> We hear from a young age that Maja’s blessing lies in moderation, for the crop that grows too eagerly exhausts the soil that feeds it. I have always thought this turn of phrase to be ill-constructed both in the initial premise and the commonly appended metaphor, as any scholar will tell you that a primary effect of Maja’s blessing is decidedly immoderate growth without any of the purported downsides. What folly that the common wisdom should be so mistaken!
>
> And now here I sit, the keeper of a rare flower that would drink me to dust, wondering if the man who first penned that phrase is laughing.
>
> - Excerpt from the collected letters of Goresje Di Sazhocel Selyta, Royal Archives, Ce Raedhil.
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“All right, help me set her down,” Mark grunted, kneeling to lower Jackie from a fireman’s carry. Arjun set her head carefully down on the control room’s dais, one eye on Maja’s luminous form as she watched them with undisguised interest. Gusje joined Jackie on the dais a moment later as Jyte carried her in.
It had been about three hours since they discovered the pair unconscious in the Aesvain sanctum’s ruined control room, bleeding from the nose and ears. The latter had stopped, but they had yet to wake up or display any sign of activity besides steady, slow breathing.
From there, it didn’t take long to reach a consensus to return through the gate. The malfunctioning tablet made it impossible to continue their sweep of the script on the walls, and Jesse was sure that the strangely dead atmosphere of Tinem Aesvai wasn’t helping the two women with their recovery. The extent of the treatment they could provide on the far side of the gate was giving each one an asolan and hoping for the best.
Mark was intent on seeking out other options, however. He stood and turned to Maja, who was looking out the window from her usual spot. “Maja,” Mark called out. “You’ve got an injured Caretaker. Anything you can do about that?”
Maja gave him a considering look, then disappeared. She flashed back into being directly beside Gusje’s supine form. Mark flinched back, but managed to temper his response to simply glaring at Maja as she knelt beside Gusje.
She extended a hand and held it above Gusje’s forehead, then over her chest. Maja frowned slightly, then tapped lightly on Gusje’s ribs with an expression of distaste. Jesse blinked and took a step back, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
Mark turned, looking concerned. “What’s she doing?” he asked.
“Something,” Jesse muttered, walking further away. “Not sure. Whatever it is, it’s making me lightheaded.”
The group that had come back through the portal had formed a loose circle around the dais, watching Maja as she held her hand to Gusje’s chest. After several quiet seconds she pressed two fingers to Gusje’s asolan and stood.
Mark looked down at Gusje, who still lay unmoving. “Is she all right?” he asked, pausing for a moment before rolling his eyes. “Right, because you’d tell me. Forget I asked, just go ahead and take a look at Jackie. I think she’s even worse off.”
Maja did not respond, looking away to the windows.
“Hey, Sparkles,” Mark said, snapping his fingers. “We’ve got zero time for this shit. Come on, she needs help.”
She still offered no response, and Mark’s face darkened. He took a step towards her only to pull up short as Jesse laid a hand on his arm.
“What are you going to do?” Jesse asked mildly. “Punch her? She’s not a human, and that’s not a body. She’s restricted in what she can do to help us.”
“Bullshit,” Mark spat. “She’s found a way to get around every restriction so far, if she really wants to.”
Jesse nodded, looking over at Maja. “She does, but sometimes she needs our help,” he said. He straightened up, clearing his throat. “Maja, Jackie is essential to Gusje’s duties. Helping her would directly benefit your Caretaker.”
Maja turned slowly to face them, but did not move from where she stood.
“Thought that would do it,” Jesse muttered, darting a glance down at Jackie. “Listen, I know you’re not able to give us much help but this is important. We’d appreciate whatever latitude you can spare.” He looked Maja in the eyes, finding no tell in her expression. “You should know that if Jackie dies because you didn’t help her, Gusje will hear about it when she recovers. I doubt she’ll forgive you. I wouldn’t be surprised if she refused to speak with you altogether.”
Her eyes narrowed fractionally, and Jesse felt another wave of lightheadedness. There was a pressure like the sense of impending rainfall, and for a moment he was reminded of his view of Maja as Jes saw her, vast and terrible.
