*
The ingredients for the concoction were simple, in themselves. The uniqueness of the drug lay not in its components, but in the art of combining them. To balance them all correctly took hours of measuring, cooking, stirring, and more measuring. For this reason, among others, people called the drug Discipline.
Night lay heavily upon the kingdom of Yamair, and according to most logical conclusions, King-wife Eleanor should have been deeply asleep. But tonight, her heart and mind stirred with too much turmoil to allow her such quietude. Instead, as the clatter of the outer world faded and the sound of her clocks filled the air with unchallenged purity, she spent her waking hours cooking, stirring, and measuring.
Dip, stir, pour, measure, burn, stir, flush, pour ... The chiming of her spoon against the bowl, then the hum of the pipes as she flushed the liquid to the next canister, had a calming effect similar to her metronomes. The act of creating the drug affected one’s mood almost as strongly as the drug itself. This is why she insisted on making it herself, even though she could have obtained prepared mixtures elsewhere. After all, nothing balanced one’s inner drum more than the pursuit of productivity.
Some time around midnight she completed the concoction. She poured it into a small vile and knelt before the Grand Clock.
“Oh Earth Mechanic,” she whispered, “help me hear the one and only rhythm. Pace my heart, and teach me discipline.”
She brought the vial to her lips. Her fingers slipped. The vial slid right from her grasp. It fell onto the ground and smashed to pieces, splashing liquid across the floor.
For a moment she just stared in horror, unable to believe that her hours of work had been so quickly wasted. Then, with no warning at all, she burst into tears.
If King Byron were here he would have stopped her from crying. His mere presence would have reminded her that all emotions were fleeting and insignificant. Sometimes, emotions could be used as a clue towards rational action. Fear could indicate danger. Joy might result as a reward for good work. And sorrow ... sorrow came as a form of punishment for failure.
“No ... no no no no!”
She slammed her fist against the ground, sending pain up her arm. The despair in her veins self-perpetuated. The Discipline drug would have helped her, shielding her from both joy and sorrow, leaving nothing but rational thought. Instead her sorrow took her over, grabbing her heart and twisting it like a rag. Her body convulsed and her sobs ripped from her throat one after another. Her eyes swelled with water then gushed with tears. The sorrow within her grew stronger and stronger until she couldn’t contain it at all.
“Nooo—!”
A hand wrapped suddenly around her mouth, stifling her screams. The hand was small but muscular, its grip secure. Whomever it belonged to held Eleanor from behind, cradling Eleanor’s body with her own.
“Ssh. Sshh.”
The hand fell away, and Eleanor turned to look upon her captor’s bright green eyes. The person who held her was none other than the Royal Scholar, Rebeka: the same woman who had worked silently for years, never speaking unless spoken to, until she suddenly forced Eleanor to notice her twice in one day. Eleanor found herself falling helplessly into Rebeka’s embrace. “Rebeka … ?”
“Dearest King-wife. Why are you so upset?”
“I … I’m sorry. No one was supposed to see me like this ...” She tried to get back up, but another sob wracked her body, and Rebeka took hold of her firmly.
“Never mind. I have seen you now and that cannot be changed, not even by the Earth Mechanic himself. So we might as well discuss what is wrong.”
“But … but ...” Eleanor stared at the broken pieces of the vial scattered across the plywood floor. “I don’t want you to write about this,” she confessed at last. “You won’t write about this in your Chronicles, will you?”
A mischievous smile played at Rebeka’s lips. “I won’t if you tell me why you’re so upset.”
Eleanor’s fingers dug into the wooden floor. Now that she felt free to give in, the truth came pouring out of her. “It’s this potion. Discipline. I’ve worked so hard and … what’s the point? Do you even know what it is?”
“Of course I do! It’s a potion you invented ten years ago. One of the greatest inventions Yamair has ever known! It’s what made you Prime Synergist, and eventually King-wife. It’s what got the king interested in you to begin with.”
“Of course you know. You’re a Scholar, and you’ve lived here watching me mix it and drink it for years.” Eleanor scoffed at the unfairness of it all. “You mentioned all those things about how it got me where I am today. But do you even know what it does?”
“Yes, King-wife.” Rebeka put a calming hand on Eleanor’s arm as another tremble seized her. “It nullifies emotions, giving reign to pure reason.”
“Yes. Yes it does.” She put out her hand and ran her fingers across the wet floor. “Everyone praised it as an accomplishment once I made it. Synergists across the kingdom claimed they would give it to their workers. All the initial tests showed that this drug increased productivity almost two-fold. But then people stopped taking it.”
“Interesting.” Rebeka played with the folds of Eleanor’s sleeve, her touch somewhere between playful and caressing.
“Interesting? That is not how I see it at all. It is tragic. It is an outrage.” She slammed her fist suddenly against the ground. “It’s that damn safra!”
“Safra?” Rebeka grew stiff against her. “But didn’t you and the king make safra illegal, once your Discipline hit the market?”
“Yes. That’s the worst part. Safra ruined everything, and the more we fought to get it out of Yamair, the more it kept trickling in. For about a year, everything seemed perfect. Then Byron found out that underground safra trades were happening all over the kingdom. Worse, it sold for more money than my own Discipline. Gradually, authorities turned a blind eye to it, because they wanted safra, too. My precious Discipline drug became almost obsolete in a matter of years because no one wanted to buy it. They only wanted safra. In fact, people only sold Discipline vials to hide safra contained within them!”
“I did know about some of those things. But when the king legalized safra again, he seemed so at peace with the decision!”
