On my nineteenth attempt, my eldest gave her blessings freely but the duchess of life remained painfully shy and unconstructively self-conscious. She refused to see my herald and he grew depressed, his efforts in tower construction a half-hearted attempt to pierce the heavens. The tower collapsed and my eldest never returned. Millia Gnu Aye succeeded the throne.
Alexander used shimmering gold, an orange metal stiffened with copper, nickel, and silver mixtures. The material felt slick in an oven sheath, a snake’s newly shed skin. He turned the metal in an open furnace, sparks snapping at his heel as he poked the raging blaze. The metal sang, freed from the fire, and flattened like bread dough beneath a metal rolling pin. He curled the orange line around a crude steel mandrel and set the seam perfectly sized.
She was a five, and the base of her ring finger was less than 0.7 inches in diameter.
Alexander licked his lips, the fire hissing as he tapped the cooling metal forming a perfect ring shape. Coals barked at his knees as he hammered five, six, seven, and eight. The seam vanished, and the metal smoothed around his mandrel.
He wiped his brow, blowing on the ring, which gleamed as bright as the furnace. There were no gemstones in his beloved’s band. She had simpler tastes and many rings with red, purple, and green sleeves.
His would be gold, the only one to adorn her beautiful hands.
Alexander soaked his polishing cloth in oil, wiping the excess against his trousers. He spun the metal within the damp rag until it was as smooth as velvet. It glowed a vibrant orange color in the dark, a second sun rising in the west and setting in the east, but still only a fraction of his love for her.
Yes, the ring came first, but the tower was next.
He closed the lid of his furnace and smothered the flames, slapping his knees with his good hand as he stood. The brick walls of his manor groaned as if his father still struggled beneath the mortar.
Alexander smashed a wine bottle against the stone, sour liquor pooling onto the floor and adding to the growing lake.
“So it begins,” he said, christening the walls with blood and broken glass.
The basement membrane of his tower was thirsty, the mortar turning a deep red color as it soaked up the wine. Alexander fed it daily, nurturing the foundation until it was strong.
He slammed his fist against the bricks.
Yes, the foundations were sound and didn’t budge or crack. His father had become the bedrock of a new world, ready to bear the weight of a mighty tower.
“Soon we will be wed, my love,” he said, leaving the cellar behind.
Something old, new, borrowed, and blue, a sixpence in his shoe.
He knew the steps and the words from his time in the village. Young girls often prayed to the goddess of love while he hid in the haystacks. He learned much, living in secrecy.
Lord Alexander Oswald, skulking in the darkness.
He climbed the stairs of his manor, walking through the corridors of that hollow structure. The maids were gone, and the butlers, absent from their posts. They absconded with the bedsheets, the silver pitchers, and the gold candlesticks. Now, the rooms were hollow, and the doors groaned, cobwebs stretching from the corners and dust filling the bowls. Rumors of a nameless sickness spread, and the milk stopped coming, visitors few and far between.
Their absence suited Alexander and his needs. The manor was ripe for change, the site of a giant’s burial, and blessed by the god of fate.
Soon, they came, peaking beneath the bedposts and crawling from the face of the grandfather clock. The drones of the oxidized hive lay offerings of iron, wood, and steel, their lenses flashing and their spider-like digits stacking brick and lumbar, nails and rebar.
They filled the living room and boarded up the front door. His ears filled with the sounds of sawing wood, pounding hammers, and squealing blades.
Alexander smiled, running his fingers along a smooth mahogany rail and leaning over the balcony.
The triangles came first, then the supports, the beams, and the flexible adhesive. This was no model but the real thing assured of success by miracle and faith.
The Gnatu worked like machines. Turning steel billets in an open furnace burning at over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. He felt the heat, sweat dripping from his brow as his beloved’s iron drones hammered out hinges, screws, and bolts.
His proposal was one of love and convenience. She came with tools, workers, and a never-ending supply of materials.
A tower to pierce the heavens, Babel, his wedding gift to Decima.
Molten steel bubbled and boiled, hissing as it turned with a tuning fork, stirring an industrial soup, molten orange and hungry.
It needed more salt.
Tiny metal crabs pushed past his ankles, tossing finger and hip bones into the fire. The mixture turned a deep red color harder to stir, thick like batter, copper, and stone.
“Why bones?” Alexander asked a Gnatu with a stitched lion’s mane who was sitting beside him.
“Calcium makes the steel strong, brother,” it said, nickel antennae brushing against his arm. “For our lady Decima, Morta, and Nona too. The tower must never fall. Our love for them demands it. Our maker demands it. You, our foreman, our herald, demand it.”
He nodded, an unspoken bond between men who understood obsession. “Yes, for the women we love.” Alexander stared into the hissing soup of the mighty cauldron grafted into his living room, molten steel poured into sand molds of rebar and beams. “Where did you get the remains?” he asked.
“They didn’t need them anymore,” the Gnatu said, turning sideways and scuttling around the platform.
They were good at finding things.
