Constantia’s Cataclysm: The Price of Prosperity - Chapter 1
Chapter 1
170 years since Lilac of House Whitmoore became Constantia, the machine goddess.
100 since she abolished death so that we may join her in the Lighthouse,
or be banished to the Toxic Moon of Getch.
– Hannil, sainted engineer
Calcoria glistened after a rainstorm.
The city perched atop a mountain that had been hollowed into the shape of an apple core. Four trainlines descended to Sapon’s distant mainland in the northeast.
Thousands of ships moved in three slow queues towards the city’s revolving sling-wheels. They sailed onto great hammocks that pulled taut and hoisted them half a mile up to the sky-docks in great sprays of water. Once above, sailors loaded and unloaded cargo into a ceaseless river of carts that flowed between the sky-docks and the rest of Calcoria. They did it without waiting for the carts to stop, knowing exactly which among the moving carts needed which piece of inventory given or taken away.
Out in the roads, a few low-hanging clouds pondered, thick as fog, trailing wispy tendrils behind horses as they emerged in a puff of mist.
Clade Miggle watched it all through his window. He sat on the bed he shared with his mother, with a diary on his lap. He breathed deeply, savouring the salt and mist. He grinned and wrote.
25 Pentember
Fillian came to visit Ma last night. He’s been here every night since he proposed (I think they’re almost as excited as I am). We had a grand time. He had a few too many (his words) and began talking about the Jehennequen Spring. He speaks a little too recklessly when he drinks (you have to love it!). But he stopped himself when he realised that I’m still a child (debatable. I’m thirteen). He thinks I’m too young to know about Constantia’s conquest of the archipelago. Especially the Spring. Joke’s on him! I already know all about it. I’ve read all the histories, especially the ones he wrote! But I kept mum. Thusly I weave my web of LIES!
I have his book around here somewhere. Hang on a moment and I’ll get it…
Clade rummaged around and returned to his diary.
Never mind, too many books lying about. Would take too long to find it. But I promise you, that piece had Gravitas.
I’ll admit I can see why Fillian is worried about me reading it. But history is history. The Spring was a long time ago, and Volia is better off because of it. Constantia unified the archipelago. The people who stood in her way were responsible for their own suffering, and for Volia losing its breadbasket—that’s what the Scrivener says.
Besides, how could anyone stand in her way? Imagine. Especially these days, where you get sent to the Toxic Moon of Getch for even thinking about it. Brr! Something to send a little shiver down your spine, eh, Diary? (Little pun for you there—you know, because books have spines? Oh, who am I kidding, of course you know. You’re a book!).
Ma tells me Fillian is a lot like my father was. I never got to know him, so that means this is a second chance, in a way. Judging by Fil, I would have loved him. Fillian knows all the stories I like, all the books I read, and he gives me more recommendations. He’s a proper academic, and he’s already talking about sponsoring me at Thuria when I’m done with the Scrivener. He’s sending me to university! I could burst.
But most of all, he loves my ma. She deserves a good man, after Constantia sent my pa away. We’re done with the bad past. Done with all those mornings that her pills wouldn’t let her wake up. With all those afternoons she cried outside a shop, so I had to go in with the money. All those nights she had me kneel with her to pray that Constantia gives my pa back. All the other men, the bad ones who hung around… It’s all over now. There’s nothing but sunshine ahead.
So, of course I’ve read Fillian’s stories, because I want to know what I’m talking about when I talk to him. I like it when he thinks I’m smart. Shhh, and welcome to my web of lies!!
“Are you coming?” his mother, Susan, called up the stairs.
“Coming!” he yelled back then returned to the diary.
Got to go, Diary. Sorry to be off in such a rush… don’t give me that look. You know I don’t appreciate the silent treatment.
Hahaha.
Clade packed his diary and left the room. Their home was a second-storey lunchbox sitting on top of an inventor’s workshop. It had a bedroom, bathroom, and small dining room. The kitchen was downstairs, next to the workshop.
“G’morning, Delgrave,” Clade said brightly as he walked down.
