Island featuring its own local winery, a resort spa, beachside bungalows, and an award-winning restaurant hosted by Chef Suzt-Peace Annolyane. Come enjoy the forested hills, with over ten kilometers of nature and riding trails, the shoal beach with its subtropical reef, and lover's cove, a very special…

"Is this where we're going?" Rill asked.

Losha chuckled. "Mr. Teak owns a stake in the resort but, no, we'll be going to his private lodge. Is this your first time flying?"

"This is my first time over the water ever!" Rill enthused, pressing her face against the glass to watch the dying sunset over the western horizon.

"My first time aboard one of these," Ezra said.

They were in the first-class cabin of the airship, a lounge about ten meters by six meters, spanning the whole width of the first deck, with russet-red and royal blue lounge chairs spread out. Ezra was a bit surprised to discover they weren't the only passengers, either - at least five other couples lounged about the plush digs, apparently unconcerned that their ship had just run down a harbor ferry and picked up a few stragglers. He peered out the deckside window, watching the cherry-red glow of sunset on the horizon.

"Does Mr. Teak own this airship?" Ezra asked.

Losia chuckled again… it was the hoarse chuckle of a man who smoked too much, though some people just had voices like that. "Mr. Teak's personal airship is much smaller than this one. But it was nearby and we called in a favor. Many people owe us favors…"

"Us?" Rill asked.

"Mr. Teak and myself… as his steward, the interests of his estate are my interests, as well. As a scriben, Mr. Teak doesn't have what you might call family, so… I suppose his staff take on some of that duty. I have no family here, either - much like yourselves, I am a stranger to Medias, but the place has grown on me, and how could it not?" He motioned for a tiny glass of subeche, which meant 'courage' in Unilog and, Ezra gathered, was a lot like absinthe.

They sat there in the cabin for a bit. From the outside, the airship had been amazingly noisy, but from the inside all Ezra could hear was the low hum of the alchemical engines pulsing their vibrations through the frame. They ocean was black below them, passing by at just over sixty kilometers per hour. Ezra reached out and Rill grasped his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"It strikes me that Mr. Teak probably is not calling upon us for our charming personalities," she said, and added: "Though I am certain that was a factor."

"No doubt," Losha said. "Though, obviously, your unusual origins have interested us… I like to think we'd have found you eventually, even if the bumbling of two foolish men had never brought the whole city's eyes upon you. But these are matters we can discuss after you're rested - the second half of your day was a busy one."

+++++Ezra+++++

It was less than an hour and a half from the bay ferry to the airfield along the southern tip of Sidoade Island. Unlike an airport, there were no runways, since airships took off vertically. It was merely a large, open plaza with a trio of massive hangars at one end and a great, dark expanse of unlit night beyond that. As they debarked, carriages lined along the nearby road to transport the passengers to their destinations - mostly tradesmen and estate workers headed for Juzulali after time visiting their friends and family in the city, but a few wealthy vacationers headed to their holiday homes. And, of course, the Ezra, Rill, and Losha, who were neither of those, though the dryad might well have been the most important person on the airship.

Ezra didn't know much about Mr. Teak, but what little he knew didn't put him at ease. The man (scriben usually assigned themselves male pronouns) was some sort of business magnate, not the wealthiest man in the city but certainly in the top twenty. And, more importantly for Rill and himself, he had deep roots in the city's underworld because he dabbled in 'body work' - the business of procuring 'unoccupied' bodies for the purpose of summoning infernics. At least that’s what Doc Tichaw back at Mochine-wei Clinic had told them, and Ezra had no reason to doubt the man.

Ezra didn't have a fundamental problem with using braindead people to house new lives. However, body work often involved procuring bodies that weren't currently unoccupied and making them so, which was so deeply unethical that Ezra had to wonder at the basic humanity of whoever partook of it… but, of course, Mr. Teak was not a human. Scriben had notoriously inscrutable psyches. Furthermore, such bodies were generally used to capture demons (or whatever Ezra was) unaware and forcibly incorporate them into the world of Medias as slaves. The only rare exception was when an infernic's body was dying, at which point, the soul could be transferred to another body if you timed things just right. In fact, a free infernic had a lot more reason to support the body work industry than a scriben magnate…

"Do you run Mr. Teak's body work operations?" Ezra asked.

Lusha regarded him with his oddly-green eyes - a green so intense that it implied power well beyond the average dryad, the nature- and plant-powered infernics that had once been forest spirits. "We'll talk about that tomorrow," he said.

