Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 13

So he probed at her mind as she worked at the probe in her belly.

Determination. That was present as it hadn't been before.

Hatred. This was new, a dark undercurrent that hadn't been visible.

Indecision? Washed away somewhere he couldn't detect.

Certainty? Hardly. V'shika just hated. V'shika wanted it all burned to the ground; all the rules and protocols and rites and everything

Sympathy? Caring? No. That wasn't her field.

Happiness? She would never have that for herself, it seemed, but maybe she could bring it for others if she brought the Temple down.

'You will do,' Zhair'lo thought. 'You scare several hells out of me, but you'll do.'

An echo came back. It was nothing like what he'd had with Talla; nothing at all like that clarity of understanding. But it was something. Some shred of V'shika's conscious mind noted his positive judgement and responded.

'I will do what needs doing,' she seemed to be saying.

Anything else was lost to ecstasy. Her pleasure at receiving his approval drove her to madness. She twisted and squeezed at his erection, rotating her hips and grinding at his pelvis. She didn't bother trying to hold back the orgasm this time as there was no part of her that wanted a delay. Mindful of her purpose, she sped things along until she could get what she wanted.

It mattered very little. The emotional connection, the anger and the young bodies fastened together by the power of the mesh were a powerful brew.

Altogether, it made for an orgasm that blinded him and numbed his body to all sensation except for a mindless pulsing that racked him and deprived him of the ability to breathe. It might have gone on forever if it weren't for that last bit. Asphyxiation is never subtle about demanding a response.

He inhaled hoarsely, madly gulping air into his lungs. V'shika, sweating from head to toe, fell on top of him, nearly knocking his wind out just when he needed it most.

It took the two of them some time to regain their breath.

V'shika, perhaps because she was on top, got her back first, and lifted herself off his chest.

Through bleary eyes, she stared at him.

"Now," she demanded. "Tell me what I want to know."

"There's a lot to tell," he warned.

"That's all right," she replied. "I have all night."

"Okay," he began with a weary sigh. "The first thing you will need to do is find a girl named Talla. She's in Endowment, so it might take you a while ..."

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It seemed to Maksa that every time she walked through the domain of Form, it was a more nerve wracking experience than all of the previous times combined.

This time, on top of the general guilty conscience that the strict disciplinarians of Form managed to induce in every visitor, there was the knowledge that she actually had been involved in some fairly backhanded dealings.

As if it wasn't enough to have that in her mind, there was the all too obvious fact that her hair had gone blacker than it ought to have and her gods damned eyes were going, of all things, a slightly purple shade of grey.

Purple? Who in the nine hells ever had purple eyes?

She kept her gaze straight ahead of herself as she walked, pretending that the sunlight reflecting off the white cobblestone lanes was forcing her squint. Were other people squinting? Perhaps. She dare not look. Could she even tell other people's eye colours from this distance? She hoped not. Besides, did any of these people know who she was? She shouldn't worry. Worrying would make her rush and stand out. Of course, so would dawdling.

Into the Offices she went, giving the guard a courteous and officious nod as she moved to the stairway.

She was glad when she finally stood upon the threshold of Facial.

It wasn't quite home, but it would do as a refuge if it came to that.

Maksa exhaled a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. She'd been breathing shallow for quite some time without knowing it.

Her eyes having had a bit of time to adjust to the interior darkness, she was able to have a look around Principia Facial.

Over the past few weeks, she'd grown used to a number of things that had come with her Facial upgrades. The first was the clarity of her vision, allowing her to see much more distant things far more sharply than before. The second, and more surprising change, was the way she perceived colours and shapes. That perception came into play at odd occasions, and entering the domain of the artists was definitely one of those moments.

There was an artistry here in Facial that surpassed that found anywhere else inside or outside the Temple. The mixing and matching of fabrics, the way those fabrics were hung, the way they complimented the clothing of the people who worked near them -- all of this was a strange and wonderful sequence that flowed around her like a continuous wave making its way around a circular pool. Tiny eddies -- floor patterns, reflected sunlight -- worked against the greater flows of curtains and fabric to create something she found indescribable.

