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A word spoken in fire, and the churning of snakes shifted their course, the coils and boils of writhing muscles easing and relaxing. The speaker's throat burned with acid and copper, their fingers lost all sensation and at one point felt their chest cavity domed inward then outward over the span of a stretched out second, only to do it again a few minutes later. The boat shifted, sending up a few garter snakes. The newest occupant picked them up, and tossed them far.
"It would do you well to escape your wounds, if you wish to make small talk." The last remnant of a Master, Mr Mirrors, sat obligingly in the boat. As obligingly as a Master reduced to being rescued can be. The other, waifish and disheveled, winced as their body rebelled. "A being of your placement on the Chain wasn't designed for Correspondence, Professor."
They nod to it, grimacing, and gestured for it to take their position at the bow (as best as one could). A strangled noise and blood escaped them when it picked them up by the back of their grey tweed coat and deposited to the stern. They swipe at it with now burning fingers, forgoing decorum and general common sense not to try and injure a Master. But what remained of Mr Mirrors cocked its head curiously instead.
When they dropped, some organs hung in the air for a fleeting moment before remembering where they ought to be. Ashen imprints of hands from old sins materialise on their body and clothes, wrapped around their neck and grabbing at their face, the tips of their fingers beginning to char and tattoos blooming wildly, spreading across their coat and boat. No good, they were coming undone at the fringes of Parabola.
Unfazed, Mr Mirrors leaned against the side of the high-walled boat, speaking a sentence in fire and light and they felt their organs settle as they were ordered to stay in place. Glass whispering—and charity, they remember dimly.
"Tla—zohcamati." Mr Mirrors sighed as memories slowly came back to it. A language they were raised to forget, but small basic words persisted beyond what rulers and irrigo could train out of them. The snakes react accordingly, their vigorous writhing almost placated at a word they seemed to know, but it made for a longer trip. Once the Correspondent was sure they wouldn't disappear piece by piece they leaned against the iron wood and began focus on their body—only the portions that were untouched and undamaged.
Above them clouds of venom fog hung and fell; the snakes could not be persuaded to stop their spitting. Every so often Mr Mirrors would flap its wings roughly to force the fog to stay over top before giving up and draping the remains of its cloak across the top. Small pockets of venom fog dripped through the holes. “Better than the both of us perishing on the Writhing River,” sighed Mr Mirrors.
When the Correspondent jerks forward, the iron wood behind them is scorched and bloody with transferred wounds. Realising it must look silly out of place on the boat, the wounds became a decorative emblem in black and burgundy.
“It is not from the city we purchased, but near enough," it sighed. "How long ago and yet the language and its people persist. What unfortunate memories from the third..."
“How do—you feel?” Their throat was still raw, still healing, but blood didn’t spill from their mouth anymore. Their organs, however, were still struggling to function correctly after having tasted freedom. Their breathing was slow and ragged, face caught in a wince as their lungs decided singularly when to expand, when to contract. It didn’t help when venom spray hit them in the face. Mr Mirrors turned to face them and tilted its head. “Don't worry about me, Mr—Mirrors.”
It breathes in its spoken name hanging in the air like ambrosia, some more strength returning to it.
“Slightly less miserable, Professor Alfaro. I’m not entirely myself, but in time perhaps I’ll resemble something close to whole.” The master keeps a gaze on the Correspondent; it sneers then, when they were sure they weren't going to immediately expire, baring teeth as sharp as broken glass. “So long as that perfidious anarchist doesn’t have her way.”
“Oc—tober?”
"Hmph, is that what she calls herself?"
"Jack—said he unchained—"
"The Revenger who helped free me from my own pet, has he gotten what he was after?" Belen sighed and shrugged.
"He only sent a—brief letter telling me—to come here." Their eyes open, scrutinising. The Master sighed.
"There were others, some had always pieced together the clues. It sounds to me that Cups is letting itself slip if others can see the trail it leaves behind."
"It—pretends to be you—to hide its tracks."
Once more, it bares its fangs. "So Cups took advantage of my entrapment? Then I hope your friend gets what he's looking for."
"Better be—after I get my Heart's Desire."
The trip fell to mostly silence with the occasional question from Mirrors about the current state of affairs, of their own personal life, of the Masters. Eventually the conversation dies when Belen falls asleep, having escaped the rest of their wounds on the trip.
When the boat lurches hard and they wake, the conversation resumes at the behest of Mr Mirrors.
"Have you decided upon a desire to ask? Though we take pride in our abilities to provide whichever whim possible, there are limits."
"My daughter." It's a quick answer, quick enough for them to drop their practiced accent. "Could you bring her back?"
"It depends," Mr Mirrors began. It's tone is heavy with resignation. "How complete are the remains? The price of the materials? Your suspicion and place in society?"
An acidic feeling overtook them and they swallowed hard. "How...complete do the remains need to be?" It is answer enough for the Master.
