Peculiar Soul

Modern animetry has given us the notion of the Eight as if there is some fundamental division that defines them, but that is not the case. Certain souls have been tracked throughout history, and not all of them have merited inclusion in this august party.

Perhaps the most famous is the Star of Mendian, whom we term Stellar, as politics and the nature of the soul itself have conspired to ensure that it never passes long without notice when it changes bearers. History stretching back to myth has described the dueling pair of Sever and Sustain, or Sibyl’s watchful eye.

But Sobriquet? Spark? My own soul, for that matter, is suspect. None of us appear with regularity in histories or legendaria. Several souls attuned to Form and Light appear more frequently, in fact, despite their lowly status in the remainder. Why am I a member of the Eight, but the fearsome Khatun Beyiji does not pass muster?

I prattle on so, distinguished members of the Assembly, because every paper in Calmharbor has recently been trumpeting that we now have Three Of The Eight, with young master Kolbe claiming Sever. They speak as though this presages some golden era of history and a turn in the War.

Is this a triumph for Ardan science? Perhaps, but so was the phonograph. I submit that the pomp attached to our allocation from this invented species is instilling in us a false sense of surety, of superiority. It seems strange to me that we are so adroit in selecting exalted figures from our history, yet such poor students when the page turns to talk of hubris.

- Stanza’s Complaint to the Assembly (excerpt), 671.

“What did you do?”Vincent hissed, walking over to grab Michael roughly by the collar. His grip was unyielding steel - overkill, as Sofia’s relentless series of visions had left Michael weak to the point of immobility. He flopped gracelessly in Vincent’s grip as the other man squared his shoulders to Sofia.

She met his eyes, unconcerned. “I showed him Peter,” she said. “And a few other things to help him remember where he stands.”

“You didn’t,” Isolde groaned. “Oh, Sofie. This is why we make decisions together. What are we going to do now?”

Vincent gave Michael a little shake, sending his head lolling to the side. “Safest thing would be to kill him,” he grunted.

“I should hardly think Sofia intended that,” Vera said, walking up beside them and placing her hand gently on Vincent’s forearm. “Let him down, unless you mean to strangle the life from him at the table.”

There was a very long moment of quiet, then Michael was dropped bonelessly to the grass. Vera gently sat him upright, using a corner of her dress to wipe stray bits of grass and mud from his cheek.

“There,” she said. “Now before anything else unexpected happens, perhaps Sofia should let us know her intentions.”

All eyes shifted to Sofia, who met none of them. “He didn’t understand,” she said. “The players, the stakes. He was about to give himself to Spark, and you were going to let him.” Her voice keened with betrayal, rendered raw and bloody from the vision they had shared. It did not go unnoticed by the others, who winced as one.

“That was not my intent,” Vera insisted. “There was no way to make him see without exposing you-”

Sofia’s gaze shifted, just a bit, and Vera bit back her next words. Michael had the impression that a conversation had just transpired, its contents leaving only minute traces etched into their eyes and the corners of their mouths.

Finally, Sofia looked back down at Michael. His strength had recovered enough that he could meet her eyes, though little more than that. The images she had shown him still resonated more clearly than they should, assertive beyond simple memory. He saw his father’s face, scowling - Peter’s face, vacant and pleading.

He didn’t have to ask Sofia why, or what was in it for her. Her motivations had been written in the set of her staring face, that chill night by the sea. Her eyes fixed on a distant island where more visited than returned. Spark would not have him, that much was clear. The secrets she had revealed could not fall into his hands. His choice was now to take their proffered escape and leave his life behind, or to die in truth right here in Sibyl’s garden - a mercy, compared to what might have awaited him.

A little flicker of satisfaction crept over Sofia’s face as he came to that realization. “He understands,” she said, turning to take her seat at the table once more. She settled herself down, smoothed her dress once more, then looked at her friends with a blank expression.

