|
The heavy oak door was set into one of the newly carved passageways, and purposely reeked of unwelcome. Upon it lay a simple brass plaque bearing the bold letters, SONDER.
That door opened up into the very corner of the room, a broad expanse of half-lit wall looked like it was fire-blasted from the white-veined rock. The lines were less than perfect, but served their purpose. All the walls were like that, and the ceiling might very well be... but it was sunk in shadow so nobody would know.
All the lights pointed downward, candleholders attached to the wall cupped over by hammered steel votives. The main source of light was at the center of the room, a large ovoid glass container, specially made at Sonder's behest... and filled with tiny glittering pixie bodies.
Directly underneath that queer light lay the entire lab's mainstay, a table-like contraption constructed of thick leather meshing suspended on a heavy steel frame, all over a sloping drain at the very heart of the floor. Later, the floor and drain would be stained by all manner of leaking vitae from this table of examination.
Along the wall opposite the door, the longest in the lab, ran a great desk. Atop this desk lay every sort of contraption imaginable... irregular brass spheres floating in pools of mercury, bottles and beakers of every size, shape and hue, astrolabes of totally foreign systems, mummified birds, silver statues, broken artifacts, blackened remains of unstable plantlife, fetuses in jars, piles upon piles of books... and over everything a blizzard of strewn papers fairly drips from the jumble.
At the shorter wall perpendicular from that, but still opposite the door, only a lone fireplace and hearth sits. The inside of the hole is littered with crude drawings, dirty, ragged blankets, and bits of dolls and knickknacks. That would be Flynn's.
The other long wall, with the door set into it, is home to a series of racks and carts. On one, a crimson cloth strikes contrast to the immaculately polished and arranged set of surgical tools set over five trays. Another holds two tanks, each full of a thick black substance and stretched over with some sort of cloth, against which an odd bulge may be seen to rise from time to time. One set of shelves holds a collection of body parts in amber-filled jars, hardly any of which look even remotely humanoid. Another, spools of thread and bandages, beakers of common alcohol and mercury, a jar of leeches.. all kept at the behest of his employer here, for he was also to be the common practitioner, so to speak.
Even now he leers over some arcane book plucked from the shelves lining the only remaining wall, divining the nature of life. Your life.
|
Sonder had spent so much time setting up his new lab that he'd nearly forgotten the reason for his haste. Luckily, Flynn had been poking at the body when he'd ordered her to organize the racks.
To him Baghiira was now simply another dead thing to examine, perhaps learn from. No matter that it was his own hand that had created this project in the beginning, little care went into strapping the limp but limber form to the examination table.
"Flynn, fetch me the operation cart."
Perhaps he might be able to discern the reason for her behavior breakdown, and subsequent revolt. He hadn't forgotten those years trapped within the Morkai wall, but it was certainly a pity that even if he revived her from the dead, she wouldn't learn her lesson. It would be flaying a dead horse.. the mind had a terrible way of not retaining things through the veil of death.
The cart looked like it was almost moving on its own, his diminutive helper invisible behind it. Once in range, he took up the first scalpel in the row, and leaned over intently.
