Curiosity and the Cat of the Imperial Capital

If Grimalkin does not come home soon, he will regret it. Hegemone hates leaving the windows open during a storm. When she had signed up to house a visiting professor, no one had told her that said professor was a feline. She certainly had not been informed that said professor was a professor of aclaere. "Magical rubbish," she had said when she saw the contents of his suitcase unpack themselves.

But it is not just rubbish. She has seen proof of that far too much, far too frequently. Nevertheless, despite the cat being older than her, she has developed something of a soft spot for him. The rain starts, but she does not leave the table to close the window. Rubbing the back of her neck, she stares into her drink—Grimalkin would say that she added one too many shots—and tries to forget that she has a meeting with her old subordinate tomorrow.

There, she stays until well past midnight, telling herself with each passing hour that she isn't worried for her boarder. But Grimalkin is still not home; the sun has set, and the storm has come and gone. "He can't possibly have a student he's still tutoring, not this late." She swallows a pill—too large, but perfectly round, and goes to bed, window still open.

It's raining, just lightly. Small, cool droplets hitting her face. That can't be right—how is it raining indoors? She opens her eyes and a scraggly orange tabby is sitting on her desk, shaking the water from his fur. "What the—"

"Good afternoon to you, too." Grimalkin licks his paw.

"Afternoon?" She pulls a pillow over her face and screams into it.

"Something wrong?"

Throwing the pillow at the cat, she screams again. She never oversleeps. Never. She wakes up before sunrise. Just as she had been trained to do all those years ago when she joined the Isidoran military. Even after she had been moved from front line major to research and development staff, she still woke before the sun rose. "I have an appointment I cannot miss."

"Oh? Is it with whats-his-face? The one with the beard. Smelly."

"Yes, and he's not 'smelly,'" she says, throwing the blankets off and scrambling to find her bottle of pills.

"He is if you are a cat. We can smell things you can't," he says, leaping back to the floor and pawing under her dresser. The bottle of pills rolls toward her, and she wastes no time in removing the stopper and taking one.

"Should you be taking one in the morning?"

"They help with nightmares," she says, marching to the kitchenette. "And as you have informed me, it's not morning."

"I ask again, should you be taking them this early in the day?"

She does not respond to her boarder. With the efficiency of a soldier, she makes her tea and toast. The pills might make her a disoriented and unsteady on her feet, but she needs the distance that the pills give her. Just one step away from the world. One step away from reality. "Where were you last night?"

"I got sidetracked with some research," he says.

She rolls her eyes and sets down a plate of bacon before returning to her room. There is no mirror in her room—or anywhere in her home—for her to reassure herself that she meets the strict dress code of the military. But she isn't in the military anymore, and she learned how to dress and attire herself properly even in the dark of night. Still, despite that, she does worry about her appearance for the first time in decades. She feels too clean; too orderly. Too normal.

She does not say goodbye to Grimalkin before she leaves, but she does make sure that the unnaturally orange flower in the too-large clay pot is watered.

Captain Valerius has added three more ruby bars to his crimson uniform since Hegemone was discharged. Yet, when he calls her into his pristine office, he still has that small hesitancy in his voice that was there on his first day of basic training. "Major Verus, come in."

"It is just 'Hegemone,' now." She takes a seat across from him, glancing out the small west-facing window; the sea far calmer than she is.

"You will always be the Major who saved me from—"

She holds up a hand, forcing a laugh—if she doesn't laugh, she will scream. "I was there, too, sergeant. No need to relive our war stories."

He chuckles, the tension leaving his shoulders and the creases around his mouth deepening into a wide smile. "I'll have you know, it's 'Commander' now."

The laugh this time is genuine. "And well deserved, too."

The captain shuffles the papers on his desk, many of them full of the neat handwriting that Hegemone recognizes as belonging to General Gauis, who oversees and leads the research and development department. "Did the letter you received say what this meeting was about?"

It didn't. But it didn't need to. "I'm assuming it is about the intaerit." She could not have said that last word if she were here unmedicated.