“I made goxua for dessert,” she said, looking expectantly at Vincent. He looked as though he might object for a moment, then let out a quiet chuff of laughter and turned back to the house. Isolde and Vera exchanged a glance, to which Vera shrugged and began helping Michael walk shakily back to his seat at the table.

He sat. Sofia had reverted to her normal, nearly-bored expression across from him, looking almost through him - he realized why, now. She had no need to focus on anything in particular to see.

“Why the act?” he asked. “Why pretend Vera is Sibyl?”

Sofia frowned, and Vera cleared her throat. “You saw?” she asked. “The world as she sees it?”

Michael nodded, remembering the paralyzing waves of detail, the dance of the minuscule that overwhelmed him nearly to catatonia. “I did,” he said. “It was-” He made a small, frustrated gesture, unable to find any words to do it justice. “It was a lot.”

Vera smiled. “Precisely,” she said. “Sibyl is not an easy soul to bear. It can be hard to act at a normal scale, or to see a face as anything but - well, you saw.” She grimaced. “Twitching masses of capillaries and nerves, piles of fluid and jelly. Could you have noticed a smile, a tear, anger or heartbreak?”

“Never,” Michael said, beginning to realize. He hadn’t even recognized the bizarre visions as human at first, so foreign was their structure to his limited preconceptions. How would it be if that was all he ever saw?

It would be impossible to function normally, he realized. Not unless he had help.

“You speak for her,” he said. “You’re her voice.”

“Her face, is how I usually think of it,” Vera said. “Just as Vincent and Isolde are her sword and dagger. She gives me glimpses of her sight, and I give her some of mine - such as it is.” She gestured amusedly to her blank eyes. “I am the anchor, as well as the intermediary. Everyone is happy to ignore my dear grumpy assistant.” Sofia snorted, earning her a fond smile from Vera.

Isolde leaned forward across the table, fixing Michael with a cold stare - the dagger, indeed. “You realize the position that you’re in, now?” she asked. “We cannot risk even the possibility of you falling into that monster’s hands. If you will not cooperate with us - we will do what we must, to protect Sofia.”

Michael could not keep from looking at her gloved hands, and she did not miss his glance. Her face turned shocked, then stricken, but she did not relent in her glare.

“I understand,” Michael said, nodding to Sofia. “She was right, I would have walked away.” His face tightened, and his next words came only with a great effort. “My father would not have stopped them. Only resisted until the cost of keeping me was greater than that of giving me up.”

He leaned forward, feeling his heart begin to speed up. “Damn it,” he said. “I’ve got to leave, haven’t I? There’s nothing for it.”

“Took you long enough to realize,” Vincent said, not unkindly, as he swept up with an armful of ramekins. Each brimmed with golden-brown custard, glistening in the candlelight and wafting the delicious aroma of caramel to Michael’s nose. Despite everything, he felt his stomach growl.

Sofia took hers and began eating quietly. Vincent settled into his chair and gave Michael an evaluating look. “There’s no changing your mind, you know.” He picked up his spoon and pointed it at Michael. “From now on, Michael Baumgart is dead.”

Michael couldn’t help but laugh, doubly so at the confused expression on Vincent’s face. “It’s becoming a habit,” he chuckled, finally picking up his own spoon and taking a bite of his custard - it was lovely, full and rich on his tongue. “Mm. This is better than-”

His face fell. “Ah, Helene. Ricard.” He looked up at Vera, who had stopped smiling. “I don’t want to leave them alone with my father. If I’m gone, he’ll be so angry-”

Vincent let his spoon drop to the table, his custard having vanished sometime in the intervening seconds. “I can’t make any promises, but we might be able to give them some help.” He glanced at Isolde. “A path out from under Old Karl, perhaps.”

It was scant reassurance, but Michael nodded. “Thank you,” he said. He took another bite of the goxua, but it had lost its flavor. He kept seeing Ricard’s face, smiling, fussing over some hem or button that had offended him.

He was the last to finish his custard. Once he had, Vincent collected the dishes and Isolde rapped her knuckles on the table. “Right,” she said. “Michael should be off home, soon, or it will raise eyebrows.”

