Songs of the Dying Earth

Saloona touched her hand. She hoped the gesture was reassuring — she was out of practice with such things. She very much needed the fire witch’s assistance during this final stage of assembling each spell. Since breakfast, they had worked side by side in the small, steel-and-glass-clad laboratory that stood in the darkest corner of Saloona’s farmstead, deep within a grove of towering black spruce.

There, beneath glowing tubes of luminar and neon, Saloona utilized an ancient ion atomizer that reduced spores and toxic residues to a nearly invisible dust. The fire witch then used Saloona’s telescoping syringes to inject the toxins into a series of jewel-toned vesicles. Paytim strung these gemlike beads onto a chain of finest platinum, which would adorn Saloona when she entered the after-ball. Saloona and Paytim had taken mithradatic doses of each poison.

When the last vesicle had been strung, they returned to Saloona’s cottage. There she decanted half of what remained of the Ubiquitous Antidote into a vial and gave it to the fire witch. Paytim then organized lunch. Saloona continued to express reservations regarding the night to come.

“I received no personal invitation to this celebration. Surely they will not be expecting me.”

Paytim stood beside the stove, preparing two perfect omelets laced with sauteed ramps and oryx bacon. “My response to the court was clear: you will be my guest.”

“I haven’t left this place for nine years.”

“You are well overdue for a journey.” Paytim slid an omelet onto a copper plate and set it in front of Saloona, alongside a thimble-sized lymon tartlet and a glass of fresh pepper jelly. “There. Eat it while it’s hot.”

“I have nothing to wear.”

A wisp of white smoke emerged from the fire witch’s left nostril. “It would be a grievous day indeed when a Cobalt Mountain witch could not conjure attire suitable for paying court to a ruler of such legendary incompetence as Paeolina the Twenty-Ninth.”

“And if my incompetence outshines his?” Saloona stabbed irritably at her omelet. “What then?”

“It will be for such a brief moment, only you will be aware of it. Unless, of course, your spells of confusion fail, and the Ubiquitous Antidote is deficient against The Black Peal. In which case…”

Paytim’s voice faded into an uncomfortable silence. The two witches looked at each other, contemplating this unsavory prospect. A spasm assailed Saloona, and she clapped her hands to her ears.

“Do you hear that?” she cried.

The fire witch paled. “I hear nothing,” she said, then added, “but I suspect the Velvet Bolt has expired. We must not speak of the musical charm again. Or even think of it.”

Saloona bit her lip. She prodded her omelet with her fork, and reflected unhappily on how little joy she had taken from Paytim’s cooking in the last day and a half.

This too is due to that malign spell, she thought.

Before another fit of trembling could overtake her, she began to eat, with far less avidity than had been her wont.

Sky and shadows mingled in an amaranth mist as twilight fell that evening. At the edge of the forest, the prism ship had for some hours kept up a high-pitched litany of admonition, interspersed with heartrending cries. Since Saloona now seemed to possess a heart, the ship’s lament frayed her nerves to the snapping point, and drove the fire witch wild with anger. Twice Saloona had to physically restrain her from reducing the ship to smoking metal and charred wire.

“Then silence it yourself!” demanded Paytim.

“I cannot. The neural fibers that give it sentience also propel it and govern its navigation.”

Paytim’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Then we will walk.”

“And arrive tomorrow,” said Saloona with impatience. “Perhaps this is an opportune moment to test your beeswax plugs.”

The fire witch exhaled with such force that the hem of a nearby curtain curled into gray ash. Saloona ignored this and returned to her bedroom.

Clothes were strewn everywhere. Stained lab tunics; an ugly crinoline diapered with paper-thin sheets of tellurium that whistled a jaunty air as she tossed it aside; an ancient silk kimono, never worn, embroidered with useless sigils; rubber booties and garden frocks; a pelisse she had made herself from a Deodand’s skin, which still gave off a whiff of spoiled meat and blewits.

Saloona stuffed these back into the armoire from which they’d emerged, then sat brooding for some minutes on the edge of her little carven bed. She had lived here alone, had taken no lover for many years now, and had virtually no interest in fashion. Still, a sartorial cantrap was well within her powers.

But if one lacked an affinity for fashion, or even a mild interest, what use was such a spell? Might not the attire it procured turn out be inelegant, even fatally offensive? Certainly it would be unsuitable for an affair of such magnificence as the after-ball.