Nihilist

Fearly's Rising, Take it Back

They say that Esmer’s first word was a swear word. And most likely, a swear word will be her last. But today alone, Esmer had sworn twenty-four times, all pertaining to her violin’s mother and how portly she was.

“Dammit!” the sound rang out around the empty loft apartment’s many nooks and crannies. Esmer Somers was perched on the edge of a stool by the large bay window, bow in hand and murder on her mind. Her violin was sitting indignantly on her left shoulder, tilted slightly towards the sheet music sitting lightly on the stand. The paper was devoid of notes. Nothing of the creative persuasion had even remotely wandered near her brain all morning and the concerto was due in a week.

Dammit indeed.

Esmer hesitated, brought the bow back up to the strings on the bridge, and struck a chord. It sounded like kittens being strangled. Not the happiest thing in the world.

In extreme frustration and irritation, she leapt off of the precarious perch, her boots hitting hardwood and making a much more pleasant sound than the one her violin had made previously. She walked through the parlor room and into the kitchen, usually full of noises and smells of their maid, Simca, cooking. But since today was Simca’s day off, the icebox was devoid of anything edible and Esmer stopped to think of where else she could get some food for tonight, her thoughts immediately settling on the market.

But that means…Esmer shivered in anticipation. That I will just have to deal with it, she thought firmly.

~*~

With the soft click of a latch, Esmer closed the loft’s door behind her and descended the stairs, her skirts swishing behind her. She despises taking the elevator, even though the one in her building is a gorgeous piece of clockwork. Esmer never trusted clocks, clockwork, or anything involving gears. It was a personal preference kind of thing and since her father didn’t mind, hey, who was to tell her no?

Except for all of society living it up on the airships.

Practically everything in Wolfsgate airship and others across the world are run on clockwork and steam technology except for those in Soya, which were run on, you guessed it, quantum computing. Okay, you didn’t guess it? Well, darn.

The key clicked the lock to the building’s gate firmly closed and Esmer replaced the big brass thing back into her skirts near her small purse filled with enough money to buy her some pasta and maybe a fruit for dinner and a stiletto knife with a laser attachment just in case of any complications. It was always wise to have a weapon in times of need. She wasn’t sure where she had heard the phrase, but followed it to the letter ever since she was twelve. At first it was small things, fragments of old tools she found at her father’s workplace but then it progressed to small sonics and the occasional electric penknife. She had always secretly coveted the nuclear guns that government officials had, but resigned herself to classical instruments of defense, just as her violin was a classical instrument of torture.

“Good afternoon, sir,” she greeted neighbors as she walked the six blocks to the Wolfsgate market. “Madame.” Another nod, the occasional curtsey, and sometimes just a wave as she passed over civilized country and neared those more of her own ranking, the failed musicians.

Achem, excuse me, failing musicians.

The sights and sounds of the sepia-toned market came into view and, as always, she went counter-clockwise from right to left around the rows of stalls. She passed by a goat merchant, a tinkerer and his toys, varieties of protein meal merchants, and then finally stopped at a fruit vendor’s stall.

“Good day sir,” she said politely and sidled up to the stall that was overflowing with sumptuous fruits that were obviously from the arboretum and genetically engineered, but delicious looking just the same.

“Good day to you too, miss,” the vendor smiled as if he wanted to smack her face, something that occasionally happens to Esmer among the “hard working” folks’ places. Their disdain for musicians was very obvious. “See anything you like?” He gestured to the length of his stall.

Esmer wriggled her right hand into her purse and pulled out a brassy coin with swirled metal. “One metcalf’s worth of cherries, please.” She smiled in the most cheerful manner she could muster and handed the man the tarnished plate of metal. He grabbed a brown paper bag and grabbed a fistful of cherries, placing them into the bag, then shoving the bag into Esmer’s outstretched arms.

“Thank you, sir,” she flashed him a dazzling smile and he grunted in response, then helped the next customer with a troubling problem that involved lemons and one very irate fire hose.

Esmer trundled on her way, past many more stalls until she finally found her way to the one she had been dreading, but was absolutely necessary. The madman’s stall. The madman often rambled, mostly about pasta and all the various dishes he used to cook with it, but also about other things. A clockwork girl, an evil tyrant, a world long past. He was old, very old. Practically ancient. And he loved Esmer immensely for some inexplicable reason.

“Hello Miss Somers,” he greeted her in his strange, eastern European accent. “Am I to believe that you are having pasta for dinner again?” He fiddled with the moth-eaten knitted scarf around his neck and even in his wheelchair he was immense. When he was younger he must have been absolutely terrifying. Muscle occupied almost every space, and for an eighty-year-old man he was pretty buff. His skin wasn’t tan, but a very pale olive and his white hair was practically nonexistent.

“Yes, whatever kind you suggest,” Esmer replied warily, fearing the answer more than fearing to use the knife she had obscured about her person.

“Béschamel,” he said suddenly. “She would be making béschamel lasagna this time of year.” He chuckled. “Her mother loved it, but she hated it. She could never eat it, the organic food would screw with her circuits, but she always admired the smell during the season. Are you participating in the season this year, Miss Somers?”

“Er,” Esmer was always a bit freaked out whenever she visited his booth, but this was normal. Well, as normal as it could get, him talking about his dead whatever and all. “No, I’m not wealthy enough.” She tacked on afterwards, “Sir. May I just get my pasta and go, please?” she seemed almost desperate, but she always was around the old man. He freaked her out. She reached for the pasta sheets, but he intercepted her hand and stared into her with cold green eyes.

“Fearly’s rising, take it back, put the barley in the sack,” his voice was raspy, the brief respite of lucidity gone. “Words are useless, but they hold, more power than that Everwood. Take your leave, but do not lurk, seek the boy who brings life to clockwork.” His grasp tightened on Esmer’s wrist and he continued, sometimes rhyming, sometimes not, in a demented rhythm that scared Esmer to death.

“Let go of me!” she hissed and managed to wriggle her arm out, fleeing down the street, the pasta and metcalfs still on the square.