Alexander gulped, a chill running down his spine. He breathed deeply, feeling the beat of his heart and calming his nerves.
“Heave!”
He heard the call like a siren as the metal beasts gathered, pulling thick lines of copper and lifting a beam into place.
“Brother,” a smaller creature tugged on his pant leg. “Is this the right spot?”
Alexander scratched his chin, looking over the square landing and placing the supports.
“The beams need to be made taller. We need at least thirty meters for the fifth floor. Stack two sets of fifteen-meter beams and ease up on the reinforcements for the upper floors. We need flexibility to prepare for the wind stream at four and a half miles.”
The little Gnatu nodded, tapping on the cold steel, an audible code. The others lifted their heads, mandibles clicking together and antennae vibrating, beady yellow eyes staring back.
Alexander was the architect, and they were his tools, brothers in arms, pincers, knives, and drill bits, but he was no machine, and the work wore on him.
“I’m exhausted, Linus,” he said, the pinky of his right-hand twitching uselessly against his tunic.
“We understand, brother. Work shall continue. We will consult only when necessary.”
Alexander nodded, stepping down from the industrial beams, assembly lines, sparks, and molten metal. The upper floors were abuzz with activity, wind howling through the wall openings and the holes in the ceiling. Lightning flashed across the sky, thunder booming in the distance at a growing storm.
He pulled back mounds of tarp and climbed a half-finished set of stairs toward his bedroom.
After living in decades of squalor, lying against chipped bricks and eating moldy bread, he wasn’t used to luxuries, but… A snapping fire from an open stove, heated soup, and a large chair with leather bands, decadence was growing on him.
Alexander sank into the furniture, resting the soup on his lap and closing his eyes. His hips ached, and he’d pulled a muscle in his back, feeling the weight of time against his shoulders suspended within the belly of his iron god. He fingered the gold band in his pocket and could almost taste the nectar of his beloved’s lips.
He sighed, drifting off, soup spilling onto the floor.
— ✦ —
Decima sat straight against a pew near the back of the cathedral, her violin resting in her lap as she tightened her bowstring, screwing the end until the hairs were parallel with the wood. She rubbed light rosin along the length of her bow, evenly coating the hairs. She gripped the handle with her index finger, her pinky curved and flat against the tip near the base, and her thumb positioned beneath the wood, pressing the butt of the violin against her neck and resting the back of the instrument on her collarbone.
Decima cleared her throat, holding the neck and balancing her left fingers on the instrument’s strings.
They felt firm with even spacing between the lines.
She started with half strokes, practicing her chords G, D, A, and E, moving from top-to-bottom strings.
The sound was smooth like a gentle spring, and her form was perfect.
She nodded to herself, taking a deep breath and trying an F note running her bow across the E string and shifting her fingers below the nut of her fingerboard.
Decima smiled, the sound of a smooth melody tickling her ears.
The scales came next, D, E, and F. Her sharper chords could’ve used more polish, but her heart was the composer, and she followed it, losing herself in the lapping waves of a calm spring. Her music filled the high-rib vaults and echoed down the corridors, soft and joyful.
She was in love.
“Your music is beautiful.”
Decima jumped, pressing too hard on her strings and causing a screeching noise.
Morta sat next to her, pursing her lips and crossing her legs. She looked a mess; her dress burnt and torn, straps hanging below her shoulders and her heels broken. Her hair was disheveled, her nails split, and her eyebrows singed.
“Oh, um, thanks.” Decima put her violin back in its open case, her cheeks bright red. “Sister, what happened to you?”
Morta snorted, swapping her legs, one over the other. “Family happened to me,” she said, crossing her arms and scowling. Morta leaned against the pew, closing her eyes, her face growing serene, a breeze against her cheeks. “Decima,” she said, her eyes fluttering open. “Do you… Do you think I’d make a good mother?” She wore a sincere look, a flash of desperation grasping for meaning.
Decima blinked.
She’d never seen her sister so vulnerable, so open.
“Forget I said anything.” Morta shook her head, the look gone in a snap. “What did you want to see me about?”
“Ah!” Decima licked her fingers, running them through her hair and pulling on her dress, a stubborn wrinkle refusing to call a truce. “Thank you for coming, Morta. There is something I want to talk to you about.” She held out her hands.
Morta sighed, standing and helping her into the wheelchair by the aisle.
Decima shifted her weight, curling her calves and resting her shins on a suspended metal shelf, much of her feet trailing out the back like a wedding gown.
Morta pushed her towards the altar where the Isomerase was working, fingers pulling on reality’s seam and opening a gate.
“I wanted to talk to you,” she repeated, poking her fingers together.
“Sister, stop with this rehearsed shit and just tell me what you want.” Morta glowered at the gleaming purple and green bands adorning Decima’s ankles. “This isn’t another wedding, is it?” she asked.
Decima blushed, hard. Her cheeks stinging and her freckles growing fat on a buffet, brunch, lunch, and dinner. “I love him.” She carried a wedding band, something made from a hollow but sturdy bone. A whale’s whistle. “This is the last one, I swear it.”
