Chapter 7 - The Fountain
After Rhapsody's ship departed, I decided to ask for directions to Glassmaker's Row, the working-class neighborhood in which I'd been born. Though I still wasn't entirely satisfied with Rhapsody's reasons for leaving me, I knew there was no point in chasing after her. As well-traveled as she was, she could easily evade me if she chose to.
I had to trust that Rhapsody would come back as she'd promised, and until she did... it was high time that I focused on some of the things that I needed to accomplish myself. Godchaser was still counting on me.
When I finally did reach Glassmaker's Row, nothing at all looked familiar. The buildings were of the typical Nexus style, growing larger with each upper floor until the rooftops touched, turning the streets below into a dark tunnel. Landlords were charged taxes according to the size of their property, but only the ground floors were ever measured, giving the enterprising all of the reason they needed to build precarious-looking funnel-shaped towers five or six stories high. Everything was stained with soot.
The smell of sand, molten glass and iron ore smelting wafting down from the Nighthammer District turned the air into a nearly unbreathable muck, and the water of the Gray River that threatened to pour over its swollen banks glistened like mercury. All around I heard hacking and coughing, and as I scanned the crowd for familiar faces, I noticed that a great many people had eyes that were red and runny or skin that looked jaundiced.
Clearly, some sort of illness was afoot and that didn't surprise me in the least, not when the water looked so awful. I had almost decided to head back to The An-Tang Princess when I reached an open piazza lined with glass shops. In the center of the piazza was an enormous marble fountain.
I stared with my jaw dropped in disbelief. I knew that fountain, and not from any childhood memory! It was my water-purification machine!
The feeling that washed over me as I came forward and touched that device was impossible to describe. As Godchaser had so often professed, I finally felt as though I'd come home, but not to the place of my childhood. I was following the path that my past self had blazed, and I had stumbled upon the first marker that I remembered. For being more than fifteen hundred years old, the fountain had fared remarkably well, but most of its metal parts had been stolen and the masonry had been eroded by centuries of acidic rain.
"Ahem?"
I turned slowly. Behind me stood an old man dressed in green with no hair at all on his head and a single enormous white eyebrow. He had very blue eyes and wore a little pair of glass spectacles as well as smile that was notably full of good teeth. The top of his head barely reached my chin. As suddenly as he'd appeared, I immediately suspected that he might be a God... or a Sidereal.
"It used to be fountain long ago." The man explained, gesturing to my machine. "It was the only thing that saved this city during the time of the Great Contagion. People would come for hundreds of miles. Many died anyway, of course... but some were actually saved. Looters have torn it apart more times than I can count... not that they ever found anything. If the stories can be believed, it hasn't worked in more than four centuries." The old man paused. "I'm Doctor Fabian Basha. You're not from around here, are you?"
"I was born in Nexus, but I haven't seen this city in many years." I admitted. "My name is Veritas. And I must admit, this fountain of yours has me very interested. Do you think it could be repaired?"
"I can't think of anyone capable of such a feat. But if someone were to do it, having clean water would certainly help to halt the spread of the plague. It's come again. Every seven years it hits this city very hard, particularly the poorer neighborhoods. I do everything I can, but I'm no Dragonblood. Just an honest doctor with a few little Charms at my disposal." He explained.
"Why not ask for help then?" I asked, though I could already guess his answer.
"The Immaculate Order considers Glassmaker's Row to be a nest of thieves and heretics... so you won't see their sort around here. There's also no money to be had." Doctor Basha admitted.
"Well, what if I told you that I could fix this fountain for you?" I asked.
"I'd say you were mad. And then I'd ask you what you wanted in exchange." Doctor Basha replied.
"Nothing. No payment anyway. But I'd need a place to work. A... private place." I added on afterthought. "Could you arrange that for me?"
"I don't know." He eyed me suspiciously. "I don't like the sound of what you're proposing."
"I swear, I genuinely want to help! The truth is..." I lowered my voice to a whisper. "I'm in a bit of trouble with the law."
"Ah." The doctor observed, no change at all in his expression. "You killed someone?" He asked, sounding remarkably casual.
"No! Why does everyone immediately assume that?" I demanded.
"Stole something?" He pressed.
"No!" I replied.
"What did you do, then?" He pressed.