"Correct." Valerius taps the papers on the desk, neatening them into a tidy stack. "The Sineans know we have it. And they know we've made modifications to it."

She shakes her head. This has nothing to do with her. Or, it shouldn't. She rubs the back of her neck, angry skin still ravaged by flames put out a decade ago. "They want payment for it or something?"

"No." He shrugs, raising both hands to his shoulders. "They seemed almost pleased that we have turned their basic schematics into reality. They merely wanted to warn us that soon, it will stop working."

Her mind races back, flipping through memories like a book, back to the day the General set the plans on her desk and told her to make it reality. He told her not to question from where or how he got the plans. She didn't, at first. It was not until after the battle—if one could call instant obliteration a battle— at Lucterius that she sought the truth: the plans were stolen from their so-called peaceful neighbors to the south. She tries to focus on the schematic, though, and pushes aside those thoughts. She tries to remember the details she saw that day, and then every modification she made to them until the final product was unveiled. "That's impossible."

"That is what I thought, too. I know you do not do things by halves. But the General wants you back. He wants you to find whatever flaw is there."

She sits back in the chair, folding her hands in her lap, once again grateful that she took her medication, focusing on the salty breeze coming from the window. "You can't just ask the Sineans? If they know it will cease to work, surely they know why."

"General says they won't say anything else. He also says that the Provveditore wants to finish our invasion of Cintusmina before the end of the year so that we can push into Ku-Aya before the Avon River is too high again."

"Should you be telling me all this? I am just a citizen now."

"No, you're first day back starts tomorrow, Major Verus."

"Tough day?" Grimalkin asks as Hegemone slams the door behind her.

"You could say that." She collapses into a chair in the dining room.

"Will you at least cook before you drown yourself in drink?"

His water bowl is empty, and the bacon is gone. "You can't do your whatever it is you do and make it yourself?"

"No." The cat rolls onto his back, but Hegemone stopped falling for that trick within a week of his move-in.

"Why not? You've done it plenty." She reaches for the wine bottle at the center of the table but is too dizzy to stand up and retrieve a glass—damn meds take an hour to set in and get progressively more intense for the next three. She pulls the cork out and takes a large gulp, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"I don't know. I was trying to figure that out last night."

She raises an eyebrow and chuckles. "And here I was hoping you'd finally worked up the courage to speak to Professor Kalles." The bottle meets her lips again and she finishes off half of it at once.

"She doesn't have the time of day for anyone." The cat continues to wiggle on his back as if trying to scratch an itch. "Too preoccupied with her zoo. And I'm afraid if I did say something, she'd misunderstand and think I was asking to be added to her menagerie."

"Do you want to be added to her collection?" She winces at the squeak in her voice. Already had too much drink. Oh well.

"No, not at all. What's got you down? Smelly man say something you didn't want to hear?"

She touches the back of her neck, staring at the clay pot in the corner and the bright flower growing out of it. "I've been hired back. My old post at the Craetum."

"Congratulations," he says. But there is just the hint of a question in his tone.

"No. I don't want it."

"What will you do, then? The university approved you for a sabbatical this year. Could they rescind that? Would that get the dogs off your back?"

"No, it wouldn't. I think the only way to avoid going back would be—" She rubs her eyes. She's too disoriented to stand, but she gets up anyway and makes dinner for both of them in silence.

Damn cat is probably lying about his sudden inability to tap into aclaere. He's probably just still tired from his 'research' last night. She doesn't speak her thoughts aloud, and they eat in silence, too.

"Anyway, I start tomorrow. Don't stay up too late." She goes to bed without another word to her roommate, but makes sure her plant is watered.

"It's beautiful," the sergeant says, eyes wide with wonder as he takes in the large, silver object being hauled across the field. The other soldiers keep their awe better hidden behind neutral faces, but she can still see the gleam in each of their eyes.

