The Infinity Elixir, Chapter 86
The Infinity Elixir || Table of Contents & Details
86.
Jeb had watched the car carrying the two princess turn at the bend in the road and disappear between weeping birches that flowed in the windy wake. He sighed, a mixture of hope and tragedy and nerves, before betaking himself to a particular study at a particular corner of the palace. As he’d hoped, or as he’d secretly despaired, Ahamo promptly responded to the rapping.
But what Jeb hadn’t counted on was Ahamo’s subtle smile. He knew why Jeb had come.
*
With a frown and wrinkled brow, Corvina Le Croix de Fer Feyzell rose from the microscope lenses, at once putting her fists to the outward curve of her hips. But it was her sigh, really, and that wistful, regretful look that she tossed out the window, that brought the hair along Glitch's forearms into a rise.
"Oh, great, what?"
"This isn't going to work."
"A little early to be giving up entirely, isn't it?"
"Not the elixir, Glitch."
He still paused stupidly whenever she used that name. While he'd fought for her to call him that, he couldn't help but cringe a bit. What would his father have sounded like, calling his son Glitch? The reveries dispersed as she shuffled from the studious desk with ample light, to the open door that showed an ample prospect of the distillery grounds.
"The what, then?" he goaded.
She rotated around to lean against the doorway. "Testing the contraption on ordinary flora isn't really going to work."
"Nothing's wrong with Omyo's old garden roses," insisted Glitch, measuring again the length of hose needed for the miniature distiller. Measure twice, cut once, as he'd been taught.
"Nothing's wrong with them, except that they're not magical. If we're supposed to extract the magic from the flowers in order to make this elixir, then how can we expect to be right when we're testing non-magical plants?"
"Well, we can't use the mornris kes temarren-" But, by the stars, she had a point.
"No, no, we can't use the flowers."
She was so calm about it all, as if she'd done this sort of thing her whole life. Glitch felt a pressure of tears against the back of his eyes, something he'd been enduring all day. The thought of his mother alone for the last fifteen annuals, in that backwater lagoon, surrounded by jars and tubes and symbols. It seemed a tragedy. A waste. He rubbed his forehead tiredly.
"What do you think we should do? Ask around, see if someone has magical-"
He shut up. He shut up so fast that his jaw clamped shut.
"Glitch?" Corvina, from the things she'd heard-from Scarlett, from Wyatt, from Glitch himself-thought he might be falling into one of his namesake instances. She held his shoulder, informed that a physical touch might help him. As soon as her fingers curved-
"Oh, crackers! Oh holy, sainted, halo-wearing crackers! Magical-" he slapped himself in the forehead now, "magical flowers! Bless our socks, Mum! I should've thought of it sooner!"
Glitch sprinted from the workshop, coattails flapping, and Corvina, a bit dazedly, followed.
*
The Land of Went encompassed a large part of eastern Euclid. DG and Az made good time reaching it. They were on narrow roads that had not been travelled in a good long while, while both of them pined for horses, who could go where motors couldn't, but DG pressed the stout old vehicle on. It was a reliable, tough thing; she tried explaining this to Azkadellia, who kept grabbing the "Oh Shit" handle above her head every time DG hit a hole awkwardly after trying to avoid it, or would simply rev the engine enough to speed them through a creek that just happened to be in the way.
Azkadellia was more than glad when DG threw the roadster into park and got out. She waved away her sister's opportunities to explain, and climbed to the top of a bare little knoll. DG, in her "hunting garb", dungarees, a blouse, and her bomber worn the day she came back home, stood upon the hilltop wanting to listen to the silence. When Azkadellia climbed the hill and met her, the first thing she did was ask what in the world they were doing.
"Watching the world go by," DG answered, and promptly sat down, lotus-style, and closed her eyes. "Sit, Az. Sit and listen."
Frustrated, Azkadellia did as instructed, wondering idly if there wasn't some joke in the midst of this. She mimicked DG's posture, complete with closing eyes. She shook her shoulders a bit in an effort to relax. "What am I listening to?"
"The movement of the world. Magic is a light, right?"
"Sort of."
"Yes or no?"
"Yes. But you can't hear light."
"No. You can't. But you can feel it. It's warm, and you can feel it."
Azkadellia felt relaxed then, truly and undeniably. Before they dived too deeply into the mystical plain of magic's existence, she wanted to say one thing. "Deege, whenever I end up being queen, will you be my advisor?"