"I fixed something I shouldn't have, helped a girl that everyone seems to think I kidnapped and embarrassed several important people." I finished. Any lie I made up would have sounded hollow, and as Rhapsody had professed, the true story of what had happened to me was already far too impossible for anyone to believe.
Doctor Basha laughed out loud. "Heh. So that's it, and now you're a fugitive? Are you sure you're not a hero? This story of yours sounds like a Tale of the Wandering Monk!"
I smiled slightly. "It does, doesn't it?"
"I don't believe a word of it, of course. You must be a con artist." He replied.
I realized belatedly that over the course of our conversation the two of us had reached a storefront with the Rivertongue characters for "Doctor" and "Medicine" painted above the windows. Doctor Basha stepped inside with surprising agility for such an old man and very nearly slammed his door in my face, but my hands wee quick enough that I managed to stop him from closing it completely, even as doing so did hurt my fingers.
"What if I showed you everything first? What if I showed you exactly how I would do it?" I pressed.
"All right." Doctor Basha relented. "I must admit, I am terribly curious. But if you're not the genius you claim to be, I will call for the Night Watch and have you arrested!"
"The first thing I need is paper." I informed him as he let me into his business, which was clearly also his house. We went to sit in a study filled with herbs, musty old books, and a terrifying life-sized mannequin made to show all of the important points for acupuncture. Doctor Basha brought me a thick stack of paper and four sharp pencils. I started working immediately, and as I drew I explained each piece that was needed for the fountain and how it actually worked. When I was finished nearly an hour later, I put my pencil down and turned to Dr. Basha who was slowly paging through my sketches with a look of absolute awe on his face.
"This is genius! It's beyond anything I've ever seen! It could work! Dragons be praised, it would work! But the fine machining of all of these parts... it's not something anyone could do. Perhaps a jeweler... but they don't do things on this kind of scale." He paused, eyeing me suspiciously.
"I do." I replied. "And I can do big."
"Yes, I'm getting that impression... but why? No one will pay you for this! They'd love to see it, naturally, but they won't believe you can actually do it." Doctor Basha informed me.
"If I fix this for you, will it help stop the plague? Will it stop people from suffering? " I asked the doctor.
"I've every reason to believe that it would." He replied.
"Then I'm going to do it. Money or no money." I replied.
"In that case, I am at your disposal." Doctor Basha bowed dramatically. "What do you need first?"
I caught a whiff of a familiar smell wafting in our direction from what I guessed was the doctor's kitchen. It was a dish of spiced rice that my mother had often made when I was a child, a beloved culinary specialty of The Scavenger Lands.
"Dinner?" I suggested hopefully.
"Of course!" My host agreed.
I stayed with Doctor Basha for nearly a month, earning enough money to purchase the supplies I would need to make it to my manse. Godchaser was seldom awake and even more rarely lucid, but she was excited to hear that I was fixing my water-purification machine and she was able to give me a set of directions that I suspected would get me close to my final destination, my mysterious manse.
Though Godchaser's hearthstone had been glowing steadily since our arrival in Nexus, it still failed to provide her with even a fraction of the Essence she needed to function. My work on the fountain went more slowly than I would have liked with the amount of energy that I regularly had to commit to my companion. Fortunately Doctor Basha had provided me with all of the tools and most of the mundane materials I needed in addition to a private place to work, a seldom-used guest room on the second floor of his house. My host often watched me suspiciously when we went out together to take our afternoon meal. He commented on more than one occasion that I seemed to know "a bit too much about everything" and asked if I had ever considered a professorship at Nexus's famed University.
Doctor Basha was a graduate of the School of Medicine himself and knew almost everyone on the staff. Together we went to several lectures given by a historian called Valen Riverborn who was supposively one of the world's greatest experts on First Age architecture and technology. Professor Riverborn stammered frequently and fumbled through his papers as he gave his presentations, which made it somewhat difficult to follow where he was going when he changed subjects, which he did frequently.
Not that I minded. Nothing he spoke on was particularly exciting. Clearly, Professor Riverborn was very worried about the dozen Immaculates who regularly sat in the front row of his lecture hall.