The inventor grunted a hello back, hunched over his soldering iron. A cigar stuck out from under his welding mask. In the corner stood a large stuffed travel bag.
“You’ve packed? Are you off somewhere?”
“Mhm.”
“Well, we’re off to Thoppo’s, to arrange for my ma’s wedding.”
“Hng,” Delgrave replied without looking up.
“She’s to marry Fillian soon, and Thoppo’s offered her his inn as a venue.”
“Grhm.”
“I’ve never met Thoppo. Ma says he’s—”
“Clade!” came his mother’s voice, sweet but firm.
He started. “That’s her now! Skipyu, Delgrave!”
“Mhm.”
“Oh, and—”
“Get out!” the man yelled.
Clade walked out to the foggy street where carts and beasts of burden lumbered through the roads. Each cart was identical, as was each animal. All designed to optimise travel time on the uniform cobblestones.
He unlocked his bicycle and met his mother on the cycling lane. She watched the roundabout, her aquamarine eyes wide. A statue of the empress presided over the traffic. The statue’s face was serenity itself. Its wings were outstretched. One hand held a flail, and the other rested on the head of a cherub, which adored her from below.
Susan hummed a tune and turned towards Clade with a smile.
“When was the last time you really looked at that statue?” she asked.
“Every day,” Clade answered.
She looked at him, hands on her hips.
“Just like a child. We stop looking when we age.”
“That’s why I’m never growing up. Seems like a scam.”
“If only you knew.”
“Also, you’re not old at all. Life starts at forty.”
“Forty? How dare you,” she said with a scandalised smile.
Clade giggled and mounted his bicycle.
“I saw an automaton come out from there the other day.” He pointed at a grate at the foot of the statue.
“It was as big as a horse. It took a woman.”
“Lucky her,” Susan mused.
Clade was annoyed. “Ma, she’s not automatically going to the Lighthouse. People still go to the Toxic Moon.”
“Oh, Clade. No they don’t.”
“But I read that—”
She sighed a long-suffering sigh. “Clade, you know I don’t want you reading those books.”
Clade squared up. “Maybe you could read them and talk to me about them, so that I understand all that context grown-ups hoard to themselves.”
“Never.”
“Why not?” he whined.
“Because they’re boring. Now hush. Let’s ride.”
She kicked up her bicycle’s stand and began riding. Clade followed.
They rode past the sky-docks, where the great slings loaded and unloaded ships. Soaked cobblestones pooled to reflect the sky, rippling as the ground vibrated from the docks’ business.
They passed and entered the clouds, keeping their pace low in the dim visibility. They wove around other cyclists, and next to carts hauling the day’s catch to the market.
Cats stalked across nearby warehouse rooftops, planning heists on the fish carts. They licked their lips and narrowed their eyes at their mewling imp-like competitors flying artlessly towards the carts.
Clade looked between the flying homunculi and at the pacing cats, wondering which would come out on top.
He stretched his arms against his handlebars, loving the ride. He loved the salt smell spilling from the sky-docks’ slings. He loved the bright grey clouds shining after the rain, and the smell it left behind.
“Petrichor,” he whispered, practising the word he’d learned that day.
He followed his mother in languid arcs. She sang a sibilant song. Its notes saturated the air behind her in a shimmering trail, coaxing rivulets in the road into watery pseudopods that reached towards her and splashed back down as she passed.
Clade watched her lose herself in the music, swelling with affection. He loved how she coloured the world without even noticing. She left that unconscious imprint wherever she went.
He tore his bicycle sharply to the left, dodging a homunculus spiralling to the ground in mortal combat. A black cat had pounced on the wretch from a roof and bitten into its neck. They pinwheeled down in a tornado of leather and hissing fur. The black cat sprang away from the bloody mess as Clade narrowly avoided them. It hissed at him and returned to the homunculus to rapidly pat it with its paw.
