The City under the Sky of Stone Part Four

by Michael Warner Molema

The Stalactite’s Tip was the restaurant atop the tallest tower in the city of Illumination. The Column rose from the cave floor to a height of three hundred meters, where it met a two-hundred-meter-long stalactite hanging from the cave’s celling. The many great spotlights that surrounded the restaurant illuminated the cave around it and the stalactite. Every now and then a great moth, with a meter wingspan would fly up to the light where it would be snatched out of the air by a massive bat. It appeared the restaurant was for more than just humans.

A waiter came along and placed my food upon the table that lay before me. “Sir,” said the man. “I present to you your Cornwall Miner’s Pie.”

I turned to the man of African descent, “Thank you my friend, I was watching the Great Cave Bats.”
“Indeed sir. They are quite a sight.”

I slipped a ten unit note to the man, “Your manager appears to be an Ethnicicist.”
“He is. Apparently he came down here to escape those of the African Ethnicity. But he pays well and the Chef throws knives at him when he gets out of hand.”
“Good to hear it. Can you also bring me another glass of this ‘Fizzy Vanilla’ please?”
“I can and will sir.”
After the friendly waiter left I said a short prayer over my meal and tucked in. As a man from England it was difficult to find good British food abroad, but this Chef knew how to make Cornish Pie.

When the Pie was finished and my fourth glass of ‘Fizzy Vanilla’ finished I sat at the table for some time, watching a ‘Methonaut’ repair a broken pipe on the ledge outside restaurant. I had seen these Methonauts around the city, great lumbering suits that carry large air tanks and equipment designed to repair the many fixtures of Illumination. Presumably there was a man inside, but I had so far seen no evidence to the contrary.

“Enjoying the view Mr Jade?”

I turned to find Venessa Mire, consort to Jonathan Strauss the city’s founder, taking the seat opposite me.
“Venessa, what a surprise.”
I had to keep my eyes upon her face, as she was wearing a very low-cut dress that almost left nothing to the imagination. She crossed her arms on the table top and leaned forward, almost spilling all of her secrets. “Nathanial, how have you enjoyed you three weeks stay in our lovely city?”

The woman before me was beautiful, breath takingly so, and she did not need any low-cut dresses to convince any man of this. She was a blond, dark, rich yellow flowed down to her shoulders, curling at the ends towards her neck. Her neck was slender, yet strong, and it held a soft face marked only by laugh lines. Her eyes, a deep sky blue beneath thin dark eyebrows, separated
by a thin straight nose that turned up slightly at its end. Her lips were full and a deep red that I so wanted to feel against mine. And her chest…

I shook my head to clear it of thoughts. “Sorry, my dear, I have a lot on my mind.”
She smiled knowingly, for she knew exactly what had been running through my mind. “Did the Council send you?”
This took me by surprise. “The Council? They don’t know I am here. In fact, they expressly forbid that I come.”
“Did they?” Vanessa leaned forward just a little bit more, enough to send my heart into overdrive and my thoughts on adventures I didn’t want them to go on. “So, tell me, why are you really here?”
“I’ve, …, come for the, what’s the word, …”

“… The Suggestion Stone.”
“Yes, that.”

Venessa sat back, easing the pressure on my heart and allowing me to take in the restaurant. It was empty, not one soul how should be eating, drinking, or conversing, could be seen. From the only doorway out of the restaurant a Methonaut slowly, and surprisingly silently, walked up behind Venessa. I turned to her and found she held her wand in her hand.
She pointed it and me and said, “don’t move or me and the Methonaut will send you to the Creator.”
Venessa stood up and walked over to me. She bent down, allowing me to see everything, and kissed me with some passion. When she was finished, she walked over to the Methonaut and allowed him to wrap an arm around her. She grabbed a breather and put it over her mouth and nose.

“I’m sorry about this Nathanial. But I’m happy I kissed you one last time, you’re an artist at it.”
She said something in magic with her wand pointed at the window behind me. Glass shattered and the rushing air pulled me out into the void. I couldn’t breath as the outside methane air rushed into my lungs. “So that’s why they’re called Methonauts.” I said to myself as gravity commanded me to fall, as its willing slave I readily obeyed.