“Witness Leviathan, he writhes and wrangles. The open waves are trifling echoes of his might. The seas are his pastures and their depths his abyssal cradle. Water is his and he is of the water. Their soul: one selfsame droplet. Wind and light do not reach him; prying ears and eyes are washed away. He gnaws at and dissolves the bedrock of the towering lands, laughing as they sink into his ruinous realms. Gird for Leviathan, he grows and gathers.” – The First Divulgement

  Doors of durmast. Doors of departure. Two broad leaves fill the massive frame, wood varnished to a pale ochre with a seasoned patina. Each leaf holds two prominent panels, the recesses of which are carved with motifs befitting the ascending and descending, the dawning and the dusking. The light rise and the heavy plunge while the day crosses from East to West. East: Sol above soil. West: storm upon seas. Aged inlay traces these aspects into atramentous arcs faded – or unfinished – at the fringes. A single circle is graven across both halves, binding the four panels by their inner corners. Brass handles sit on each side of the midpoint, but the circle is closed and undivided. The Mayor says they are older than his city.

  His office occupies the two uppermost floors of KR Tower. Below them, life and work proceed as elsewhere in Eisenstadt. The city boasts many architectural marvels and accomplishments. KR Tower is not one of them. Compared to the competition, it barely qualifies as a skyscraper. Named after the architect Karl Roser, it is a gray-blue testament to one of Eisenstadt’s most somnolent periods: the Settling Sixties. The Peak and Concordat Monolith, both of which are visible from the office floors, outshine it in scale and splendor. The venerable Eis is also around the corner and continues to express the city’s ecumenical mission through its pan-Continental aesthetic synergy. On this night, for this occasion, KR Tower is nearly empty.

  The doors parted; the secretary leaned in. Her pointed glasses mirrored the small horns pressed close against her indigo coiffure. She scanned the room and found him by the shelf stretching along the whole wall.

  “Nearly here,” she whispered. “In the elevator.”

  “Thank you, Aurore,” said the Mayor. “Everything ready?”

  “Simmering.” She lingered a moment longer. “You, sir? Excited or afraid?”

  “Yes.” He gave a muted smile without diverting his sight. “We’ve done well. We’ll do well now.”

  Satisfied, she nodded and drew the doors closed again, the circle whole.

  The Mayor strained his eyes and recollection to study the object in his hands: a hefty egg, lacquered to resemble marble and veined with gold. He turned and weighed it, searching for some clue to its origin. Whoever had given it to him – diplomat, benefactor or supplicant – had long since slipped his mind. Valuable or worthless, sentimental or merely ornamental, it was his problem now.

  At last, he gave up this effort and set the oval back into its five-footed base on the ledge. He wiped his sweaty palms with a handkerchief and crossed the room, passing countless mementos, keepsakes, and tokens of office. His collection was more clutter than curation: metallic plaques from guilds and corporations, gifts from visiting delegations, a menagerie of carved exotic animals, a chipped glass award from a civic foundation, a ceremonial blade in a scabbard no one had drawn or asked to see in years, and more designer ashtrays than any one man could need. Tomes, both antique and contemporary, filled most of the spaces in-between. Photographs were scant. Nothing else caught his attention at this time.

  The Mayor was an unremarkable figure, below average height, middle-aged, with soft, rounded features. His gray-pink complexion and the brindle lushness of his hair indicated his mixed Lomanaha-Hridanaha heritage. He lowered himself into the chair, the finest in the city, and immersed himself in the document waiting on his desk. So much work and effort over so few pages. Several searing and sudoric months compressed into a contract. A pact. Pivotal, yet not unprecedented. Finished, he began to arrange the two typewritten copies and matching oxblood cases containing fountain pens. He stood and paced, admiring the composition.

  The durmast doors resounded with a punctual knock, to which he responded with a confident: “Enter.”

  A tall woman in a zaffre suit did exactly that. The Mayor gestured her toward the chair across from him and joined her. She drew a contract closer with a long arm before he could speak. Her amber eyes fell to the pages at once, and she began reading. He tugged at his collar, suddenly aware of the loosened tie and the damp cling of his shirt. She was dressed more formally than he was, every line of her garb precise and unfailingly contemporary.