“Decima, you’re infatuated. It isn’t love, and you need to be careful. I’m afraid he’s going to take advantage of you.” Morta chewed on her lips. “I-I think he’s going to find love with another woman.”
“What are you saying?!” she snapped, wheelchair-bumping against the stairs leading up to the altar. “You made him for me, didn’t you?”
Morta blushed, leaning against the altar as the fingers of the isomerase dressed her hair and fixed her heel. “I can do better, Decima,” she said, her head jerking, hair spun into intricate knots.
“I don’t want your better! I want him!” Decima’s stomach growled, her belly button teething, the fingers along her claves twitching.
Oh, Gawds, she was getting hungry.
“Please, sister, just listen to me. I knew so little of love when I made him, but if you give me time, I’ll do it right. I’ll make a man who’ll never leave you.”
Decima’s face turned red, and she balled her hands into fists. “No, sister, I don’t want another. That you think Alexander is capable of adultery gladdens my heart. Now I know his love is born of choice and not fate. Nona was right. The unpredictability of the human heart makes passion more real than any sterile creation you might make.”
“Please, Decima, think about this clearly. I made him for you as a distraction when you were a girl, but you’re a duchess now. Your duty comes first.”
“We,” Decima said, her lips trembling. “We love each other. Isn’t that enough?” She fumbled with her hands, tears dripping into her lap as her ring fell to the floor. “Isn’t that enough for you, Morta?”
Morta frowned, pushing herself off the altar as the Isomerase finished the straps of her new gown. “Fuck, sister, that you love so fiercely with so little is a quality I admire in you, but you leave yourself vulnerable. I love you. Nona loves you. the Gnatu love you. Isn’t that enough?”
Decima’s face turned to stone, meeting Morta’s gaze, a dogged stubbornness in her fixed expression. “Morta,” she said. “Give me your blessing. Say you’ll be my bridesmaid.”
“No, I will not ascent to this match.” She dug in her heels. “I don’t want to see you hurt.”
Decima humphed, wheeling herself towards the Origin Well where a fresh gate was opened. “I didn’t need you, anyway,” she said.
“Decima…”
“No, don’t follow me!” She pushed herself off her chair and crawled toward the shimmering mirror. “I’m going to ask him to marry me, Morta. I don’t care what you think!”
Her stomach growled, but loudly this time. She held her belly, groaning as a line of drool trailed from her lips to her chin.
“Sister, at least eat first. The garden provides for you. Don’t be brash on the eve of a scarlet moon!”
“You’re not my guardian!” she shouted as her feet gnawed on the floor. “And, I’m not hungry!”
Decima pulled herself through the open portal but paused long enough to look back over her shoulder. “I think you’d make a terrible mother,” she said, the gate closing behind her.
— ✦ —
Decima made a mistake. She knew it, crawling on the floor of her beloved’s manor. The gate shut, and she found herself in a winding corridor, pitch black, without a candle in sight, but she could hear violent winds, rain, and cracking thunder. Steel beams were stacked against the wooden walls, and her nostrils flared from the scent of molten metal and gunpowder.
“Oooh,” she moaned, holding her stomach, which growled fiercely.
Decima’s fingers and toes shook, producing a loud buzzing noise, her shins stroking the tymbal muscles beneath her knees.
“Please,” she said, pinching her thigh. “Not now…”
Her eyes adjusted quickly in the darkness. The floor looked rich, wood grain like the light and dark regions of honey-cured ham, knots the center of a cinnamon roll, and trimming the icing on a strawberry, upside-down pineapple cake.
Decima rubbed her belly against the wall, pupils contracting as she licked the corners of the floor. It tasted sour and bitter, but also sweet, nutmeg, vanilla, and a lemon-filled center.
Drip, drip, drip.
That taste so sickly sweet dripped down upon her feet.
Decima ripped up the wood paneling, slipping her claws beneath the seams and chewing on the slats, drool staining the neckline of her dress.
“Oh, my beautiful baby girl. What have you done to yourself?”
Decima dropped the half-eaten board, lips quivering. “Lachesis?”
She came from the shadows. An elderly woman with gaunt bony cheeks, long white hair, and glowing red eyes. She smiled, crooked but warm, her thin spidery fingers pinching Decima’s cheek.
“Look how you’ve grown,” Lachesis said, taking Decima into her arms, her skin thin and wrinkled. “Worry not. Your grandmother is here.”
The woman sat on an old rocking chair, cuddling Decima, who was now a little girl, and cooing softly in her ear.
“Grandmother,” Decima said, reaching out with stubby little arms. “I’m hungry.”
“I know, sweetheart.” Lachesis poked her nose. “Leave everything to your grandmother. I’ll get us something to eat.” Her eyes glowed a sinister red dawn. “Sleep, my precious niece. Let your grandmother take care of everything.”
Decima closed her eyes, snuggling against Lachesis’s breast, enveloped in the smell of rainwater after a storm.