From the airfield, they drove for about fifteen minutes, through meandering roads along a ridge of hills. Aside from their coach, the only lights were the houselights of fortress-like mansions looming above the hills, their pale arrays lights gleaming like the grilled visages of gladiator's helmets. Their final destination was Mr. Teak's 'retreat', which resembled a red brick castle, its ivied front façade illuminated by ground lights.

The coachman let them out at the front of the mansion and proceeded off to the garage. The three of them ascended the steps, passing under the great arabesque arch of the entryway into Mr. Teak's retreat. Most great houses had grand entrances like this one meant for guests and official reception, while the servantry was required to enter through any number of secondary entrances. Lusha Dryad, though, walked right through the front, liveried human and kao-etema servants scurrying up to meet him at the door.

"Is the guest room prepared?"

"Yes, Mr. Dryad," a kao-etema said, her beady eyes failing to meet his green gaze.

"Good. Please see our guests to them… I assume one bed will suffice?"

"One is plenty," Ezra said.

Lusha nodded curtly. "That's excellent. In that case, I'll leave you to it - we'll breakfast with Mr. Teak at eight o'clock tomorrow, so I'll have the staff wake you at seven to see to your various ablutions." He turned to one of the human servants, one in the fancier livery of the mid-servantry. "Honzil, I'd like to talk about the budgeting and timeline for the east lawn renovations, so please meet me in my business chamber in fifteen minutes." Then, before strolling off, he glanced back to Ezra and Rill. "Good evening."

They followed after the maid and into their chambers, through a soaring atrium with a blue sky painted on the ceiling and little brass and marble crenellations along the upper balcony, down a long hallway whose vaulted ceiling reminded Ezra of a cathedral roof, and into a small wing with rustic tan and brown aesthetics, apparently made to look like the interior of a very snooty rustic cottage, right down to lighting crystals and a hearth cleverly designed to produce something like flickering firelight. The maid opened the door, bustled across the room, drew in the sash, and ignited the lighting crystals in a flurry of hand motions - far more skill than possessed by a common person. Before she could leave, Ezra pulled her aside, the woman meeting his gaze with her own beady eyes - ruddy red instead of the pale pink or black of typical kao-etema eyes… and neither did she wear any spectacles.

"Tell me," Ezra said… "is everybody here an infernic?"

The woman's expression scrunched up, her lips drawing up over big teeth meant for gnawing. "No, sir!" she said eventually. "Master Teak is scriben, of course!"

"Master Teak?" Rill repeated.

"Master of the house," she clarified. With a short-clawed finger, she tapped at her chest just about where a thrall-plug would be kept. "We're all free to leave… but the world is not kind to us. You know this, miss."

Rill nodded. "I do. Thank you for showing us to our room."

It was a large room and very nice, if you went for a cottage aesthetic with lots of green silk for the bedsheets, draperies, and coverlets. The gently-ticking mechanical clock in the corner read ten o'clock, but Ezra was already tired and seven o'clock in the morning was a bit earlier than he was used to waking up, though not by all that much.

For a moment, he just watched Rill undressing, svelte muscles and supple skin, her hair midnight-black in the room's soft light… she'd probably want to get the dye out at the earliest opportunity. It seemed that they didn't have to hide who they were in Mr. Teak's house, for however long they would be staying there. Were they guests, prisoners, or something else? Completely nude, Rill paced over to the oak dresser, picking through the items there before holding a little lacy nightdress in deep maroon to her body. With a coy grin, she glanced to Ezra for his approval, and he moved in, her body warm against his. He ran his fingers across the lace of the thing, the little ridges of the fabric feeling like braille beneath his fingertips.

"It's not much to wear…" he said.

She shrugged. "Or I can sleep in the nude." Rill still thought it was amusing that anybody even cared about nudity - and the humans of St. Arbalest definitely cared about nudity.

"If you sleep nude, then I sleep nude," he stated, not entirely unhappy at the prospect.

She handed him the dress and raised her arms, shooting him an expectant look. "Well… we need at least some sleep."

With the slightest pang of disappointment, he slid the dress over her body.

After Ezra picked out some nightwear for himself - a pair of dark blue silken pants that might have been intended for men - he joined Rill in bed, his breath drawing in as she wiggled back into him, her body warm and her hair somehow smelling pleasant, vaguely of licorice and vanilla, despite the interesting day they'd had. Ezra couldn't deny that he was aroused… it was practically impossible not to be aroused during intimate contact with Rill… but he was also deeply tired. Between Rill's warmth and the fact that he was in the most comfortable bed he'd been in throughout his entire stay in Medias to date, it was easy to drift off. He slept and he dreamed of sweet nothings, of himself and Rill in a field of wildflowers, the summer sun golden and baking above them, of her touch upon his arm, of her smell and her taste when she kissed him, and…