Mutation Genesis

by George Willson

  “Harrison, here, will help you find a place to rest until proper quarters may be found,” Obadiah said. “We do welcome lost Fempiror – which is what you are as vampires don’t exist – but times have changed as of late, and there is much distrust among our people.”

  “Why is that?” David asked.

  Obadiah shook his head. “I’m sure you’ve come far,” he said. “Erim is some distance, and no doubt you are exhausted from trying to get here as quickly as possible. When did you leave?”

  David thought quickly about his cover story versus how long it should have taken to reach Kelïrum from Erim. “Yesterday night,” David replied. “We had to hide during the day, but once the sun went back down, we tried to get here as soon as we could.”

  Obadiah nodded, satisfied with David’s answer. “Well, then you must be ready to find repose,” he said again. “Just follow Harrison.” David wondered why he was trying so hard to get rid of them, but thought he had better play along for now.

  David and Beth both thanked Obadiah and then followed young Harrison across town. David noticed Beth had turned her head slightly, her eyes looking hard behind her. David guessed she was watching Obadiah. Without a word, she turned back to watching Harrison. David wondered what she had seen, but he knew he could not ask until they were alone.

  A glance ahead showed that Harrison was leading them to an inn that stood near the borders of the town called The Kelïrum Inn. It was a simple two story, box-shaped, wood building that appeared to have the space for a half dozen rooms, and maybe up to a dozen if they were small. David was not expecting lavish accommodations, but if this was a free lodging for transients until they could acquire permanent lodgings, then the existence of such a place was rather admirable.

  Harrison led them up a pair of steps and across a narrow porch through a single door into the building. Harrison never spoke, nor did he turn to David or Beth as they walked. He clearly did a job for the mayor and asked no questions.

  The interior of the inn was as simple as David expected. A short hall with a counter on his left marked the entryway. Halls spread to the left and right just past the counter as well as a stairway leading to the second floor. The walls and floor were primarily unpainted wood, though there was a carpet on the floor to dress up the entry way a little bit. Unlike the street, candles in sconces on the walls lit the lobby of the inn.

  An older woman walked out of the room behind the counter and smiled upon seeing them. She wore a simple dress, much like Beth’s, and looked to be in her sixties with grey hair tied behind her head in a bun.

  “Good evening, Harrison,” she said with a grandmotherly smile. “New arrivals?” Her voice was friendly without a trace of malice or suspicion about her. No doubt, this served to set any new arrivals who had suffered the recent trauma of transmutation at ease.

  “Yes, Miss Fiona,” Harrison replied. “Straight from Erim.”

  “Oh, poor things,” Fiona said. “So young too. I can take solace in my life after the change, but these young ones make me sad.”

  “How many young ones have there been, ma’am?” David asked.

  “Oh, you can call me Miss Fiona, dear,” Fiona said. “There have been dozens. Goodness, we have grown. Those Erim people certainly stay busy. It is a wonder they haven’t rooted us out yet.”

  “Why don’t they?” Beth asked.

  “To be honest, dearie, I don’t know,” Fiona said. “Maybe, we’re just not that big a threat to them since they got their way with us. Besides, I worry that they might come after the unchanged people.”

  “True,” David said as Fiona turned to a board behind the counter. She retrieved a key and handed it to David.

  “Here you go, dearie,” she said. “It’s on the second floor to your right.”

  David thanked her and turned with Beth to the stairs. They had taken a couple of steps when he heard Fiona sigh and say, “It’s a shame, really.”

  Curious, David stopped and turned to her. “What’s a shame?” he asked.

  “It’s just,” Fiona began and then shrugged. “You two would have made such beautiful children.” David felt Beth stiffen next to him. He glanced at her. She was looking at Fiona through eyes that were quickly filling with tears. She quickly turned and walked up the stairs, leaving David alone. He watched her go.

  “Forgive me,” Fiona said, her voice reflecting an honest and heartfelt apology. “I didn’t mean to upset her.”

  David turned to her. He knew Fiona had meant no insult or offense, but like Beth, he was beginning to feel the weight of his past finally crashing down on him. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “It’s just all so new for us.”

  Fiona nodded as David followed Beth up the stairs. He met her at the top. She averted her eyes from him, but he could see that they were tear-stained and blood-shot from what Fiona had just dropped on her, as innocently as Fiona may have meant it.

  Of course, there was no other way to take the comment but personally. Even though they were on a mission, they had planned on children together once upon a time, and since Beth had refused to face the loss of their old life as much as David had, someone finally hitting her with the reality of it all was a lot to bear.

  “How are you doing?” David asked gently.

  “Let’s just find our room,” she clipped.

  David nodded and checked the key tag. The room number was 202. A line of faded, deep green carpet provided the only color in the short hall that comprised the second floor that held five rooms. Directly ahead of them was 203. He looked to his right and found 201 on the same side of the hall as the stairs, and the rooms were numbered sequentially counter-clockwise from there, which placed 202 to the right of 203, then 204 and finally 205 directly to his left across the hall from 204. Candles burned in sconces between the each of the three doors ahead of him. He walked to 202, unlocked the door and held the door open for Beth to enter.