Her calmness ran into a sudden hiccup. She flung open her lids. "Am I allowed?"
"I don't see why not."
"Can I think about it?"
"All you'd like. It won't be for a long, long time yet. Now, back to feeling the light."
"Right." DG successfully pushed the distraction away. She poked around in the essence of the world, searching, and felt Azkadellia doing the same.
Light, light, where are you?
The chant began inside their heads.
*
In the palace kitchens, Fitzhugh had the place to himself in those dull afternoon hours. The kids had gone off to study, and he'd brought them an assortment of cookies and beverages, and he'd noticed Thisbe's downhearted appearance with a pang. The cooks were in their rooms, with their feet up, doing whatever it was they did in their scant free time. He had an assortment of bowls and dry ingredients already on the countertop. Pulling out of the icebox for eggs, Fitzhugh was pleased to see Raw, yawning, shuffle himself inside.
"I thought you'd gone with Mr. Granger?" asked Fitzhugh, however delighted he was to see Raw, it was still-unusual to see Raw. "Granted, of course, that I was not particularly present when Mr. Granger padded off into lands unseen. Janet found what she thought was a rat in the scullery bin, and, well, it wasn't a rat, but-" His sentence structure flunked altogether when Raw held a hand to the dent in his back.
"What are you making?"
"Cake."
Without asking if assistance was required, Raw carefully measured cake flour, finely-ground sugar, and cut the shortening.
"I thought a spice cake would cheer Thisbe up," continued Fitzhugh. "Tamus left this morning, you know, and she's bent about it. And then there's Essara…" Joshua received a sympathetic pat on his arm. Essara had lived in the Finaqua palace for nearly two annuals. She'd been a part of the staff as well as a part of the family. "I see," he said to Raw, once recovered, leaving no trace of his upset but sniffles, "you came down here to do the same thing. Make a cake to cheer up our dearest girl. Well-best get on with it then."
*
Shannon stood by the water, there, in the cold wind, with nothing but a flimsy old shawl. Daisy didn't like it, but provocations were meek compared to the temper of a mystic.
"Do come inside, Shannon," Daisy insisted, tugging once at Shannon's elbow, to no avail. "Look here, you old stubborn coot," at least this change in temper was enough to get Shannon's faulty attention, "I love you and I don't want you standing out here in the frigid air, just waiting to catch a cold or pneumonia and up and die on me before you're supposed to! Now come inside!"
Daisy pulled until they were the length of arms apart. The resistance from Shannon had altered, as the look had upon her face.
"I know we're not really needed here now," said Shannon, slowly and quietly. "I know you want us to go home."
"I never said-"
"You don't have to, angel."
Daisy pouted, folded her arms, and glared. "Then why are we here? You don't care a hoot and holler for the queen, never did, and Corvina's up in Gallentree playing scientist. Why, Shannon?" She pulled her eyebrows up, taunting, fixing to misbehave against a mistress that was her world.
"Because the world is shifting, and I can feel it. A great cavern is opening."
Hearing this, Daisy squinted into the same horizon that captivated Shannon, yet saw nothing, not a glimpse of the infinite that this mystic at her side not only saw, in vivid spectrums, but also felt.
"It isn't there."
Shannon's breath was faraway and raspy.
"It isn't there. But it's higher than you think. So much higher."
Daisy blinked the pain and confusion away. These insights, what did they mean? Where did they belong? "Shannon… Come inside, dearest. Please?" Daisy held out her hand.
Eventually, groping fingers found the warmth.
"There it is," Shannon murmured. "Home lights burn brightest and hottest."
Daisy happened to look up then, just as a light was switched on in the Queen's room.
*
"Would you turn the light on? I can hardly see."
Andy gladly reached over to turn the lamp to its highest setting. And, nestling deeper into the cushions, his shins across Marius's knees, hiked the odd Quairine book higher, and picked up where his daydreams had led him astray. Marius, too, seemed engrossed in DG's notes. Jeb, the soul who'd asked him to ignite the lamp, was stuck reading the "Ye Book of Mystery", as they'd jokingly called it, the one that Zero had brought for DG. Jeb's intensity was enormous, even for reading a book he couldn't really understand. But, between the three of them, Jeb knew the most Quairine, having studied it when he was a boy, a requisite for all the Cain brood, though he was no expert; meanwhile, Marius was asking him to cross-reference certain points in DG's notes. The whole relay was executed with great monotony.
