Chapter 82 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 82: The Ship of Exile 16
Lucita left the spirit world and returned to reality.
On stage, they had reached the final verse.
"Through fields of golden wheat, through the thunder of machines. We stand together."
The applause did not stop. Somewhere in the crowd, someone’s hoarse shout rose above the others, and the whole abandoned garden seemed to seethe and boil over.
Not far away, at the corner of the street, a crisp burst of clapping rang out, utterly unremarkable amid the noise.
But Lucita's hearing was far too sharp. She instinctively followed the sound and caught the voice of the person clapping, speaking to a bread-stall vendor: "Have you heard this song before?"
"No." The vendor shook his head.
"What do you think of it?"
“It’s good.” The vendor wiped tears from her face with her sleeve. “Only… I get the feeling the singer’s about to be arrested any minute.”
"Yes." The other person took up the thread, sighed, and let out a short, sardonic laugh.
Lucita: !!!
She knew that voice far too well.
That melody of the overwintering birds on the River Gloire, the powerful music neither Lucita nor Linnea had ever been able to forget, had come from this voice.
She couldn't help but look the person over.
Disheveled short brown hair. A coat that had once been well-tailored, now patched in several places. A face weathered by wind and hardship, its lines deeply etched.
The features were sharp and angular, giving the impression of someone who had worn a stern expression for years. At first glance, not someone to trifle with.
The person reached into a pocket, counted out a few copper coins with care, and handed them to the bread vendor in exchange for a large bag of coarse rye bread.
As though sensing Lucita’s gaze, she suddenly looked up, straight at her.
Lucita did not look away.
Their eyes met. Lucita found that the color of those irises matched the hair exactly: a deep, murky brown, clouded with something unreadable.
Lucita's gaze fell into them, and for a moment she was transfixed.
In that instant, she seemed to glimpse a vast snowfall within them, or perhaps a luminous star chart.
The eye contact seemed to last a beat too long. The person startled, turned, and hurried away.
But how could an ordinary person shake off Lucita?
The person moved with the practiced ease of someone who knew these streets well, weaving through several turns into a deserted alley. There she seemed to exhale in relief and slowed her pace.
Lucita walked behind her, and called out with quiet certainty: "Franka."
The person stopped dead, and turned.
The moment she saw Lucita standing behind her, she clutched the bag of bread to her chest and broke into a sprint.
It really was her. It really was!
But no matter how fast Franka ran, she was no match for Lucita, who could slip freely through the spatial world layer.
Lucita stepped in front of her again: “I’m not here to arrest you. In fact, I’m the one who found that song. To think you’re actually still alive… it’s unbelievable!”
Whether it was because she believed Lucita, or because she realized no amount of running would outpace her, or simply because Lucita didn't look particularly dangerous, Franka finally stopped. She watched Lucita with guarded eyes.
The bread in her arms hadn’t survived the jostling. A few loaves had spilled out onto the ground.
Lucita bent down, picked them up, dusted off the dirt, and held them back out to her. "Here."
Franka accepted them in silence, and did not deny being herself.
She, Franka, stood tall and straight in this world. She had never been willing to change her name and live under someone else’s identity, even when that stubbornness had, at times, been a great foolishness.
Franka was Franka, whether living or dead.
If that counted as an artist's eccentricity, then perhaps her eccentricity was not so eccentric even among artists.
Lucita's eyes shone bright. "You are a great musician! Everyone said you had died. I genuinely mourned you for a time. I'd really like to know: how did you survive?"
How did she survive?
Franka gave no answer. Her lips pressed into a thin line.
All of it was thanks to that nursing assistant at the sanatorium.
At that time, she had been branded a lunatic who had blasphemed the gods, and locked away in a sanatorium with no light and no sky.
At first she had wondered whether the nursing assistant was a fan of her music, or a well-meaning stranger with some private motive. But whatever the reason, the woman gave Franka every comfort she could.
She would slip extra meat into Franka’s meals. She would check on her quietly, and smuggle her paper and pen to satisfy her desperate need to create.
The woman was steady and unassuming, and yet for the sake of a stranger like Franka, she was willing to take risks, to do small things she had never done before.
Franka had assumed it would be the last measure of satisfaction she would ever know.
She accepted the paper and pen, and late at night, when no one was making their rounds, she would sit by the window and write by starlight: a final testament she might never be able to show the world.
Above her, the Milky Way glittered. Below her, the lights of ten thousand homes glittered too, mirroring the stars: equally crowded, equally dim, equally unchanged night after night.
As she wrote on, she turned the paper over to its blank side, and wrote the last piece of music of her life.
She had thought, in that moment of despair: if this song could be preserved, she would gladly die right then and there.
Franka of that time could never have imagined the nursing assistant would go so far for her.