She's finally finished it. The intaerit. It took years; she's somehow slept less in the five years she's been at the Craetum than the decade she spent in the infintry, before a weapons malfunction put her out of commission. But they still sent her to the front lines for the first 'test' of it. They told her she deserved to see the fruits of hard work firsthand.

Weapon's malfunction. That's what they would call this, too, after it was set off. An accident. An entirely intentional accident. The General hands her the small coin-sized silver disc. "You should have the honor."

The horses cart the silver object past the infantry encampment, across the field, and to the gates of the city of Lucterius, the cultural capital of Carathounus.

She touches her finger to the center of the disc, and the city is incinerated, burning debris falling from the sky like hail. The sergeant—the one she'd made friends with on their first day of basic training—is staring up at the fire in the sky, mouth open. She leaps on top of him, pulling him the ground and dragging him under a wagon, ignoring the fire on her back.

She wakes up screaming, and Grimalkin is curled up on her chest. "It's on the table there," he says, not even opening an eye. "I should have said something when you went to bed without taking it."

She takes a deep breath, and then another, the feline unperturbed by the rising and falling of her chest. She knows she should get up and get water to take with her medicine—taking it on an empty stomach can lead to nausea—but it seemed cruel to dislodge the sleeping cat. She plops one into her mouth and considers taking another but decides against it. "Thank you," she says.

The cat does not acknowledge her.

"Good morning, Major," the man at the door says, letting her in as if this were not her first day back in years; as if he'd just seen her yesterday. She nods, mumbles a greeting, and enters the crowded atrium of the Craetum; the echo from hard soles of her boots on the marble floor joining the early morning din. The tall granite pillars, the elaborate stained-glass windows, the beautiful gold filigree over the entrances to the main corridors all speaking to an elegance that belies the true purpose of this building.

This is where the brightest minds gather to research the aclaere, to break it down, to examine it, to poke and prod it until it reveals another secret. The hedgewitches might use the aclaere, the sages might manipulate it, but the people in this building mastered it; yoked it to their desires and made it their servant.

For what purpose? Not to ease suffering and cure maladies as the hedgewitches do, not the make life easier and more convenient like the sages do; no. Hegemone is here to fix an aclaere-fueled weapon so that Isidor can gain full control over the continental waterways. It makes no sense; Isidor controls most of the western coast of the continent. But the Provveditore want the Avon River, say it is necessary. And so, thousands of Carathouni people are dead or displaced, and soon, hundreds of thousands of Cintusminans will be, too… Unless.

She weaves past colleagues who pat her on the back, shake her hand, clap her on the shoulder, or otherwise welcome her back enthusiastically. Her old desk has been made available, and as she sits down at it, she can hardly believe that it hasn't sat here undisturbed for years.

A short note from the General sits on top of the desk, and just beneath is the tome containing the full, detailed schematic for her weapon. "Verus—When you're ready, we have the device in the lab on the second basement level, all fueled up and ready for testing. -Gen."

"I suppose you cannot tell me what exactly they have you working on," Grimalkin asks her while she cooks them dinner. Or rather, cooks herself dinner and makes sure that at least a few chunks of fish remain untouched by flame or spice.

"No. I wish I could, you might be able to help me fix it."

The cat licks his paw. "No, I am downright useless right now."

She turns away from the pan, raising an eyebrow at her lodger. "Aren't you always?" She meant it lightly, but he hisses at her.

"I mean it. I have not been able to so much as run my metaphorical claws through the aclaere today."

"But you are the leading expert in Isidor!"

"And Sine, and Abazu, and Belatsunat, and—"

"Yes, the whole damn world. You're probably more knowledgeable than even the Elpaceans. So what is wrong?"

"I do not know. I seem to be the only one affected, though. Well, Kellas might be, but can't ask her. I've been tempted to pray to Euphrenes, and I haven't done that in 500 years. I don't think she would answer me."

"Euphrenes? Oh, that's right. You're originally from Sine." She turns back to the pan, frowning when she flips the fish and realizes she left it on one side for too long.

"I suppose I could pray to Eos, but I heard she does not accept requests from those not born in Isidora."