  He entered the small, sparsely furnished room behind her and noticed that the room was so small that the door was only inches from the end of the bed. He inched into the room behind Beth and looked around using only the light from the hall. The room had no windows, of course, and the only furnishings were a double bed (which took up the majority of the floor space) and a small table with a half-burned candle in a holder beside the head of the bed. As he walked around the foot of the bed, he spotted a white chamber pot just under the edge of the bed. While Erim had cisterns with water to flush one’s waste into the underground sewers, most smaller towns David had encountered still used chamber pots, though they usually had more privacy than this one allowed. The floor was very plain, unfinished wood, though well worn from use, and the bed had a very basic wooden frame with respectable, though well used, bedclothes. Like Hauginstown, Kelïrum clearly sustained itself, but it appeared that new items were rare.

  Beth immediately walked to the bed and sat down, staring at the floor. David walked to the small table and placed his rucksack on the floor next to it. He looked at the tallow candle through the dim lighting and found a small tinderbox next to it. The thought of using a tinderbox again to produce light reminded David of just how much he enjoyed the conveniences of the Fempiror. Knowing that using the candles in the hall would produce a light quicker than using the tinderbox, he took the candle in its holder to the hall, used the candle in the sconce next to his room to light it, and returned to the room, finally closing the door behind him. He returned the candleholder to the table beside the bed and then turned to look at Beth.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, barely able to speak past her grief. “I’ve survived the last ten years without so much as a tear for what I’ve lost. Now, I’m just a mess.”

  “Maybe you’re finally facing what you’ve ignored all this time,” he said carefully.

  She chuckled and reclined on the bed. “Maybe I am.” She sniffled, ran her hands down her face to recover some level of composure before looking at him. “David, why did you have to come back i
nto my life?” she asked with a trace of anger.

  “Neither one of us asked for this, but—” David began. He looked around the room.

  Beth yawned. “What?” she asked him, the yawn still in her voice.

  He was uncertain how to begin. The room only had one bed, and not only was there the question of their not really being married, but their past made him wonder just how comfortable she would be in sharing a bed with him. After she had yawned, she had shifted her body in the bed to lie on the side of the bed next to the wall. He noted that this did allow him room in the bed, but he was not sure whether she had done this intentionally or subconsciously. Still, considering the arrangements, either they had to share, or he would have to sleep on the floor. Not having enough information as to how things worked around here, if someone checked on them in the middle of the day, these people might find it odd for them to be sleeping separately. How does one balance respectability with keeping up appearances?

  “How are we going to handle the sleeping arrangements?” he finally asked just to be sure. “We’re supposed to appear married, so there may be a respectable way to...”

  He turned back to Beth and found that she was already asleep. He was not sure if it was the trip or just the emotional turmoil she had recently experienced, but she rested peacefully on top of the bedclothes, fully dressed.

  David walked to her sleeping form and gazed upon her. He remembered the only other time he had seen her asleep, he had nearly decided to leave her room without saying goodbye. She was wearing this dress as well. Only yesterday, he had seen her for the first time in ten years and wanted nothing more than to talk to her. Now they were together in a small inn, dressed as they were before they ever changed, looking the age they would have been if life had allowed them to marry and live out their lives together.

  David’s world spun around him as his alternative life flashed before his eyes: a honeymoon at an inn far from home; their first night together; the prospect of a long life with children followed by grandchildren— living the life of a tailor at some little town away from Hauginstown. He reflected that the tailor life would not have been so bad, whatever he might have thought of it then. Ten years of combat training and fighting Tepish gave him a new appreciation of the simple life.

  He looked back at his former fiancée and decided that he could sleep respectably beside her to keep up their appearance. Carefully, he removed her shoes and lifted the bedclothes from his side of the bed to cover her. The bedclothes were of little concern to him, as he normally opted to go without. Since his body temperature was usually colder than the air around him, he rarely needed them to stay warm when he slept.

  He removed his shoes, turned to the candle, and snuffed it, extinguishing the light. He lay down next to her on the bed and closed his eyes. He listened intently to the inn outside the room.

  Someone was at the door. The person was quiet, but he shifted his weight now and again, so David suspected he was kneeling – probably looking through the keyhole. It made David that much more relieved that he decided to sleep next to her. He was momentarily concerned that this person might have heard him talking about appearing to be married, but thinking back, David thought he had heard something when he was standing next to the bed after Beth had fallen asleep. He had thought nothing of it at the time, but in this context, he suspected that was when the keyhole peeper showed up.

  As he listened, the person got to his feet and walked away from the door. He and Beth were alone again. He closed his eyes and let sleep take him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Alchemist

  Compared to the rest of Kelïrum, the city hall was ornate and even modern. From the outside, the main door led directly into the main hall, which had red carpet throughout, light brown wooden walls and four open doors leading into the four offices for the leaders of the town. The front of the hall held one office for the human mayor’s assistant and a room for small meetings where the rear of the hall had offices for both the human and Fempiror mayors.