Andy was having a difficult time being drawn into his choice of reading material. It wasn't from lack of interest-but that, in a way, the book made his spine tingle. "This thing's like reading something from a past life, you know?"
The broken silence issued looks from Jeb, rubbing his stiff neck, and Marius, peering at him with dark, emotionally controlled eyes.
Andy sunk deeper into the cushions. "Well, sort of…"
It seemed to dawn on Jeb then that someone was missing. "Where's Thisbe?"
"She left about an hour ago," Andy informed. The event had been missed by Marius as well. They thought nothing more of it.
"Check page twenty-six again, would you?" Marius asked Jeb.
Jeb flipped through the pages. "Page twenty-six. Got it."
Andy hoisted the book to cover his eyes from his study mates, while Marius spoke gibberish (Quairine), and Jeb returned it, drawing his finger underneath sentences to find the point of reference.
Then, for a while, it was silence. Andy flipped through the pages, and, without knowing why, a certain line caught his attention. "Wait. What was it you just said? Something on page twenty-six?"
Jeb read the line. An excited Andy twisted the Quairine book around, pointing to the same line.
"Cross-referencing is a marvelous thing," said Andy.
Jeb, however, looked concerned, and when he outgrew that, it changed to subtle vexation. "Wait, wait, wait… This is suggesting… This is…"
Marius read it, reread it, and met Jeb's alerted gaze. "This is not good." He all but tossed the book back to Jeb, rising from the seat. "I'll get you a car. Andy, tell him what we found out while visiting the Northern Legion."
Andy regarded his spouse with uncertainty.
"Tell him. He needs to know."
Marius left, and Andy was alone with his memory of meeting Ollin im de Graith. He thought of the Damaire. He thought of all the amazing things he'd seen that night, and he thought of Tamus's words, when handing him the beads.
"One for valo, and one for emyhaë."
He used the same solemnity that Tamus had, pulling the beads from his neck to feel their coldness at his chin. His strange eyes, startlingly youthful but emblazoned with the fiery touch of death, lifted Jeb's despair but cultivated his determination.
"Ra Nish Mrai," Andy started, wrinkling his nose and bringing comedy into his look, "don't call him that, unless you want your heart cut out of you where you stand."
"I'll remember that," said Jeb, nodding once and swallowing twice.
Continue
86.
Jeb had watched the car carrying the two princess turn at the bend in the road and disappear between weeping birches that flowed in the windy wake. He sighed, a mixture of hope and tragedy and nerves, before betaking himself to a particular study at a particular corner of the palace. As he’d hoped, or as he’d secretly despaired, Ahamo promptly responded to the rapping.
But what Jeb hadn’t counted on was Ahamo’s subtle smile. He knew why Jeb had come.
*
With a frown and wrinkled brow, Corvina Le Croix de Fer Feyzell rose from the microscope lenses, at once putting her fists to the outward curve of her hips. But it was her sigh, really, and that wistful, regretful look that she tossed out the window, that brought the hair along Glitch's forearms into a rise.
"Oh, great, what?"
"This isn't going to work."
"A little early to be giving up entirely, isn't it?"
"Not the elixir, Glitch."
He still paused stupidly whenever she used that name. While he'd fought for her to call him that, he couldn't help but cringe a bit. What would his father have sounded like, calling his son Glitch? The reveries dispersed as she shuffled from the studious desk with ample light, to the open door that showed an ample prospect of the distillery grounds.
"The what, then?" he goaded.
She rotated around to lean against the doorway. "Testing the contraption on ordinary flora isn't really going to work."
"Nothing's wrong with Omyo's old garden roses," insisted Glitch, measuring again the length of hose needed for the miniature distiller. Measure twice, cut once, as he'd been taught.
"Nothing's wrong with them, except that they're not magical. If we're supposed to extract the magic from the flowers in order to make this elixir, then how can we expect to be right when we're testing non-magical plants?"
"Well, we can't use the mornris kes temarren-" But, by the stars, she had a point.
"No, no, we can't use the flowers."
She was so calm about it all, as if she'd done this sort of thing her whole life. Glitch felt a pressure of tears against the back of his eyes, something he'd been enduring all day. The thought of his mother alone for the last fifteen annuals, in that backwater lagoon, surrounded by jars and tubes and symbols. It seemed a tragedy. A waste. He rubbed his forehead tiredly.
"What do you think we should do? Ask around, see if someone has magical-"
He shut up. He shut up so fast that his jaw clamped shut.
