Eris was apprehensive. These two men had sincerity in their looks and a truthfulness in their demeanor. They spoke to her like friends might. By the time they crossed the threshold to the operating room, that same room where some hours before an incision had been made behind her ear, she was almost convinced to believe them. The mana beneath her skin tingled and decalcified here; she should have felt more powerful, more self-certain. Yet still—there was a fog over her. A shroud of vulnerability. The cognizance they knew much that she did not made her feel very weak indeed.
It did not help that all around them were shouts of madmen imprisoned, begging to be let free.
The one they called Lukon babbled:
“You tap them, damn you! Tap them like Manastone! It’s that simple! Any memory, any distillation! Now let me go!”
“I said we’ll let you live, not that we’ll let you go,” the handsome blond man said. He tightened his grip on Lukon but looked toward Eris.
Tap them. Like Manastone. There was a haze in Eris’ memory to obstruct recollection. She knew something was missing, though she would not admit it. She recalled learning to tap mana as a child. She recalled her instruction at Pyrthos, and although these came like distant, clouded recollections, they were among last images in her mind.
She felt as if concentration should clear away her confusion and restore her to a proper state of mental acuity. Then, she was certain, this feeling of being surrounded by enemies, of being vulnerable to constant attack, would be gone. But concentration proved insufficient.
There were six vials on the counter. Four danced within the glass to reach out toward her like luminescent dust in a whirlwind. Two glowed but stayed inert.
She picked up the first vial. For a moment she hesitated, unable to remember how to ‘tap’ anything. It was like trying to speak after a decade of silence. She ran her fingers down the glass…
And it came to her. She felt a tug from the dust within and reciprocated with a gesture, practiced and unthinking, as easy as opening her lungs and inhaling the dust in its confines. A reflexive action. Half-thinking. The pink color drained from the dust.
She closed her eyes as memories trickled down her forehead. The clouds in her mind were banished by the light of the sun.
So much sun. A blinding desert. A creature of pure shadow. A spider the size of a dragon. The smell of rot in her nostrils and a palpitating heart as she knew true power.
She remembered Lord Arqa.
She tapped the next vial, more quickly now. A blinding white light shot past her eyes, and then she saw the top of a Spire. A dog in a sepulcher. A mutt at her heels. Rats turned into mice. A swamp, then a jungle, then a tower, and a machine, and…a man in blued armor.
She remembered Pyraz.
With the next vial, green, she recalled Nanos, of a dwarf with a crossbow and a boy named Robur, of a demon within an ancient dungeon, of a staff earned and stolen away. Bears in the shape of men. Trees that looked like blood. A Seeker at an inn. An infernal in a cave.
And teal. A halfling with a lantern. A woman with more muscles than sense. An irritating little girl with blonde hair. And a man, for whom so many hours of thought had been wasted, who she had slept with many times and shared in great amounts of pleasure, who she had intended to abandon not weeks earlier, who…
Had come back for her. After everything she told him. To such great risk to himself. After she assured him that love was worth nothing. He came back for her.
She felt anger and sadness and trickling warmth like embarrassment down her cheeks. Why had he come back for her? What an idiotic, stupid, imbecilic, braindead, foolish, pointless, sentimental, manly thing to do. Anyone with any sense would have left her to her fate.
And if he had, that fate would have been too hideous to imagine. She tried to bottle those contradictions away and focus on herself. On her memories. On who it was to be Eris.
Eris. Eris was complete. All feeling of vulnerability melted away. She supported herself on the counter as she stilled the spinning of the room around her, coming to grips with the recollection of who she really was. It was the memory of having no memory which was most traumatic for her now, for all the rest seemed to form a complete portrait of a human being. It was those few days where she could not remember who she was—those few minutes where she looked on Pyraz and Rook and saw nothing but strangers—that upset her now. She knew it was no fault of her own, yet she felt guilty anyway. And stupid.
It only took a moment to readjust. Then she was ready to face Lukon, and so she nearly did—when she saw the other two vials.
Two more vials. Both inert. Both magically charged. These were memories, she felt them tugging against her Essence, and she knew she could tap them as well as the others. Yet were they her memories? They were set amongst the others while they did not react to her presence. But that was no cause for certainty. What if they were hers after all and she had missed something?