The court’s people came one night to administer an injection, to make her disappear within the sanatorium walls forever. It was the assistant who caught wind of it, arranged the shift change, and slipped Franka out in secret.
Franka had asked: "But what will happen to you?"
The assistant had produced a length of straw rope. "I'll say that you attacked me when I was bringing your meal, seized the key, tied me up with a rope you must have been weaving for who knows how long, and left me here in this room."
Indeed, the place was called a sanatorium ward, but it was really nothing more than a cell lined with straw, and straw there was in abundance.
Having just brushed the very edge of death, Franka's heart was hammering. She took the rope.
"Why are you helping me?"
The assistant drew a slow breath, lowered her gaze, and said quietly, “A musician like you… you ought to be alive.”
Alive…Yes. Alive.
Perhaps the image the assistant had built over the years, that of an earnest, simple-hearted woman, had been so complete that no one thought to suspect her. Franka successfully escaped through the passage the assistant had planned for her.
She had only this one night.
By dawn, when it was all found out, the city gates would be sealed immediately.
She fled through the dark to the harbor, but with not a coin to her name, she could board none of the ships. None except that battered, weatherworn Fool’s Ship.
She took the oar from the ferrywoman's hands, gave a heavy push, and the small boat drew away from the shore.
From that day on, the world held no more of the musician Franka. Only the wanderer Franka remained.
She passed through villages and towns where news traveled slowly, earning food and a handful of coins by singing in the streets. When she passed through cities, she would exchange what she earned for bread that kept.
Years went by. Viktori had long since forgotten her. When she passed through here, she would come ashore to replenish whatever supplies she needed.
Lucita asked her: "How have you survived?"
This question, Franka would not answer with a single word.
She turned the question back: "You're the one who found Starfire?"
“Yes. It was me.”
"Where did you find it?"
"In the sanatorium's records room. It was tucked inside your medical file."
Franka's expression became thoughtful. She inclined her head slightly toward Lucita. "Thank you for finding it. The performance was wonderful, and the singer sang it beautifully."
"Then you —"
"I must be going, my friend."
"Where? Still drifting on that boat?"
Franka straightened, and her pupils contracted slightly.
She had not expected that someone who spoke her name with such certainty would also know where she lived.
Lucita knew that saying this would put Franka on guard, but she wanted to extend an invitation, and wanted to confirm first: "If I have it right."
“That sort of lodging can’t be good for your health. If you’re willing, there’s a spare room at my home. The children there would be delighted to have a composer as their teacher. Or, if you’d rather stay here in the city, or anywhere else, I can lend you money to start over.”
Franka frowned. "I'm a wanted criminal. Don't you know that?"
"I do. But that doesn't concern me." Lucita's gaze was steady and burning. "Trust me. I can protect you."
Where did a plainly dressed young person find the confidence to make such a claim?
Franka recalled Lucita's ghost-like movements just moments before, and thought she understood.
She had once passed through the most prestigious concert halls in the capital, had moved through the world of the highest nobility, and knew that there existed in this world a remarkable force called magic.
All manner of supernatural ability that she only half-understood, she lumped under that name. And so she concluded that Lucita must be a young noble of exceptional birth.
"Why would you do this?" she asked.
Why would you do this? Are we not on opposite sides?
I have been shaking your foundations, questioning you, opposing you!
“It is the duty of every thinking being to carry the torch of freedom forward. And those who possess power, if they can bear it, should bear greater responsibility. In my view, you are one such torch.” Lucita did not grasp the true meaning behind Franka's question, and gave an answer that was, on the surface, perfectly composed.
Of course, what Lucita actually cared about had nothing to do with any of this. She was acting on the most instinctive and simple-hearted of feelings: she wanted to hold onto a breathtaking artist, to keep her from vanishing like a flower that blooms only a single night.
But saying it plainly would hardly have been convincing.
Franka shook her head.
She didn't know whether she believed Lucita or not, and had no interest in the proposal from this person she regarded as a young noble.
"Thank you for your kindness, but I have my own road to walk."
"Where to?"
"Anywhere."
"And what will you do?"
"Sing." Franka gave her the first smile of the day, and it left Lucita momentarily speechless.
It was not the smile of someone fleeing persecution. It looked, rather, completely at ease.
She tucked the bag of bread under her arm and walked past Lucita.
"Until we meet again, my friend," she said.
Lucita watched the retreating figure of Franka, and let out a long, deep breath.
The musical ended. Linnea became, once again, a celebrated young singer among the neighborhood streets on all four sides.
They completed the performances without a hitch, not a single person having come to interfere, and in high spirits they decided to put on several more shows over the coming days.
Evening fell. The crowd gradually dispersed.
After clearing up the venue, Lucita peeled a large, transparent film from the backdrop panel of the stage.
Linnea looked up with wide eyes. "What is that?"