He stopped to look at the dying homunculus. It extended its misshapen arm, reaching out towards the fish cart as the cat toyed with it. The cat’s claws had shredded its bat-like wings, and its imp-tail flitted droplets of orange ichor onto the ground. It was the size of a small monkey, hunchbacked, with mismatched horns that looked more painful than useful. It had the face of a disfigured baby. Its legs were broken. It moaned at apathetic passers-by. Finally, as it was dragging itself out of the road, a passing horse trampled its head. The rider looked down in disgust. Clade winced at the crunch of its skull.
Poor thing, he thought fleetingly as he stopped to look for a moment. When he turned back around, he watched his mother, who was waiting for him. She smiled radiantly, oblivious to the scene he’d witnessed. He grinned back. She’d been positively glowing lately.
“She’s like a flower straining for the sun,” Delgrave, the inventor, had said once when he’d been drinking. “Decent people want to help her reach the light. And the rest of ’em want to pluck her and plant her in their bedroom.”
Delgrave had chuckled at some secret joke there. Clade didn’t get it. He thought she was more of a dining-room flower—she loved hosting.
They sped ahead together. The wind whipped her strawberry-blond hair across her freckled face, and his brown hair against his unblemished one.
The two cyclists exited the docks into a giant oval shadow. It was cast by Calcoria’s pre-eminent university, Thuria, which towered on a disc two hundred feet above the city. A new construction project jutted out from the underside. It was a glass tube at the edge where Thuria’s rim extended past that of the city. The tube descended into the water. Clade estimated its width to be at least 300 feet, enough to hold an infant leviathan.
Susan led him through the shadow, in a cold-huffing ride that paused frequently for water breaks among ancient willows in grand gardens.
They stopped to take another break. Susan was winded. She wiped some sweat from her brow and rested a hand on her belly with a grimace.
“Everything okay?” Clade asked.
“I’ll be fine, just need to sit down a little. I’ve been nauseous these past few days,” she answered, resting her hand on her stomach.
“We didn’t have to take the long route,” he chided gently.
“Nonsense. You enjoy it so much.” She winked at him, and winced again, paling.
He looked at her with a mix of unease and guilt.
“Are you sure you’re okay to ride?”
“Can we rest a little while?”
“Obviously,” he scolded his mother paternalistically.
They dismounted and drank from a nearby stream. They found a bench near a willow and sat down. Susan hummed a melody, and the grass rustled around them. Clade watched the breeze flatten the greenery, wondering again whether it was coincidence.
Susan put her hand on his knee and breathed in, smiling.
“I have to bring Fillian on this ride, soon. He’d love it. Not like your father.”
Clade nodded, drinking some water. He smacked his lips. “Fillian loves exploring. They have a whole section on his adventures in the library. I just finished his story on the Jehennequen Spring.”
Dammit, he thought at the slip.
“I knew it!” Susan exclaimed. “You’ve been reading—urgh!” She fought back a heave, turning slightly green.
“Are you alright?” Clade steadied her by the shoulders, alarmed.
“Better than I’ve been in a long time,” she told him with twinkling eyes. “It’s a good thing you can talk to Fillian about all the books you read, because the empress knows I could never keep up.” She washed her mouth out in the brook.
They sat for a while. Susan rested her head on his shoulder and hummed. When she felt steadier, Clade helped her up, and they got back onto their bicycles. Thoppo’s inn wasn’t too far away. They cycled until the city’s roads became crowded and the press of people put them on their feet. They walked their bicycles through the market, listening to merchants yell about their goods.
“Fillian’s going to get me those lovely creams from the colonies.” Susan said, looking at the kiosks filled with imported goods. “They say that the women in those faraway places look young until they join the Lighthouse.”
“Isn’t it that they all join the Lighthouse while they’re young?” Clade asked the question earnestly, with a hint of worry.
“Wonderful, the sooner the better.”
“Absolutely not. I need you more than the empress does. Stay away from the cream.”
The cream seller dismissed them as window shoppers and haggled with a well-dressed man.
“Dreck,” said the man. “Ain’t none of us ever been to the colonies. You can make up anything and say it’s from some unseen land and charge a boat for it.”
Susan tutted at the cynicism. Clade eyed the sweat collecting on her brow. She needed to rest soon.
What on Elliah was going on with her? She felt sick, but seemed… happy about it?
