High Tower Gods

by C L Corona

  Elian and Martyn made their way slowly through the crowds, Elian getting into her role as hobbling elderly alchemist with only the faintest grasp on where she was and why, while an exasperated Martyn pretended to help her along. He was also made to carry the large handbag.

  "Medical equipment," Elian had wheezed, when security stopped her at the temple entrance. She'd coughed a good deal in emphasis. "Lungs," she waved, "And heart, and all that other stuff. I may need to be resuscitated by Nurse Martyn here."

  They'd sat through the service as a Daughter of Sanursula read from the testament; a modern translation in sympathy to the crowd of mourners. Elian was relieved. Her Old Heret was rusty, dropped as soon as she'd left University.

  The priestess droned on while Elian observed the family in the front pew as best she could, until finally, hours later, they followed the train of vehicles slowly up King Hill to where the Olsten house commanded vast grounds. It was a looming old-fashioned building, and the interior was filled with antique furniture and milling mourners. Of any serving machines—from the most basic type to more advanced chimeras—there was no sign. Unusual for a family of such wealth, and Elian supposed that all the biochanicals and serving robotics had been packed away out of respect, considering the manner of Olsten's unexpected murder.

  "I need to freshen up," Elian said, after they'd offered their condolences and nibbled at a few miserable sandwiches. "Walk me to the powder room."

  "This act is getting a bit much now," Martyn said irritably.

  Elian noted that her carer was looking more than a little jittery. "I hope you’ve brought something to take the edge off later. It’s been a very long time since I’ve made anything recreational."

  "I’m fine. I don’t need anything, you unbelievable harpy."

  She shrugged. As long as Martyn could perform his duties, she didn’t care what drugs he needed to take. "Whatever you say." Elian tilted her head in the direction of the stairs, half-hidden by potted plants and statuary. "Powder room. Now. Hop. And you'll have to make sure no one else comes in. Just stand outside and tell them I'm an old woman and the stench will be unbearable."

  "That will give me great pleasure." Martyn walked Elian slowly to to the furthest guest bathroom, near to where a pair of burly guards stood at the foot of a curling flight of stairs.

  They gave her a brief, uninterested glance. The nearest and shorter just about managed a bored nod in Elian's direction. There was nothing remotely terrifying about a bent-backed old woman who had to cling to her bespectacled care-giver in order to make it to the toilet.

  Idiots, Elian thought.

  ◆◆◆

  Once she was certain she was alone in the bathroom, she set about quickly sorting through the small collection of alchemicals she had in her huge handbag. She'd decanted them into labelled medicine bottles. Anyone looking through them would have seen nothing more than a collection of medication covering everything from constipation through to heartburn. Mild, over-the counter stuff in sticky sugary-bitter fluids.

  Elian grinned at the cornucopia spread out before her, and began mixing. Alchemy wasn't meant to be used to make poisons and drugs, but a good alchemist knew everything from basic poison making to full-strength alchemical warfare. The really good ones could mix them up in the guest loo from unmarked ingredients. The mix she'd thrown together wasn't all that far removed from the drugs Martyn made. Hers just took a damn sight more skill and care. And were less likely to cause irreparable damage.

  Within minutes she'd made a fast-working sedative that would work through skin contact. There would be some slight hallucinogenic properties, but hopefully not enough to alert the guards before the sedative took effect.

  Her hands liberally coated with gel-glove, Elian tipped the sedative into her palms, and rubbed them gently together. She had a good half-hour before the sedative transference became ineffective. There were longer lasting alternatives, but this one would leave no trace. Better for her purposes.

  Elian flushed the toilet enthusiastically a few times, and left, her heavy bag looped on the crook of her arm.

  Martyn was waiting outside, lounging against the door jamb. He stopped playing with his unsuitable tie, and raised one eyebrow. "All done?"

  "I'd make a brilliant drug dealer," she said. "If the mood ever took."

  "I'm going to assume you went for finesse over a magically volatile sledgehammer."