Lucita blinked. "You'll see in a moment."
Violet helped hold it taut. They moved the dining table aside and spread the photographic film flat on the carpet.
A bit makeshift, but serviceable enough to watch.
Lucita applied the specially formulated developer, and before long the events of the musical began to take shape on the film.
The toning hadn’t been done quite right. The entire image was slightly gray. But the resolution was more than adequate.
The film, laid out on the carpet, was uneven in places.
Seeing everyone struggling with it, Delphine stepped in and summarily conjured a smooth wall of air. The photographic emulsion, under her control, was pressed flat against it with perfect precision.
Completely smooth.
If there was still any unevenness at that point, it could only be because Lucita's application had been uneven to begin with.
Lucita was already thinking that next time she'd work in smaller sections and mind the proportions, all while gathering everyone to appreciate Linnea's performance on stage.
Except for the absence of sound, and the inability to adjust the viewing angle, everything was perfect.
The image was stable, vivid, and clear. Near and far were equally sharp, with a strong sense of depth.
The photographic emulsion had no concept of focal length. The image was, in essence, a kind of minor magic that reproduced a scene, and visually it was not much different from watching in person.
As for the silence, Linnea quickly offered a solution: "We can record it onto a gramophone disc and play that alongside."
Ever since coming to the human world, Linnea had made it her eager business to explore and investigate human-made instruments and machines.
Every problem was solved perfectly. Lucita's goal had been more than half-achieved.
From here, all that remained was careful refinement and distribution. This musical could spread throughout the capital, and even into surrounding cities.
The middle class was never stingy when it came to fashionable novelties.
As for the spread of magical goods — Lucita couldn't care less.
Let whoever was displeased fume to their heart's content. Nobody could beat her anyway.
When the photographic emulsion caught on, Lady Duren's name would be made. The other little inventions she had created might find their way into the world as well.
Everyone would be delighted, except for those high-ranking individuals who would object to magic being let loose.
Lucita made her plans with considerable satisfaction, and the next day set out for the Spring Tower to discuss the matter with Lady Duren.
Now that Lucita was an Advanced Mage, entering the Spring Tower required no examination. She walked straight in without pause.
A Marquis's invitation and guarantee, along with the quietly burning private desire that had long been alive within Duren herself, meant that Duren agreed almost without hesitation.
Leaving the Spring Tower, Lucita made her way to the adjacent Golden Sloe Garden to find Lesley.
The news that Franka was alive was something Lesley would certainly want to know. It was already an open secret among the nobility in any case, so one more person knowing, namely Lesley, could hardly matter.
When she arrived at Lesley's residence, she learned, upon inquiry, that Lesley had withdrawn from school.
Lucita had been away for two days. This was an enormous development, and she was immediately taken aback.
The apprentice neighbor of Lesley's looked at her, and asked tentatively: "Are you Lord Lucita?"
Upon receiving confirmation, the apprentice handed her a letter.
The envelope was sealed with wax bearing Lesley's family crest, clearly it had never been opened.
"I am a close friend of Lesley's," she said. "Before she left, she told me that if you came looking for her, I should give this to you."
Lucita nodded to show she understood, and broke the seal.
"Dear Young Master Lucita,
Greetings!
I heard about the concert. What a magnificent idea.
Starfire has finally been given the light it deserved. If Lady Franka knew, she would surely be overjoyed.
You are a person worthy of deep admiration. Though your world is wrapped in layer upon layer of mystery... I am still drawn to you with tremendous longing.
How I wish I could become someone as free and brave as you.
Six years ago, I was in great pain, and deeply bitter toward the world. Over time, I nearly forgot the ideals I once held, throwing myself into the Spring Tower for the sake of becoming a worthy heir to my family, though I have not a shred of magical talent.
That diary was my final obsession.
I had hoped it would be found someday. But the day came too soon, far too soon for me to be ready. I was afraid of losing everything I had.
But now, I suddenly understand: I never needed to prepare for anything at all.
Thank you for finding it. That was its good fortune, and the good fortune of Starfire, and my own good fortune.
You reminded me of who I was, six years ago.
Some things, you think you have long forgotten. But in truth, they are simply waiting for the day you call them back to life.
Now, they have awakened.
Young Master Lucita, I am not a talented person, not in magic, and not in art.
I am not strong enough, not clever enough. Many things you can accomplish with ease are things I can only attempt at the cost of my own body and blood.
The only thing left in me worth celebrating is the last little scrap of poor virtue I still possess: courage. It remains.
Now, I am going to find my road.
Bless you, and I hope you will bless me as well.
Your humble,
Lesley"
Lucita drew a long, slow breath, folded the letter back into its envelope, and turned it over in her hands.
Blessings to you, Lesley.
She thanked the apprentice and walked away with long strides.
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