And what if they were someone else’s? The orc down the hallway? A gnoll? A madman or rapist or—there were many unsavory options. She spent a long time in silent consideration, while the only sound behind her was the struggling of Lukon and the howling from the dungeons.
A memory was just a memory. She had bad memories of her own. They could be ignored. But she could not live without knowing if she was complete.
She tapped the emerald vial.
At first she noticed nothing. Then, from darkness of the green, a storm overcame her mind. Small details invaded her timeline of herself. She saw scenes of a city bathed in darkness, over which twinkled an aurora of the aether and bright stars. She saw dense jungles filled with strange creatures covered in glowing crystals. She saw thick trees that moved on their own, and for a moment she saw these things in Telmos, in Nanos, in Darom—before she remembered she was wrong, that her recollection was being perverted.
These were not her memories.
They came with perfect vividity. Like pictures drawn and shown to her, she almost lived the moments as they played through her mind. A swordfight with an elf, where blades moved too fast to see and spells flew in every direction. The looting of a village at night, all within a deep forest. Herself, as she leaned over an elf, as she lowered a gray, hueless hand to his neck, tracing his skin with her claws; and it was effortless as she tapped his Essence like Manastone, like a vial of memoria dust. The elf’s skin lost all its color. He struggled, but not for long. When she was done he was left as nothing more than she was: a vile, perverted, disgusting orc.
And she had never felt more powerful.
She blinked and found herself back in the operating room. There were more memories of this kind in her mind now, swimming, unanchored to anything else yet searching hard for places in her real life to glom on to. She would need to stay vigilant, lest she found herself deceived by her own mind.
The scene was terrible. The deaths of dozens. Rape and murder. But it bothered her little. In fact it was just what she needed to ignite her curiosity.
She tapped the final vial.
There was only one memory. She sat in a chair in an operating room. A hole was drilled behind her ear with a machine. An elf—it was Eisolaz, she recognized him at once—retrieved a collection of manaserum syringes, and he injected her up and down the arms. But she didn’t resist. She wanted this. It was her idea.
Her bloodstream burned. Her head built immense pressure. Pain gathered in her esophagus. Eisolaz walked to a machine at table’s side and moved its great bronze arm to the side. He cast some spell over it, then positioned it at her side, right at the incision near her ear, and then…
He retrieved a brand from a rack on the wall. Its brand was made of Manastone, and he charged it with blue fire through his hands.
“The pain is instrumental,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Eisolaz pressed the brand to her face. Her skin was seared. She screamed. Her back arching. Tears swelling in her eyes. She had never known worse pain, but she didn’t say anything. She let him do it, trying to stay put, but even when he pulled the brand away, the pain was severe as a manarash, a throbbing, never-numbing burn that bubbled and scaled while leaving the nerves undamaged.
He put the brand away. The pain was too great, she could no longer see, but she heard him as he walked around her to the arm, and she felt it as it began to spin, and she was awake as her soul was ripped from her body. Blood swelling down her shoulders. Her mind going numb. The pain everywhere slowy fading. Darkness encroaching. For a moment, nothing, like being a prisoner in her own form, and then…
She was back as herself.
This was the process whereby a magician became a Servitor. It was a horrific memory to imbibe. But she squared it away, and a few moments later she had calmed herself. Eris was very good at focusing on the future.
And now she had a terrible idea.
She turned to face Lukon with a smile. “Place him in the chair,” she commanded. She searched the walls for the brand in the shape of a T, and when she found it she charged its Manastone iron. It began to glow blue. “We will make him open the door for us one way or another.”
----------------------------------------
Lukon screamed. “No! You wouldn’t dare! I am a Seeker of the Gray Council!”
Rook hit him with the pommel of his dagger, then wrangled him into the chair. He fastened him there. While he did so, Eris examined the premises. There was the bronze arm, like a pump to position in place, the device which extracted the soul.
Eisolaz had needed her to prepare for several days before extracting her memories. Was the same true for the Rites of Servitude? They were soon to find out.
“Unhand me, you fiends! Don’t!” Lukon continued. “No! Please! Think of what—what you’re doing! What kind of—no, let me go!”
Aletheia stood in the doorway for a moment before ducking away. Back to watch the elevator. Rook secured Lukon, but had a look of horror when he realized Eris’ plan.
