Heart Notes
by Rio Le MoignanLeaving the lab in the early evening, Ilmari saw them again. Three trees trembling, their thin branches bouncing with birds, birds of a kind he had never seen before this year, and cannot find in the books he has leafed through at the library. Blue birds, unheard of, more shades than he can credit: blue, blue, blue like turquoise and peacock feathers, blues of ultramarine and indigo. Blue backs of rich lapis, and breasts of fragile blue like the palest butterflies.
He was sure it was the new scent that brought them, and his dreams at night are shot through with the flash of wings, fanned feathers; bluer than the sea, than the sky, than summer or distant mountains or the loss that already haunts his heart and slows his hands. The perfume is nearly finished.
It was nearly three years since Siegfried first came to him. He was a mystery of a man, nomadic and taciturn. He came at long intervals to learn of Ilmari's progress, and as far as the perfumer could discover, he spent all of his time travelling, covering so much ground so ceaselessly that he must be looking for something. Ilmari sometimes wondered what that something could be, but Siegfried rarely answered questions that strayed from the topic of their transaction. His custom was as strange as his character, and as focused; Siegfried, unlike most of Ilmari's clients, knew exactly what he wanted when he walked into the lab for the first time. That was rare, that was a welcome challenge: both then and now. The perfumer created expensive, often exclusive perfumes, blends he made himself, tailored to the specific customer, but often his clients were buying for lovers and had no idea what fragrances they liked, or what would suit them best. Ilmari would question the buyer closely, then pleased himself with the bounds of the information he had received, and set himself challenges if the customer could not.
The bright birds were Ilmari's companions now. They had swarmed outside the lab all summer, when they had been hidden in the leaves and he had paid them little heed; all autumn, blazing like blue fire against the red-brown leaves - and now the flock was growing in number every week, shrill restless replacements for the falling leaves. They were waiting, as much as he was. It was more than eight months since Siegfried's last visit; he was due again in three weeks, and Ilmari wanted to have the perfume finished for him.
For many weeks he had been refining the perfume, altering the balance of the ingredients, tuning the relationship of base and middle and top notes - but the essence was already there. Ilmari knew that he had the right components, after two years of searching out more and more unusual raw materials, when none of the common ones satisfied Siegfried. Nothing synthetic could be used, and nothing floral, nothing that smelled of fruit or came from a warm climate. It must smell cold, like years of ice, so much ice that the world would groan beneath its weight and nothing could ever be warm again. Winter and wolf, blood on frozen earth: a savage scent.
It had taken Ilmari a long time to accept that Siegfried meant every word literally, that he was meant to capture the pungency of pack ice and ash trees in a delicate glass vial. He still didn't truly understand why, but that didn't matter. His clients could choose to smell like rotted fish and sulphur if they wished, and that would be their business. It was the creation of the odor that was Ilmari's task, and held him fascinated.
The ingredients were powerful, and he needed frequent breaks to stop his nose becoming numbed to the nuances. He would leave the lab door propped open and sit outside beneath the trees, and after the initial breakthrough there were always birds to listen to. They always moved as a flock, vivid and vocal; sometimes they followed him home after work, and shrilled for hours after nightfall, long into the night, and he would wake to their high-pitched calls the next morning. Sometimes, when he was tired, it sounded as though there might be words in their trilling if he only listened hard enough, and the puzzle of it blended in his thoughts with the scent of the heart notes, lingering on his skin for hours after he used them.
When Siegfried arrived, Ilmari was standing outside, watching the flock flurry skywards and return, like swallows gathering to migrate.
"I could swear that they were talking," the perfumer said, without surprise, when he noticed his client standing on the path and frowning at him.
"They are. How is my stink?"
"It's done. Come into the lab, Siegfried."
The man nodded, most of his attention on the startling blue birds, and Ilmari studied him, suspecting that he wouldn't see the man again once he had the fragrance he sought. Siegfried's shaggy locks were a little longer than when they first met, but nothing else about him had changed. He wore dull bulky clothing and carved ivory ornaments, and his hands were covered in old scars. It was a minute or so before Siegfried looked away from the birds.
"It is done," he said with finality, and stalked into the lab.
Ilmari was used to his manner, and was eager to display his achievement besides, and followed him without asking what he meant.