She could see all of that with only two upgrades to her name. What more was there to appreciate if she were to get more? With a frown, she remembered what her own Mistress had said -- that Form would likely block and delay and further upgrades from its corner of the Temple.

"Ah, there you are, dear," H'reena called out softly, appearing from behind a curtain. "Come along, now."

There was a faint note in her voice, meant only for Maksa to catch, that put the emphasis on the word 'now' as if to say, 'get out from where people can see you as soon as possible.'

Maksa moved immediately, compelled by the subliminal signals in H'reena's voice even though she was able to sense them.

"How long has it been, dear?"

"Four weeks."

"Indeed, indeed," H'reena said. "Dreadful how long we've had to wait for this checkup. Should have been done weeks ago."

But her voice, Maksa noticed, indicated that there was nothing dreadful about it -- at least not from H'reena's point of view. There was, buried in her tone, a second, deeper sense of irony -- a sense in which it really was dreadful.

Maksa puzzled over this contradiction a moment before realizing that all of the awfulness was being felt, not by H'reena, but by someone else.

'Iron and Tight,' she thought. 'You delayed my checkup on purpose, not just to hide my face until everyone had forgotten about me, but also to annoy your neighbours with an unchecked box.'

It was a strange thing, even a month into it, to be able to read all of this from the tone of a person's voice, the tilt of her shoulders or stoop in her back. People gave away so much without even realizing it, that it was often as clear to her as interpreting her genealogy charts. Knowing so much about body language, naturally, made her quite a bit better at hiding her own feelings. But she was no fool. The women of Form had far more upgrades than she did. She was by no means prepared to count toggles against any of them if it somehow came to a contest of lying and deception.

H'reena ushered her past desk after gloriously decorated desk, past women in finely made dresses and skirts, up a set of wide, shallow marble stairs inlaid with golden patterns of vines and flowers, to the room furthest to the back of Principia Facial.

"Sit, sit," H'reena waved Maksa into a seat.

At the moment she prepared to sit down, however, a blonde woman in a flowing green skirt and transparent blouse appeared from another entrance. Maksa rose back out of the chair and started to kneel.

"No, no dear," the Sorceress chided. "You're an Adept now. None of that."

Which was ridiculous: an Adept still had to kneel to a Sorceress entering a room. There were exceptions; working rules and such, but those only applied to a woman's own Sorceress.

"Now sit down and let H'reena have a look at you," the blonde woman instructed, keeping her voice quite casual as she took a seat behind a large wooden desk and began reading some documents.

Maksa twitched an eyebrow. It had certainly seemed as if Facial had walked into the room on some cue from H'reena. The assumption was that the Sorceress was here because of Maksa's arrival. Yet there the woman sat, working alone at her desk, all but ignoring her guest.

Odd.

"Let's see what we have here," H'reena said. "The eyes have gone one and a half steps lighter towards grey and -"

"They're purple!" Maksa blurted out.

H'reena looked at Maksa and smiled humorously before tilting her head and pursing her lips in admonishment.

"Trust me, dear," she said in a low whisper. "They're just slightly greyer than before."

Maksa stared at H'reena as the woman in orange went on.

"The hair has darkened," H'reena commented. "Going towards black."

'Towards black?' Maksa wondered, but kept her mouth shut.

What was going on?

"Look over to that wall there," H'reena asked. "Can you read the third line?"

'I can read the first six lines,' Maksa thought.

"Elephants tread lightly at dusk," she read the sentence.

"Excellent," H'reena said. "Everything is in order then."

Maksa looked at the Officer carefully.

"That's it?"

"You were expecting something else?" Facial asked without looking up from her work.

"It was a long walk for such a short exam, Mistress," Maksa noted, keeping her tone polite.

The Sorceress looked up, but at H'reena rather than Maksa. Some mental exchange occurred, well above the ken of a mere Adept, and H'reena gave a nod of acceptance before walking away.

Facial turned to Maksa and called her forward with a small hand gesture.

"Do you understand beauty, Maksa, my dear?"

"Beauty?"

Facial nodded.

"I, well -- I suppose that -," she stuttered. "It has to do with appreciation, does it not?"

The Sorceress walked around to the front of her desk.

"I suppose," she replied, not altogether agreeing.

H'reena returned with a small artist's canvas and a bundle of green fabric which she handed to her Mistress.

