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Chapter Seventeen
"That will be three copper farthings, miss," the driver of the carriage said to Alexi as he disembarked in front of the shop called "Agony." He felt in his purse for a few coins and handed them to the driver. Scudding clouds overhead had turned the day into a grayish twilight as another storm blew in off the Sea of Winter. The six months immediately following the autumn equinox had few days where the sun peeked in upon the hardy folk that called Zanda home. A bitterly cold breeze ruffled Alexi's fur cloak and hood.
"Thank you. Can you wait for me?" Alexi asked.
The driver nodded, taking the money. "I'd be happy to." He smiled, tipped his black cap, and put away the coins. Then he pulled the carriage a little further down and to the side of the narrow street.
At first glance, the Street of Perversions (as it was called by the locals) differed very little from other streets. But here and there, local artists had placed obscene statuaries in any number of poses. All of them were masterworks, but if one might take offense at the artistic portrayal of sodomy by fauns and other beasts, or the depiction of women and men being raped by centaurs and demons, then many of these statues told stories that were in the least disturbing and at most, very traumatizing.
And the first shop that Alexi saw was not "Agony" but a tailor's shop called "A Bespoke Fit." As his eyes wandered over the suggestive wooden mannequins behind the glass, he noticed a strange symbol in one corner. It was as small as a penny and painted on the window in black and red in the lower right corner. He'd never seen anything like it: a dagger lying with blade facing down in a circle that was probably meant to be blood.
Is that a religious symbol? He asked himself. Or is it the tailor's own brand? It seems odd for a tailor.
As for the shop called "Agony," it was next door.
Alexi noted that the wooden sign bore gold letters embossed upon a red background. Its façade had a viewing area where more oak mannequins posed for the public in tight-fitting rubber suits that left holes in all of the erogenous zones, presumably for exploration. There were also shiny metal catheters, strange-looking chastity belts, and various kinds of body clamps. Skins stretched on frames displayed fascinating tattoos so colorful, the ink looked like it was still wet. But there was no matching symbol to that on the window of the tailor's shop.
Alexi summoned his courage, approached the door, and turned the curious-looking handle: a bronze thing shaped like an erect penis approximately six inches long and capped with a red crystal.
As he entered, the smell of leather and various alcohols wafted through the air. A small bell at the top of the door let out a tinkle, and a Nykoran so tall that his head almost brushed the door frame appeared from another room. He wore an orange shirt tucked into rubber overalls with wide galoshes attached, and his forked tongue darted in and out of his mouth. Alexi's eyes wandered over everything. The black painted walls drew no attention to themselves, but highlighted the various implements that were sold here. A display cabinet to his right held many kinds of wooden and metallic plugs of various sizes, and Alexi saw several wooden phalluses resting on black velvet. Next to each was a jar of lubricant called "Jade Nuru." On the back wall hung suits and various kinds of boots, all made from either black leather or black rubber.
"Welcome to my shop," the proprietor said with a lisp, and the sharp teeth in the Nykoran's maw dripped with saliva. As with most Nykorans, he was more reptile than man with a spiny tail and yellow eyes, though he wore glasses as thick as the end of wine bottles upon his snout. He had no real hair to speak of and had snakebites and a nose piercing all done with surgical steel. His glistening scales covered every piece of uncovered flesh. "Horigum Khaine at your service," the man said, holding out a six-fingered claw for a hand.
Alexi proffered his and the big man bowed, licking Alexi's hand instead of kissing it. For once, Alexi was glad to be wearing opera gloves.
"What may I help you with? Horigum Khaine asked. "Perhaps you are looking for something to ease the friction of coitus? May I suggest a jar of Jade Nuru? It's one of our best sellers."
"I want you to tell me about the Machlen Nocturnis," Alexi said, wasting no time.
This made Horigum Khaine frown. "I'm sorry, you must have the wrong shop," the Nykoran said, whirling about. Despite the length of his tail, Horigum managed to avoid knocking anything over. "Might I suggest you go to Goldman's Rare Books and Antiquities on the corner? They could sell you a tome of fairy tales. Now if you'll excuse me," Horigum said, turning to head into the back room once more.
"I got your name from the Obelisk of Quiet. A voice told me to seek you out here in the Hollows," Alexi said.
This stopped Horigum in his tracks and made the Nykoran turn his reptilian head.
"You what?" he asked. "You got my name from the obelisk?" His forked tongue darted in and out of his mouth as if tasting the air. "If this is a lie, you play at a dangerous game, my dear sweet necromancer."
Alexi nodded, running his hand along the glass display case holding several of the strange plugs, every one seemingly larger and more invasive than the previous one. He read testimonials from happy customers who claimed that the implements stretched them out sufficiently over time to allow for proper fisting. He stopped moving forward when he saw a box of surgical steel sounds, some ribbed, others smooth, for inserting into a male urethra. One was almost two feet long and was displayed while propped against a leather vice used for tightening around a man's testicles.
