The Elusive Taste of Kolchoan Blue
by Patrick Honovich
Part 1 appears in this issue.
Chapter 7: Roses in Winter
part 2
And my master put on the desk a copper plate, a corkscrew, a saucer, and a length of silver pipe. “Go on. Pick a bottle.”
I picked each up with steady hands, tipped them from side to side, squinted at the dusty wax, tried to distinguish between them, but none of the bottles glowed or felt heavy or light. I chose one with a little less label, in the center of the row. One was as good as another.
Master Tellrus watched me pierce the wax seal, then sink into the cork — I eased the cork out, terrified I’d drop the bottle or break its neck. He sniffed the cork and the mouth of the bottle as I put it on the desk. As I set the corkscrew down, I asked, “You went through my things?”
“I own you, Satet. If I’d wanted to hang you by your feet from your tower window, we’d be having this conversation outside. But you’ve neatly dealt with everyone I’ve thrown at you, so it’s wine and roses instead of winter and suspension.”
“And you’re taking it for yourself.” Not asked, said. I was sure I’d been used as a messenger, and I didn’t want to watch him take the bottles for his own, I was hoping he’d rage, throw me into the street, but he laughed and, dumbfounded, I stared with my mouth open as he took the corkscrew to the other four bottles until the set sat open, beckoning.
“Not everyone in a position of power gained it by thinking like you, Satet.”
“Then, sir, what—”
“You’re going to test these bottles, and then we shall talk. Now get busy, I have to prepare your needles.”
Master Tellrus hummed a melody under his breath as he took the bundle of three hollow silver needles, the set he’d used exclusively on my skin, from a drawer in the desk. I couldn’t place the tune, but given his humors and his tastes in theater, it was likely to be one of the soaring duets of Menosian theater, or a Caer Dorrin parade march.
I went about my business, drawing a small portion from the first bottle with the silver tube, pouring it into the saucer, and checking everything I could remember to check. It was dawn when I finished my examinations, and I noticed when someone rapped on the door that Master Tellrus had let the fire dwindle down to coals.
He gave me a knowing look, then a slight nod. “If you get it, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering if I tampered with the bottles, so this once I will get the door for you.”
My brain softened by fatigue and expensive red wine, I could hardly see without a squint, but as he spoke I thought of two more tests and turned to perform them. I could scarcely lift my hands to make the motions, so tired, reeking of wine and roses. Even though I was trying to be thorough and quick, the last few enchantments took me longer than they had since I’d been picked up off the street.
Tellrus, at the door, greeted one of the others. Bryan Eisler, Big Bryan to distinguish him from a younger Brian Goesk who’d just started, asked a question of the master. I saw Master Tellrus shake his head.
“No, I’m certain he’s alive, he came directly to me, and we’ve been examining my lots all night. Go wake the others, you’ll be taking Satet’s duties this morning.”
Big Brian answered, but again tired and drunk, fighting to keep from curling up on the rug to sleep it off, I couldn’t hear the exact words.
“Good. The front door is to remain barred today. I will be in to start your lessons when I am finished here. Now go.”
He closed the door and looked my way. I blinked and yawned.
“What do you know now?”
I told him what I’d found — the bottles were old enough, unspoiled, not poison, they seemed likely to be what I’d hoped they would be, although I couldn’t know for absolute certain without drinking. Master Tellrus had his own tests and, when he’d finished looking a few places I’d overlooked, he confirmed my findings.
Of the five, one was fine well-aged wine from a people whose vineyards had been burnt and salted. Two seemed to be Kolchoan Blue, the drink that explained why the martyrs at Kolchoa on blighted Jakka had laughed as they were put to the sword. Two were somewhere in between.
“One bottle of spirits. Two bottles with spirit. Two uncertain. Your next step is here with me. Take off your cloak and your shirt.”
I looked back at the bottles. “But—”
“You need to hear this, Satet.”
I unclasped my brooch, and folded the cloak over the back of my chair, then wriggled — after more struggle than necessary with sore and aching muscles — out of the shirt. I stood, shivering, but listened intently. He picked up the bundle of hollow silver-plated steel needles, unscrewed the cap to the inkwell, and uttered the same incantation I’d heard for years.
As he pierced my skin, dropping dots of black to finish filling the last few inches of my tattoo, he spoke to me. Every time he bled me this way I heard a history lesson. I guessed he and Divezha enjoyed each other’s company for the same reason.
“You might have two bottles Satet, but without this” — he dug particularly deep, and I grunted — “you might be killed for all your trouble.”
“I was — mmh! — counting on it. Are you saying only one of us can—?”
“No, but without the Verrin ink in your body, there’s a good chance the sickness it causes could break you. Do you know the measures for making Kolchoan Blue?”
“If I did, would I have risked my life to get it?”
“Hm. Knowing you, maybe. The monks who made it didn’t all stay on Jakka when the Imperial Army came. A few slipped out before everything went up in flames, and they came here.”
“This much I know. I heard, when you worked on my elbow.”
“Indeed.” He dipped to reload the needles with the charmed ink, wiped at the aggrieved skin with a bloody cloth to get a clearer look. “Without a few of the ingredients, they couldn’t make more. But one of the survivors of the fall of Jakka tried to find a substitute, here in the Empire, for the leaves and roots lost in the destruction of her homeland...”
As he spoke, he pushed the needles through my skin but, after the first few minutes I hardly felt it, too tired and too drunk to feel much of anything. I finished the thought, blood rolling over my chest from my neck. I connected the dots. “Verrin ink is Blue without a few of the Jakkan ingredients.”
“Yes,” he said. “There,” and “Done.” I should’ve felt something more, but I honestly couldn’t feel a thing. I blinked in the morning light, feeling grimy, exhausted, and dumb. I didn’t know what else to feel.