Then it passed, and Maja was standing over Jackie. She bent down over her, but did not move to touch her as she had with Gusje. Instead, she held her hand a good distance away from her, delicately probing the space above where Jackie lay.
Jesse staggered back to lean against the railing, where he was shortly joined by Mark. “Good speech,” Mark said. The other man frowned when he noticed Jesse’s shaky posture and dampened skin. “You okay? Is her stuff still messing with you?”
“I’m fine,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “It’s not that, or not just that. There was a moment right before she went to help Jackie…” He glanced up at Maja, then lowered his gaze. “I don’t think she’s giving us that favor for free.”
“Then she can fucking bill us,” Mark growled.
Jesse met Mark’s eyes, his face grave. “I’m serious,” he said. “Be careful with her. It’s like you said - if you motivate her strongly enough to get around a restriction, I’m betting she can find a way to make it work. Let’s not piss her off so much she starts getting creative.”
Mark nodded, catching Jesse’s tone. “Right,” he said, somewhat taken aback. “Well, I guess it’s probably a good idea to avoid the wrath of Maja if we can help it.” He turned back to look at Jackie. Maja was still moving her hands around several feet from where she lay, as if tracing the boundaries of an object only she could see.
They had all become somewhat practiced at watching her eyes for tells since no other part of her face was a reliable guide. Her expression was far from neutral, now, inspecting Jackie with laser focus and an enigmatic tension that set her lips in a hard line. She began moving her hands closer. Her fingers danced in small, precise movements.
Jesse frowned. “She looks like she’s having more trouble with Jackie than with Gusje,” he observed. “Almost like she’s picking at a knot, or trying to solve a puzzle.”
“Making ‘repairs’, like with the tablet?” Mark suggested, making a face. “I kind of hope not, the idea of someone doing that to someone’s insides is - yeah. I’d have to think twice about it.”
“It’s possible, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on,” Jesse said. “See how she’s not touching Jackie, or even getting close to her? It reminds me a lot of what happened when we were in Sjatel, during the storm. A perimeter that pushes away ruud manipulation, like what I can do with the sword.”
Mark leaned back against the railing, rubbing his chin with a troubled look. “So you think they’re not just injured,” he said. “They ran into script, maybe even got scripted themselves.”
“They were in Tija’s control room,” Jesse pointed out. “Tija was destroyed or deactivated, but partial scripts could still have been able to activate given the right conditions. If they ran into some fragments left over from a being like Tija - who knows what it could have done.”
“You think it’s like what happened to you, with the warding stone?” Mark asked. “That maybe they’ve got a little stowaway of their own?”
Jesse shook his head. “Doesn’t seem that way so far,” he shrugged. “Not like I’m an expert or anything, but I was never comatose and bleeding. In my case it ramped up slowly, I got little bits and pieces of it as Jes developed. It makes sense, if Maja was trying to get scripts out into the world then she wouldn’t want to incapacitate the people carrying them.”
“But that’s not what happened here, they would have died if nobody came to find them. It doesn’t feel like there’s any plan or reason behind it,” he said. “We should consider the possibility that they just ran into something dangerous and got hurt. We know this sort of thing can happen, you saw how many dangerous items they had tucked away in the vault back in Tinem Sjocel. Sjogydhu said that many of the relics left over from before the fall could be dangerous to touch, or even to look at.” He rubbed at his eyes tiredly, looking at the two unconscious women. “We should have been more careful.”
“So now what?” Mark asked. “Do we have any other options besides trusting Maja to do her thing?”
Jesse looked back at Maja, who was still hovering over Jackie. “I don’t think so,” he said. “She looks like she’s legitimately making an attempt. If she fails, I’m not sure what any of us could do that would work better. She’s the only one that has a chance of understanding what happened to them in the first place, much less fixing it.”
Mark grimaced. “I don’t like it,” he muttered. “But I guess that’s where we’re at for now.”