His assistant, who went by the name of Sapphire, or sometimes "Sapphire the Heretic" was another matter entirely. She never dressed appropriately for University functions, always covered in dirt and lamp oil with her firewands on her hips. While her mentor was lecturing, she picked her teeth with a knife and when he asked for questions, she would immediately propose something so controversial that I sometimes gasped in shock myself. Although Sapphire wasn't anything of the beauty that Rhapsody was, she was the kind of woman I'd always found attractive, brilliant and outspoken, even if she was a bit more brash than I preferred.
I considered asking Sapphire to join me for tea just to hear some more of her very good theories about life in the High First Age, but as I was about to introduce myself again, I caught her with a female student in the corridor, the two of them in a position which needed no explanation.
After that encounter, Doctor Basha and I rarely went to Professor Riverborn's lectures. Though Sapphire didn't seem ashamed to see us seated in the audience, we both found her presence to be very distracting.
Still, I was beginning to like Nexus. I didn't stand out amongst its citizens as I had in the Imperial City. Everyone spoke Rivertongue and a dozen other languages. Pale skin and fair hair were commonplace, as were names like Veritas, Acquiro, Brevis and Notissima… which had been my mother's name. Most importantly, there were a great many artisans and intellectuals. A number of them were Dragonblooded, but they were mostly Outcastes, not Dynasts which meant that they were somewhat less inclined to lord their middling status over everyone else.
There were also foreigners of every variety, from as far away as Halta, Gem, Whitewall, Chiarascuro, and Wavecrest, in addition to hordes of little Gods, ghosts and beastmen, most of them from the surrounding countryside. Despite what the Immaculate Order might claim about the necessity of hierarchy, the diverse and disorganized populace of Nexus seemed to thrive. There were even supposively also a handful of "civilized fae" in the city... although I was still unsure of how I felt about them.
Nexus was permanently flooded, not only with water that smelled like sewage but also with rules and regulations that were never enforced. All merchants were supposed to hold permits before selling their wares and yet every day as the Market Patrol began their rounds, dozen of "honest" businessmen went running off to hide under the Bridge of Whispers where the city's officials knew better than to look for them. Rude, crude and violent, the city was all of those things... and yet it never really threatened to tear itself apart at the seams as the Imperial City so often did. Too many warring factions had created an environment that didn't really have "oppressors" or "oppressed".
The official ruler of Nexus was called the Emissary. Whether he had truly been in power for more than seven hundred years – or whether his was a title secretly passed down from one "Emissary" to the next was a subject of much contention. An often whispered-about but seldom seen personage, he had created a simple set of three "Laws" that were the central inviolable tenants of Nexus's labyrinthine legal system.
The first Law was that Nexus would have no standing army, nor suffer one to be brought inside of her gates. Mercenaries flooded the city regularly, but they were seen as honest businessmen rather than tools of oppression.
The second Law was that no one would be permitted obstruct trade in Nexus. I didn't understand the specific context of the code, but the penalties were notoriously severe.
The third Law was that any person who resided in Nexus and built up a good business as a free man or woman would become a citizen, even if they had formerly been a fugitive. They would be protected under the city's laws and would not be returned to any oppressive authority, not the feudal lords that they had run from or even the Realm. I began tracking the days of my own residency... although I expected that the Law did not actually apply to Anathema.
The Emissary's laws were enforced by the local guard and mercenaries, the Night Watch, and influential members of the Guild, particularly those who belonged to the Council of Entities. The Guild was an organization not confined to any one trade or profession, but an amalgamation of all sorts of merchants and craftsmen, old money and new. Even Doctor Basha was a member of an unimportant sub-chapter of the Council of Acupuncturists, Apothecaries, and Alchemists. Though I had asked him not to tell anyone that I was staying with him, he appropriated some of my work while I was sleeping and passed it along to a friend of his, who passed it along to someone else and so on.
I quickly became the most desirable unaffiliated craftsman of Glassmaker's Row. I received invitations to dozens of parties and more than a few organizations approached me directly, hoping that I would support their faction. When I declined a prestigious invitation to join the Council of Jewelers and Watchmakers, my host became suspicious of me. Guild membership was the quickest path to citizenship and absolution from any past crimes and Doctor Basha could not fathom why I would not accept the gift was being so graciously offered to me.