“What are you doing?” he asked her.
“Nothing more than he was going to do to me,” she said.
“Kill me instead!” Lukon screamed. “I did what you said, damnit! You damned liars! Traitors!”
“Will you open the door for us, to let us go?” she asked.
“Yes! Yes, I’ll open the door! Just don’t make me a Servitor!”
Eris shook her head. “I do not believe him. This solution is foolproof. Unless I perform the procedure wrong, in which case he dies; yet there is no scenario in which I let him go after our last encounter.” She looked to Rook, who wore an expression of confused apprehension. “Do not tell me you feel pity for him.”
“She is herself again,” Pyraz said.
“Antinaz will incinerate you for this, you evil bitch! You’ll regret everything you’ve ever done since you—by the Regizar, let me go!”
Eris leaned down to him. Put a hand on his wrist. She smiled maternally. “I will, in time. For now…sleep.”
She cast Sleep on him, just as he had cast Sleep on her outside the Spire. He kicked and fought and howled in protest, but within moments he passed out, snoring in his seat.
“I don’t pity him,” Rook said. “But no one deserves to be…what you would make him. It’s better to kill him.”
“Incorrect,” Eris said. “He does deserve it. And worse. As does Antinaz, Eisolaz, and the rest of the Gray Council, yet we shall have to settle for what we can at this present moment, and he is the one who has irritated me the most.”
He shook his head slowly. “Eris—”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Do not say my name in that manner, I find it very irritating!”
“We’re wasting time,” Pyraz said.
“Then let me conclude the conversation,” Eris said. “We need him to open the doors leading to the surface. He will do so when commanded, when he is made a Servitor. But not before. Do you think he will ever cooperate willingly otherwise?”
“He’s a coward, he can be made to cooperate,” Rook said.
“No, he is a treacherous and thoroughly deceitful toady. There is a difference between that and cowardice. Brave fools like you simply cannot see it. Now step aside and allow me to do this thing, or your entire rescue operation will be for naught. Do you understand, Rook?”
Rook gave this long consideration. At last he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Do it. But do you know how?”
“No, but the second vial I consumed imparted some idea,” she said.
His eyes went wide. “It wasn’t your memory?” he exclaimed.
“No. But I did not know that at the time. For certain. Go stand outside, you are in my way.”
He hesitated again but eventually complied to this directive, stepping out to watch Aletheia. She felt a lash of anxiety when he left her field of vision. She regretted telling him to depart. She wanted him to be nearby. There was something reassuring in his presence. Being alone no longer suited her.
Pyraz stared at her.
“Do not tell me this procedure offends you, too,” she said.
“We treat our enemies no worse than they would treat us,” he replied. “But no such procedure existed in my time.”
She glared at him—and somehow it was only then that she realized. He was clutching a Magister’s staff in his hands. He had a staff! Her jaw dropped.
“Where did you get that staff?” she said.
He looked it over. “I don’t want it. You take it.”
She guffawed. After so many years—after the bait and switch of the manaforge—how could it possibly be?
It was nothing compared to the staff she found in Ewsos. This was far simpler, but it was still a conduit for magic. She snatched it from his hands, not really believing he would give it to her freely, but when he made no resistance she shook her head in confusion.
“I—thank you. We will discuss this more later. For now…”
She needed to concentrate.
She relived the memory once again. Manaserum injections first, no doubt to stimulate the Essence. There was an assortment of different colors here; she didn’t know if the type or order of administration mattered. There was no option but to do the same which Eisolaz had done to her in the memory. She recalled the order of the colors and repeated it up and down Lukon’s arms.
Then she prepared the machine, positioning it behind his ear. Its tip was a drill that spun slowly—yet it wasn’t pointed, but instead square and flat. She remembered the incision behind her own ear, stitched but still open, and determined they likely made the openings first. There were scalpels in a drawer nearby and she made a cut to mirror her own, a wide circle wide enough for the drill’s bit.
That ended Sleep. Lukon woke up. Without any delay he began to scream and shout again, but he was well restrained now.
“You are defeated,” Eris said playfully, recalling again his own words, “you may as well give up, for you only make it harder on yourself.”
He called her some other variety of insults, then bit his lip and fell silent, panting, glaring at her with hatred.