"You're from that blasted academy, aren't you?" Horigum Khaine asked. "But if you heard the voice, it also means you've got the talent. Perhaps you are the one. Come on, let's have a talk, shall we?" He motioned for Alexi to follow him, and the boy did just that.
Once in the hallway, Alexi saw that amber sconces gave off a saffron yet smokeless light. Horigum led him past a steep staircase that descended into the basement of the shop, and he swore he heard sobbing coming form down there. They stopped at the door to a workshop separated from the rest of the building by a beaded curtain. The walls were hung with fine leather that looked human in origin, all of it tattooed. As they pushed their way through, the beads clacked together like strings of pearls. Here in the back stood a surgical chair where Horigum went to work on a woman who lay unconscious and spread eagled, strapped into place to prevent movement. It looked like he was sewing her skin up, and just to the right on a small table equipped with wheels sat a bowl of bloody ribs that looked freshly removed from the woman's chest. A small blanket covered her privates and a bag of blood with tubes connected to it hung from a chain. The tubes fed into the woman's bare arm.
"A client," Horigum said, motioning for Alexi to sit down. "She wanted a tinier waist and this will bring her happiness."
Alexi noticed that the human woman looked to be in her early twenties. Aside from the fresh scar from where Horigum worked, she had large full breasts that defied gravity, large eyes, a perfect nose and lips and incredibly shapely curves. Her skin was so flawless it looked like wax.
"That's too bad," Alexi said. "She's beautiful as she is now. I don't know why she would've wanted a smaller waist."
That made Horigum laugh, and the sound of his cackling was like a cat coughing up a fur ball.
"This woman is ninety years old. That's ancient for a Sulasian. I'm a flesh crafter of Chagidiel and this is my magical art. I've tightened her skin several times. Look, there are no wrinkles at all, but there will be bruising after this operation, but only for a couple of weeks. This isn't her real hair...she lost that a long time ago. I've replaced bones in her back and neck to make it longer and more graceful. When her chest sagged, I gave her new boobs from a teenager I bought at the market. I've replaced everything on this body at least once, and much of it comes from slaves. It's a good thing there's a healthy market for them here in Zanda. I take what I need from them and let them use the old worn out parts from my clients."
Alexi gulped. "What happens to those people?"
"Oh I'm not cruel," Horigum said. "I keep them well fed downstairs until I can sell them off to someone else, and they are allowed to come up here and clean when the store is closed. Additionally, they never suffer as all my procedures happen under proper anesthesia. They are my property, right? I'm a businessman after all. I've got all my permits allowed to me by the Zandan Chamber of Commerce. Everything is proper and I pay all my taxes. You know, my shop is one of the only ones in the world where this kind of art is practiced in the open, and so I've gotten very good. My clients are exclusive and come from the highest ranks of society. This one has asked that her old worn out pussy be replaced with one from a girl that's only thirteen or so that I've got in a cage downstairs. I feel bad about that one because I gave that girl this woman's ninety-year-old face. And now she'll have the cunt to match. Ah well, life isn't fair, is it?" He motioned at the towel covering the woman's privates. "Take a look if you want. You could clap your hands in the one she's got. This new pussy...it'll be so tight and fresh. She'll get a lot of use out of it. Years in fact."
"No thank you," Alexi said, gulping.
"Suit yourself. You're still young, although I could make you pretty. Not the plain woman you're destined to become. I'd start with those thin boy lips and perhaps dye your eyes a different color. I've got a magic dye now that changes the irises for a year without risk of blindness."
Alexi shook his head. "I'm fine, thank you. I don't need any procedures."
"All right then," Horigum said, finishing up. Alexi had to admit, the stitches looked perfect. "I think I'll save the pussy transplant until after you leave. So now that you know what I do, and you apparently know quite a bit about who I am, my next question for you, miss, is what have you brought me? For I don't just answer anyone's questions about the Machlen Nocturnis?"
Alexi felt within his purse and pulled out the box containing the abyssal stone. He set it down on a table holding various macabre but shiny cutting tools and opened the lid so that the black fog could spill out over the sterile surface. "Abyssal rock. It's quite rare."
The Nykoran drew in a sharp breath and walked forward to look at it. "You stole this from Professor Hepsibah, didn't you? Tsk Tsk. Very resourceful, but what am I to do with a quantity this small?"
Alexi's chevron-shaped eyebrows knitted closed. "You could make some special piercings perhaps?"
"Abyssal rock can't be changed once it's removed from the quarry. You should know that from your studies. However, it's odd to see one cracked like this."
"I did that," Alexi said. "I cracked it, so I know it can be worked."