Michael’s rose anyway. “I’m to go home?” he asked. “But I thought-”

“-that we would spirit you away into the night, never to be seen again?” Vera asked. “If our goal is to avoid suspicion, we must do better than that.”

“You’ll remain at home, as you normally would,” Isolde said. “On Bladesday, Spark will arrive in Calmharbor. He will likely insist on seeing you that afternoon, he is famously impatient when his eyes settle on something he desires.”

Michael felt a chill, and Isolde looked at Vera. “Vera will intercede on your behalf, not-so-subtly implying that Spark intends to make off with you. She will insist on being present at your meeting, which may or may not be delayed depending on how insistent Spark is feeling. Regardless, you will not make it there. Your coach will be waylaid as you approach, and you will be quite publicly abducted.”

“That seems an odd choice,” Michael said. “Shouldn’t I be slipping away in the dead of night, to avoid a commotion?”

“Ah, but the commotion is the point,” Vincent said, settling back down. “The foul brigand who abducts you - that’s me, by the way - will positively stink of desperation and haste. It will be a rushed job, as if we were forced to cobble it together mere hours before because our previous plan was regrettably cocked up.”

“You’re - wait,” Michael said, shaking his head. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Everyone who is paying attention expects that Spark is coming here to take you away,” Isolde said. “They also expect that Sibyl will attempt to stay his hand, since we’ve been obvious about our movements. When you’re abducted regardless, the natural assumption will be that Spark got the better of us. Refuge in audacity has ever been his style, and this time it will work rather neatly against him.”

“Nobody will ever believe him if he says he didn’t take you,” Vincent said merrily. “And what shall he do to convince them, eh? Open up Braun Island to observers, so that all and sundry may see his grotesque works? With any luck, the furore of your disappearance will plague him nearly as long as his agony over missing you in the first place.”

Isolde indulged in a quiet laugh. “We can stoke those fires a bit, keep him scrambling. Meanwhile, you’ll be safely away.”

“To where?” Michael asked. “For how long?”

The mood at the table sobered. Vera spoke first. “We’re sending you to a dear friend of ours,” she said. “Someone whom you can trust. As for how long you must stay…”

“Until you learn to defend yourself from Spark, should your soul have such a capability,” Sofia said. “Failing that, until you learn to be someone who is not Michael Baumgart.” She tilted her head, and her voice softened a bit. “I have been to the place you’re going, long ago. It is peaceful there. Quiet. Your problems are not mine, but I find that quiet is a rare and helpful balm for many things.”

Michael nodded, unsure of what he could say in response. He could not hammer the reality of it into his head - that he was plotting, with Sibyl of all people, to evade yet another of the Eight and leave everything in his life behind. His mind kept insisting that there was a way to smooth this over, to make it so that he could wake up in his bed amid the sunlight and birdsong, to have Ricard nattering on about mundanities and his days full of reading and study.

And then Peter’s face appeared in his mind’s eye, bright and mad. He shuddered and looked up at Sofia once more. “Thank you,” he said, sweeping his gaze over the rest as well. “For taking a chance on me. I - will we meet again?”

Vera swept up from her chair and walked to him, looking faintly sad. “Not for a long while, if all goes well,” she said. “Save for Vincent, whom you’ll see quite a lot of for a day or so.” She squeezed his shoulder lightly, then kissed the top of his head.

“But we will always see you,” she said. “So think of us, if you feel alone.”

They shared one final drink before Michael departed - small glasses of a bracing, fiery Mukaramen whiskey that reignited the smoldering warmth left from the curry and the wine. That last toast was a solemn one, and he felt their attention linger on him as the bite of the liquor faded.

Then it was time to go. The mundane familiarity of the coach felt like awakening from a bizarre, intoxicating dream into the clutches of his bed. He found himself nearly laughing at the audacity of imagining such an evening - but in his mind’s eye, there was Peter’s face.