Master Tellrus, needle in hand, returned to the desk, where he put the cork back into the wine. From one of the two bottles we were nearly sure about, he drew a few drops into the saucer. He touched the tips of the bundled needles into the drops, and as we watched they hissed, giving off a single curl of smoke. Master Tellrus repeated the process — the other nearly sure bottle hissed, as did one of the unsure ones, but the last remained inert. When he showed me the needles, I could see their tips had been eaten away.
“Without the ink to sizzle, it would likely be your flesh. So drink up, my boy,” said my master, and passed me a likely bottle. One bottle would get me halfway there, but the thought that my skin might sear itself away like the tips of the needles... I paused.
“What about the rest?”
“The rest?”
“What about the other bottles? And what about Cadzana?”
“Ah.” He laid a finger beside his nose, and nodded. “Cadzana is your last test. You need her marque because I won’t send you west to Latidium without it.”
I lifted the bottle and caught the faint scent of fresh-turned earth over the heady perfume of the rose bush. Behind the rose, I caught the faint smell of cedar smoke. I put it down.
Master Tellrus assumed his patiently-waiting expression, the half-roll of eyes toward the ceiling as if unseen spirits might help his students see something he thought was obvious. I was on safe, solid ground now, drunk, distraught, and half-asleep but an exasperated Master Tellrus was something familiar at last.
“It is time for you to travel on, my boy. You’re the lone Verrin journeyman in the Empire, and if you can trick Cadzana out of the bottle she’ll demand, I’ll give you your entry to the Sage’s College. Are you smart or fast enough for it?”
I nodded, eyelids heavy. “Jus’ give me four hours to sleep, and I can handle Cadzana. I’ll figure something out.”
“I want you to take a sip, Satet.”
“Why don’t you drink yourself?”
“I have no desire to lengthen my life or broaden my powers... or I simply want to see what comes next... or I’ve suddenly become more generous... or I’m not sure you’ll survive, so I’m using you to test the effects. Pick a reason. You, my dear boy, no matter how fond I am of your grim and stubborn company, are expendable. I still have too many unanswered questions to risk my life trying for a goal I have no desire to reach. Only a young man hungers for timelessness the way you do, Satet. A man my age wants to be comfortable no matter how quickly the years pass.”
I looked at the bottle separated from the rest, back at my master, yawned, and picked it up. I raised it to my lips and poured in a mouthful. I don’t know what wood-stain tastes like, but I imagine it’s fairly close to the flavor of Kolchoan Blue. As I held the mouthful on my tongue, I could feel the liquid burning skin off of gums, tongue, the inside of my cheek — tiny prickles as if the liquid was etching itself in.
When the pain in my mouth became too great, I tipped my head back, swallowed, and felt the stuff eating away at my throat as it went down to my belly, where it settled atop the wine and still seemed to burn. I coughed, choking, and dropped to my knees on the imported rug, fighting to breathe, sure when I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand I’d see fresh blood.
My drool was a deep blue, instead. Doubtless my tongue was painted the same color. As soon as I could breathe — air so sweet to my lungs I felt new-born — something else started happening. The ink on my right leg began to throb, then to bleed — I lifted my trouser leg to watch drops of blood and black ink well up from the oldest part of the tattoo, rolling down my ankle and into my shoe. Yes, it hurt like hell.
“Excellent, Satet, excellent!” Master Tellrus knelt beside me, and tried to get an arm, to lift me up, but I pushed him away, determined to stand on my own. I’ve never had so much difficulty getting to my feet, not before and not since, but if I was a journeyman now — or nearly, anyway — I would not take the help. I saw a faint glow around Master Tellrus, leaning on the crate of Khesataan masks, and fought my way back to my feet.
“Describe it, Satet.” Master Tellrus, who’d been drinking wine right along with me, sounded sober.
“I don’t feel much changed,” I said, tongue thick. “I feel drunk. And my stomach’s burning. And—”
My vision began to whirl, the room started to dissolve into light and noise, my knees barely held me upright, and again I waved off Master Tellrus’ help. “And give me the bottle, I’m finishing it.”
Master Tellrus picked up the bottle and put it in my hand. I tipped it end-up, and kept swallowing until I ran out of air, gasped a breath that seemed to melt my innards, wobbled, put the rest of the bottle down my throat, then sat down hard in the chair.
“Water.”
My master handed me a goblet full. I drank it, teeth clenched as everything inside my skin seemed to cry out, but the taste of scorched earth and woodsmoke wouldn’t leave my tongue.
I don’t know what I said next, but I answered all of my master’s questions, limp, cheeks sallow, sweating in his chair beside the banked fire. My sight began to lose its colors, grow indistinct. I don’t remember what happened next, but when Master Tellrus put me to bed, he took the one certain bottle, keeping the remaining three: two maybes and one bottle of extremely old wine. I couldn’t keep awake any longer; the ink in my skin felt like it was bubbling away, my accumulated powers felt as if they were being stripped. I didn’t have the strength to turn down the covers to check.
He left the quill, upon whose tip the silver needles were bound, on my desk, as if it was a present for passing his tests. When he set it down, it rattled and started to revolve. He watched as I curled up sick and drunk on my thin bed, then left.
I couldn’t sleep, but I finally passed out, which, any drinker will tell you, is not the same. Plagued by too-real dreams of places I’ve never been, chased in and out of consciousness by a dancing quill, I slept hard but had little rest, waking once in the middle of the night to a thunderclap. I assumed it was rain, even though I couldn’t hear the patter on my window, and slumped back over into an ill-fitting sleep. I stayed in bed all day, waking, when night returned, to a tap at my door.
Copyright © 2023 by Patrick Honovich
