[R12] In Between the Houses of the Moons [Lit]

unwanderinggirl

Moths fluttered eagerly in front of the phosphor lanterns that cast their dull light throughout the cluttered expanse of the Between Hours Press workshop, round first floor windows open to the chill air of the night letting various insects come and go. Iyoas either didn’t notice or didn’t care so long as nothing landed in his ink or ended up smashed between his paper and the stones. He had no idea what time it was anymore, so black was the evening and so tired were his very bones. His arms ached from an entire day spent rolling ink, sponging ink, and turning the flywheel, one print at a time for hundreds of prints.

The tall printmaker paused to lean against one of the stone-topped counters next to the lithography press he was persevering with, totally beyond caring that he smudged ink and grease across his tired face in an effort to keep himself conscious, fingers dragging over freckled skin. It’d been at least a day since he’d slept, and this was the last run of posters he’d ever have to make before Poster Day. Thank all the gods he couldn't name this flooding political season was almost over. He'd long since already drowned in it all, dead on his feet but still moving in muscle memory and something he could look back on one day and call passion. 

No one else had been able to continue enduring. 

Even his young apprentice, Tendaji, was sprawled across the cushions of the sitting area in the workshop, totally oblivious.

Iyoas was now running solely on way too much strong coffee and admittedly magically-altered adrenaline, twitching if he stood too still or hands shaking if he spent too long lining up the next sheet of paper on the registration marks he’d etched into the Hessian limestone lithography plate that glistened with a fresh sponging of water in the phosphor glow, the mona in his field frayed at the edges like torn paper, irritated and dangerous just like most of his magic usually ended up being. If he could see straight, he'd probably be hallucinating. Tunnel vision kept him sane: focus on the stone, shift to the paper, and back again. Everything else felt like some dark illusion, creeping in with the sweet promise of sleep.

With a groan, the half-blood shoved himself back into his work, back into more physical punishment even though parts of his body ached in objection, shoving away the longing to simply stop moving. The press weighed easily well over a ton, the stone possibly two hundred pounds, and each sheet of paper felt the heaviest of all, laid on top one sheet at a time. Blistered hands rolled out the large brayer, coating its surface with an even layer of bright blue, hand-mixed ink. After several passes on the glass mixing surface, he turned and rolled the ink out onto the large stone, stretching over its length despite his height and long arms. Then, he returned the brayer to its stand at the ink station, picking up a sponge from a small bowl on the same countertop. He carefully squeezed most of the liquid from it before wiping it lightly over the entire stone in smooth, even circles, carefully wetting the areas he’d just been inking, water seeping into the etched areas while the oily ink resisted the liquid instead. Sponge tossed back into the bowl, he then lifted a large sheet of dampened paper from the stack and carefully lined it up at the closest registration marks to the edge of the press, feeling sweat trace a familiar river down his back and having to bite his lip to keep his fingers steady as he lined deckled edges up with the twin lines. Blinking away the blur of exhaustion that hung heavily in his vision, he then held one corner down while sweeping his other hand gently over the entire sheet of paper, smoothing it against the lithography stone’s surface, forming a seal with water and ink.

A felt blanket was laid over next, and he had to take care to keep the edges from hanging over the stone lest they get mangled as he rolled the stone and plate through the press. With a slow inhale through clenched teeth, Iyoas put his hands to the flywheel, cranking the rolling bottom portion of the press that cradled the heavy stone through the mechanism of the press itself, pushing ink into paper under incredible pressure. His arm muscles burned their objection to the repetitive process, but he ignored it. It’d been houses since he hadn’t felt the fire and he’d grown used to the sensation in his sleep-deprived numbness.

Once through the press, the tall bookbinder lifted the blanket away and then carefully peeled the thick paper from the limestone, holding it up to the warm glow of a phosphor to check his color distribution and alignment. The image was now three-color and the smiling face of whatever godsbedamned party member was smiling up at him in a mockery of warmth and sincerity. Drown him. Drown his whole flooding family. But not until after Poster Day, for the love of all that was green.

