Chapter 2 - Chapter 2

Sanctum,​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌ the city built between the ribs, was a symphony of vertical desperation. Its streets were narrow canyons running between the endlessly twisted walls of Aethelrex's ossified ribs. Structures made of pale, memory-soft bone-marble were sticking to the divine framework like barnacles. Far above, the "sky" was a dome of petrified flesh, with big, bioluminescent algal blooms of various colors that gave the impression of a permanent, twilit gloom. The air was conveying the city's real voice: the rhythmic and very distant Heartforge, a sound that is mostly felt in the teeth rather than heard. On the Lavender Promenade, high up in the Palate district, Naomi Frost through a lacework balcony observed the grey masses moving far below. In her hand was a fragile cup of infused Ambrosia vapors, the scent of lavender and existential yearning wafting into the air. It was a flavor to invoke the feeling of melancholy. And it did. "Another riot in the Low Nutrient Zone," Silas, her companion and fellow Aesthetician, spoke quietly. He was chewing on a crystallized fragment of divine adrenal cortex. "So brutish. Do they not understand the logistics of grace?" Naomi was silent. Her gaze was fixed on a filthy little boy on the lower balcony who was drawing something on the wall with a piece of charcoal. The drawing was disorderly, comprised of jagged lines and screaming faces. Echo-art. The madness at the bottom of the Nutrified, raw and unfiltered. Naomi experienced a sudden sharp and hungry feeling. It was terrible. It was genuine. "Pardon me, Silas. The vapor is too cloying. I require some air." She exited the perfume salon and instead of going to her chambers, she went down a series of hidden service ramps into the body of the city. The clean, geometrical lines of the Palate changed to the moist, organic curves of Sanctum's structural flesh. The air got warmer, thicker and it smelled of yeast and slow decay. Her hiding place was a disused observatory, a bubble of clear calcified cartilage that gave a distorted view of the Mycelial Wastes beyond the ribcage's edge. She was keeping her collection there. Pottery fragments with nightmarish glazes. Fungal-paper sheets covered with the frantic script of those in Withdrawal. A little music box that played a tune that was somehow both sad and pointed. Today, there was a new piece. A mere lump of Kiln-clay, dropped by a heretic in escape, procured for her by a discreet member of the Taste-Guard. She took it in her hand. It was made into a rough, gaping mouth. There was a smaller, screaming face inside the mouth. Naomi followed the outline with her finger. The terror was almost tangible. It was art resulting from a hunger that no Karu ration could satisfy. Her own perfect, Ambrosia-smoothed soul she felt stretch thin around a sudden, profound emptiness. What did real hunger feel like? Not the carefully prepared longing for a fine vintage, but the gnawing, absolute need that led to this creation? Somebody's boot softly scuffed on the flesh-stone. To the sound of the scuff she turned quickly, hiding the clay mouth behind her back. At the door, Captain Joan Rhodes was standing, her Taste-Guard armor—polished chitin from the god's carapace—glittering faintly. Her face was a combination of hard lines and professional concern, but the eyes were tired. "Lady Frost, these levels are unstable, and… unsanctioned. Not safe at all," Joan warned. "I think safety is a monotone, Captain," Naomi replied, regaining her composure. "Why are you here in the forgotten ducts?" Joan's look shifted to the clay fist concealed behind Naomi's back but she didn't say a word. "I'm after a Carver. Maxine Sharpe. Her authorization for a deep-tissue sample from the Hepatic Labyrinth has unusual… parameters. I was told that to review her schematics she sometimes seeks solitude here." "The Chief Carver?" Naomi levied a faint, disinterested smile. "I only see her at state liturgies. She appears to be quite the opposite of a time-waster; she considers good harvest time more than enough reason for not wasting it on catching her breath. You won't find her among the poetry and dust." Joan acknowledged the point with a short, military gesture. However, she was reluctant, "My lady… your sister. Bianca." The name was like a knife in the humid air. "What about the heretic?" Naomi's voice was several degrees colder. "There are rumors that she is plotting something. Something that could lead to… widespread disruption of the supply lines." Joan's jaw tightened. "If you get a message from her. If she contacting you. The stability of Karu distribution is the most important thing. People... children... are the ones who will benefit from its regularity." The word children had an unusual weight to it. Naomi noticed it then, the secret fright in the Captain's eyes. It was the most sincere thing she had seen all day. "My sister and I are like two polar opposites, Captain. Her palate deteriorated. She chose the madness whispers over the trust hymns." Naomi turned back to the view of the pulsating Wastes. "However, if I hear of a disruptive rumor, I will surely report it. We all have to protect what nourishes us, don't we?" She heard Joan's departure, the footsteps blending with the city's eternal hum. Naomi looked at the clay mouth she was holding. The screaming face inside seemed to stare at her. She was thinking what her sister's voice might be like if it was not refined by doctrine. Was it rough? Or was it, maybe, the only thing that was left and was ​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌real?