"Glitch?" Corvina, from the things she'd heard-from Scarlett, from Wyatt, from Glitch himself-thought he might be falling into one of his namesake instances. She held his shoulder, informed that a physical touch might help him. As soon as her fingers curved-
"Oh, crackers! Oh holy, sainted, halo-wearing crackers! Magical-" he slapped himself in the forehead now, "magical flowers! Bless our socks, Mum! I should've thought of it sooner!"
Glitch sprinted from the workshop, coattails flapping, and Corvina, a bit dazedly, followed.
*
The Land of Went encompassed a large part of eastern Euclid. DG and Az made good time reaching it. They were on narrow roads that had not been travelled in a good long while, while both of them pined for horses, who could go where motors couldn't, but DG pressed the stout old vehicle on. It was a reliable, tough thing; she tried explaining this to Azkadellia, who kept grabbing the "Oh Shit" handle above her head every time DG hit a hole awkwardly after trying to avoid it, or would simply rev the engine enough to speed them through a creek that just happened to be in the way.
Azkadellia was more than glad when DG threw the roadster into park and got out. She waved away her sister's opportunities to explain, and climbed to the top of a bare little knoll. DG, in her "hunting garb", dungarees, a blouse, and her bomber worn the day she came back home, stood upon the hilltop wanting to listen to the silence. When Azkadellia climbed the hill and met her, the first thing she did was ask what in the world they were doing.
"Watching the world go by," DG answered, and promptly sat down, lotus-style, and closed her eyes. "Sit, Az. Sit and listen."
Frustrated, Azkadellia did as instructed, wondering idly if there wasn't some joke in the midst of this. She mimicked DG's posture, complete with closing eyes. She shook her shoulders a bit in an effort to relax. "What am I listening to?"
"The movement of the world. Magic is a light, right?"
"Sort of."
"Yes or no?"
"Yes. But you can't hear light."
"No. You can't. But you can feel it. It's warm, and you can feel it."
Azkadellia felt relaxed then, truly and undeniably. Before they dived too deeply into the mystical plain of magic's existence, she wanted to say one thing. "Deege, whenever I end up being queen, will you be my advisor?"
Her calmness ran into a sudden hiccup. She flung open her lids. "Am I allowed?"
"I don't see why not."
"Can I think about it?"
"All you'd like. It won't be for a long, long time yet. Now, back to feeling the light."
"Right." DG successfully pushed the distraction away. She poked around in the essence of the world, searching, and felt Azkadellia doing the same.
Light, light, where are you?
The chant began inside their heads.
*
In the palace kitchens, Fitzhugh had the place to himself in those dull afternoon hours. The kids had gone off to study, and he'd brought them an assortment of cookies and beverages, and he'd noticed Thisbe's downhearted appearance with a pang. The cooks were in their rooms, with their feet up, doing whatever it was they did in their scant free time. He had an assortment of bowls and dry ingredients already on the countertop. Pulling out of the icebox for eggs, Fitzhugh was pleased to see Raw, yawning, shuffle himself inside.
"I thought you'd gone with Mr. Granger?" asked Fitzhugh, however delighted he was to see Raw, it was still-unusual to see Raw. "Granted, of course, that I was not particularly present when Mr. Granger padded off into lands unseen. Janet found what she thought was a rat in the scullery bin, and, well, it wasn't a rat, but-" His sentence structure flunked altogether when Raw held a hand to the dent in his back.
"What are you making?"
"Cake."
Without asking if assistance was required, Raw carefully measured cake flour, finely-ground sugar, and cut the shortening.
"I thought a spice cake would cheer Thisbe up," continued Fitzhugh. "Tamus left this morning, you know, and she's bent about it. And then there's Essara…" Joshua received a sympathetic pat on his arm. Essara had lived in the Finaqua palace for nearly two annuals. She'd been a part of the staff as well as a part of the family. "I see," he said to Raw, once recovered, leaving no trace of his upset but sniffles, "you came down here to do the same thing. Make a cake to cheer up our dearest girl. Well-best get on with it then."
*
Shannon stood by the water, there, in the cold wind, with nothing but a flimsy old shawl. Daisy didn't like it, but provocations were meek compared to the temper of a mystic.
"Do come inside, Shannon," Daisy insisted, tugging once at Shannon's elbow, to no avail. "Look here, you old stubborn coot," at least this change in temper was enough to get Shannon's faulty attention, "I love you and I don't want you standing out here in the frigid air, just waiting to catch a cold or pneumonia and up and die on me before you're supposed to! Now come inside!"