The Nykoran's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You're a liar. There hasn't been a necromancer powerful enough to alter abyssal stone since—"
"Lianon Pard?" Alexi asked. "I told you I touched the obelisk—"
"And it spoke to you. It gave you my name," Horigum Khaine said. "Yes, yes, you said all that young lady. So you think the Dragon's Graveyard is real, do you? And you want to see it? It gave you my name because something in that obelisk knew I have fey blood in my veins. I'm as much unseelie as I am draconic, and it thinks I know how to retrieve the locket, and now so do you."
"Something like that," Alexi said.
The Nykoran snorted derisively and regarded Alexi with what felt like ancient reptilian eyes. "Do you even know anything about what you seek?"
Alexi shook his head no. "Please tell me."
"The Machlen Nocturnis is an old unseelie court destroyed by the Nykorans for its precious black marble. They needed it to decorate temples, you see, in Necrosipor. It's a haunted place, really. Some say that an evil spirit still guards its border. No one knows for sure. Only that the bloodshed and evil came upon the tales of Queen Shelandrolar's untimely death. You see, life is a beautiful symmetry to be celebrated and embraced and among the rarest and most celebrated cycles of the fey, is the final journey of an elder fey. A fey can tell through seers, through the feeling of his skin as it thins over his bones, through the dreams of the moon on a cold winter night that death will come in another several decades. This short time left is spent in transferring wisdom, history and knowledge to the next generation of the family and in celebrating the events of life through song. After the last party has ended and the last song of honor has been sung, the elder is ready to depart. Ceremonial robes are donned and a solemn procession glides into the forest. A favorite granddaughter or great-great-great nephew is chosen to spend the final hours alone with the elder fey. Seated in a circle of flowers, trees or stones, they spend the last day together until the moon Valinas rises full overhead. In the morning, the young fey comes back alone, and the elder is gone forever. That's how it's supposed to happen. But the crime that resulted in Queen Shelandrolar's death made it impossible for her to pass on knowledge to the other fey. Being a long-lived sidhe who ruled their court for thousands of years, this loss of knowledge would have been catastrophic. What is the Machlen Nocturnis, child? They're a ruin, but not just any ruin. Many believe that they harbor a secret: that the queen's ancestral locket is buried in a tomb that lies in the center of a necropolis. Shelendrolar is believed to have entrusted the locket to a pixie that carried it to a royal barrow mound at the center of the place. When the elders found out about it, they fought for it and a massacre consumed all the fey in a single night."
"So the Machlen Nocturnis is a city?" Alexi asked. "Where is it?"
"A city of the dead," Horigum Khaine said, "and I won't tell you where to find it. That's not part of the deal."
Alexi closed the box and tried to put it away but Horigum Khaine stopped him.
"I told you about the Machlen Nocturnis. That bit of rock is mine. Maybe since you cracked it, I can fashion something from it after all."
"But you didn't tell me where it is," Alexi said.
"That's a big secret," Horigum said. "And I won't tell you where it is for a fuckin' rock. I need something more...something very precious."
Alexi gulped. "Like what?"
Horigum Khaine thought about this for a moment. "Boys are very precious in Zandan culture. Do you have a boyfriend?"
Alexi shook his head no.
"That's both bad and good because it means there's still opportunity to be had but much work to be done. I want a smelly used codpiece stained with cum from the boy that takes your virginity. A fabric, leather, or rubber one will do. I prefer it over metal. If you can, make sure there's still pubic hair attached and that they're as ripe as can be. I have a specific client in mind that's searching for something like that. As a matter of fact, the tailor next door is a partner of mine, and he frequently hosts shows to advertise the latest fashions for the elite. Give us half a day, and I can have a rubber priapus to give you for him to wear. It'll trap all moisture and allow for the proper scent to build over time. Bring him in, and I'll give him a custom fitting. I'll make it look like we've never met, and I promise you he'll enjoy it. Perhaps we can show him some of the fine toys I have for sale here. There is one catch. He must rank at least a `4' on the Auditor of Eilustriel I have in the other room. That shouldn't be too difficult for even a homely girl like yourself to accomplish. Boys of a certain age can be persuaded with nothing more than a pair of tits in the dark. You do this for me, and I'll give you what you want."
Alexi frowned but agreed. "It may take me a while to get a boyfriend," he said. "But when I do, I'll be back."
"I'm sure you will," Horigum said. "I look forward to your next visit."
Alexi left the shop feeling a bit cheated, but at least he knew more about the Machlen Nocturnis. As for attracting a genuine boyfriend, he hadn't the foggiest clue as to how to begin, much less lure them into having sex with him for the first time. But if he wanted to come into his full powers, this is something he was going to have to accomplish all on his own. Either that, or he had no chance ever of retrieving the locket of Queen Shelendrolar.
Chapter Thirty-Seven is now available to read at http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html under the label "The Orb of Winter" if you care to read ahead.
Are there any artists out there willing to draw some pics for my story? If so, please email me. There is an "Orb of Winter" map now in both the NEWS section of my website and in the FORUMS of my website.
If you go to my website directly from this posting, you will want to begin with "CHAPTER TWELVE" in the forums.