Maja continued to work and most of the Aesvain dispersed, although Jyte stayed close-by in the control room rather than taking the path down to the valley. Arjun remained uncharacteristically quiet, hovering over Gusje with Tasja close by his side. She displayed little change despite Maja’s ministrations, not responding in the slightest to their gentle attempts to rouse her.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
At once, Maja froze. It was eerie to watch her, because when she stopped moving she was completely still - no breath, no blinking, not even her hair moved. Slowly, she began to rotate one of her hands where it hovered above Jackie. A bright spark like an electrical discharge snapped at her fingers, and she instantly blurred halfway across the room, looking fixedly back at the dais.
In the same moment Gusje sat bolt upright, her chest heaving with deep, panicked breaths. The others rushed over to her while Mark kept a wary eye shifting between Jackie and Maja. Neither had moved.
“Gusje, are you all right?” Arjun asked, ignoring the tense looks being leveled across the room. “Try to breathe slowly, you’re safe now. We’re back at our Sanctum.”
Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, filled with fear, but she seemed to latch on to his familiar voice and her breathing slowed somewhat. She focused on the people around her, eyes moving from face to face until they found Jackie’s unconscious form on the dais.
Gusje froze, then let out an anguished cry as she scrambled towards Jackie. She knelt down beside her with trembling hands and a hollow expression. Slowly, Arjun lowered himself to the floor as well.
“Gusje,” he said. “Can you tell us what happened to you two?”
“Tija,” Gusje said, her voice thick and raspy. “We found Tija.”
Mark glanced at Jesse, who raised his eyebrow. Jyte rushed over to stand with the rest of them.
“You found Tija? Alive?” he asked.
Gusje shook her head. “Maybe. Not really,” she said, taking a shuddering breath to steady herself. “She was broken, damaged. Afraid. She thought I was the other Caretaker at first, the one whose body we found. She called him Samo. When she realized he was dead, she-”
She blanched, and her face went slack. “She hurt me,” Gusje said. “And then again, when she found out that she had lost her memories of him.” She turned to look up at Mark and Jesse. “She said that her sister was responsible. Eryha. Called her the ‘one who had fallen.’ Said she wanted revenge, that she was going to use me to do it. Twist my body, script my bones - but not to kill Eryha. Just to find a vessel that could, before the scripting tore me apart.”
Arjun winced at Gusje’s dull, flat tones. “But she didn’t,” he prompted her.
“No,” she breathed. “No, I-” Gusje broke off, her voice cracking. “I begged,” she spat, her face twisting back into an anguished grimace. “I screamed and cried and pleaded with her not to kill me. I told her about the tablet, how it could hold things, things like script. I told her to take it instead of me.”
Jyte staggered back, his face blank with shock and disbelief at what he was hearing. Mark gently guided him to sit on the steps away from Gusje, who took no notice of his departure.
“But she didn’t know how it worked,” Gusje said hollowly. “I didn’t know how it worked. I told her I would find someone who could help her if she let me go, but she didn’t want to wait. She had already found Jackie, trying to help me.” Gusje looked down at Jackie’s face, her lip trembling. “Tija said she would ask Jackie herself. That’s the last thing I remember. I’m sorry.” She clenched her fists. “This is all my fault.”
“You were attacked,” Arjun said gently. “The blame rests on the attacker.”
She rounded on him, glaring with reddened eyes. “I rushed in,” she hissed. “Jackie wanted to wait and I ignored her. I should have waited. I shouldn’t have told Tija about the tablet.”
Mark eyed his pack, which currently held the tablet. “Not to be insensitive, but do we have to be worried about that?” he asked. “Or about Jackie, for that matter? I’m no expert, but if Tija had a chance to script either of them…”
“Based on Maja’s reaction I’d say it’s a definite that Jackie was scripted, but I can’t be sure of the effects,” Jesse said, frowning. “You carried her and you were fine, same with the tablet. She did just shock Maja, though.” He walked over to Mark’s pack and nudged it with his foot, then stepped back and put his hand on the hilt of his sword.
A jagged spark leapt from the pack and struck him squarely in the right shoulder, flinging him back several feet and knocking him to the ground. The others leapt up, and Mark rushed over to where Jesse lay sprawled on the control room floor.
