Omen

Jaques sighed. He sat in the parlor as the wagon jostled up the rocky road, looking on placidly through the door at the mountain path that stretched behind them. There had been the cabin him and Jean had shared. There had been all of his belongings. Now, he only had the already dirty pale-blue tunic and synth-leather belt, and the pack of cards tucked in one of the folds. Nothing much more.

He hoped the Alpine outpost would have shops as Decimum Iuxta Mari had had, but everything Lucia and Rousseau had said about it made it seem a military fortress foremost. Once again, he entertained the thought of separating from the group, but once again it seemed quite unlikely. That, and he’d already committed. Not that anyone really cared whether he did or not.

Jaques rubbed his organic eye, then flinched as a grain of sand that had lodged into a small joint in his replacement arm’s finger scratched him. Another entered below his eyelid.

“Oh, dear,” Jaques moaned. He began blinking rapidly, feeling his cloudy eye go dry as the miniscule particle of sand began causing him the utmost of discomfort. He got up, holding down his eyelid and rolling the eye in its socket, disregarding a dozing Hound, over whom he tripped and fell, landing squarely on one of the ottomans.

Winded, his ribs throbbing, he moaned on the floor.

“Are you alright?” Hound asked, shaking himself off, his silicone ears twitching.

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Sand in my eye…”

“Mr. Jaques,” Hound said quietly after a moment, “what are those cards?”

Jaques let his head roll to the side as he noted the deck of scrying cards now sprawled across the floor. “Oh, those? Just some playing cards that’s all.”

“Hmm. Mr. Jaques, stand up and tell me if you see what I do?”

Jaques groaned and got up, rubbing his side as he did. The discomfort in his eye and in his ribs abated when he saw what Hound was looking at. Every one of the cards had spilled from the copper box that had dropped from the tunic’s fold, each of the seventy eight. Instead of landing in a haphazard pile, they had spilled and formed into a rough circle. But what made the spread far stranger was that a third of the cards were face down, forming four concentric circles with a single face down card in the center.

“What in all hells…” whispered Jaques.

“Indeed,” said Hound.

- - -

Buddy guided the cyber-equines around a bend, then another, and another. The mountain road narrowed with each meter and soon it felt like the walls of the wagon were being scraped by the gray cliff faces. Rousseau sat by him on the coachman’s seat, deep in thought.

At length she spoke: “Who is Adalaide?”

Buddy stiffened. “Was,” he said at length.

“Oh. Then, who was she?”

Buddy pulled on the reins, even though there wasn’t a need, (the cyber-equines guided themselves), and ground his noble-metal teeth. He suppressed the onrushing memories that his all-too-biological brain tried to force upon him, and had done since the encounter with the assassin, but recognizing the folly he sighed and said, “a very dear person whom I lost.”

Rousseau nodded. “Aye. There be too many-a-lost and many still to come.” She placed her palm to her chest. “I only pray they find the Laird in heaven in his humble home.”

Buddy scoffed.

“More sacrilege?”

“Nope, just tired of all that. Heard enough of the See’s preaching throughout my eighty-five years. And before you say anything I ain’t denyin’ God. Hell, there’s no way I really could. Just that I’ve heard his name be used in vain far too many times. Seen too many battles fought with crucifixes on banners and too many Christs on the bows of ships or sides of tanks to give the See the sole authority on the matter.”

“Sounds like sacrilege,” Rousseau said.

“Contrarians always do,” Buddy said dismissively.

“The See keeps the tradition.”

“The See makes a God of love and peace into a god of war,” Buddy bit back.

“Oh, then the Conclave must be oh so noble then.”

“The Conclave did away with the theocracy by hopping over to an immortal oligarchy. I ain’t saying I side with one or the other. I side with money.”

“Didn’t ye say ye ain’t working or going to work for the Conclave anymore?”

“Yeah, and I’ll stand by that. Just there’s more to the world than the See and the Conclave.”

They were both silent for a spell. The equines trotted along and the wagon bumped along pebbles and dirt. At length Rousseau, before returning inside to no doubt minister to Lucia, said, “I’ll make a believer out of ye yet.”

When she’d gone, Buddy whispered to himself, “who said I wasn’t already?”

- - -

“…and that’s why poplars are a fools plant, and why brambles have far more utility,” Jean finished with gusto.