“Nothing else to say?” she asked.
“You will not escape this place,” he muttered.
“We shall see.”
She grabbed the branding iron. ‘Pain is instrumental.’ That was what the elf had said. It made sense. Manaserum stimulated the Essence, but the branding, through causing such agony, stimulated the soul itself, galvanizing the two distinctly. The Manasearing merged both together; the Rites of Servitude broke them back apart.
She took one of the Manastone crystals in Pyraz’s satchel and used it to charge her own Essence. Then she transferred that mana into the iron, until it was so hot with magic that it would scar anything it touched, and she brought it to the Seeker’s face.
He closed his eyes. Eris took great joy in this. Those who said revenge was never worth the effort needed to try it sometime, for now every sadistic bone in her body buzzed with euphoria. There was a tingling at the back of her skull to rival the aftermath of the most ecstatic sexual release.
When the iron met his skin he screamed. He tried to shout more insults, but the pain was too extreme; he could do nothing of the kind. She held it there for as long as blue steam escaped the point of contact. Then she put the brand away and rushed to the machine.
It was inactive. Eisolaz had used some spell on it, which of course she didn’t know. She put her hand to its bronze bicep which attached to the wall, where it was anchored and could swivel, and thought hard.
A spark shocked her. Mana feedback. What was it an elf could do that no human could? A direct transfer of Essence, to imbue mana into an object without any intermediary. But she still had some Manastone. She took another gem and transferred it into the arm with the staff, siphoning energy from one to the other.
At that the arm whirred to life. She positioned it at Lukon’s ear.
Blood trailed down his neck. She saw nothing but red through her incision. In her memory it felt like the drill was placed within the wound…
She moved it closer and closer. Lukon’s screams grew louder by the moment. Still she inched it forward. At first nothing but its spinning, but then—a line of violet appeared on the arm’s bronze surface, glowing like Pyraz’s armor.
The screaming quieted. Lukon gagged. The wound became larger, the drill catching on bone, a sound like crunching and blood flying everywhere, but he made no more noise, and the violet light went out.
The drill stopped. Eris pulled it aside.
Lukon’s eyes were open. He stared at the ceiling, breathing. The Manastone scar, the worst manaburn Eris had ever seen in her life, bubbled and oozed and ran in rainbow colors down his face, but he made no noises of pain.
Lukon’s eyes were open, but they were dead. Empty. Lifeless and glazed over.
He was a Servitor.
----------------------------------------
“What is your name?” Eris asked.
“Lukon of the Third Ward,” Lukon said.
“Who are you?”
“I am Lukon of the Third Ward.” His voice was flat and monotone.
“What is your role?”
“I am a Seeker of the Gray Council tasked with the eradication of rogue dissidents and deceivers.”
She leaned over him. Touching his face, like he was a doll, to see how compliant he was. “You are my Servitor. You will obey me, Eris, and no one else. I am your master now. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Stand.”
Lukon stood. Eris breathed in relief. She knew these Servitors required programming, but had no notion of how it was done once they were broken. She suspected that for the time being anyone could proclaim ownership over Lukon and he would comply. But he was only needed for a few minutes.
“We are locked within this dungeon,” she said. “You will open the door for us.
He made no response, but walked toward the corridors. She followed after him. Soon they were in the dungeon halls, where countless prisoners begged to be let free, and he made his way to the vault door which barred access to the elevator. He grabbed the dagger off the nearby shelf, sliced open his palm—much too deeply—and let a torrent of blood drain into the bronze bowl against the wall. He said, “Lukon, Seekers, returning to the surface.”
A moment, and then the vault door retracted without rolling, revealing the elevator—and the body of its operator Servitor within.
When Aletheia and Rook saw him do all this they recoiled in disgust, but said nothing.
“Let’s go,” Rook said. “We’re too lucky already that no one else has arrived.”
“I wanted you for myself,” Lukon said. “I wanted to prove I could capture you again.”
They all stared at him in shock. Eris was most surprised of all, for this was not how a Servitor was supposed to talk. There was no ‘I.’ Yet his voice remained without any vigor.
“…you mean you told no one else who we were?” Rook said.
“They know you came. But they do not know who you are.” When finished Lukon fell silent, and he stared blankly at the floor.
“They will find out eventually,” Pyraz said.