“Come, we need to get to Thoppo’s,” she said.
They carried on, weaving through irritable kiosk owners and the hagglers who called them some mix of idiotic, insane, or, unforgivably, poor. They saw the fish cart from earlier. Clade watched the fishmonger shuffle the wood of the cart around in a three-dimensional puzzle until it became a kiosk. He spied a happy homunculus hiding underneath. It held a fish down with humanoid hands and devoured it raw. A dismembered furry paw lay next to it.
After a long weaving walk through spice, perfume, and trinket kiosks, they found the alley into which Thoppo’s inn was tucked. Clade looked at his mother with a growing tangle of thoughts about their destination. He’d been so concerned with her condition that he’d forgotten to fret.
Susan had explained to him that the barkeep was not human. Nor was he almost human like the people from the Brass Trinity. Thoppo was completely different, the only intelligent creature to ever settle in Volia from a fogworld. She’d said he looked like a giant mouse, but not to hold that against him. He was a good sort.
Of course, Clade had peppered her with questions. How long had she known him? (A few months.) How did she meet him? (A friend took her to his inn.) Why had he never heard of him before? (She didn’t think it was important.) How could she think that?! (Clade.) How was he supposed to act when they met? (Slow down, Clade.) What was he supposed to call Thoppo? (Just Thoppo.) Would he be offended if Clade didn’t shake his paw? (No.) Would it be okay to avoid eye contact? (No, that would be impolite.) ’Stantia, what if he was supposed to avoid it? (You’re not!)
Bah. His mother had had no answers. Even worse, there were no books about Thoppo or his world either. Clade had checked.
He considered this little information he had to go on, while chewing his cheek. Susan saw his apprehension and gave his shoulder a squeeze. “It’s going to be fine, my love.”
Clade scoffed. New men were rarely fine. In fact, they were mostly awful. But there was no avoiding it. This was going to happen. He studied the building, looking for evidence of Thoppo’s evil. Semi-conscious vines writhed and crawled over the two-storey brick building. A cozy fireplace inside illuminated a few patrons in their cups and threw its light onto the cobblestones outside. It seemed ordinary enough, for now.
Two robed figures exited, pulling their hoods further down as they passed. Glass clinked from somewhere in their folds.
Susan paid them no mind. They left their bicycles next to the wall outside and entered the building to a round of cheers and lifted flagons. The patrons waved Susan in with calls to come sing.
“Give us a tune, Susanna!” a grizzled elder called.
“In a minute,” she answered happily.
She walked past, and the good-natured grin shining at her turned to a lecherous leer at her back. Clade risked a frown at the man, before looking at the ground, heart pounding. Had his look been disapproving enough? Or had it been too hostile? Hopefully the man hadn’t paid attention. Adults rarely seemed to. But it would be just his luck if this man was the exception.
The interior could have been a Constantine cathedral. Each wall had a graffitied mural to the empress, and gaudy busts of her adorned every table and each of the shelves built into the wall. Hymns were written on every tablecloth in a scrabbling hand.
They came to the bar behind which Thoppo was ducked. He was furiously scratching, looking for something. His thick accent came from a throat unused to the vowels in Calc.
“Ghwhar ist it?”
Clade looked at his mother, heart thumping. She hadn’t mentioned the mouse-man’s speech! He mouthed the question to her, “What?”
“Where is it,” she mouthed back and pantomimed the act of looking for something, wide-eyed and neck craning. She coughed politely, rapping her knuckles on the bar counter. It thudded from below.
“Oucgh!” came his voice. He emerged to a crouch, rubbing the back of his head. Clade inhaled in fright. Unforgivable, he chided himself. A knee-jerk reaction. A wine spill on a new couch for a first impression. His mother’s poor explanations now seemed positively bankrupt. She had not prepared him for the voice, the pure whiteness of the fur, and by Constantia, the size. Thoppo stood straight, two heads above a tall man, and had a tail as long as his body.