Lucia did her best not to cringe. Not that the Grower’s passionate diatribe hadn’t been interesting, she’d never truly learned of organics, nor had the privilege to listen to someone who knew of them, rather she was hiding her very real discomfort. Cracked ribs cut burning blades in her side if she so much as twitched, and the faulty emotive enhancer was not doing so well trying to interpret the prolonged pain signals. It didn’t help that the wagon was in a constant jostling state.

“That’s of course not mentioning the war cast… they really don’t give two damns about agriculture or botany. They just splice and dice, as my progenitor used to say,” Jean went on, seemingly not noticing Lucia’s obvious discomfort.

“You’ve mentioned them before. I take it they are the ones that fought in the Conclave Grower war; the ones all the stories and tall tales are based on,” said Lucia.

“U-huh.”

“Then, what are you?”

“Huh?”

“As a Grower, I mean. You say, ‘war cast’. That indicates some form of division, or at least structure within the Growers. I take it you’re not war cast, so what are you?”

Jean chuckled. “You’re right there. I’m incredibly strong for my build, being enhanced and spliced and all, but I couldn’t even harm a fly. Technically I’m a rogue, but if we go by my progenitor’s position, I’m primarily of the Gardener order, specifically a developmental botanist. But, again, seeing as good old Galenos was a rogue, I’ve been taught to meddle in more than one of our fields.”

“Which are?” Lucia asked, half with genuine interest, half to distract her from the pains.

“Well, first a quick summary of our order. We were founded by the Firsts who in their time, as I’ve learned, called themselves G.O.A.R. From them came the first generations that set up our ways of life, who are called the Elders. The Elders themselves recognized that splitting into cells with specialties guaranteed a future of some kind, so they founded the Growers, the Splicers, and the Gardeners. Growers are the sect that you know. More specifically, the Animalia Breeders. They’re the ones who clone and raise animalia for rituals rites and general uses as either food for mostly biological individuals, or as luxury items for wealthy folk. The Gardeners are people like my progenitor. We’re botanists, with three distinct schools,” at this Jean raised his fingers to visualize his enumeration, “archeo-botany, botanical scholars, and as I mentioned before, developmental botany.

“Then, of course, there are the Splicers, of which the war cast was a necessary branch during the Conclave aggression. Way back before that, the Splicers were outcasts and looked upon with mistrust. But without them the war would have been lost. Their creations range from marvelous to horrifying…”

“Leviathan?”

“Leviathan is their magnum opus, but I’m talking about… other things.”

“Such as?”

Jean was quiet. His eyes were glazed as though he was looking into a half remembered memory. Or a nightmare. “You don’t need to know. And lucky for us, the Splicers are recluses by nature. They are only called upon when needed, even though there are rumors of some defecting and becoming mercenaries or personal bodyguards to Atlantean nobles or high offices of the See.”

“Really?”

“Again, only rumors.”

“Isn’t there anything more you can tell me about the Splicers?”

Jean looked Lucia dead in her eyes. “Lucia, that is all I know about them. And that’s more than most in our order.”

Lucia had the distinct feeling that Jean was lying, or warning her, so she didn’t broach the topic further. Not that she’d had the chance, for the telltale thump of brassy feet on wood told the two that Rousseau was about to enter.

“One more question,” Lucia spat out hastily.

“Shoot,” Jean said.

“Do you really have reptilian DNA?”

Jean leaned over. “A little bit of Aneides Aeneus but mostly Anolis Carolinensis. So, I am a lizard man with a little amphibian,” he said and winked.

“Amphibian?”

A knock at the door, then Rousseau entered. “My it be dusty in here,” she barked, surveying the elegant suite that, indeed, was quite dusty. “It’s not good fer yer breathing lass to have all this in the air. But oh, cannot help it with all these draperies and fancy upholstery.”

“Mother, I’m fin—” she cut off mid-sentence when a bump in the road made her contract in pain.

“Well, looks like God’s shutting that trap for me. Ye’re far from alright. Mr. Jean, please help me clean this place,” she said, going to the windows and flinging them open.

White sunlight shot in, revealing the dancing dust motes that had so far been spared from revealing daylight. The deep greens and umbers shone, and the dark lacquered wood became a rich amber. Lucia’s clothes, scuffed, dirty, sweaty, lay on the floor in a pile. Her gear was haphazardly placed on a very elegant chair, whereas Rousseau’s belongings were neatly organized and her bed made. But before the ancient bot could begin, a shout came from the coachman’s seat.

It was Buddy Limbo with the words: “We’re here!” 

 

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