Dear readers, a cast of characters for this episodic may be found in my bio. Please feel free to ask questions if my descriptions are confusing. Your comments, questions, and reviews would help me improve my storytelling craft.
Previously:
A spirit tries to pull Zeigh into the ether. The only witness to Karma's burial was a bluebird, the familiar of a witch who likes to watch but not get involved. Karma asks questions that anger Ileana.
Karma has been buried for 3 days and 22 minutes
0 - 0 - 3 - 00:22 - Aife
"Why do we have to keep going to see these witchy people?" Zeigh asked as Aife led her down a dusty, windblown street.
"I'm at a dead end with physical evidence at the moment," Aife explained. "Searching randomly for more would be wasting time right now. So, for now we must try as many witches, mediums, and oracles as we can. Sometimes a pattern can be discerned from their collective skills."
Together, they continued through the market where women on leashes, scantily clad despite the cool temperatures, tempted shoppers with food and other goods, all the while working hard to ignore the woman in gray and her hooded castle slave companion.
The exited the square and turned down an alley, not quite so crowded where they passed a man pasting a poster on the wall:
Notice: Be Kind to Our Visitors from the West. It's the law! Unsanctioned interactions with the Metal Nomads will be punishable by death - By decree of the Queen.
Upon reading the sign Zeigh stepped up her pace to catch up with Aife who always seemed to be walking as fast as she could. Zeigh pressed the handle of her leash into Aife's hand. Aife turned to look at her, sighing. "Really?"
"Please," Zeigh begged.
Aife let out a dramatic breath.
They had just finished visiting a medium who specialized (supposedly) in possessing the bodies of the individuals being sought after as an observer. She claimed to have found Karma's soul and linked up to it, but when Aife asked about Karma's surroundings, the medium could provide no details at all.
"Just nothing," she had said. "No sounds. No sights... I feel her... She's alive... But, there is nothing."
As they walked away, Aife said, "Well, that was useless..."
"I told you she is still alive," Zeigh countered.
Now, Aife led Zeigh up to a small cottage and she knocked on the door. "This is where Bethesda lives. She specializes (it is said) in seeing things that have happened in the past."
Zeigh was rambling again: "...and people say that thirteen is an unlucky number, but once I saw a thirteen fall from the star-filled sky like a gift from the goddesses, so it can't be all that unlucky, can it? At least, I think that it was a thirteen. I saw it through a ventilation grill on the back side of the castle which looks out towards the western wastelands and I'd been crawling through the venting system for over a week by that time, cleaning out dead rat carcasses. It might have been a B, because have you ever noticed that if you smoosh the number thirteen together the one and the three merge to look like the capital letter B. So, maybe I was imagining the gap and it wasn't a thirteen. But, you know, with the similarities between B's and thirteens, it has to make you wonder if B's are bad luck too. It's a good thing that your name is Aife and doesn't have any B's in it. Mine doesn't either but B and Zeigh do rhyme, so there's that..."
"Come on in. Bring your slave girl with you," Bethesda said.
"She's not my slave girl," Aife said as she stepped into the cottage. It was not very big. They walked from the foyer into a room that served as both the kitchen and dining room. Besides cooking implements and glassware, there was one wall dominated by a large collection of crudely shaped wax dolls with various bits of junk randomly embedded in them.
Aife noticed that the window was open and a plate of bird seed lay on the window sill.
"Oh, cool! Look at the dolls, Mistress!" Zeigh said.
"Mmm-hmm," Aife sighed.
"These dolls are imbued with magic," Bethesda said to Zeigh. "I make them. Here, do you want see one up close?" Bethesda, pulled a featureless white human shaped mass from a lower cabinet and handed it to Zeigh.
"Hmm... Waxy... I never had any dolls, but once I found a piece of chain. It was heavy and about six links long. It had been used to hold handcuffs to the back of Prisha's slave collar, but they cut it off when they retired her. Anyways, I sort of slipped off with it and kept it in my cage. I called her Aroha and she slept with me for years. But then some of the other girls found out about it and as a joke decided to make me shove it up my..."
"Zeigh!" Aife said. "We don't want to take up all of Ms. Bethesda's precious time."
Zeigh tensed up for a second, but continued on, frowning. "Oh, well, it was quite difficult to retrieve my pet chain and after my visit to the infirmary, I never saw Aroha again..."
"Well, that's the saddest story I've heard all week," Bethesda said with a wheezing laugh that slowly transitioned to a hacking cough. After a bit of a recovery she pointed at the kitchen table and said, "Let's sit down. Take off your backpack, Miss Aife, and relax."