“Jesse!” he shouted, vaulting off the dais. “You okay?”
Jesse raised his hand, palm-out, then gave him a weak thumbs-up. “Ow,” he said shakily. “So, the good news is that I confirmed a theory of mine.”
“You dumbass,” Mark breathed, shoulders sagging in relief. “Seriously, try to limit the electrocutions to one a week, that shit can’t be healthy.” He narrowed his eyes. “What theory?”
“The tablet is scripted,” Jesse grunted, raising himself to his feet. “So is Jackie. They’re reacting to foreign ruud manipulation. That’s why Maja was keeping her distance. I only got hit when I touched my sword, which boosted my signature and made me a threat.”
Mark looked back at the tablet appraisingly. “And it didn’t react at all when I touched it because I’ve got the magical aptitude of a potato. Makes sense.” He raised an eyebrow at Jesse. His shirt was in tatters at the shoulder, and his skin underneath was blistered. “Seems like you got shocked a hell of a lot harder than Maja did, though.”
Jesse shrugged, looking sheepish. “Maja’s probably got her ways of dealing with that,” he said. “But also, nothing is free. The energy for the spark has to come from somewhere. With Jackie it probably used her internal energy stores courtesy of the asolan she’s holding - similar to what I do with the sword. I didn’t stop to consider that the tablet has access to a nearly-full charge crystal.”
“Great,” Mark said. “I’d suggest removing the crystal, but somehow I don’t think it would take kindly to that either.”
Arjun cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should take a moment before going any further,” he suggested. “Gusje is awake, and we can question Maja more directly.”
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It took some time before Gusje was in a fit state to speak with Maja, however. She was distracted, unfocused, her attention constantly wandering back to Jackie. She was reluctant to leave the dais, and Maja seemed similarly reluctant to approach closely. Jesse thought that it might have been caution from her earlier shock making her reluctant to draw close to Jackie, but when Mark carefully moved the pack with the tablet into a disused corner of the room her eyes followed it the whole way.
Clearly, the tablet was going to be at least as problematic as whatever had happened to Jackie. Not their priority, however. He walked up beside Gusje, making sure she saw him approach before laying a hand on her shoulder and giving it a supportive squeeze. She gave him a wan smile in return.
He found his own smile slow in coming to his lips. Something felt odd where his hand came into contact with her. There was a prickly, uncomfortable sensation that he hadn’t felt prior.
Gusje caught his wavering expression. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m not sure. Do you feel okay?”
“Mostly,” she replied. “A little tired.” Her face tightened, and her smile faded. “You had a reason for asking.”
Jesse hesitated, hearing a brittle note in her voice. “It’s nothing,” he reassured her. “Mark’s right, it’s not healthy for me to get shocked so often. We’ll all feel better after we’ve had a chance to rest.” She looked at him suspiciously, and he gave her shoulder another squeeze.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go talk to Maja.”
They took a couple of steps away from the dais in deference to Maja’s newfound wariness of Jackie before Gusje called out to her, summoning her over.
“Maja,” she said, her voice admirably steady. “My friends said that you helped me, and tried to help Jackie.” She managed a slight smile towards the vinesavai. “Thank you for that.”
Maja inclined her head, although Jesse noticed that her eyes flickered ever-so-briefly over to where Mark was standing - no doubt failing to hide a smug look. Jesse sighed.
“A Caretaker was in need,” Maja replied.
Jesse felt Gusje go rigid under his hand, and when he looked down her face had lost some color. “What is it?” he asked, kneeling down beside her. “Something wrong?”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head, taking a shaky breath. “The voice is the same,” she said. “I’ll be fine, it’s silly. I know it’s not her.”
“Take your time,” Jesse said.
“I’m fine,” Gusje replied tersely, straightening up and shrugging Jesse’s hand off of her shoulder. “Maja, what can you tell us about what happened to me?”
Maja looked at the dais, then back down at Gusje. “It was a poorly-conceived attempt at biotranscription,” she replied. “Done with little care for the health of the recipient. It was small in scale, however, and simple to counteract.”
