“You don’t remember anything?”

“No, Blanc, she doesn't. Her memory has vanished.” Fay, finally able to get out what she wanted to say earlier, sounded worried.

“Miss Fay? I appreciate your concern. However, even with no memory, I am still able to speak for myself.” Apparently her steadfast and stubborn nature hadn’t changed. She turned to me, and repeated exactly what Fay said. “I do not recall any of my life before today morning.”

Well, that was going to be a problem. And it left me with a decision that I didn’t really want to make. I’d originally wanted to hire Ellem as a Craftsperson or a tinker of some kind, building small tools and supplies that might prove to be useful. Additionally, her freakish strength was a huge positive, in case there was a need for heavy muscle. While the memory loss may not have affected her physical skills, without any technical abilities she wasn’t likely to be much good as a tinker. After all, she wouldn’t know what to make, even if she had the muscle memory for it.

So that plan was a bust. At the same time, I was loathe to just cut her loose. First, Chanak wouldn’t like that, and I needed Chanak. Second, it was just…an awful thing to do. I wasn’t a hero anymore, and I didn’t plan to be, but that didn’t mean that I was giving myself license to just be a jerk about things. There’s a lot of gray area between “Throw your life away to save civilization” and “Discard people who are no longer useful to you.”

Moreover, I was fairly sure Fay would hate me forever if I asked Aastor to kick Ellem out. Since I had only just started to make amends with the Drakul, I didn’t want to get on her bad side again.

“Well, maybe it’ll all come back to you eventually?” I was grasping at straws, looking between Ellem and Fay.

Fay just shook her head wearily. “Memory loss after seeing a Calamity is…well, it’s not a well-known phenomenon given how few people actually survive encounters with a Calamity. But it has no known cure.”

“Why doesn’t anyone else have the same effects then? Chanak seems fine, I remember everything and so does the Archmagus.” I was mumbling out loud, really, not expecting an answer. “It kind of seems…odd. Proximity based, maybe? Ellem was a lot closer than we were.”

“Baldric is fine as well, so I suspect that the Calamity you faced did indeed amplify effects based on proximity.” Fay agreed with me, but she didn’t seem fully convinced. “There have been a few of those before but-“

“Like I said, while I may not remember everything, I am very much here.” Ellem interrupted Fay’s train of thought, a little bit more forcefully than before. “You would do well to include me in the conversation, or to leave.”

In fairness, it had been a rather rude conversation, she wasn’t wrong. I turned to her, trying to gauge her state a bit more.

“Do you…feel like there’s a fog over your memory? Something that blocks you from accessing it entirely?” Depending on her answer, a number of different kinds of magic could be in play. I was sure Fay had done some of the preliminary work herself, but I wanted to cover ground again. Fay looked impatient and was about to start talking before quieting down at a reproachful glance from Ellem.

“I am fine, Mr. Blanc. However, there is simply nothingness when I look.”

That wasn’t particularly helpful, so instead, I decided to try one of the tricks I’d learned on Volvafjord, the land of the Witches. Memory spells were exceedingly common there, and they’d taught me a lot in the months I’d stayed with them.

“Imagine that your memory is a book.”

“Mmhmm.” Ellem nodded, though she had a look of skepticism on her face. “Quite a thin one, I imagine.”

“Yes, well, it’s a book, and each page has words on it.”

“Pages do tend to have words.”

“If you would just humor me for a second, please?” I paused and waited for her to nod before continuing. “Unfortunately the words are obscured. What are they obscured with?”

“They are not obscured.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“…No? Well then, what?”

“Mr. Blanc, they are simply not there.”

“Yes, but has water spilled on them? Or have the pages been ripped out? Has someone censored them with black ink?”

“Mr. Blanc, imagine a pristine, white page. That is my memory.”

So, the Calamity had destroyed Ellem’s memory and left no traces at all. No fog, no half-remembered dreams, no obvious gaping holes…Just nothing. As though it had never existed, as though the “book” had never been written in?

I looked over at Fay, who had been following along with interest. “Neat trick, that. I may need to borrow it sometime. Where did you pick it up?”

“Volvafjord.”

“Ah, well, I have no idea what that is.”

“Then why ask?”

“Hoping you’d slip up, really.” She shrugged and gave me a cheeky grin. I wasn’t out of the doghouse, but at least I hadn’t lengthened my stay.

I turned back to Ellem. I felt a little guilty trying to make her an offer of employment when she didn’t have any other options and didn’t know who she was, but I did have a job to do.