Michael shuddered, pulling the night’s events into the fore of his mind and focusing intently on each recollection - Vera’s greeting, the food, Sofia’s revelation. The trip back home passed rapidly against the drumbeat of memory in his head, fixing what had happened in his mind so that he might never forget the danger that stalked him, even against the blandishments of home’s comforts and comfortable perils.

The ride seemed foreshortened, either by his focus or the coachman’s impatience at being kept so late. Whatever the cause, Michael felt oddly rushed as he walked from the coach and bade the coachman good evening.

Darkness claimed the house. Another novel sight - he was not often up after hours, as his father was punctual about his slumber and tolerated interruption poorly. One point of light lingered in the foyer, the barest stub of a candle guttering beside Ricard’s sleeping form. The manservant lay hunched forward in a chair, a thin book almost falling from his grip.

A hot rush of emotion gripped Michael’s chest, and he walked quietly over to kneel by Ricard’s side. In sleep, in the dim candlelight, his face seemed to bear more lines than normal - frail, with the papery skin of the aged.

Once again he fixed the moment in his memory, attempting to burn the image of Ricard’s peaceful face indelibly into his mind. After a few seconds he reached out to touch him on the shoulder.

Ricard woke instantly, eyes locking on Michael’s face, then taking in the darkened foyer. Finally, they slid to the nearly-spent candle beside him.

“You’re quite delayed, milord,” he said quietly, in deference to Karl’s slumber elsewhere in the house. “It seems that Sibyl’s festive spirit far outstrips my stamina.” He peered at Michael again, his eyes methodically checking him over and narrowing when they spotted a light smudge of dirt high on his cheek, left over from when Vincent had dropped him like a sack of cabbage.

“Was everything all right?” he asked.

Michael nodded, giving him a genuine smile even as the gesture tore something vital in his spirit. “Sibyl and her friends are lovely,” he reassured Ricard. “I had a wonderful evening.”

Ricard looked less than wholly-convinced, but did not press the matter. “As long as you’re content,” he said, stifling a yawn. “Begging your pardon, milord, but these old bones just don’t tolerate late hours like they used to.”

“It’s all right, Ricard,” Michael said. “I think we both deserve some rest.”

Despite everything, Michael slept only a few hours. As soon as he had laid down and the quiet of his bedroom reasserted itself, he found that his mind had quite a lot to consider. That this was one of the few remaining nights he would spend here, for one. He had seldom slept anywhere but the estate. There had been a few abortive attempts to instill in him some love of hunting or riding, shortly before he began his regular visits to the Institute.

It had not worked in the least. The lodge by the shore of Lake Gisela had been residence to more crawling insects and midge-flies than game, its cold rooms crowded with glassy-eyed hunting trophies sitting in judgment high on the wall. He had hated sleeping there - and, more importantly, so had his father. They lasted two nights before taking the coach back, his father grumbling the whole ride about the barbarity of woodland sport and its irrelevance in the age of modern man.

Michael had not slept a night outside of the estate since. He knew, logically, that there were perfectly lovely places to take one’s rest outside of his bedroom - but his mind had long-ago classified the idea of sleeping elsewhere as horrible, and no amount of wishing would convince it otherwise.

The thoughts of that drafty lodge also reminded him that the morning would bring a conversation with his father regarding his dinner with Sibyl. His father, who would not be mollified by a few vague half-truths - different ones than he had told Ricard, for his father was deeply suspicious of those who purported to have wonderful evenings at such events.

That cynicism had seemed like wisdom, not long ago. Of course social events were insincere, full of velvet daggers and razored conversation. What else could they be, when so many of the powerful congregated together, each championing their own interests and passions?

And yet.

His mind kept rocking back and forth over the discomfort that the evening had instilled in him. Not the dire pronouncements about his future, but the part that Vera had insisted remain free of such troubles. The subtle way that Vera, Vincent and Isolde orbited around Sofia, standing between her and the world much as the forest stood quiet and dark around her estate.