Originally from Sine. She does not want to ensure the continued functioning of her weapon, but she is curious. She would not have accepted the task all those years ago if she had not been interested. It was a challenge, a way to forget the pain in her back and leg, a way to forget what had happened on that day. And she believed, wrongly, that this device would end the war without further bloodshed.

Originally from Sine. And Eos damn her to hell, she is still curious about this reported but unknown flaw. A flaw the Sineans somehow know about, and for some reason, want them to know about. A flaw they know about because they were the original architects. She glances at her boarder again, now chasing a chirping cricket across the floor.

She bites her lip. How can she ask the questions she wants to ask without it seeming obvious? "When was the last time you were back in Sine?"

The chirps stop. "At least 300 years. Why?"

"Is that a long time for you? Or is this just a holiday?" She tries to keep her voice light, nonchalant. She takes a sip of her meade.

"Just ask me what you actually want to know."

Leave it to a cat to spot a lie. "Why'd you leave? Were you a professor there too before you left?"

"Closer, but fine. I left because of politics. And no. I wasn't a professor. More like an advisor."

She purses her lips. 300 years is a long time for her kind. And whoever had slipped into Sine and stole those plans had done it within the last 30. There is no way Grimalkin would know how to help her, even obliquely.

"And I have no intentions of going back, even if it should kill me. Mind you, that does not mean I endorse your Provveditore."

"Are you actually trying to have a conversation with me now? Fascinating. While you're in a talkative mood, tell me: if you don't like the Provveditore either, why are you here? I'm sure the Beccan or Ismenite scholasticates would pay you handsomely."

"Sometimes a cat just wants to be able to keep an eye on their homeland." A sadness tinged with anger.

"She's dead." Grimalkin is sitting on the floor next to her bed when she wakes up. His voice is matter-of-fact, as if he was telling her that it would rain that afternoon.

"Who? Professor Kellas?"

"Euphrenes."

I must be dreaming. She rubs her eyes. "That's impossible. Gods don't die."

"And yet, I cannot feel her. She was my conduit to the aclaere. With her gone, I cannot touch it."

Hegemone did not stop believing in the gods the day she watched a city turn to dust in seconds. But she stopped believing in their goodness, in their ability to protect, and their ability to provide. Melita, the Carathouni goddess, did not protect them. And Lysikles would not protect Cintusmina.

"Your conduit…" She closes her eyes and pictures the schematics, the original schematics in her mind. She had thought nothing of it when she first saw it; the way the various parts all seemed to converge and twist around each other to make something that resembled the sigil of Euphrenes. It didn't seem important; just a mind looking for patterns and making patterns where there were none.

And then, when she learned the designs were from Sine, she wondered briefly if it was intentional, if they'd shown their reverence to their goddess even as they made this weapon. But by that point, she'd made up her mind to leave the military, and they let her retire.

There are too many thoughts in her head, too many half-forgotten conversations replaying in her mind. The pages of memory turning too quickly to even guess at what is written down.

"You don't seem upset. Or surprised," she says. Her stomach drops. If her hunch is correct, then the Sineans knew their goddess was going to die. And Grimalkin had at least suspected it.

The cat says nothing.

"Oh my gosh. Did we kill her? Did our weapon somehow…"

The cat says nothing.

She does not get changed into her uniform. She puts on her traveling clothes, pockets her meds and heads to the front of her home. Grimalkin, still silent, follows.

"I don't suppose you would be willing to swear to keep this secret?" She does not glance at the cat as she pulls the flower out of the clay pot, tossing it aside.

"If it amuses me to do so, maybe."

"Good enough for me." She takes her frying pan and smashes the clay pot, the wet soil spilling out. She sifts through it until she finds a small silver disc.

"What's that?" The cat pads over and sits just at the edge of the soil.

"Always have a spare. Come on, we need to be well out of town when I use it." She grabs a traveling bag, opening it up and motioning for him to get inside.

"Well, I haven't had an adventure in at least 600 years. Best pack some drinks, too."