Personally, I was somewhat nervous about the pieces of my work that Doctor Basha had "borrowed" to show to his friends. Though most had been returned before I knew they were missing, one of them had mysteriously vanished. While the cost of the metal alone was enough to annoy me, the fact that the missing item was a circlet adorned with a sun that resembled the one I had designed for Rhapsody's necklace made its disappearance all the more unsettling. I was told in no uncertain terms that my work had sparked the interest of an influential merchant called Saturnyne who'd passed it along to someone who sat on the Council of Entities. In short, I'd never see it returned. Worse still, a very powerful man or woman was also watching me.
As I became progressively more reclusive, wanting to avoid becoming embroiled in local politics, the steady supply of "discounted" or "on credit" materials provided by Doctor Basha that I had enjoyed for my first few weeks in the city had dwindled to a trickle and then stopped altogether. Godchaser's hearthstone began fluctuating again and when I ran out of metal for my work on the fountain, I decided that it was time for me to finish my journey and head to my manse.
The evening before I meant to make my intentions known I had trouble sleeping and wound up fueling Godchaser almost continuously with Essence so that she could stay awake long enough to explain exactly where my manse was and what I would need to do once I found it.
It was sometime after dawn when I heard the sound of my door opening, not soon enough for me to hide Godchaser, who looked nothing at all like a cloak. Not for the first time, I toyed with the idea of building her hands. Though I suspected that she would get into a lot of trouble if she were capable of opening doors or windows, she never asked me for anything else. Her very aspiration was to help me however she could, and hands would certainly make her more useful.
"Doctor Basha!" I gasped as my host stepped into my room. My glasses fell off my nose. I scrambled for them, and then moved towards the window, trying to hide Godchaser behind me with very little success.
"Uh oh!" Godchaser blinked owlishly, suddenly floating up over my head. Although she was still not fully functioning, she was so enamored with her repaired hover circuit that she had taken to drifting around at every opportunity. I'd modified my temporary link to the teleport circuit in a way that Godchaser could not fly me... except perhaps in an emergency, but she could levitate herself somewhat. It took a lot of energy out of her, but it made her so happy that I felt bad telling her to lie still.
"Heh. I thought I heard you talking to someone again." He laughed slightly, his gaze drifting towards Godchaser. "That's quite a machine you have." He observed.
"I'm not a machine!" Godchaser protested.
"I promise, I can explain!" I knew those words sounded idiotic the moment I spoke them. When I caught sight of my own reflection in the glass of my window, I realized that I'd burned just enough Essence that my Caste Mark was clearly visible.
"On second thought... I'm a very bad liar." I sighed in defeat.
"Strange for one of your breed." Doctor Basha paused. "But in fact, that was the first thing I noticed about you. I have a Charm that can tell me if you're lying. I used it on you when you first explained your plan to fix the fountain, and I'm using it on you right now."
"Well, I've evaded some questions that were... incriminating, but I haven't lied." I replied.
"I know you haven't. Everything you've said has been true and heartfelt. That's why I can't decide what to do with you." He replied, amazingly calm and collected considering the circumstances. I suspected, and not for the first time that I really wasn't a very good actor at all.
"I suppose you're going to kill me now. Or turn me over to the authorities?" I suggested. What I couldn't fathom was why the Doctor Basha hadn't already tried to kill me or called for the Night Watch.
"If I tried to kill you, you'd kill me – and probably by accident. And to answer your second question, this is Nexus. The authorities are worthless and they only work for themselves. I want you to answer a few questions for me, now that I know what you are. I noticed that you weren't working on the fountain. Are you going to finish it?"
"Right now I can't." I admitted. "I want to, but I need tools I don't have and... well, orichalcum! There are a few parts that need to be particularly responsive to my Essence and orichalcum is the only thing I can think to make them out of."
"Do you have a way of getting any?" He asked.
"Actually, I do." I paused, deciding not to tell him about my manse. "I was planning on leaving tomorrow and being gone for about a week. When I have what I need, I'll come back to finish what I started."
"Why?" Doctor Basha wondered.
"Because it's the right thing to do." I replied. "And I suppose it's kind of my redemption?"
"You want to be redeemed?" Doctor Basha wondered suspiciously. "In the eyes of whom?"
"I don't know, the Dragons?" I suggested lamely.
"But you're Anathema!" Doctor Basha protested. "Why should you care what the Dragons think?"
