The Katapies Experiment; Part 17

Eclipe 

    Illumine was acting weird. Borderline crazy, even. She kept pacing around, muttering words and pulling out strands of her hair, laughing to herself as she shook her head. At night, when she thought Cerise and I were sleeping, she pulled out documents and spreadsheets on the small table and pored over them, putting away the papers in the morning. 

     I asked Cerise about it and she didn’t know anything but the fact that this was totally out of character for Illumine. Eventually I had enough and went to go find the notes that Illumine had been looking at every night. 

    I remembered where she’d stashed them and opened the highest cupboard in the cabin with Cerise’s help when Illumine was out on an errand run for more food. The papers were written on with the most unintelligible handwriting I'd ever seen, but there was one word I recognized clearly; Isabelline. 

    Cerise could make out some of the writing and started reading Illumine’s broken sentences out loud. “’Three thousand, four hundred, ninety-six years she’s been alive, and she never bothered to contact me? And she went through with killing kids now? How petty. Isabelline never bothered to even get out of her bed sometimes, and now she’s running an empire set on getting the life essence of children?’”  

    Cerise frowned and set down the paper. “The writing gets messier after that. I think she wrote it in a hurry. All these other papers...” She quickly glanced at all of the other sheets of paper and shook her head. “They’re all more messy than this. She must have been angry. Like, really angry. She usually has the most perfect handwriting anyone’s ever seen. This doesn’t make sense. At all.” 

    I nodded and looked outside at the steady drizzle and gathering clouds. “It looks kind of stormy outside. Do you think Illumine’s okay out there?” 

    “Of course. She’s going to Nephele; that place has the best storm protection! I mean, it’s in the literal clouds! Messengers have to find the best way to deal with things. She’ll be back soon, too. I promise.” Cerise said the words calmly and confidently, but I could see her nervously twirling her hair into little curls. 

    I smiled at her and picked up the next paper, which had little sketches of people scattered around. I recognized two that looked exactly like Isabelline and Illumine, but all of the others were unrecognizable.  

    “Does Illumine draw? These are great sketches.” 

    Cerise blushed and giggled just a little bit. “I drew them a while ago. Illumine has this whole gallery of paintings in a secret place in the basement. Actually, I don’t think you’ve ever been in the basement! Wanna go see them?” 

    “Sure.” I watched as Cerise stood up and started to move toward the door, then shrank back and ran back to me.  

    “Illumine’s coming back. She doesn’t look very happy, to say the least. Should we start putting everything away?” I nodded and hurried to try to get the papers back in the drawer, but apparently, I was too late. 

    I heard the door slam and Illumine sighing in exasperation as she saw me stuffing the papers back in the cupboard. “And they already broke into the drawer. Great. Like this day can’t get any worse.” 

    I whipped my head around as Illumine threw herself on a chair and massaged her head. Cerise frowned and sat down next to Illumine. “What happened? You only get upset when something really bad happens. You can tell us, you know.” 

    Illumine smirked and threw up her hands in frustration. “Really? You want to know everything? Fine. Isabelline burnt Nephele down. From what I could see there weren’t any Messengers there at all, apart from her ridiculous army, with that armor that wouldn’t help in battle at all.”  

    Illumine stood up and walked over to one of the cabinets, pouring herself a glass of wine. “I told her a couple thousand years ago that armor was useless, and she’s still using it! Stupid!” 

     I gave her an exaggerated confused look until she snapped. “Don’t use that face on me, Eclipe. Do I have to explain all of this to you? Fine.” Illumine downed the glass of wine and poured herself another.  

    “You two have no idea how long I’ve been alive. Well, I bet you do now, but that doesn’t matter. I’m three thousand, four hundred and ninety-nine years old. Older than Isabelline, even. I knew her a while ago. Since I was five or six. She was so nice, so elegant, so refined. I looked up to her, even though she was three years younger than me. She was so much better than me at nearly everything.” 

    “Now, Katapies was fairly small back then. Nephele was where we all lived. The clouds were where everyone kept safe from muggers and burglars. Summoners, Mages, Shifters... it didn’t matter. As long as you weren’t violent, you were allowed to live in Nephele. So we all grew up pacifists. Peaceful and quiet.” 

    “There weren’t many people overall, so I didn’t have many friends. Just Isabelline, a boy named Carmine, and Bel.” Illumine exhaled and took a sip of wine. “So we grew up together. We were so close; inseparable, even. Where one went, the rest followed. So when Carmine found a bottle of something deep within Disarus, we all agreed to drink it.” 

    “We were older by then, all around twenty-five. All of us thought it was alcohol, so the only reasonable thing to do was drink it. And we did. Worst decision of our lives. As you can imagine, it wasn’t alcohol.” 

   “It was this thick, slimy kind of liquid, and it tasted terrible. We all got sick after that, and all four of us were starting to notice some questionable things happening. Isabelline accidentally set part of the forest on fire with nothing to start it, Carmine had small wings on his back, and Bel began to see ghosts. I flooded my house, even though there was a drought in Nephele at that time. It was amazing, and at the same time, terrifying.” 

   “Isabelline did research and found an old scroll, which had a recipe on it. Something about the essence of life. It involved murder – lots of murder, in fact – and the end result was supposed to give you another special ability, other than the one you had since birth. My point is, we four have a dead person’s ability. Not sure how many dead people were in the bottle, but... yeah.” 