He rubbed the spot where he’d hit his head on the counter, and bit it in revenge. His teeth chunked a section of wood like cheese. He spat it out. Then he laughed, a strange, self-deprecating sound. His snout pointed towards them. Presumably to look at them. But his solid red eyes had no pupils. Clade couldn’t divine the object of their focus.
He was terrified. The mouse-man was naturally stooped. His nose twitched at something too faint for the humans to smell, and his face lacked the human details that conveyed nuanced emotions. His ennui would be unreadable! Clade refused to trust something he couldn’t read.
“Szzusszan!” Thoppo greeted and put his great paws on her shoulders. Clade cringed at the touch.
“Hello, Thoppo, my dearest friend.” Susan put both her hands on Thoppo’s paw and pulled it into an embrace. “I love the new cape.”
He wrung his paws and pulled his cape forward to look at it, twisting his body. It was covered in depictions of Constantia and her triumphs.
“Mhghakes the mobsz theank twice. Cghan’t teake all my fffetishzes outszide, ah?”
She nodded.
The mouse-man turned his head towards Clade, nose twitching.
“Yhagr boy?”
Susan pulled Clade closer, giving him a squeeze. She rested her weight on him, hiding her need to sit. He was tense as a rock, and equally sturdy.
“That’s right. My first love.” She turned her head to look at Clade. “Go fetch me a seat, won’t you? Then why don’t you go find a table? Thoppo and I need to discuss wedding plans.”
Clade looked back at the other patrons. Some of them shot Susan the occasional glance amid their hushed conversations. Some of them grinned and nodded at whatever the others said. The old man who’d spoken to Susan when they entered called Clade over.
“C’mere. Sit wi’mme.”
Clade glanced at his mother. He’d much prefer to spend his time with her and Thoppo than sit unguarded close to the strangers who looked at her in that way. But he had to admit that he wanted to make a little space between himself and the mouse. He brought her a chair and found an empty table.
He threw furtive glances at Thoppo and his patrons. He judged them all bastards. He opened the diary, hunching over it and writing under a cupped hand.
25 Pentember (still)
Sorry about the earlier interruption, I had to go cycling with my ma. I’m sitting at Thoppo’s, and, Diary, it’s even stranger than we guessed! He’s violent. I saw him bite clean through a bar counter. He speaks like a barbarian. Impossible to understand. And he’s HUGE! Clearly a threat. Why does Constantia suffer him? Or any of these men?
They look at Ma strangely. Don’t they know it makes her uncomfortable?
They can’t have her. She’s Fillian’s. And mine.
“What’re ye scribblin’?” came a gruff voice.
Clade gave a startled yelp, noticing the old man standing to his side. He snapped the diary closed. Constantia had made the privacy of personal writings sacrosanct. But asking was no crime. He swallowed as the man sat down. He smelled of too much ale and tobacco.
“Ferst time at Thopper’s?”
Clade could not place the accent. It emphasised the rs but also carried a lilting drawl. “Yes,” he said sheepishly, still looking at the bartender. His mother was absorbed in her conversation, her back turned to him and the strange man.
“Quite somethern, is’n he?” the man continued.
“What is h—? I mean, how…” Clade struggled for the words that would ask his question without being impolite.
“E’s a mers-man. From the Fergwall. Only ’telligernt creature ever come through and s’vive.”
“But why? I mean… Why is he… here?” Clade’s voice lowered at the final words. He felt guilty at the rankling disgust creeping up his spine as he watched his mother and Thoppo rummage through a box of religious baubles. They moved halfway into another room, and Clade could only catch glimpses of them through the doorway.
“Cers ’e spoke Calc. Simple as that. Turns out ’e were an ’edge witch where ’e came frem. Cerked up a potion to speak any lernguage. When ’is ship wernd up on Elliah, the patrols slaughtered ’is crew ’n tersed ’em back to the fishes in chunks—nerterally. ’E tossed back ’is potion and sterted speakin’ Calc. So, they brought ’im back ’ere for her serntencing. ’Stantia saw ’im cummin, ’course. Long b’fore he breached Erliah. Saw ’e’d servive that far so didn’t warn anyone to spare ’im. Then she jus’… let ’im live among us.” The man shrugged.