"Tell me about this," the Sorceress said, handing Maksa the canvas.

Maksa turned it over in her hands.

"It's a canvas," Maksa said, trying not to shrug. "For painting, I presume?"

"Among other things," the Sorceress said. "Is it perfect?"

Maksa examined it more closely, trying to get the point of all this.

"It appears to be laid upon the wooden backing quite squarely," Maksa observed. "There are no obvious flaws in the weave."

She felt the need, for some reason, to hedge her evaluation. 'There might be flaws', she wanted to say, 'but I can't see them.'

"Is it beautiful?" the Sorceress asked with more force in her voice, as if this was getting to the point.

"It's unpainted," Maksa said. "It's well made, but I don't see how it could be beautiful."

"And this cloth. Would you assess it the same way?"

Maksa examined the section of silk.

"Soft and perfect but plain," she concluded. "Yes, very much the same."

The Sorceress laid the cloth out on her desk and placed the canvas, weave down, over top of it. She wrapped the cloth around the edges and, using pins taken from her hair, fixed it in place. When she flipped it over, the fabric was seen to be held tightly in place over what would have been the painting surface.

"Perfect," Facial observed her own work. "But beautiful? No."

Maksa eyed the woman in green very carefully.

"Now watch."

She gripped a piece of the taut fabric carefully between her thumb and forefinger and twisted it. The perfectly laid material made a spiral as it was bent out of its position. Plucking a multi-pronged golden brooch from her hair, she stabbed it past her fingers and through the centre of the spiral, holding it in place.

Two more spirals were deftly made, each pinned with further pieces of hair adornment.

"Is it perfect now?" the Sorceress asked. "This twisted thing?"

"No, Mistress."

"But is it beautiful?"

"I -", Maksa began.

She staggered to a halt, thinking hard. What was the message?

"Yes."

"I'm glad you think so," the Sorceress said, the tone of her voice making it sounds as if she had ached to receive this compliment.

She then held the object out to Maksa, who could only raise her eyebrows. Did she really mean -?

"A gift," the Sorceress clarified, "to remind you of the source of beauty."

"Mistress, I ... thank you," Maksa stammered.

The hairpins alone -- she couldn't imagine.

"Off you go now."

"But the exam -"

"All done dear," she told Maksa. "An Officer inspected you under the supervision of a Sorceress. All very official. No one could argue."

'Official lies,' Maksa thought, still confused.

"Beauty, Maksa," the Sorceress repeated. "It's always about beauty."

Maksa bowed politely and turned to leave, entirely bewildered.

Facial had not been talking about Maksa's appearance. Even she knew that. The 'beauty' of which they had spoken had to do with her double upgrade, but not because it had made Maksa more attractive. It also had to do with this curious work of art in her hands.

Flaws of disorder. Twisting imperfections. Beauty.

She would put this thing up in her bedroom and stare at it for hours until she figured out what was going on.

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"Do you suppose she'll get it?" H'reena asked.

"Oh, quite," the Sorceress answered, watching Maksa depart from her realm. "In time, at least."

"It's a wonder so few understand why we do what we do."

"Indeed."

The woman in green took a step and craned her neck to look at something near the entrance.

"What's Lacy up to now?" she asked.

"Another arrangement presumably."

They watched the girl slip across the marble floor and, after taking a quick glance around, start leafing through the assignment sheets. The eyesight of a Sorceress and Officer of Facial outstripped anyone dressed in white. Lacy, on the other hand, probably couldn't tell she was being watched, even if she was to look in the right direction.

"Amazing isn't it?"

"Mistress?" H'reena asked.

"They think they're being so clever," the Sorceress pointed out. "Does it ever occur to them that there's no good reason to leave those sheets out there where anyone can read them?"

H'reena laughed.

"Did it occur to us, at her age?"

"Indeed not."

"She's been very diligent, this time around," H'reena observed. "Coming in every day. This must be an important one."

They paused then, as Lacy froze suddenly.

"Ah," Facial said. "She's found it, at long last."

It wasn't really necessary to say this aloud. H'reena would have read the triumph in the young one's body language just as easily.

"Let's just hope they're careful about it," she told her Mistress.