Easing the stopper out of the tiny vial, Ilmari closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the air before he passed the perfume to Sigmund. The perfumer could almost imagine the room was growing colder as the scent diffused through the room, and he looked at Siegfried, hoping for a reaction from the wanderer.
The wet gleam of Siegfried's eyes was more than he had expected, and then the stoic mask dropped, revealing an ugly depth of hunger, the obsession of a famished man at last given food. Shocked, Ilmari looked away, towards the window and the birds swarming outside. They were making enough noise for him to hear even though the outer door was closed, and it sounded more than ever like speech, only just beyond his understanding.
"The gateway is there. The messengers are waiting, and you have finished my token."
Siegfried's voice was thick and Ilmari blinked as he faced him, wondering if he had misheard.
"I'm sorry; did you say token?"
"My token." Siegfried held the vial a little higher, and nodded in agreement. "My right of passage. No one has smelled this in many thousands of years. No one alive in the world has smelled this before, but me." After a second, he added, "And you."
It occurred to him that Siegfried was unhinged: he had spent all this time working for a madman, and he hadn't noticed.
Siegfried removed his wallet from somewhere in the folds of his shapeless jacket. "I won't need this now. Take the money; I have my key."
Ilmari wanted to refuse. Siegfried had paid him in advance, paid well, and the task had been a pleasure, but he was afraid to offend this man, who was newly strange to him. Siegfried didn't wait for him to decide, and tossed the wallet onto a bench before striding out. Ilmari followed him anxiously, with no idea of what he might do next.
The wanderer stood under the trees, arms outstretched, and the blue birds launched themselves into the air, their cries merging into something that was not quite song. Siegfried tilted his head, eyes on the vibrant flock, and the look on his face changed as he listened, as if he heard a conversation that no one could decipher. Then he opened the vial. Before Ilmari could stop him, Siegfried tipped the contents of the glass bottle out over his own head, and shook the last drops onto his hands.
The air stung like winter. Ilmari coughed, his sensitive nose and throat seared, stomach lurching from the concentration of perfume that he had breathed in. He wiped his tearing eyes with the back of his hand, and knew that the exposure to the fragrance must have addled his brain. Beyond Siegfried he could see snow and an immense tree, a tree more colossal than he could comprehend, an ash tree bigger than anything he was capable of imagining. The birds glowed like blue fire against the white-covered land, wheeling and rushing ahead of Siegfried.
"I'll say one thing for this world, it's got at least one damned good perfume maker." Siegfried was smiling, the first honest smile Ilmari had ever seen him wear. "I won't be back, Ilmari, I'm going home. I hope you can make the perfume you need for yourself one day."
"Wait! What about the birds, the - what is that?"
Siegfried raised his eyebrows, and cast a glance in the direction of Ilmari's urgent gesture. "Yggdrasil," he said, shrugging as if Ilmari should have known that. "Good luck to you, Ilmari."
Ilmari started coughing again, having drawn too deep a startled breath and filled his lungs with the scent. While he was occupied, Siegfried shadowed the blaze of birds, jewel-blue heralds, towards the tree. By the time the perfumer had recovered, the homebound traveller was gone, and so was the mighty ash. The trees around his lab, seeming diminished by his sighting of their greater cousin, were silent and still. Ilmari stooped and picked up the vial Siegfried had dropped, touched the tiny label and read aloud the word Siegfried had chosen for the perfume, understanding at last that the name was not merely a metaphor.
"Yggdrasil."
The glacial bite in the air was already fading, but Ilmari only heeded the empty branches. Siegfried had taken all of the birds. He already missed them, regretted them more than he would the demanding enchantment of Siegfried's request; he also wondered if the new awareness in him, of strange things, would soften with time. Perhaps he would go north and look for snow. Maybe the need for answers would leave him, or maybe the whole experience would evaporate from his mind like the released perfume mingling irretrievably with the air. His mind filled with images: the hazy blur of wing beats, the cobalt colour clearer than the bird's form. Ilmari breathed in, knowing that even if it was too small to detect, there would be a trace of the world tree perfume in it, the tiniest tinge of mystery that would spread out to fragrance the whole atmosphere.
©Rio Le Moignan
Rio Le Moignan is originally from Guernsey, but isn't very good at staying in one place very long; home usually means wherever her family is. She is probably too old to play on swings, but doesn't let that stop her. She has poems in Jabberwocky and Strange Horizons.