“Eventually is already here,” Rook said. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Eris said. “How did you get here?”
“Mass Recall. We teleported.”
“Then there is still a fortress between us and the surface. We will never escape that way without an army.”
“I cannot teleport four of us without access to the aether directly,” Pyraz said.
“Then we must think of something else! Use your wit for once, you brutes,” Eris said.
Aletheia looked to the cell doors. The man with the tiger head, sitting cross-legged, now had his eyes open. He stared at them through the bars of his jail.
“We could let everyone go,” she said. “That’s an army.”
A magician with bright blue eyes—a woman, thin and pale, put her head to the bars of her cage. “Yes!” she hissed. “Let us go! We’ll fight! Fight to the surface! Just let us go!”
Gnolls down the line screamed and yelped like rabid hyenas.
Eris glanced to Rook. “That is an army.”
“Not all in prison are there wrongfully,” Rook said.
“Was Eris here wrongfully?” Pyraz said.
“I say we let them go. There is no choice,” Eris said.
Aletheia shook her head as a frenzied scream from one madman or another echoed down the dungeon’s corridors. “They’ll kill us.”
“They are desperate. They will not harm us.”
Rook nodded. “There’s no choice. Who knows how many guards we’ll find—Custodians and protectors—we’ll need them. Just be careful who you let out.”
“Yes, yes! Me first!” the woman with blue eyes said.
He had the keys from the dwarves and began fumbling with them, searching for the right pieces of iron to open each cell. First he approached the man with the tiger’s head.
“Will you fight with us to the surface?” Rook said.
The tiger-headed man stood. When sitting his proportions seemed human, yet on his feet he was two feet too tall for the cell, forced to hunch over like a bear. He leaned his head down toward Rook and said something in a language Eris did not speak.
“What did he say?” Rook asked.
“He says yes,” Pyraz said.
“This is a bad idea,” Aletheia said.
“It was your idea,” Eris said.
“I take it back.”
“Coming here was a bad idea,” Pyraz said.
“I take it back,” Rook joked. He regarded the tiger. “I trust him.” So he unlocked the cell.
The tiger-man stepped out. Although he was in the shape of a man, every inch of his body was covered in orange fur. His hands were clawed. He reminded Eris of an Arktid: he was to a cat what they were to bears.
He considered Rook—and said something else, before leaning down to a dead dwarf on the ground and picking up a spear.
“He thanked you,” Pyraz translated.
“Lovely,” Rook said.
So they freed the prisoners. Countless magicians. The halfling with a shaved head. Hobgoblins, misshapen man-like chimeras with the heads of pigs and rats. Even the gnolls, which, when confronted with the prospect of freedom, behaved themselves, and once free slipped toward the elevator, interested only in escape.
The orc who screamed in agony and battered his head against his cell’s bars was the one prisoner they left behind.
“He is in the depths of mana withdrawal,” Eris said. “He will be dead soon.”
“He would be a powerful ally, immune to spells,” Pyraz said.
Pyraz was right, but Eris was thinking of the memory—no doubt this creature’s memory—that she had inherited. This orc consumed magicians to prolong his own life. Eris was on the menu, like any elf. She did not savor that thought. “That is one risk too many. Leave him.”
Rook put an arm around Aletheia’s shoulder. He nodded, agreeing with Eris. “I don’t like orcs. Let’s not push our luck.”
They returned to the elevator. Then arrayed there was their army. Perhaps two dozen half-starved humans, chimeras, and demihumans, all snarling at each other in an uneasy alliance.
The gnolls were in the elevator. They crowded inside, clawing at its obsidian controls, but nothing happened. The Servitor who operated it some days previously was dead at their feet, and one of their number—there were five of them—chewed on his arm.
“Why have the Magisters not recalled the elevator?” Eris said to Lukon.
“I locked it in place,” he said.
“Why?”
“To ensure I was the one who apprehended the party.”
The halfling stepped forward. “Unlock it,” he said. His voice was gruff and deep. “Send the dogs up first.”
“A magician must operate the elevator,” Lukon said.
“You will operate the elevator,” Eris said.
“I will operate the elevator,” Lukon agreed. He walked directly into the gnolls, who were so shocked at the courage of this human they didn’t bother tearing him to pieces.
“Return the moment these animals have departed.”
