“I’m telling you. I won’t ask the goddess for her help again. Not with this. If he dies, he dies,” Llannia said, her eyes not leaving the bound and bandaged man breathing shallowly by the fire. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s worth just as much dead as he is alive at this point. The Magisterium will just be grateful that we stopped him, and we’ll make sure that their gratitude is paid in cold hard cash.”
Her expression was one of sorrow, but it wasn’t tears that glittered in her eyes. It was fear. Apparently, the goddess Aldelphia did not like to see her gifts of life thrown in her face. Up until now the priestess had been cool and collected. Even in the heat of battle she’d been practically unflappable, but right now she was on the edge of panic.
“But the knowledge that Hirramus has. Surely it would be worth trying to purge the evil from him again. Think of what he could tell us if only we could release him from the demon’s grip!” Agithus’ voice was full of passion, but even Earllin could see that he was going to get nowhere fast with that kind of thought process.
“Look,” she shot back, “there is no demon, alright? The only evil that is present here is his own, and none of my purging spells have done anything. I say if he wants to die then we should—”
“Say, Llanny - I have a question,” Jax butt in before she could have a meltdown. “How come the goddess doesn’t mind if you heal me over and over then? Every time we go out, I get cut to pieces, and she doesn’t mind you patching me up again, does she?”
“Jax, you ignorant bull!” Llannia yelled loud enough that Hirramus stirred slightly in his troubled sleep. “Those two things are nothing alike. Nothing. Period.”
Earllin tuned out the argument the other three were having and focused on the man that lay by the fire. He was dying, but that wasn’t the troubling part. The troubling part was that he’d already almost died twice in the last two days, and both times it was by his own hand. Earllian was hardly the most experienced mage; he’d only been free to leave the tower by himself and explore the wider world for the last few years now, but to him a demon was the only answer, so it made no sense to him that a priestess of Llannia’s obvious skill couldn’t find a trace of one.
The first death had occurred right at the climax of what should have been their epic showdown when had slit his own throat. On one hand Earllin was grateful that he wouldn’t have to fight one of his own teachers, but on the other he couldn’t have imagined a more terrible way to avoid it. The priestess had saved the archmage’s life on the spot, but while they were lashing him to a horse to begin the long ride back to the Magisterium Arcanum the man had bitten off his own tongue and practically bled out before they had noticed and saved his life a second time.
It was only when they’d gotten halfway back that his teacher had managed to slip free of his bonds and slit his wrists a few hours ago. That was where Llannia had drawn the line, forcing brother Agithus to use his limited knowledge of local flora and a few strips of cloth to bandage the poor man instead of using magic to instantly close the jagged wounds.
At this point there was simply no way to know if he’d pull through, and no obvious reason why he was so intent on dying. Earllin had only sensed one irregularity in the mana flows of the archmage as his normally powerful auras were warped by a tiny speck of null magic deep in his mind. Such a minor thing was probably an artifact of the stroke the poor man had suffered years ago and seemed more likely to weaken him than to drive him mad.
They spent the rest of that night around the campfire deciding what they should do next, but there was no consensus on what they could or should do about any of it. In the morning they continued on, and though they were as gentle as they could be with Hirramus, it was touch and go for the next two days as they traveled back to the tower.
When they were close enough that they could see the gilded spire poking up above the horizon, the Archmage tried once again to end his own life, but this time Jax made certain that the old man was bound so thoroughly that he could scarcely do more than breathe, and they made it to the entrance without any further catastrophes.
It was there they experienced another minor miracle: they were granted an immediate audience with the council, which was something that almost never happened. Even kings and queens could be expected to wait days for reasons that were both logistical and hierarchical. Each archmage that called this tower home was always busy with their own outrageous experiments into the depths of magic, and it could be hard to find the time for someone as unimportant to them as a temporal ruler. For one of their own though - for Hirramus, they all dropped what they were doing and convened within an hour of the gates being opened.
That left Earllin in the awkward position of speaking to the assembled Archmages when they were ushered down travertine halls to stand beneath vaulted ceilings, so he could be grilled by his betters for answers that he didn’t have.
“Killed himself? Three times you say? The Hirramus I know would never do such a thing,” Dromirrer thundered over Earllin as he made his report. The Storm King, as he was known to his enemies had a reputation for shooting messengers that was both literal and figurative, and Earllin had to struggle to keep his voice even as he spoke to the man.
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“It’s true though,” Earllin answered. “I swear on the great secret that it is.”