  “I see,” she said after a while, still assessing. “You followed my wishes this time.” The faint, chill rasp in her voice, coupled with her dispassionate tone, calmed him more than his own breathing ever could. He was sampling the scent of cedar radiating from her when she demanded: “What about the identity clause? I don't see it here.”

  “At the end,” he jumped to answer. “Two paragraphs before the last. Amended and refined since our last meeting.”

  Appeased, she read on. When at last she looked up, Susskind met her with an ambitiously stretched smile too broad for his face. “This is satisfactory,” she said simply. She withdrew her hands from the desk, straightened her posture and closed her eyes. All in a languid manner.

  “Very well,” he murmured, so as not to disturb her peace. “We will sign now. Full and true names, of course.” The Mayor unsealed the two oxblood cases and presented one to her.

  She accepted, adding: “Know that you belong to a privileged few, Mr. Mayor. What I reveal, I do for one purpose only: to make us equals before each other. Accept it as a responsibility, not a gift.” After that, she wrote quickly, her signature flowing across the ends of both copies. He watched in triumphant awe as she rotated the pages toward him and returned the fountain pen.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  The last scraps of fear drained from him, replaced by a wicked thrill as he gazed at the name. The pleasure lay in leaving it unsaid. Sacredness, he realized, was built on such restrictions; purposeful and unaccountable. He added his own name beside hers on both ends and chuckled quietly at the contrast. A serpentine streak alongside a squeezed squiggle.

  “It’s strange,” Susskind remarked before she could speak. “The power we assign to names. So much struggle over such small things. Yet so few in this city know mine in whole. Four years in this chair; the most important chair in the most important city on the Continent. It is evident that secrecy is as vital in my world as in yours.”

  “One suffices to cloak countless others,” returned Karesh, amused by the comparison.

  “If the shadow is vast enough, that is. Shall we seal it, then, Miss Karesh?”

  Karesh nodded and took her copy. Holding the contract in both hands, she let it hiss. The sound thickened to a crackle, the paper simmered, and obedient flame consumed it. Ash dropped over the Mayor’s mahogany. “Flames preserve it,” she recited.

  Mayor Susskind sagged into his chair, dulled by disbelief and exhaustion alike. When some of the ash drifted onto his copy, he leaned in to secure it. Anticipation dissolved, he found his sight of her sharpened. He stared. Seeing less witch and more woman; clay-red skin, white hair worn straight and sleek past her suit collar, starry with only modern, mundane earrings and bracelets. Even the shape of her fingers, the pale nails at their tips, now seemed new and unobtrusive to him. All details settled in at once to show a Soshanaha as any other in Eisenstadt. This everyday woman caught him staring and managed a polite smile.

  Instead of looking away, he cleared his throat and said with refreshed tenacity: “As Mayor of Eisenstadt, I formally welcome you—and by extension your Coven—into our midst. From today, we are fellow citizens and neighbors. As a small token of gratitude for your cooperation and future contributions, I must insist on a small rite.” He pressed one of the beige buttons on the desk phone, waiting through a short crackle before saying, “Send it in.” Moments later, the secretary entered, steaming tray in hand.

  “I appreciate your efforts,” said Karesh, taking one of the handleless celadon cups. Steam rose between her fingers. She sipped without hesitation while Susskind struggled to keep it in his grasp. “On my short walks through Eisenstadt, I observed people diluting their tea with milk. A disturbing practice.”

  Susskind repeated a platitude about Eisenstadt’s beauty and diversity, adding in his own words: “All tea is diluted, is it not? One cannot drink leaves.” Treasuring her inclined smirk, but unable to follow her pace, he moved to pour more for her from the matching teapot.

  “Let us drink that,” she declined, redirecting him, empty mug in hand, towards a squarish bottle on the shelf. “It looks expensive and lavish. Not my custom but today calls for exceptions.”

  “Ah, yes – a good choice…” He brought the bottle to the desk and poured them each a measure, hers into the mug and his into a glass. When he lifted his in toast, it became clear she was unfamiliar with such practices. Her grip was off, her timing uncertain. Yet she watched, copied, and adjusted until she mirrored him perfectly.