Daisy pulled until they were the length of arms apart. The resistance from Shannon had altered, as the look had upon her face.
"I know we're not really needed here now," said Shannon, slowly and quietly. "I know you want us to go home."
"I never said-"
"You don't have to, angel."
Daisy pouted, folded her arms, and glared. "Then why are we here? You don't care a hoot and holler for the queen, never did, and Corvina's up in Gallentree playing scientist. Why, Shannon?" She pulled her eyebrows up, taunting, fixing to misbehave against a mistress that was her world.
"Because the world is shifting, and I can feel it. A great cavern is opening."
Hearing this, Daisy squinted into the same horizon that captivated Shannon, yet saw nothing, not a glimpse of the infinite that this mystic at her side not only saw, in vivid spectrums, but also felt.
"It isn't there."
Shannon's breath was faraway and raspy.
"It isn't there. But it's higher than you think. So much higher."
Daisy blinked the pain and confusion away. These insights, what did they mean? Where did they belong? "Shannon… Come inside, dearest. Please?" Daisy held out her hand.
Eventually, groping fingers found the warmth.
"There it is," Shannon murmured. "Home lights burn brightest and hottest."
Daisy happened to look up then, just as a light was switched on in the Queen's room.
*
"Would you turn the light on? I can hardly see."
Andy gladly reached over to turn the lamp to its highest setting. And, nestling deeper into the cushions, his shins across Marius's knees, hiked the odd Quairine book higher, and picked up where his daydreams had led him astray. Marius, too, seemed engrossed in DG's notes. Jeb, the soul who'd asked him to ignite the lamp, was stuck reading the "Ye Book of Mystery", as they'd jokingly called it, the one that Zero had brought for DG. Jeb's intensity was enormous, even for reading a book he couldn't really understand. But, between the three of them, Jeb knew the most Quairine, having studied it when he was a boy, a requisite for all the Cain brood, though he was no expert; meanwhile, Marius was asking him to cross-reference certain points in DG's notes. The whole relay was executed with great monotony.
Andy was having a difficult time being drawn into his choice of reading material. It wasn't from lack of interest-but that, in a way, the book made his spine tingle. "This thing's like reading something from a past life, you know?"
The broken silence issued looks from Jeb, rubbing his stiff neck, and Marius, peering at him with dark, emotionally controlled eyes.
Andy sunk deeper into the cushions. "Well, sort of…"
It seemed to dawn on Jeb then that someone was missing. "Where's Thisbe?"
"She left about an hour ago," Andy informed. The event had been missed by Marius as well. They thought nothing more of it.
"Check page twenty-six again, would you?" Marius asked Jeb.
Jeb flipped through the pages. "Page twenty-six. Got it."
Andy hoisted the book to cover his eyes from his study mates, while Marius spoke gibberish (Quairine), and Jeb returned it, drawing his finger underneath sentences to find the point of reference.
Then, for a while, it was silence. Andy flipped through the pages, and, without knowing why, a certain line caught his attention. "Wait. What was it you just said? Something on page twenty-six?"
Jeb read the line. An excited Andy twisted the Quairine book around, pointing to the same line.
"Cross-referencing is a marvelous thing," said Andy.
Jeb, however, looked concerned, and when he outgrew that, it changed to subtle vexation. "Wait, wait, wait… This is suggesting… This is…"
Marius read it, reread it, and met Jeb's alerted gaze. "This is not good." He all but tossed the book back to Jeb, rising from the seat. "I'll get you a car. Andy, tell him what we found out while visiting the Northern Legion."
Andy regarded his spouse with uncertainty.
"Tell him. He needs to know."
Marius left, and Andy was alone with his memory of meeting Ollin im de Graith. He thought of the Damaire. He thought of all the amazing things he'd seen that night, and he thought of Tamus's words, when handing him the beads.
"One for valo, and one for emyhaë."
He used the same solemnity that Tamus had, pulling the beads from his neck to feel their coldness at his chin. His strange eyes, startlingly youthful but emblazoned with the fiery touch of death, lifted Jeb's despair but cultivated his determination.
"Ra Nish Mrai," Andy started, wrinkling his nose and bringing comedy into his look, "don't call him that, unless you want your heart cut out of you where you stand."
"I'll remember that," said Jeb, nodding once and swallowing twice.
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