Gusje bit her lip. “And Jackie?” she asked.
Maja looked towards the dais once more. “Larger in scale,” she said. “The transcribed script is attempting to propagate itself. The process is having a deleterious effect on its host, and would only be simple to undo if the host’s welfare was not a priority.”
“So removing it would kill her,” Mark stated flatly.
“She didn’t say that,” Jesse said, turning to look at him. “Just that it wouldn’t be simple.” He returned his attention to Gusje, who looked as if she was about to break back into tears. “Ask her if she has any suggestions on how to help her.”
Gusje did, and Maja took several seconds before responding. When she spoke, it was with deliberate emphasis. “The majority of the transcription appears to be on the right hand and forearm,” she said. “In particular, the right forearm is the location that is contributing most to the disruption of the host’s function. This transcription is robust, but it is unlikely that it is redundant enough to survive a disruption of its medium intact.”
Now it was Jesse who felt the blood drain from his face. “Shit,” he muttered, looking back at where Jackie lay on the floor. Mark shot him a questioning look, and he shook his head. “It’s obvious when you think about it,” he said. “The script is on her bones. Maja just told us to break her arm.”
“Fuck that,” Mark said. “She can’t just deal with it - however she was going to deal with it before?”
Jesse pressed his lips together and looked at Arjun, who was looking rather sickly himself. “She hinted that doing it that way might kill her,” Jesse said. “Breaking her arm probably won’t, especially not if we can use the asolan to help her heal.”
Mark paced restlessly for a moment, then hung his head. “You’re sure this is the way to go?” he asked.
“Not even a little,” Jesse said. “But you heard Maja. That script is growing in her, like a cancer. We don’t have time to debate better options, and even if it poses a risk I think it stands a good chance of working.”
There was a long silence, then Mark looked up at Jesse. “Are you going to do it?” he asked quietly.
Jesse looked down at the ground. “I don’t think I should get close to her while her script is active. It might sense me and react.”
Mark’s face hardened. “So you expect me to hurt her,” he said.
“To save her,” Jesse insisted, his voice rising. “Fuck, do you think I’m happy about this? We asked our expert, she gave us the recommendation. Are we going to ignore her because we don’t like it?”
“And maybe some other reasons,” Mark said, shooting a glare at Maja.
“Enough, both of you,” Arjun said, his voice uncharacteristically sharp. It echoed through the control room as both men turned to look at him. “Mark, help me get her on the stairs to the dais. Jesse, I think you’re correct - you should stay away.”
Mark walked mutely over to help Arjun move Jackie to the stairs, where Arjun positioned her forearm so the middle rested between two risers. “Hold it here,” he said grimly.
Mark reached out to take her arm, then looked up at Arjun. “We really doing this, Doc?” he asked.
“We can second-guess Maja forever,” Arjun said, “or we can believe her. And if we believe her, it’s this or let Jackie die.” His tone softened, and he leaned closer to Mark. “Taking drastic measures is never easy. Inaction is always easier, and that’s what makes it dangerous.”
He stood up. “Hold the arm firmly,” he said. “Rotate it so the wrist is facing me. Make sure both corners are making contact between the wrist and elbow.”
Mark did as Arjun asked, although his face was screwed up with frustrated anger. Tears marked the corners of his eyes. “Ready,” he said, holding his arms firm.
Gusje forced herself not to look away, balling her fists until her fingernails drew blood. Arjun raised his foot up, then brought it down. There was a sharp snap that echoed through the control room. Jackie’s arm was misshapen, bent in the wrong place. Gusje tasted bile.
“She’s moving,” Mark said hoarsely, propping Jackie up on the stairs. Her body twitched and jerked, her uninjured hand clenching spasmodically.
“Back off!” Jesse shouted. “It could be the script, don’t touch her!”
Mark took a hasty step back as Jackie went rigid and inhaled sharply. Her eyes snapped open, wide and fearful as they darted between the people surrounding her.
“Jackie?” Mark asked hesitantly.
Jackie opened her mouth and began to scream.