Lukon nodded.
Rook grabbed Eris. “If he doesn’t return,” he said, “we’re stuck here.”
“We are stuck here regardless,” Eris said.
He had no retort. Lukon whispered something into the obsidian, then touched its upper section—and the elevator moved upward. The gnolls snapped and howled as they were lifted up and out of sight.
“I go next,” the halfling said. He had dressed himself in armor taken from the body of a slain guard, and had one of the spears—which were much fought over. “Who’s coming with me?”
A clamor broke out. Seven magicians pushed each other to get to the front of the line. Eris and Rook both stepped backward; they saw no great advantage to going first. One magician, a man with golden eyes, shouted that he was a great enchanter from somewhere-or-another and tried to push the halfling out of his way, and for his trouble he received a spear to the gut.
The halfling tossed him down the elevator shaft.
“Six at a time!” he yelled. “I decide the five!”
Most of the magicians were unarmed, and being without their powers—for now—the sight of the spear cowed them. A selection was chosen; five, including the woman with blue eyes, were next on the elevator when it returned.
And it did return. The relief was palpable when Lukon reappeared.
“You will return again, until all of us are away,” Eris shouted over the crowd. Lukon nodded.
So it went. The final group—two humans, a troll with Manastone tattoos, three hobgoblins, and a fat Arktid—ascended, and only Eris, Aletheia, Rook, Pyraz, and their tiger-headed friend were left behind.
The elevator returned for its final trip.
“Do you suppose they’ve won the fight?” Rook said.
“We will know soon enough,” Eris replied.
The tiger said something, which Pyraz translated: “You were wise to stay behind. The first forces in any assault are like the first-broken links mail on a suit of armor.”
“Who are you?” Eris said.
“I am Marjara of the Black Jungles.”
They stepped onto the elevator together. “Well met,” Rook said. “You know his language?”
“He speaks Ganarajyan,” Pyraz said.
All three magicians savored the sensation of mana again in the air as they stepped past the suppression field by the threshold to the dungeons. Eris felt energy coursing through the staff in her hands. Pyraz had picked up Lukon’s other sword.
“Take us up,” Eris said.
The elevator moved.
Rook had been wearing her Spellward gauntlet. The leather was stretched and torn about the edges. “Here,” he said, handing it back to her. “Take this. If you don’t mind, I’ll keep the jade ward.”
She slid the gauntlet on. It was sweaty and needed to be resewn, but she ignored that. “Very well. I can survive with that compromise.” Only then she remembered. “My focus! Where is it?”
“The focus?”
“The orb! From the manaforge! Where was it taken?”
“I thought you didn’t want it,” Rook said.
“Of course I want it! It is immensely powerful! Where is it?”
“I threw it away…”
“You what!?” Eris was screaming, but she barely comprehended the words.
“It was extra weight—”
“Are you mad?”
“I had no idea it was so valuable…”
“You—you absolute—I—” She was sputtering.
Pyraz laughed through his helmet. Aletheia giggled. Marjara shifted, not understanding the conversation.
“What?” she said. “What is it? Why are you—laughing at me?”
“Wait,” Rook said. He reached into his pack. Then he bumped into her, and he opened his palm, and within was the black orb. The arcane focus. “Is this it? I had lost track of it.” He smiled at her.
Eris had been apoplectic. Now she nearly collapsed from the spike in her blood pressure. She snatched it from his hands.
They were teasing her. It was a joke. She closed her eyes.
“I hate you all,” she whispered. But secretly, deep beneath the surface, she was impossibly grateful.
The elevator slowed. It came to a stop.
The vault door that led forward was open. Shards of golem were fractured everywhere across the ground. A stone arm floundered nearby. Blood was smeared everywhere. One gnoll was dead, leaking gore from a fractured head, limp on the ground.
No one else was nearby—but the sounds of fighting echoed in the distance.
Eris clutched her staff in one hand, the arcane focus in the other. “Let battle be joined,” she said. The focus took off; it levitated two inches over her palm, and its sheen, in Rook’s grasp black and reflective, lit in pitch darkness freckled with a spattering of stars.
She was complete again. Her party. Herself. Her things. Now nothing could stand in her way.
Pyraz led them forward.
“Lukon,” she commanded. “Follow.”