“Byron. Oh Byron ...” To Eleanor’s shame, the sorrow was coming back again. At first, the effort of explaining her feelings to Rebeka helped Eleanor keep a distance from them. Now they threatened to smother her once more. “Rebeka, please. I need some Discipline. Do you have any?”
Rebeka’s face crinkled with uncertainty. She was a very pretty woman, Eleanor realized, until she frowned. Her long face had an elegance to it, suggestive of her spirit. Her skin was of an interesting olive complexion, blending beautifully with her black hair and green eyes. But frowning did not suit her. “Are you sure that is best, Majesty? Sometimes we are meant to feel shame and despair, are we not? Sometimes our emotions are a consequence of rational thought, or at least a clue—”
“I will not be preached to!” Eleanor tore herself from Rebeka and fixed her with a furious glare. “You will do as I say. Get me some Discipline.”
“I, uh ...” Rebeka’s long black lashes threw a shadow over her green gaze as she lowered her head. “I think I have some in my satchel.”
She got up, walked to her bag, and started rummaging through it.
Eleanor sighed and leaned against the wall, already missing the strength of Rebeka’s embrace. “Byron … disappointed me. I really shouldn’t say so, but … you have promised not to put this in your chronicles, and I feel I can’t help myself. It’s true. He disappointed me. I thought he understood what I wanted to achieve with Discipline. I thought he shared my dream. But when safra took over the market despite all our efforts, he folded. He legalized it again. His decision made almost no rational sense. People who used safra became less productive. Safra poisoned our economy in so many ways, depleting productivity and sending revenue to Dearen. Safra is more expensive than
gold in volume. But the king, like so many others, ignored these things. You see, by then he had started using safra himself.”
Rebeka became very still. Her hand paused in her bag, not making a sound.
“He didn’t let on to the public, of course. Not even to you, our very own Scholar, who sees almost everything we do. No, I think I’m the only one who knew about it. And in a way that was the worst sort of betrayal. Surely he knew that I would disapprove more than anyone in the world, yet he kept using it anyway. And it’s the real reason he left on this mysterious voyage of his. He told the rest of the world he was off to find a new natural resource to power our machines. It was a lie he concocted, after he’d already made up his mind to search the world for a new source of safra outside Dearen.”
After a terrible silence, Rebeka’s hand withdrew from her bag. In it she held a small vial full of the purple potion. “Here. I have some Discipline.”
Eleanor smiled sadly. The fact she carried some in her bag, yet had forgotten whether she had any or not, indicated that Rebeka—like so many people—had ceased using Discipline long ago. “Good. Bring it here, then.”
Rebeka obeyed. She handed the vial over with no hesitation at all. Eleanor opened the vial and knocked it back quickly. It had a bitter taste to it, strong enough to make some people gag. Some people chose to smell it instead, for this still had an effect, though arguably weaker. The first time she ever tried to drink it, she threw it back up. But she was past that now. She even allowed the aftertaste to linger on her tongue and, in its own way, it comforted her. She closed her eyes and waited for the potion to take effect.
“All of this is a profound injustice, King-wife,” said Rebeka, “and I’m sorry you’ve had to suffer it. Now I know why you got so upset today. That strange man—the Merchant—he took the injustice one step further, didn’t he? He made it sound as if your Discipline potion could have played some part in the horrible tragedy of Dearen. As if it was the assassin’s anti-safra!”
At last the Discipline settled over her. The roar of emotions in Eleanor’s head faded. The sound of her clocks ticking returned to her ears, louder and clearer than ever. She realized her emotions had blinded her today even more than she’d realized, and it was a relief to be free of them. “It was.”
Rebeka batted her black lashes with surprise. “What?”
“My Discipline potion and this so-called anti-safra: they are one and the same. Why not? Discipline would nullify the effects of safra.” Eleanor’s gaze settled on Rebeka’s, calm and collected. “In fact, I’m not ashamed of the connection he made. Discipline helps people carry out their tasks and carry out their goals, whatever they may be. It is merely an unfortunate state of affairs that an assassin finds my drug more useful than a man who wants to build a house.”
“But you didn’t know Discipline was being used in this way.” As the Scholar stared continuously into Eleanor’s calm face, she grew more and more upset. “Did you?”
Eleanor shrugged. “I knew it was being sold to rather … suspicious consumers. Soldiers. Slaves. People in … undesirable positions. For some people safra is too expensive; for others with an important—but unsavory—job to do, safra often eradicates their motivation to do it at all. I know that over the last few years, these are the people who purchased Discipline. They were some of the only people who still did. So I let them. And if necessary, I … supplied it. After all, not many people make it anymore.”
“But, King-wife ...” Rebeka looked foolish to Eleanor now, so shocked and worried. What good would either of those emotions do her? “The Merchant said the princess of Dearen herself may have the kerchief doused with anti-safra. But if anyone connects the drug back to you ...”
“Nonsense.” Eleanor reached out and put her hand against Rebeka’s. This gesture seemed to surprise the Scholar. “It is not as if I sold the drug personally to the Wolvens.” She put a smile on her face, not necessarily because she felt any pleasure, but it seemed like the proper expression to give with the delivery of her next statement. “And that is why I will call the Merchant back and teach him how to make it. Then there will be yet another person—a merchant, no less—who knows how to make it in addition to myself.”
“Are you sure about this, King-wife?” Rebeka looked down at their entwined hands, as if this gave her comfort. “What if helping him implicates you even more?”
“Then let it implicate me.” Eleanor’s lips spread wider, pulling up to show her teeth. “I have done nothing wrong.”
4
Lenses