Songs of the Dying Earth

Paytim recoiled. She clutched the Black Peal, now disguised as a mottled nosegay, to her breast.

“Why not?” she replied. “You yourself admitted that you needed to get out more. Come, this seat is uncomfortable to the extreme, my leg is badly cramped.”

The ship’s petals expanded and the fire witch disembarked, hobbling. Saloona followed. The ship trembled beneath her footsteps, and she patted it.

“There, there, don’t fret, I will be back. Wait here. I won’t be late.”

The ship gave a final disconsolate shudder. Its violet plasma-field faded to a metallic gleam. Then the entire vessel retracted into the grass, evident only by a cloudy glister as of a circle of snail-slime.

“Leave your mercurial vessel,” commanded the fire witch. “We will have our choice of all these conveyances, if we survive.” She gestured at the waiting cabriolets and winged caravans, parked alongside the bridled destriers and sleeping gorgosaurs that lined the long curving drive.

Saloona cast a last, woeful look at her ship, then continued after Paytim.

Her heart felt leaden. She could no longer pretend that her decades-long emotional abeyance had not been undone, perhaps irrevocably, by a few days’ exposure to the rod that contained the Black Peal. For the first time in her life, she found herself recalling earlier, more clement times, experiences she had not realized were avatars of happiness. A green sward dappled with hundreds of tiny, milk-white umbrellas, first spore-rich fruits of warm summer rain; the song of thrushes and rosy-breasted hawfinches; a magenta cloud peeling from the surface of the dying sun and disintegrating into violet shreds, harbinger of Earth’s final days. All these things Saloona had glimpsed, and thousands more; yet never had she shared a single one with another person.

This is regret, a voice whispered inside her skull. This is what it means to have lived alone.

“Quickly now, Saloona Morn — we’re late as it is.” The fire witch grabbed Saloona’s arm. “Here—”

The fire witch thrust a packet into her hand, turned, and hastened toward an immense carven arch that opened onto a hallway larger than any manse Saloona had ever seen. Liveried janissaries leaned against the fortress walls, and several guests milled outside the entry. A bearded wench; an obese man with wattles like the dewlaps of a lichened sloth; glass-skinned gaeants from Thrill whose faces were swathed in a white haze that obscured their features while still suggesting an enigmatic beauty.

In dismay, Saloona examined her own attire — trousers hopelessly rumpled, the absurd curling-toed slippers soaked with dew; shapeless kimono drooping from her shoulders. Only the toxic necklace seemed remotely suitable for an enterance into the Crimson Messuage. She turned to stare resentfully at the fire witch.

Paytim shrugged. “You’re with me,” she said, and approached the gate.

Saloona clenched her fist, crushing the packet Paytim had given her. Its contents were not damaged, as she discerned when she opened it and found that it contained two yellowish blobs, the beeswax earplugs Paytim had provided against the Black Peal. In her fury, Saloona considered grinding them into the dirt, but was reluctant to further despoil her slippers.

“Your invitation?”

Saloona looked up to see the fire witch confronting a young man costumed as a harlequin.

Paytim raised her hand. “My invitation?”

One serpentine wristlet raised itself as if to strike, then opened its mouth. Out spat a glowing ruby bead that hung in the air as a ghostly, high-pitched voice began to recite.

Paytim Noringal, Incendiary and Recusant! You exile has been revoked, following the abrupt and unfortunate death of Her Majesty Paeolina the Twenty-Eighth. His Majesty Paeolina the Twenty-Ninth hereby requests your attendance at the after-ball following his coronation.

The fire witch dropped her hand. The serpent retracted, the apparition disappeared in a sparkle of gold flame.

The harlequin inclined his head. “Paytim Noringal. Forgive me.”

“My guest, Saloona Morn, a renowned Cobalt Mountain witch,” said Paytim, and brandished her false nosegay. “Now bid us enter.”

They walked down a narrow corridor carved from the soft red stone. Antic music beckoned them, and the scents of burning hyssop, sweet clistre, tangerine peel. A short distance away, within the atrium, Saloona glimpsed revelers in sumptuous dress, garlanded with salya-blossom and ropes of garnet. As they drew near the entry, the fire witch abruptly stopped and grasped Saloona’s arm.