   Illumine finished her glass of wine and set it down on the table. “After that, we split. I journeyed around Katapies before settling down in Disarus, just to get away from people. Been here for a good 3,000 years or so. I’ve got no idea where Carmine or Bel could be, but Isabelline is obviously here too, killing children. How tasteful.” 

   “Wait, but why is she killing children? For more of that life stuff? How exactly does it work?” Cerise glanced at Illumine while fiddling her hair, probably nervous. 

   “Well, the scroll did have a definitive list of what the life essence could do. From what I remember, it gave you abilities, made you mildly sick, and also, if consumed in large quantities, made you younger and gave you the appearance of the dead person. Isabelline was always obsessed with beauty and youth, so it makes sense how much she wants the life essence.” 

   “What about the pink hair? She had pink hair, and she said it was because of the life essence. Is that really a side effec...” I paused as Illumine snorted and shook her head.  

   “Pink hair? No, no, no, that must be wrong. Did she really do it? Really? Wow.” Illumine grinned, saw our confusion, frowned, and smiled again. “Okay, so you see, Isabelline wanted to dye her hair, but no one would let her. Also, she would look terrible with dyed hair. She had the nicest fluffy brown hair, too! I certainly don’t know what she looks like now, but... wow. Strange.” 

   Illumine smiled at us for a moment before clearing her throat awkwardly and standing up. “Well, you two should get to bed. You can find out more about Isabelline tomorrow. Good night.” 

   Dune 

   I felt so bad for the Messengers. Isabelline made me travel along with her army, and I saw the destruction of Nephele firsthand. None of her soldiers looked remorseful except for the captain of the army, and he captured and killed the most people. Anyone would be remorseful if they did that. 

   The Messengers that were captured were thrown into cramped cells, and barely taken care of. The bare minimum of food and water, no torches or lights, a guard watching them day and night... I wanted to just run in there and break them out. So, I tried to ask Augur. 

   Hey, are you there? You probably aren’t paying attention to me all of the time, so I just wanted to check. I hope I’m not doing this thought-projecting thing wrong. I haven’t done it since I was four and you taught me. Maybe it’s too far a distance? I’ll try tomorrow. 

   I tried for days. Nothing. Could have been the distance, or I was just doing the thought-projecting wrong, but it didn’t really matter. Nothing I could do about that, really. As I was thinking of breaking out the Messengers, a soldier barged in my little room and muttered an order. 

   “You’re next on guard for the Messengers. Captain says so, follow me.” I nodded and filed behind the soldier as they opened doors and fumbled with keys, finally pushing open the creaky door leading to the dungeon. “Have fun!” 

   The sounds of them cackling and slamming the door rang in my ears as I sat down on the tiny stool facing the Messengers. My eyes were still adjusting to the light change, so when the whispering started, I was more than a little scared. 

   “He looks really different, huh?” 

   “No wings! What a surprise. Think he’s a Summoner or something?” 

   “What if they sent an assassin or something to kill us?” 

   “Nah, this kid couldn’t kill us.” 

   “Think before you say anything, Veridian. He looks barely younger than you.” 

   “Shut up! I look plenty older than him!” 

   I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. “You know I can hear you all, right?” 

   The whispering stopped. 

   I laughed and shook my head. “First, I’m not an assassin. I’m an earth Mage who just happened to end up here. Second, no, I will not kill you. I don’t even know how to fight well. Third, do any of you know Avia or Celadon? Fuchsia? Maybe Amee?” 

   Still silence. 

   “I know those names because I helped the kids from the Katapies Experiment escape. I returned to seek forgiveness and come back to serve Isabelline.” 

   I still heard nothing, until a quiet gasp came from the back of the cell. The smallest voice squeaked from where I’d heard the gasp. “So Avia isn’t dead?” 

   “I can’t guarantee that, but I know that she at least didn’t die here. It seems like a pretty dreary place to die, huh?” 

   Murmured agreements spread throughout the cell until the same small voice spoke up again. “Are we going to die here?” 

   “No. Well, I don’t entirely know, but I’ll stop them before anything bad happens to all of you. Okay? I promise.” 

   Whispers of thanks came through the bars of the cell, but were halted by the dungeon door squeaking open again. 

   The soldier on the other side had a raspy voice, kind of old-sounding. “She’s asking for you, Dune.” 

   “Who?” Being dumb, I assumed it was Augur. 

   “Isabelline, idiot. She sent me to take care of the guard duties. You need to report to her office now. Hurry.” 

   I felt an overwhelming sense of dread hand over me as I walked up the stairs and made a beeline for her office. Hopefully I wouldn’t die. 

   ??? 

   “This really doesn’t need to be so dramatic. Don’t do all of this for a damn kid.” 

   “Oh, please. He’s a damn kid? He can make his own decisions. Unlike you and I, he may not be completely mature yet, but he’s... getting there.” 

   “So he deserves what you’re planning to do?” 

   “Of course he does. People who commit crimes face punishments of the same weight. You remember that.” 

   I saw him stutter to answer before slamming a hand on my desk. “Just let him go. Please. You know how much I hate violence.” 

   “And yet you’re standing right here in front of me. You know you can leave at any moment, right?” 

   “I know that, it’s just...” 

   “I won't try to kill you if you decide to make your life yours. But as long as you are under my rule...” I placed a hand gently under his chin, forcing him to look up at me. “...you follow my orders.” 

   His face reddened furiously as I let go of him and he stepped back. “Yes, of course. I- I completely understand.” 

   “Good.” A knock at the door resonated through the room. “That should be Dune. Let him in, please.”