Aife sat down on a wood-frame wicker seat chair and dropped her backpack on the floor next to her while Bethesda lowered herself into her own tired seat. Zeigh sat on the floor next to Aife.
"It's OK for your slave to sit at my table, Miss Aife," Bethesda said with a smile.
"She's not my slave," Aife said. But before she could speak again, Zeigh jumped in.
"It's bad for your health to sit in chairs. All kinds of dangerous things could happen. You wouldn't believe the number of people who have died while sitting in or falling from chairs."
"I've found that it's best to not to... Zeigh doesn't like to sit in chairs. So, if it is OK, she'll just sit on the floor." Aife said, tensing up her back a bit. "Zeigh! Please don't lick the doll! I don't think that Ms. Bethesda wants your slobber all over it."
"Oh, that's fine," Bethesda said. "Yes. Let me put the doll away." Bethesda held out a bag and Zeigh dropped the doll in.
"Yes. OK. And what we would really like to do is to find out if you have any insight to a slave woman who disappeared about three days ago. She was one of the Princess' slaves. She..."
"Is," Zeigh said from under the table. "She IS one of the Princess' slaves. You said 'was'."
"She WAS supposed to have departed with the Princess to Joppa," Aife continued. "Her name is Slave Karma."
"Oh! I know!" Zeigh shouted. "Her name is Karma, which starts with a K, which is sort of like a B, but, you know, less... So, it's even more unlucky! When you break off the top and bottom parts of a B is looks a lot like a K... No wonder Karma has been having such bad luck..."
Aife looked wearily at Bethesda and held up a finger. "One moment." Then she slipped out of the chair and knelt next to Zeigh.
"Zeigh!" Aife said.
"I'm sorry, but I just thought that this should be noted in case it is important. And, I'm sorry Miss Bethesda, but your name starts with a B..."
"Zeigh!" Aife said again.
She slipped her right hand up and placed it firmly over Zeigh's mouth. Even still, Aife could hear Zeigh mumbling under her palm.
"You need to calm down, OK? We're here to find out about Karma... Karma... Shh..."
She lifted her hand away for a second.
"... amenable to using a gag. That's what worked mmm..."
"Shh. Zeigh. It's OK. It's not your fault. I don't have any gags. Shh..." Aife stroked Zeigh's hair, pulling disheveled locks and gently tucking them behind her ear. "We've been busy these past couple of days. It's stressful. After this, we'll go home. You can take a nap in your box. I'll let you eat another one of my candles and I won't yell at you this time. I promise. Shh."
Slowly Zeigh seemed to relax, she stopped mumbling, and Aife slowly removed her hand. "We're OK now?"
Zeigh shook her head, her eyes wide open staring at Aife, her mouth pinched tightly shut as if more words were threatening to pour from it.
Aife climbed back up into her chair. Bethesda was sitting patiently with her hands folded on the table. "Alright..." Aife said. "I think that we are good now."
"Let me explain what I can do for you," Bethesda started after clearing the phlegm from her throat. "I can see events that happened in the past. The events almost feel as though I am looking back into my own memories, so sometimes the wording may seem a little strange as I try to interpret the images that flit through my brain. Now, I get a little nervous, if people are staring at me, so I'd like for you to close your eyes and concentrate on Karma..."
Bethesda closed her eyes and after a moment opened them to check and see if Aife had her eyes closed as well. She ducked under the table and found Zeigh with her eyes closed so tightly that her forehead was creased with lines. She had both hands pressed tightly over her mouth. Bethesda glanced at Aife's backpack, trying to determine if she could easily stick a hand inside.
"Yes... Yes! I think I see the slave woman you are referring to. Three days ago, I believe. She is covered in gold... er... feathers or something. A man is plucking the feathers from her. There are multiple men... Two faces... The slave girl is screaming like she is hungry. One man is bent over her, but he's not regurgitating food into her mouth so she keeps screaming. He's lying on top of her, pressing her into an egg. A big egg. The other face is pulling vines from a tree it has constructed. The vine is used to close the egg back together. The last piece of shell is heavy. Now they are lowering her egg into the ground. Sometimes my memories move backwards, but not this time I don't think. They are going to let her incubate under the sand or something. They are throwing sand down on her egg. She's deep underground now. The men faces are packing all their sticks on the back of a round legged beast. It's puffing smoke. Rolling away. They are in the desert. I see the city in the distance..."
Bethesda stopped talking for a bit. "That's all I see."