Something between his shoulders crackled and grumbled under his flesh as he reached upward to clip the poster to his hanging system that ran along the ceiling of his workshop, another completed print ready to dry in the Mugrobi heat. He blinked at it, studying the spectographic transfer image of the arata man up for re-election as if he had some answer to why he agreed to punish himself to the point of delirium again and again, year after year.

Oh, right, for the money.

Or, well, maybe for the beauty of the process.

No, probably just for the hell of it.

Something. Wait. Bhe ...

Blast to pieces the whole circle, did he even know at this point? Somewhere underneath the sweat and machine grease and ink and freckled creamed coffee skin, Iyoas knew. But he was too far down the path opposite mental clarity to be able to comprehend anything worthwhile other than ink, print, repeat.

Tendaji muttered and rolled over, briefly distracting the half-Mug from re-inking the brayer again. He glanced through his shop to catch a glimpse of the sleeping youth, frown creasing itself into his grimy features. He was sure he never wanted to know who thought it a good idea to deposit the teen-aged oshoor on his doorstep, who somehow turned his family printshop into a flooding halfway house for more of his kind. It must have been a laugh for them; they must truly have thought in their hearts they were not only doing him a simple favor, but somehow bestowing on the printmaker an infinite kindness.

Yar’aka. Desemi. All of them.

Iyoas found himself grinding his teeth and he had to shake himself free of the anger watching the boy sleep seemed to stir up in his delirious thoughts. He should be grateful for the help, and he was. But nothing else. He was stuck with the boy now, whether he wanted to be or not. What could he teach him besides printing? Was he supposed to teach him to be imbala? To be a man? Was he supposed to teach him magic? He could teach him how the world turned and left them behind, carefully going to great lengths to look the other way in their supposedly cursed presence. He wasn’t sure he could ever teach the boy to hope it would change.

And what of his other unexpected guest? Lidya, too, had felt she was doing another oshoori a simple kindness by pointing the woman in his direction.

He had no favors to give.

Shaking his head as if it could banish the tired, drifting, distracting thoughts, Iyoas could only growl in frustration and return to his work. Ink. Sponge. Ink. Sponge. Paper. Blanket. Press. Repeat. The rest of the night dragged on in repetitive agony, the last print run of Poster Day a fiery blur of blue ink and blisters.

Houses slipped by in darkness, phosphor glow unchanging until the hint of sunlight filtered through the narrow alley that was Ribbon Street. It would have to be many hours after dawn for the sun to reach above the buildings to cast long, glowing lines through his open windows. Iyoas was hardly thinking by the time he hung the last poster, battered and practically blinded by sleeplessness and exhaustion. He glanced at the mess left in his wake, at the ink and the water, the misprinted pages, the stone, his own sweat and blood.

Drown it all. Someone else would have to deal with it later. The mess and the various political servants who would be banging down his door in a house or two, greedy for their neatly-packaged piles of posters to litter the walls and assault the eyes of their constituents with in order to somehow wrangle their hearts for a few extra votes so they could continue their disconnected lives in as cogs in the government machines. Doing nothing for him. Doing hardly anything for the Turtle, either. No, he’d taken care of himself just fine so far.

Alone.

As he’d been doing just fine for himself for well over a decade. Just fine.

Right?

Maybe.

He couldn’t bring himself to say a single word of thanks in the direction of anyone he’d just printed posters for, so convinced he was that no one had ever kept his interests in mind for anything, ever.

Not a wasted breath.

Maybe not.

He was not convinced, however, that he shouldn’t be thankful for anything else.

Like the faint fingers of light that began to trace their way through his windows and into his shop, dancing off greasy, freckled skin and so much ink, a tiny hint of gratitude had begun to creep into his cast-iron heart, small like a bead of water over wax.

Still, it was impossible to know for sure if even that was real anymore. Delirious. Exhausted. Wrecked. The printmaker hardly made it up the stairs to his own home, apron somewhere on the floor, ink smudged up the railing, disappearing into the still-cool shadows of his room yet untouched by morning to surrender to well-earned thoughtless unconsciousness.