Pirin could remember anyone bringing him inside a cell, but someone must have. The next morning, he woke up in the shade of a cell, lying face-up on a stiff cot.
He tried to sit up, but someone laid a hand on his head and whispered, “Rest. Don’t move.”
Still, Pirin turned his head to the side, trying to see who it was.
A short man in a tattered tunic stood beside the cot, wringing out a bloody cloth above a bucket of water. He had gray hair, and his face was wrinkled, but he didn’t move like an old man. Deftly picking up his bucket, he said, “Rest and recover, elf.”
Pirin mumbled something, but even he couldn’t make out what he himself had said.
Lady Clase had mentioned someone who would help him. Was this…“Saha’i?” Pirin finally breathed.
“That is my name, yes,” the old man said. “I help those who return here injured; I am too old and rickety to join the search teams…”
Pirin pressed his eyes shut—mainly because his wounds began to sting again, and though Saha’i had cleaned the gashes, the infection still throbbed. But Pirin couldn’t ignore his pity for the old man. “How long have you been here?”
“Here?” Saha’i asked. “A month and a half. With the Saltsprays? Much longer. I atone for my transgressions against the sect with a life of service.”
Pirin realized he didn’t want to know how long that had been. He opened his eyes and stared up at the roof, wracking his mind for his knowledge of medicine and herbs—and if there was anything common and available that he could suggest to stop an infection.
As always, the memories were like sand slipping through his fingers. He shut his eyes again and let his lips move, and without thinking, he uttered, “Nyllmyne…Mare’s Root…Lambhand.”
Saha’i’s bucket of water stopped sloshing; he must have stopped moving. “Pardon, young elf?”
Once again, Pirin forced his eyes open. Saha’i stepped closer, then patted a pouch hanging from his belt. “Lady Clase allows me to carry around herbal medicines so I can tend to her wounded labourers…”
“Slaves,” Pirin breathed.
“She does not call us that. We have all wronged the sect in some way or another, and this is our atonement.” Saha’i paused, then turned his back. “Rest,” he commanded. “And recover your strength.”
“What did you do to the sect?” Pirin asked, ignoring the man’s command.
“When I was a boy, I stole food from Lady Clase’s father.”
Pirin scowled. “And that earned you a life in prison?”
“My honour will never be unstained. I would never lead a normal life on the archipelago anymore. Service is all I have left.” He dropped his bucket down and leaned closer to Pirin’s cot. “That includes service to you, elf. I fed you a pulp of possip berries to give your body an upper hand against the infection.”
“Thank you, truly,” Pirin said, “but do you have any…” What had he said before? “...Nyllmyne? I think…uh, it’d be more effective for healing an infection in elven flesh.” At least, that was the vague feeling he got from all the herbs he had listed.
“If you are certain,” Saha’i said. He reached into his pouch and pulled out a small, knife-shaped leaf with a serrated edge. “This weed? It grows everywhere, and its only use on men is making them gag—if I need them to huck up something poisonous.”
Pirin couldn’t recall exactly what the herb had looked like, but if Saha’i knew it, then Pirin figured the old man wasn’t wrong. He nodded.
Passing him the leaf, Saha’i said, “I’ve never met an elf before, nor have I been instructed on how to heal one.” He folded his hands together in front of him. “I didn’t think you folk had…black hair. Ever.”
Pirin sighed. He wouldn’t tell the truth to any of the other prisoners, nor to Saha’i. There was no reason to stir up any potential loathing, nor to demand such attention. “I’m an oddity,” he said, and left it at that.
For the third time that day, Saha’i commanded, “Rest, elf.” Without another word, he walked out of the cell. He pushed open the door—a sheet of metal bars—then let it clang shut behind him. It swayed and bounced back open a crack.
The cells didn’t lock. Noted.
Pirin stuffed the nyllmyne leaf in his mouth and chewed it. It was incredibly bitter, and he wanted to gag. His stomach lurched a few times, and he nearly did throw up, but he held everything together and swallowed.
That would help. But he wasn’t just going to sit around while the Red Hand got closer and closer. He had to get out of here, and he’d need a plan.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The best way out of the pit would be scaling the wall. The bricks were uneven, and he could climb up. But that meant he would have to recover his strength, as much as he could. And he’d need to prepare his body.
While he did that, he had the perfect opportunity to train his Memory Chain and improve—or, more precisely—learn his connection with the sword he had carried.