  "Of course." Elian held out her free arm for him to take and together the two of them walked toward the staircase.

  "No one allowed up there, ma'am," the shorter guard said. He was kindly, but firm.

  "Oh no, I would never," Elian said, her voice quavering. "I was just admiring these balustrades." She pointed to the carved wooden end of the staircase. "I'm old, and my eye-sight is not so good these days, but they look like Delancy's work."

  "No idea, ma'am."

  Elian pulled her arm gently free from Martyn's grip and tottered closer to the stairs.

  Martyn coughed but made no move to go closer to the guards. "Doctor," he said. "I don't think the nice gentleman want you going nea-"

  Elian stumbled, her arms wind-milling as she tried to catch her balance before her face connected with the end of the staircase that she'd just been admiring. Both guards snapped immediately into action, launching forward to grab her.

  "Oh my," she gasped. "Oh, thank you." She clung to her saviours, panting, making sure her voice sounded tearful and shocked. "Oh, my stars, thank goodness for the two of you." She let them right her, and thanked them again, her voice still breathless and terrified. Elian gripped their hands, shaking them each in turn. "You don't understand, you've saved me a terrible trip to the hospital. Just last year I fell and broke a hip..." She dissolved into more tear-drenched thanks while the guards quietly made it was just our job and happy to have helped noises.

  Martyn reclaimed his charge and led her off. "You should take up acting," he hissed. "Even I half-believed that nonsense."

  "Of course you did. You lot are so easy to manipulate. The moment someone says what you want to hear, you're happy as pigs in sh-"

  "Thanks," Martyn said. "How long?"

  "We have just a hair over fifteen minutes before they start dozing off. They'll not go to sleep so much as have blank holes in their memory. It's a charming little drug, you’d love it."

  "And the security cameras?"

  "That's only a slight problem," Elian said. "Ulixes has given me the map layout—where to walk in order to avoid the cine-cameras here, and once I’m in Olsten's offices I can shut down the ones in the east wing. You're going to stay here, keep an eye on our mentally deficient friends." She inclined her head vaguely in the direction of the guards. "If you think there's been a problem, you make a fuss, like we agreed."

  "Yes, that my deranged and senile employer has wandered off while I went to get her a drink—got it."

  "Excellent." Elian raised her veil and winked. "I'm sure you can be suitably convincing as to what an incompetent, dribbling old bat I am."

  "I'll do my best." Martyn grinned. "And I don't even have to be a good actor for that. You realise this idea is completely insane, right?"

  "No more insane than using your uni lab to cook up commercial quantities of a banned hallucinogenic known to cause irreversible physical and mental side-effects when incorrectly made."

  "I had everything under control," Martyn said. "And besides, I thought we agreed to never mention that."

  "You agreed. I think there's a fascinating potential for your drug, myself. Sometimes the most exciting opportunities happen when things go wrong."

  "You keep telling yourself that, boss. You didn't see that girl—what was left of her" Martyn shuddered. "Come on," he said as they walked into the thick of the milling guests. "Act normal."

  "Whatever that means." Normal and casual at a wake. Well, Elian supposed, it was just another test to see if being immortal had made her completely inhuman.

  Elian used the next quarter of
an hour to watch Mama Olsten and Baby Olsten, eyes peeled for any tell in their behaviour. But the two seemed grief-stricken, in shock. Their faces were the clammy dead masks of people who can't quite believe what has happened.

  Either she was way off-base, Elian thought. Which was unlikely. Or one of them was a very good actor. She narrowed her eyes, and listened to the muted hum of sincere condolences and gentle remembrances. The world was hazed a little by her veil, and most people ignored her as just another little old lady in an old-fashioned dress of mourning red. Even so, there was nothing of interest to be gleaned from the conversations around her. People seemed to have genuinely liked old Francis.

  Martyn circled back and glanced toward the guards. One was leaning against the wall, just slightly. "Looks like our uniformed friends are feeling the effects. Best get moving."

