"Mistress Enora, a pleasure to meet you." Absalom Fanty was politely effusive in greeting his new client.
"Mister Fanty. I'm glad you could fit me in." She waved away his small bow of thanks. "It really is too bad for Sublimation to begin now. The air is already thickening and the Solstice ball season approaches. I must look my best."
"You're wise to search me out early. But there are still four weeks until the first event of the season, plenty of time. Please, sit." Absalom waved to a leather reclining chair in the centre of the room. "You'll be rested and fresh for all the balls and masques you wish to attend. You will be vibrant, positively radiant."
She smiled politely, disliking his fawning manner and oily hair. "How wonderful! Do it, Mr. Fanty."
She settled against the headrest. He reclined the chair. Beneath it a vacuum globe began to pulsate and glow, the whirr of carefully weighted flywheels added a gentle hum to the air. She closed her eyes with a contented sigh. Her forehead and palms shimmered, opening the seer-eyes. One on her forehead, one on each palm. Through these, dream-aether would flow, restoring the vitality which the stagnant, draining, atmosphere of Sublimation stole.
Absalom attended the machinery, gradually increasing the energy being drawn from the aether-realm. He watched her skin fill and smooth, regaining the plump fecundity so desirous in fashionable circles.
Her seer-eyes were a vibrant indigo and, though he knew they looked onto a different realm, they appeared to watch him work, as if taking in every detail.
She reached completeness; the drain from living in the torpid environment of Sar-Chona during Sublimation, restored. The shimmering glow re-lit her palms and forehead, her seer-eyes began to close.
Moving swiftly, Absalom pulled levers. Mesh manacles clamped around her hands and head. A fine amalgam of rhodium and gold lattice in a stronger, steel framework. Her eyes snapped open, both physical and seer. He had caught her at liminality, the perfect moment.
"Mr. Fanty," her voice was faint, "what are you doing."
Absalom ignored her, moving specially constructed Leyden jars and condensing coils across his work bench. He connected a thick cable to the vacuum globe, and other thinner cables from the globe to the manacles. He increased the power again.
"Mr. Fanty!" Her voice keened, stretched thin and taught. He increased the power a few degrees at a time, gradually tuning her out.
The fine filament in the first jar glowed like burnished electrum as it filled with dream-aether, brightening the room like sun-tubes at mid-day. Absalom switched the leads to the next jar and removed the full one to an adjoining room. He expected nine or ten such jars before his victim was drained, at which point he would make a few extra coins from some student seeking a cadaver to autopsy.
The profit from the dream-aether he would take slowly. Selling its energies to a select clientele when Sublimation was at its height, when the whole city wept in want of the relief brought by sleep and dream. His customary dip into poverty would be avoided between this Sublimation and the next.
He smiled as he returned to his work-room. Already bright, it seemed the second jar was near to full. Maybe he would get more from her than expected. Ordering fifteen jars on account had not been extravagant after all.
His smile fell when he saw his victim. Her forehead, shoulders, sternum, elbows, groin, hands and feet glowed intensely. Absalom groaned, he had attacked a Sefirot Maegster. She was able to use not just the bodies seer points, but every aspect of the sefirot. The least powerful Maegster could draw power a Dream-maester, even as accomplished as he was, could not envisage.
Lines of energy writhed from her shining sefirah points, melting the manacles away. The room filled with hissing and the smell of burnt metal, though her flesh remained unmarked. Slowly she stood up, a furnace of energies that roiled with the uncaring power of a star.
Absalom turned and ran through the storage room. The full Leyden jar on the shelf flared, a pulse of light which blinded him, dropping him to his knees. He screwed his eyes shut, covering his burnt retinas.
"A mistake, Mr. Fanty, a grave mistake." The voice rang inside his head, high and sharp like the peal of glass bells.
He felt his seer-eyes opening unbidden. The aether-realm cleared to reveal Mistress Enora. He quailed. She stood behind him in Sar-Chona, and before him in his own, private, dream world. He could not look away, the glow of her sefirah bound him.
She raised her palms, extending the fingers towards him, and his essence began to unravel. Tendrils snaked across the space between them. In Sar-Chona he screamed as the cells in his body started to break down. Matter converted to energy and bridged the realms of existence in an unnatural manner.
Eventually, he was gone.
Mistress Enora stood and admired herself in the workshop mirror. Vibrant, that was the word, vibrant. Positively radiant. The foolish and greedy Mr. Fanty had given her a distinct edge for the Solstice ball season. Using a Dream-maester was not a necessity for a women of her powers, but she liked the gentle pampering when you found a good one.
She wondered who the next best Dream-maester in Sar-Chona was. Probably best to secure their services, before their appointment book filled up.
An original story and photograph by Stuart C Turnbull.