  In the early evening of October 12th, the young alchemist walked through the Kelïrum city hall past the offices in the public section of the building. Turning to the right at the T-junction at end of the hall led into the large meeting hall for town meetings, which also had its own entrance to the outside, though the alchemist never had cause to enter that room. In fact, Kelïrum had never had a town meeting since he had lived here. The other main section was beyond the hallway visible to the public.

  The Tepish had remodeled the old building to include several rooms inaccessible to most people for the alchemist to have space and privacy to accomplish the unusual mission the Tepish had given him involving the Fempiror serum. The primary Tepish philosophy involved transmutation, but even after transmutation, people were free to make their own choices about changing others. Though some joined the Tepish ranks, others ran. So the Tepish wanted this revised serum to make new Fempiror more susceptible to their will or at least more willing to attack or to transmutate humans.

  Despite his reservations regarding his ability to accomplish this task, he had surprised himself with the progress he had made, though he was never sure it was what his superiors wanted. Two nights past, Vladimir, the Kurvatz Malnak of the Tepish Order, had sent a Levi-Cart to retrieve the latest test subject to whom the alchemist had administered his latest version of the serum. That subject had passed into a coma that accompanied the change a day before the Erim escort had taken him, and according to how this serum had behaved, this subject would be awakening tonight. Vladimir had promised that he would return the subject to Kelïrum before he awakened, though the alchemist suspected that Vladimir had already administered some of the serum that he had sent to Erim and was comparing notes.

  The alchemist had warned them against doing this, but he knew he had no say in their doings. He assumed they wanted to start changing people as soon as possible once they learned how long it took the change to complete. The entire cycle was thirteen days, which they felt was too long, because they wanted results immediately. Even though they lived for centuries, the Tepish leadership grew increasingly impatient. It seemed that after they took control of Erim, they were in a constant struggle to maintain it as the Rastem and Elewo collectively worked to overthrow them.

  It was of no concern to him, though, all the way out in Kelïrum. He wanted to be far from Erim so neither opposing faction could interfere. He only hoped the Tepish would have the subject back before he awoke, so there would be no problems. He had already paced for thirty minutes in his isolated research rooms at the back of the city hall, and finally decided he needed some fresh air.

  He walked out onto the steps of Kelïrum’s city hall. The outside of the building was whitewashed, though the porch area was still plain, unfinished wood and elevated three steps above the ground. The town was quiet with its combination of humans and Fempiror, and to an extent, it reminded him of where he had grown up a long time before. As he leaned casually on the porch rail, some of the people waved at him as they passed, which was pleasant and made him feel a sense of peace that he had not felt in quite some time. It was one more reason to be so far from the Tepish. Even though he claimed allegiance to the Tepish, he preferred to let them fight their own battles and leave him out of it. There was no greater day for him than when they decided he was not a fighter and allowed him to work quietly on his own.

  Footfalls padding on the carpet from within city hall caught his attention. He turned to find Obadiah, the mayor of the Fempiror of Kelïrum, stepping out of the building. Obadiah walked to the edge of the porch and stood next to him.

  “Good evening, sir,” Obadiah said cheerfully. “How is your work coming along?”

  “It’s doing well,” the alchemist replied still leaning on the porch railing. “I’m expecting my subject to return from Erim shortly.”

  “Are they pleased with your progress?” Obadiah asked. The alchemist knew that Obadiah’s friendliness was directly influenced by his desire fo
r the Tepish to leave Kelïrum to him. Obadiah believed that once the alchemist was done with his work, the Tepish would no longer need Kelïrum, and he and the others could live out their very long lives in peace. Obadiah was no fighter, and he enforced a strict “no weapons” law in town among the Fempiror, conceding only to the Tepish who visited the alchemist, primarily because his only attempt to make them leave their weapons in Erim was a dismal failure.

  “We will find out when the representative from Erim arrives,” the alchemist said.

  He heard a faint hum drawing closer and straightened. This would be the Levi-Cart bringing his subject back to him. He wondered if Vladimir would be with them this time, since Vladimir had said he would be visiting at some point. The Levi-Cart stopped in front of city hall. It was longer than average to accommodate the cargo of a sleeping body, but also streamlined for speed – a vast improvement over the box-shaped Carts the Fempiror used to make to blend with their surroundings. The Tepish had found that even when humans had seen a Levi-Cart, they equated the experience to a dream or hallucination. This Levi-Cart had a longer nose with rounded edges all around. The forward Levi-coils were still perfect circles to accommodate the churning pools within, but they were set into the body to allow the front of the Cart to come to a point.

  A Tepish, dressed in their trademark armor of black with a bat etched in red on the breastplate, leapt from the driver’s seat and stood before the alchemist. Vladimir had not come.

  “Your cargo from Erim,” the driver announced.

  The alchemist nodded and walked to the back of the Cart to make sure his subject was intact along with his other request. He pulled back the tarp covering the unconscious man he had injected thirteen days ago with the latest version of the new serum. The man’s skin was pale white, almost completely drained of blood.