"Well, for what it's worth... I used to be an Immaculate monk." I sighed heavily. "I'm a great believer in law and order. I've always tried to do the right thing."
"But you didn't turn yourself in to the authorities?" Doctor Basha pressed.
"Why? Because I'm infected, is that it? Possessed by a demon?" I snorted. "The Dragonbloods think they know everything! But they're dead wrong about Anathema! They have no comprehension of what we really are!" Belatedly, I realized I probably should have spoken with a little less venom. Unfortunately, Rhapsody's convictions had rubbed off on me more than I wanted to admit. "I didn't choose to be what I am!" I sighed heavily. "Doctor, is it fair to punish someone for something they cannot control? You're an Essence user yourself! What if the Realm decided that mortal Essence users were the enemies of Creation?"
Doctor Basha looked worried. We watched one another in silence for a long moment.
"If you had the choice, would you chose to be mortal again?" He asked. He stared at Godchaser, who stared back at him, looking very confused.
I hesitated. I suspected that he wouldn't like my answer and considered lying to him. Then I scoffed at myself. What did I intend to hide?
"No." I admitted truthfully.
What would I do if I stopped being what I was? Not that I believed it was possible, but if I could go back... would I? I'd never seriously asked myself that question before. If not for the power I possessed, so many of the things that I'd done in the past months would have been beyond my ability. The conniving little Gods that I'd come to love wouldn't be banging on my windows at night, singing my praises as they tried to weasel me into working for them. Like characters in a Tale of the Wandering Monk, I knew that both Rhapsody and Godchaser would vanish from my life. But all of that I could sacrifice. What I could not turn my back on was the sense of purpose that came over me when I looked out at the setting sun.
I was needed. And how could I possibly dream of turning my back on the whole world?
"Never." I finished.
Doctor Basha said nothing at all, but only watched me with a strange expression on his face. "Never?" He echoed incredulously. "But you're hunted and loathed and..."
"And right now I'm fixing a fountain that will provide clean drinking water for a thousand people." I finished. "Doctor, if you had the ability to change the world for the better, wouldn't you do it? I'm very ambitious, you understand. Too ambitious to be a monk."
We stared at one another again as he absorbed everything I had said.
"Are you going to let me go?" I wondered uneasily, picking up Godchaser and the set of tools that I'd cobbled together working various odd jobs throughout Glassmaker's Row.
Doctor Basha stepped away from the door. "Yes. I'm going to let you go." He laughed slightly. "And I'm also going to let you come back. I'll leave the cellar door cracked open for you. Of course, if you ever... well, do Anathema need medical care?"
"Almost never." I admitted. After everything I'd been through completely unscathed, I knew that much was true.
"The offer still stands. Should you need anything at all, ask for it." He chuckled. "My, I must really be flirting with damnation this evening!"
"For what it's worth, I appreciate you giving me a chance. You won't be disappointed." I promised.
"Of course I won't be disappointed! I'll be a dead if anyone finds out about this!" Doctor Basha laughed. I never thought I'd say this to a demon... but hurry back. And thank you."
"For what?" I wondered.
"For all of the things you've yet to do." He again glanced at Godchaser. "Do you really fuel that construct with your own Essence every night?"
"Only since her hearthstone started failed. It lets her regulate the Essence she already has. Without it, she just bleeds dry." I admitted. "A flaw in her design. I wish I knew how to fix it. I spent thirty minutes giving her Essence tonight. I'd just finished when you walked in."
"That's madness! How much Essence do you have?" He demanded.
"I'm not sure that I can actually run out." I admitted. "Although when I use a lot it's very obvious."
"Oh, I've heard! A light show the size of a behemoth? Parts of the anima coming to life and changing shape?" He suggested. "Is that an accurate description?"
"More or less." I smiled slightly. "Although from the inside, it's more like being in the middle of an exploding fireworks factory."
"Oh dear. I'm very glad we're friends." Doctor Basha laughed.
"Me too." I replied, putting up my hood.
He watched me as I left, a faint smile on his face.
"Maker?" Godchaser whispered when we had almost reached the city's gates. "There is something you should know."
"What is it, Godchaser?" I asked.
"Your friend the doctor?" She paused. "He's a Sidereal."