  Her large bag gripped firmly in hand, Elian meandered back toward the guards, now very much nodding and slipping at their posts.

  No one stopped her as she stepped on to the thick stair carpets. She walked softly, half-expecting one of the guards to shake off the effects of her hastily-brewed concoction, but they were caught in the delicate poison that had worked under their skin.

  The gentle noise of the wake faded, and a new sense of urgency propelled Elian. She flicked a glance upward, scanning the corners of the ceilings for the little cine-cams. Ulixes had told her exactly where to step to always be in the cams' blind spots, and she followed this pattern with a machine-like efficiency that would not have been out of place in a chimera.

  Olsten's office was first. The lock was a simple metal and plastic infokey, and Elian had no trouble with that. Ulixes' finger worked whether it was attached to the chimera or not; obviously, the family in mourning had not yet gotten around to re-keying all the locks. The door opened easily and silently.

  Inside was dark, the furniture all leather and polished wood, though a fine layer of dust had already settled. A portrait stood on one wall, but it was not of the man himself, staring sternly down at any would-be intruder. It was instead a family portrait in light, bright, almost impressionistic style. Mother and son, and a large red dog, at play in a sea of green and gold. Judging from the signature at the bottom, the old man himself had painted it. From the age of the subjects, it had been a good few years back. Time had not been kind to the family. Here was a moment of joy, long since passed, perhaps barely remembered.

  This was what it meant to be mortal.

  Elian rounded the desk. The old man's work machine was still there, switched off, its bright metal casing gathering dust. She flicked the power button, and the valves inside began to heat. From below the desk came the sound of several small fans whirring into action. The screen took a few minutes to warm up, but when it did, Elian smiled.

  Olsten had been a sentimentalist. Elian remembered this user system from her own days in college. It was still updated, but used by only a core of older types, or those who fancied themselves retro. Her own coding skills were meagre compared with Judakael's but she knew her way around the old systems well enough. And she would have help.

  Elian set her bag down on the desk, flicked it open, and drew out Ulixes' expressionless head. The gelrubber was cool to the touch, and the usual faint vibrations of moving fluids and parts was noticeably absent.

  "Ulixes," Elian whispered, and smoothed her palm over the back of the head. The chimera had gone into a sleep mode designed to save it unnecessary trauma while in its disconnected state, but it woke at Elian's touch.

  The painted eyes remained closed, but Elian felt the head heat slightly under her fingers as the chimera's shortened biocircuitry came out of dormant mode.

  "Ahhh," it sighed. It sounded almost like it was in pain, or grieving. "This one has missed this room."

  "Save your missing for later and help me shut down the cine-cam system." Elian settled the head so it faced the screen. "Chop-chop."

  Elian tapped keys as instructed, and breathed out slowly in satisfaction as the program controlling the network of cameras showed them switching off one by one.

  "Now," she said, and flipped back her veil. "To the murder room." She slung the bag over one shoulder and held the chimera's head out in front of her.

  "Let me know what you remember," Elian said as she followed the route that Francis and Ulixes had walked that night.

  The chimera had told her all it could remember about that evening, which hadn't been much. Francis and his chimera had walked together, as they'd done every evening for decades. The ritual was a simple one: once Francis Olsten was done for the day, then Ulixes, who was the only personage allowed in his office, would bring him a tray of coffee and biscuits.

  Francis would eat while the chimera cleaned under his watchful eye. With that done, the two of them would go together to the conservatory at the far end of the house where Francis cultivated his pride and joy.

  Or prides and joys. The man was obsessed with songbirds, and a huge variety of them were kept in a long aviary-filled room that had been modified from its original purpose as a glass house for plants.

  Ulixes' job was to help Francis fill all the seed pots, change the bottoms of the cages, add grit and water and whatever else was required. Due to the enormous number of birds, it was a job that could take well over an hour, even with the faithful chimera helping.