“But… why? What for?”
“Not fer us t’question, is it? S’pose he only stays b’cos it’s serfer in the city than in the wilderness with the superstitious lot.” He sniffed and held out a grizzled but clean hand.
“Pyotr,” he said.
“Clade.” They pantomimed washing each other’s hands in the “rinse,” the traditional Flensing greeting.
Pyotr took a quaff from his mug and offered Clade a sip.
Clade searched in vain for Susan and then looked back to the mug.
“S’magic,” the man said, grinning a yellow-brown smile that wafted out sweet rot. “Frem beyon’na Wall. Mers magic.”
“No thank you.” Clade cleared his throat. The man put an overly familiar arm on the boy’s shoulder and tugged him closer.
“We’re friends, you ’n me, ’n friends—hey don’ lookit momma, lookit Pyotr—’n friends share things.”
Clade paused, supremely uncomfortable. He took a furtive sip. Just enough so the man would leave him alone. He came away from the brackish drink with a grimace.
“Jus’ haffa wait. Ye’ll know the fuss in a minute.”
Clade scooted his stool further away from the man, and tongued at his gums, trying to get rid of the taste. His mouth had become awfully dry, and he felt intensely aware of the grain of the wood under his hands, the clothes on his body, and the warmth in the inn. It all felt good. Very good. He looked at the man, incredulous.
“There y’are.” The old man grinned, ear to ear. Clade had been preoccupied when he sat down. Now he took in the man for the first time. His pupils covered up his entire irises, leaving his eyes pure black and white. He was tapping a ditty with his foot on the bar stool. His jaw worked constantly, and his hand was rubbing his leg restlessly. Clade focused on the beat of the ditty then up at the old man again. He seemed less awful, somehow. The boy relaxed slightly, nodded his head in sync with the beat, and drummed on the table.
They continued for a few minutes. Susan found them harmonising to a repetitive tune. “Made a friend? You’re so good at that. Come on, love. Time to go.”
“Already?” Clade asked with a dreamy smile.
“It’s been hours.” She looked at him quizzically and then at the old man with a dawning realisation.
“You gave him Thoppo’s ale,” she said bluntly.
“Wernt some?” He patted the seat next to him, looking at her meaningfully.
“How much did you give him?”
“Havva seat, sing us a serng. We’re ’lready carrying a tune.” The man winked.
“Thank you for the offer, but I have to go see my fiancé,” she finally said.
The man deflated and switched gears. He held up his hands in placation. “Gave ’erm no more than he c’handle, didn’ I. Wimmin. Erlways so serious.”
Susan instinctively crossed her arms over her stomach and looked back at Thoppo. The mouse made his way over. He laced his paws together and stretched his arms above his head, cracked his neck side to side, and advanced on the old man.
“Oh, cerm now,” Pyotr said, becoming alarmed. “Think, mouse-git. Think. Why werd I give it t’ a boy? T’aint like me.”
Thoppo sniffed and stood uncomfortably close. Pyotr had saved himself from violence with that question. But he was still treading a different line. Far more dangerous.
“Fine, fine. Erm leavin’.”
He went outside ahead of Clade and Susan. Clade watched the man pull his coat close against the chill. A homunculus stared at Pyotr from a nearby gutter. It had a scar on its forehead, pink on its yellow-brown skin.
“You again?” Pyotr said. “S’pose it was a mertter of time. But don’t git too close this time. Erm not sharing me food.”
Clade avoided eye contact with the adults as his mother thanked Thoppo for his gallantry. Then they left under the gaze of dozens of impassive figurines of Constantia.
“Are you alright to ride?” she asked him outside.
“I… I’m sorry,” Clade blurted. He felt violated, dirty, and culpable.
Susan chewed her cheek, clearly a bit annoyed. “That wasn’t smart, sweetling. But I’ll lecture you tomorrow. We still have to get to the university. Can you ride?”
“I’m fine to ride.” He averted his gaze. “But what about your stomach? The nausea?”
“Thoppo took care of it. I’ll be fine.” She hopped on her bicycle. “Come, we’re going to Thuria.”