"There is a way, to preserve its essence with what is left of it. Was it a violent murder? An ensured suicide? Cannibalism? The loss of its parts the price of decomposition?”
The Correspondent’s eyes shifted to the side of the boat, to clouds of venom and the occasional snake, before deciding better of it and looking back at the Master.
“The—first one,” they decide on, looking away once again. “And the last one. She lived less than a year.”
“How long ago?”
“Oh... I hardly remember... Around fifteen years I believe.”
The Master shifted, stretching its wings through an opening until venom spray forces it to retract them back. “And the remains?”
“Have the... coffin. Isn’t very big so,” they shrug, refusing to make eye contact, “I brought it along in case... you know, I won.”
“An infant... The most optimal candidate to work with. The inevitable memory loss would be minimised, far less tragic,” it mused to itself, looking up to the sky where the Cosmogone sun began to hang in the sky and allowing its tattered hood to fall. It looked at the Correspondent, its mirror-eyes fixed on them and they refused to do the same. “It would be costly, but there are simpler means, if you do not mind waiting.”
“How simple? And how long of a wait?”
“I would need to receive the remains, and in no less than, say, a fortnight should the alignments be in our favour—I will send to you a vial to consume. Of course it involves intimacy with another one of your kind after consumption, but after the gestation period, your daughter will be returned to you. Granted, if you don’t mind starting over.”
“Assuming I’ll win.” They laughed, bitterly. No need dwelling on the fact that they had to get pregnant all over again for it to work.
“I believe saving a Master of the Bazaar deserves its own reward—under the stipulation you allow me time to rest.” Another languid stretch under warmth of the False Sun, Mr Mirrors doing something of a yawn, its prehensile tongue darting out to taste the humidity hanging in the air. The Correspondent chanced a glance back, expression decidedly set neutral. “As well as something to offset the cost of the process—ah, almost to the shore, Professor Alfaro.”
Silence, for the longest time that Mr Mirrors presumed they’d fallen back asleep.
Then, “A question—is there another city to be bought after London?”
It hummed, talons clacking against the iron-wood. “Ideally, yes. It would be the sixth of seventh. But we would have to level the fifth to make room, within the next millennia, ideally..” Then Mr Mirrors sighed, looking back up to the False Sun. “Regardless of what my thoughts on the Bazaar’s mission are—of London—it is tempting to expedite the process if that anarchist dies along with the city.”
“I’d... prefer it to be dropped next to London.” They coughed. The iron-wood siding suddenly looked very interesting with venom streaking down it while the garter snakes fought to be the center of their attention instead. What a shame that they couldn’t inch further back when the Master shifted closer, further intrigued. “If her lodgings suddenly where moved to be right underneath well, it’d be an unavoidable shame, really. It’d be a more agreeable situation for the others, wouldn’t it?
“And I do have lodgings—and achievements I’d hate to see go to waste. And I might have a few acquaintances I’m a bit fond of I’d hate to see crushed.” No, they shrink back even more and tulip petals blossom in impossible red hues on their cheeks. Their demeanour is betrayed by the steely grip on their seat, deforming it.
“Do you expect us to purchase a new city soon? Have they gotten impatient already?”
They deflated with something of relief and the ghost of a smile. Half of their seat was crumpled metal pieces at the bottom of the boat.
A gamble.
“If I had a city to sell, would you buy it?”
“A city? Your city?” It cocked its head.
“My...” A rough dry swallow followed by heaving.
“It’s my father’s—” their voice hitched with regrets crawling up their throat, “He runs the country I was raised in, currently.” Beads of sweat dripped down the side of their rapidly paling face. Their speech is choppy, stilted and heavy with an accent and so the words slur together. Their tattoos continue to grow, threatening to overtake every inch of skin left. “If I sold it to offset the costs—if i could convince him—would you accept?”
The Master didn’t speak, didn’t move for the longest while, as more and more of the spy’s anxieties threatened to come forth to drown them, watching themself reflected in its eyes. “How clever of you, you put on a good show.
“Then when I am restored properly, we can address the matter of paperwork and procedures,” it finally said. They looked at it with mounting anxiety, dismissed by a wave of its talons. “Consider my gratitude for my rescue a recommendation for the purchase of your city. The vial will be yours before then.”
“Good—I don’t think I can walk anymore.” They slumped against the side of the boat, eyes unfocused and much, much paler. “I might faint. I... was never expecting to get here.”
“All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. With luck, your conditions may expedite everything—Mr Fires may even agree with you.”
The boat stopped, jostling both of its occupants upon reaching the shore. They are picked up much like a cat, or a newborn, and they let themself go slack. Despite having only a fraction of itself, Mr Mirrors navigated Parabola easily from where the boat landed. “In the meantime, I’m due for an assistant, one as thorough and bold as you've demonstrated—and since you’re too weak to object and you’re aware of current affairs, you’ll be a satisfactory one."
“I believe that’s a more acceptable cover for you, my spy.”