  No other members of staff or family were permitted in the bird room. It was a sanctuary. A place where Francis Olsten could divorce himself from his role as the head of a huge Pharma company, and become nothing more than a man at home with his hobbies.

  Elian almost understood the drive. She'd had hobbies for relaxation once—something to snap her out of being Doctor Maxwell, to strip away the numbers and the failures and the alchemical stench. But that had been a different Elian, one untouched by immortality. Nowadays her hobbies were less about distraction and ore about trying to hold on to some semblance of human needs and actions.

  She paused in front of a large wooden door with a panel on one side requiring both an infokey and a code sequence. "This is it?" It was only half a question. From behind the door came a cacophony of sound, hardly even muted by the thick wood.

  "This one will give you the code," said Ulixes.

  Elian tapped in the correct number sequence and used the detached finger as the required infokey. She was just grateful that Francis hadn't been the type to bother with retinal scans.

  The door swung easily open, the hinges still smoothly oiled and silent.

  The flood of noise was deafening. Elian couldn't help shuffling back in the face of the onslaught. She shook her head in irritation, walked forward and let the door slide shut behind her.

  She'd stepped from a narrow gloomy corridor covered with stern portraits into a world of song and sun. The longest walls were lined with vast high aviaries, ranks of cages, and light spilled from the huge bank of windows that made up the far wall.

  The air smelled feathery and hot and rich. It vibrated with bird calls. Potted plants took up the aviary floor space, and several of the aviaries had what looked like small fountains and rock gardens with ferns and shrubs. The room was green and wet and warm, and the flash of yellows and olives and cardinal reds fluttered here and there between the leaves.

  'When you said he kept some song birds," Elian said, "I was expecting a selection of cages and their drab but delightfully musical inhabitants. Not this."

  "He liked birds," Ulixes said. If it had still had shoulders, Elian was sure it would have shrugged.

  "Right. So you came here with him as usual, and what did you do first?"

  "This one took the watering can to fill the fountains and other water receptacles. Francis preferred to feed them himself. Some would even come eat out of his hand."

  "I'll bet," said Elian. "I'm sure he was a regular maiden of the woods." She moved past the aviaries, eyeing the flicker of colours, the dappled shadows, the sunlight and the sprays of water. There were worse places to die, and he'd at least loved this r
oom. She should feel moved, feel pity that he'd stood here entranced by the birds he loved so much, only to turn around and be murdered by a life-long companion he'd thought to be incapable of violence.

  And he was right.

  "Where were you standing when you murdered Francis" Elian asked. There was no time to waste. Soon enough people would be leaving the wake, the guards would be shaking off their drug-induced somnolence, and security rounds would go back to normal.

  "This one did not-"

  "Yes, yes." Elian waved. "This one did not murder etcetera. Where were you standing when you realised Francis was dead?"

  Ulixes stayed silent for a moment, then said. "This one was standing by the central sundial. Master Olsten had just finished feeding the one side of the aviary. He liked to take a break at the mid-point and have a cigarette before continuing."

  Elian walked to the sundial, which used a complicated array of tiny holes to show the time in digital format. "Here."

  "Turn thirty degrees to your left, and step forward 6.35 inches." Ulixes' voice remained flat and emotionless, and continued only once Elian had followed its instructions. "This one's memory restarts here. There is a segment of 2 minutes and 27 seconds unaccounted for. This one woke to see Master Olsten on the ground, covered in blood."

  "Murder weapon in your hand." Elian had seen the weapon on the widescreen—a three-pronged gardening fork. It had made a mess of Olsten's face.

  "That is so."

  "It's easy to gain access to this bird room, just a number code and a standard infokey. You knew the code, and who else?"

  "All family members. No staff, but this one."

  "All family members doesn't stretch to many names—Clarise, Tomas, and Tomas's daughter, who is five and unlikely to be up to murdering her darling grandpapa." Elian tapped her chin. "Was he cruel?"

  "Master Olsten? Not to this one."

  "That answers one question and opens up a host of others. Was he cruel to Clarise or Tomas?"