Maybe he could even set a few more foundation Timbers in place.
image [https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_5e221995337243e6a7d4250b55d3aeea~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_280,h_232,al_c,lg_1,q_85,enc_auto/embercore%20sigil.png]
The next few days, while Pirin healed, laying on the cot unmoving, he practiced triggering the Memory Chain.
He knew where and how to trigger it, now. Supposedly, the soul was located at the very top of the head, far above the core, and whatever bloodline ability caused the memory felt like it was nestled right above the soul.
To control what the memories showed him…well, that was also something to work on.
He focused on Mr. Regos, letting his Essence carry a sense of the old half-dwarf with it. Pirin locked onto the sense that had accompanied the memories of Mr. Regos in the past, and pushed it into the Essence like he was trying to send thoughts through the Whisper Hitch. He focussed on the herbal smells of Mr. Regos’ hovel, or the ashen musk of smoke lingering in the Darekshore cove.
After a few failed attempts, he locked onto the precise feeling and Essence movements he needed.
Without his Reyad active, and without Gray, he only managed to use the Memory Chain for a few minutes at a time before the Bloodline’s overwhelming strength backfired into him. He let off a few Shattered Palms by accident, but no one seemed to care. The cells were unlocked, and he wasn’t going to damage any of the walls.
Of course, it meant that the other prisoners found out he was a wizard pretty quickly. Saha’i was the first to reach the conclusion that Pirin was an Embercore, at which point most of them stopped caring—how could an Embercore help even the most ambitious of them escape?
Pirin used the Memory Chain to review the moments of his healer’s training with Mr. Regos, as best as he could use it. Pushing more Essence into the ability seemed to drive him further back in time, at which point he released it and let it uncoil, replaying the memories.
If he drew Essence away from his head, it made the memories scroll faster. It jumped between them faster, like it was a messy Smoke recording, or it showed them to him twice as fast.
But there had to be a better way of using the Bloodline than just…viewing each memory individually. If he only used it when he slept, and drew Essence away to review everything at double speed, it would still take him years just to catch up on his own memories. And if he wanted to absorb all the knowledge of a thousand generations of kings before him? Impossible.
So there had to be a way of streamlining the process.
He wanted to absorb and consciously know all of the healer’s knowledge he’d lost. He didn’t need to relive it all.
First, he tried targeting the memories he wanted—Mr. Regos’ lessons—then pulling his Essence. The first few tries, he moved too fast and the Essence just backfired. The techniques all fell short.
When he found a middle-ground, the exact right tension to pull at to make the memories whirl by as fast as possible, he managed to scroll through every memory of Mr. Regos contained in the Chain just in a few minutes.
He retained none of it.
He slowed down, and slowed down, until he could scroll through in a half-hour—so long as his Embercore didn’t act up first.
Still, even with the Chain slowed down, it didn’t help his un-aided mind retain anything. Memories still flashed past in the blink of an eye.
On the third day of practice, he tried reversing the effect of the nostalgia-soaked Essence. If he left it around the area of his soul, he wanted to see if it could absorb any of the memory. A single memory of Mr. Regos teaching him to splint an arm, not sped up or altered in any way. After a few tries, he had his results.
He had started taking note of the results on the wall beside his cot—scratching into the rock with another sharp rock.
The Essence didn’t keep any of the images or words that he could draw up, but it kept the ideas and knowledge transmitted by the original memory. He let it disperse into his mind like a dandelion losing its fluff.
And the knowledge stayed. He knew how to splint an arm, without relying on blind instinct to carry him through the task.
Then he tried it with a larger slice of memories. He controlled his breaths, keeping his chest tight and his gut clenched, so he could control two strands of Essence in two different channels. One, he kept near the Memory Chain, and the other, he tugged on.
The first strand of Essence filled up in a matter of seconds and burst apart, tossing its contents carelessly into Pirin’s mind.
It stung, and a warmth spread from the inside of his head outwards. Just when he thought his mind was going to light on fire from the inside, it cooled, leaving him with the knowledge of a few weeks’ worth of lessons.
Perfect.
Then his Essence rebelled, the usual Embercore deal, completely shutting him off and tearing the technique out of his grasp. He stopped cycling Essence for a little while to let his channels rest and his body recover.
But it had worked. If he could do that with his healer’s memories, then he could do the same with his memories of his sword and whoever his old instructor was—whether the sword was present or not.
On the morning of the fourth day, Pirin pushed himself up. He swung his legs over the edge of the cot and let blood flow back into them.
Then he stood up. It was time.
“What are you doing?” Saha’i demanded, rushing over. “You can rest. You need—”
“I’m ready,” Pirin said. “I need to prepare myself.”
“For what?”
“To climb.”