“Ellem? Would you like to work here? For the Archmagus?”

I immediately felt a blinding pain in my side. As I caught my breath and my vision reformed, I saw that Fay had decided to elbow me. If I was a dramatic person, I’d have said it was like being stabbed. Instead, being rational and level-headed, I can say that it felt like having my ribs shattered. Ellem had a smirk on her face, and Fay looked disgusted at my actions. Great, let’s all gang up on Blanc. That’s always a fun game.

“I…Do not know. Would I?” She looked at Fay, whom she appeared to have some measure of trust for. There’s no accounting for taste, is there?

“You could. Aastor is kind, just, and completely insane. But he’s always treated me quite well.”

“How much would I be earning?” Ellem directed the question at me, and I was reminded of how much monetary gain had been on her mind last night. Perhaps a trait of merchants and craftspeople from her planet?

“Fifteen Crowns a week, free food and lodging and….maybe we’d help you get your memory back?” I wanted Ellem to work with us, but I couldn’t justify paying her and leaving her in the lurch without her memory. Moreover, it would maybe prevent her from arguing for higher wages.

“Blanc!” Fay hissed out through gritted teeth as she elbowed me. “Ellem, I apologize, and I’m sure he means well. But nobody, and I mean nobody, have ever recovered from Calamity induced Memory Loss.”

“Well, maybe you’ll be the first!” I put on a brave face and smiled at her. Ellem refused to meet my eyes.

“Mr Blanc? Miss Fay? I am grateful for your aid, and I shall gladly work with you. However…I am unsure how much help I will be. I am unsure of a great many things.”

Well, that made sense. Ellem didn’t know how much we were offering to pay her, or what the political makeup of Excelsia was, or indeed that she was a summon. She probably didn’t even know that she had an entire family in a village somewhere on a different world. I looked at Fay, and we came to an unspoken agreement.

“Ellem, we? Fay and I? We can help you get used to this place.” I paused and then added. “And not just us. You have other friends too. Though one is rather…annoying, shall we say.”

“I am sure they are not as bad as you imply.”

“No, they’re worse. Anyway, Ellem, we’ll help you readjust. And then you can decide what you want to do.”

Fay sidled up to me, and whispered in my ear.

“You keep saying we. As I recall, I have been on this planet over four hundred years. You have been here barely 24 hours.”

“Well then, I’ll owe you a favor and gladly join “Exposition 101”, taught by Fay the Drakul.”

“Hmmph. We’ll discuss payment later.”

The green-skinned woman looked confused and helpless, a far cry from the formidable bandit I’d seen last night. Fay had seemed appropriately distressed, but unfortunately, I’d seen almost identical situations play out often enough that I had little emotion for Ellem; The best I could do for her was help her move forward. Mind wiping and mind breaking were common techniques with many magicians, because it was often easier to destroy the psyche than it was to destroy the body. More useful too, because it made the newly helpless person ripe for manipulation, like a marionette dancing on strings.

“I shall accept, for I have no choice.” Ellem had finally made a decision. “However! I must request that I be free to leave whenever I want.”

“Of course!” Fay and I burst out together. I was a little taken aback by how quickly Fay had reacted to the suggestion that we might kidnap Ellem, and Fay in turn looked a little bit relieved that I had no intention of disagreeing with her.

“Well, I must ask to rest for a little. I am…extremely tired still.” Ellem stretched her hands out, yawning. “Perhaps later we can talk some more.”

“Of course, whenever you want.” I was always a little bit awkward around people like Ellem who were obviously looking to me for guidance. I just never felt like I had the right words to say or the right way in which to say them. But Ellem did seem to be more or less comforted by our promises, and had made some kind of an agreement to work for Aastor, so I considered my job done.

“When you feel better, I shall lay out a schedule of some kind. It will not do to have two Summoned in this house who do not have a basic understanding of Excelsian History and Politics.” Fay was back to being somewhat business-like, but there was a little hint of tenderness to her voice that I had not heard before. Granted, I’d only met her that morning, but still.

Last, but not least, however, was Baldric. God, I didn’t want to speak to Baldric, but I had no choice. Hopefully he didn’t have his memory either, or maybe he’d been turned into a vegetable. I mean, I said I wasn’t going to be a jerk, but sometimes, it’s warranted, isn’t it?

Chirrup!

What are you, the moral police? Let me be awful in the privacy of my thoughts, please.