For all that Sibyl’s friends invested in their charade, there had been no insincerity. Certainly no malice. Only some shared food and comfortable, well-worn conversation.

His father had been wrong. Not merely mistaken in a particular, but profoundly incorrect on important matters. Sleep hovered farther and farther from his reach as he relived the unnaturally-sharp memories that Sofia had shown him, watched his father hurt him and consign him to further tortures.

He saw his own face in those visions and barely recognized the boy. There had been no purpose to the torment. Nothing had been gained from his years of suffering. It had simply been insignificant in his father’s eyes - yet Isolde’s face had flashed with anger as she held his arm to the table, exposing a short lifetime’s worth of scars.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The tight-lipped isolation of the Baumgart estate had never seemed so stifling as it did to Michael in that moment, brooding and solitary and alone in Calmharbor’s teeming sea of people.

After an eternity, the pale light of dawn began to intrude on the darkened halls of the estate. Michael watched it brighten, feeling the lightheaded vigor of tension overtake his fatigue. When he could bear it no more he swept off the covers and walked to the washroom.

Then he dressed - quietly, so as not to disturb Ricard with his early rise. He nearly made it down to the kitchens for breakfast tea before his father. It took only until the second sip before the questions about Sibyl’s dinner began.

Michael found that lying to his father had never been quite so easy as it was that morning.

The days seemed to pass in a blur, at once hurried and devoid of any substance. Michael avoided his father where he could - knives will cut, newfound perspective or not. Instead he found small excuses to spend time with Ricard. It was a paltry comfort, given what he knew he must do, but he could think of no better use for the inevitable delay before Spark’s arrival.

And, as expected, in the mid-morning of Bladesday they received a letter from a sharply-dressed courier informing them that their presence was required at the Institute - a request, ostensibly, but Spark’s name at the bottom of the invitation rendered it more of a summons. It was precisely what Michael had expected, and all was ready for their departure even before the message arrived. Although…

Michael turned to look at his bedroom before leaving it. The bed was neatly-made, never to be slept in again. He thought of anything he might take, but - there was nothing. He had no real possessions. The estate was his father’s, inside and out, right down to Michael himself. The bedroom was never his to begin with.

He could not be so sanguine when he came face to face with Ricard, however. The old man bore a smile, despite that his manner was fraught with worry. Michael’s meeting with Spark had him on-edge, and it was not lost on Michael how very well-placed Ricard’s trepidation had been from the beginning.

“Relax,” Michael said, forcing a smile. “I’m sure everything will be fine. I-”

He paused, unable to speak for a moment. Ricard looked at him curiously, and Michael shook his head.

“The meeting with Spark is dangerous,” Michael said. “But no matter what may happen, I have a feeling that things will turn out right in the end.” He longed to add on a few more words, to spare Ricard any worry he might feel later, but dared not - Sofia’s caution had been well-considered, simple silence could not stop a man like Spark from unburying secrets once they had been shared.

Instead, he placed his hand on Ricard’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he said. “I do not know that I would have gotten through any of this without your help.” It came out with a touch more finality than Michael had intended, and Ricard gave him a queer look - but then his father bellowed up from downstairs and there was nothing but for the both of them to make their way down to the foyer.

Ricard’s eyes followed him, even so, and when he stood ready to depart Michael could see the lingering suspicion in the manservant’s expression.

“Best of luck, milord,” Ricard said. “Keep your eyes open.”

Karl snorted. “He knows that much,” he said, and the small hint of derision in his voice as he spoke started a hateful blaze in Michael’s chest.

He wrestled it down, though, and looked only at Ricard. “Thank you,” he said again. He thought he saw a mote of realization in Ricard’s eyes before his father’s impatient glare forced him to turn and enter the coach.

The door latched shut, and with it closed the path back to Michael’s life. The coachman spent a few achingly-long seconds preparing to depart before they finally trundled forward, the sound of the wheels on the cobbles signaling that they had left the grounds of the estate and turned towards the city.