This was a serious vow; a mage that knowingly lied while invoking the mysteries behind magic itself could easily find himself cut off from them forever. He had nothing to fear though, because he wasn’t attempting to deceive anyone. He was just trying to make his very skeptical audience listen.
This vow at least gave them pause and in the silence that followed he had a chance to tell everyone of his story. He told them about the golems and the fight. He described the graveyard and the strange unfinished golem. He told them how he used a spell of the second circle to disable it, which shouldn’t have been possible if Hirramus had created it. He told them everything, but in the end they were left with only questions.
“So he still lives then?” Aranthin the red asked. “Where is our colleague now?”
“He’s in the chapel, with the Grey Ladies,” Earllin answered. “We left them strict instructions not to release him, but I hoped they might be able to find some darkness that neither I nor the very accomplished Llannia could not.
“I do not think that they will get any further than you did,” he said solemnly. “The only one who knows the answers to these questions has neither a throat nor a tongue to speak anymore. That speaks to the power of his secret, does it not?”
For a moment Earllin’s mouth gaped as he realized he’d missed the symbolism of the Archmage’s suicide attempts. He wasn’t just trying to end his life, he was trying to make sure that what he knew he would never be able to say.
“Well then how will we help him to tell us?” Earllin asked, letting a little more emotion into his voice than he meant to. “Surely such a secret is how we would be able to free him.”
“I think there’s a way,” Arathin answered, stroking his beard. “It will require a speaking stone and a banned artifact from the vault. I will write you a writ, so you can—”
“I cannot believe you would think of using that - that … thing! On one of our brothers,” Dromirrer spat immediately, “A chain of compulsion is a disgusting relic. There is a reason that they are illegal in the civilized world, Arathin!”
“There is also a reason we still keep several under lock and key Dromirrer,” the red mage shot back. “I would not suggest such an indignity if I did not think that it was the only way to save our brother.”
“Then you do it without me!” Gerhard, said rising to his feet. He’d been sitting in silent judgement for the duration of the conversation, but this was too far for such a principled mage. He left the hall grumbling about right and wrong and the storm king followed, leaving the other three Archmages to do what they thought was best.
In the end that outburst settled the debate. Earllin himself had doubts as they walked in the wake of Arathin’s red robes to the vault of banned artifacts on the second level and retrieved the evil looking chain of black iron. Such magical tools were once common enough in the Ephimernian empire, but they had thrived on slavery, and such dark practices had no place in the enlightened modern era.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Llannia whispered as they walked. “Two evils rarely combine to form something good, and a slave collar is as evil as evil gets.”
“The proverbs are wise, but I would do anything to save Hirramus’ life. I owe him more than you can know,” Earllin answered quietly. It was a slender thread of hope, but he would cling to it until it snapped. “If you do not wish to be a part of this then you can leave.”
“Oh, I’m not a part of it, but I’m not leaving until we get paid. That’s the way it works. We get the platinum and we’re gone. As far as I’m concerned all of this is just overtime,” she answered in that mercenary way that she usually did whenever she was uncomfortable. She might pretend that all she cared about was the money, but he could see that she was a good person underneath all that. She had to be, or her goddess wouldn’t answer any of her prayers.
With Jax’s help Hirramus was taken from the chapel to a nearly empty room lonely turret that branched off from the main body of the tower. The room was warded heavily enough that it was obvious that it was usually used for experiments involving otherworldly spirits, but the most important part was that there was no obvious way that the archmage could hurt himself in here.
With deliberate care Hirramus was bound to the lone chair, and then when he was fixed in place the slave collar and speaking stone were added to his neck, making for a garish contrast with the bloody clothes and furious expression.
“I’m sorry we have to do this to you my friend but were going to have to ask you some question now,” Arathin said, as he motioned for Jax to remove the man’s gag.
“Hirramus is lost forever you fools, and you will soon join him!” the stone chimed in a way that sounded almost mechanical. That was strange to Earllin, because usually these artifacts did a good job of replicating the voice that the speaker had lost. “I am all that is left now!”
“If Hirramus is truly gone, then who is it we are speaking to?” Arathin asked.
“I am the reckoning! I am your undoing!” the stone intoned manically while Hirramus merely grinned grimly at them.
“None of those are names. I command you spirit. Tell us your name!” Arathin commanded.
For several long seconds Hirramus resisted not just the command, but the pain that came from trying to defy it before he finally cried out in pain from his mutilated throat. It was only then the stone answered. “On the world I'm from I was GenArtInt 0068482-0076, but in this world, I am something more. Here, you address the Golemancer, version one.”