  “To our lasting friendship!” Susskind exclaimed.

  “To our entwined bond,” echoed Karesh. Her voice had mellowed, though the cool roughness of it lingered, like a throat never quite rid of the cold. She emptied her drink without respect for taste or intensity. Susskind followed pace this time and supplied them anew.

  “What happens now?” she asked, studying the tawny liquid.

  “Simple. You and your companions are the rightful owners of the property at the address specified. We have already arranged the basics and allocated a small staff to help you with the transition process. Proper identification, bank accounts and biographies have also been arranged and authenticated. Should you have any difficulties or questions, my office will be ready to accommodate you.”

  “I understand,” she responded quietly without raising her eyes. “Thank you.”

  Mayor Susskind made a gentle frown and enjoyed a sip. “I have the terrible feeling that I have not answered you adequately. Allow me another attempt.” He gestured her to follow him to the tinted pane. “Observe: it is already night, yet Eisenstadt is brilliant as the day. Only darkness finds no home here. In a work dedicated to its founding, our greatest poet says: The living lake of light sprouts, It laves us in a new dawn.”

  “I have never heard of poems dedicated to glass and concrete before. Another discovery.”

  “You believe it’s an overstatement? Perhaps you are correct… I, however, owe my life, success and happiness to this city and its kind people. You know our history by now and what this beacon means to us.”

  “The living lake of light?” she scoffed. “Then it obscures the night’s sky with its own sprawling vainglory… Such a place lives under an overcast veil, permitting no guidance from above.”

  “It must feel strange to have such an important symbol of your Art, and self, out of sight.”

  “My eyes do not keep, My heart does not see. Yet they remain affixed there, While I wander free. Those words came from my first teacher. Who can dispute her truth?”

  “Interesting. A witch-poetess?”

  “No, not quite. She was a Soshosi pandit and astronomer; more erudite then than I am now.”

  “I’m in no place to judge then,” he said awkwardly. “My point was only this: What happens next is entirely up to you. You get to greet the dawn as a new person. As long as you uphold your end of the bargain, you will be welcome in my office as a private and respected citizen. What you do in the meantime is none of my business, nor of any authority. After I am gone, the contract will be continued by my successor who will extend you the same courtesies and gratitude. Does that help?”

  “It does. Thank you, once again.” Karesh took another sip, walked away from the cityscape and left the mug on the tray. “I must leave you now. My sisters are awaiting my return and keen to see more of this wondrous place.” She stopped at the door and turned around to say, “Farewell,” before going out.

  Susskind remained standing as the doors closed into a complete circle. His eyes roved across the glittering stretch and ceaseless traffic until they fixed on the Concordat Monolith; a blocky and stonelike immensity that cut harshly and proudly against the horizon.

  “Your turn, Rastus,” he muttered to himself with a sneer.

  He turned back, sat sluggishly into his chair, and lowered the depleted drink to his left side. The surviving contract was before him, left to his keeping. He folded it once, closed the oxblood case, and stored them together in a drawer of his desk.

  The doors opened and Aurore poked her head inside. “I saw her out.” She hesitated, overcome by curiosity. “Well?” She crossed the room as soon as he waved her in and sat where Karesh had moments earlier. Her gaze fell to the untouched celadon mug still steaming between them. “You didn’t even touch your tea, Gustav.”

  Without paying any attention to it, Susskind answered her firmly: “Smoothly and swiftly, my dear Aurore. Share one with me?” Aurore gave a small smile and started to rise, but he raised a hand. “Stay. It’s my turn.”

  He poured her a generous amount, replenished his own, and sat back down. “Contact Bureau Director Karrbach,” he said evenly. “He is to appear in this office tomorrow morning. Before he has time to find excuses. Make sure he brings his flunky. Tell him it’s about the revitalization efforts and budgeting. Some new adjustments are required.”

  Aurore sipped and nodded, her expression cooling. “No time to commemorate this day?”

  “Commemorate? What exactly? Nothing happened.” He smirked savagely, raising his glass.

  Eon>Era>Ages>Arcs

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