The time was near.

Soon, Alex would be ready to take a step that would forever change his life.

The young wizard crouched beside the Cage—Kelda’s well-named device used to operate on her soul—carefully altering glyphs designed to work in tandem to energise the mortal soul. While power within the glyphs increased, a rare material would discharge, adjusting the bane scalpels, causing them to resonate in time with a subject’s spiritual essence. As they throbbed, they would touch the newly energised soul, letting it thrum in turn.

The glyphs, while clever, needed modification; Alex was in the process of doing just that, taking into account the way Uldar had designed the Marks.

“With these modifications, the process will have a better chance of working since now, the bane knives should only cut specific sections of the Mark.” he said aloud. “Yeah, it’ll work. It has to work.”

He felt a range of emotions in his core: excitement, disbelief, anticipation, fear, and dread. He couldn’t believe he’d come this far, so close to being rid of the Mark’s limits, though he couldn’t just dismiss the grim possibility of failure.

“I only get one shot at this,” he whispered, putting the finishing touches on the process. “If I fail, I’m dead and my soul’s destroyed. If I succeed…the possibilities are endless.”

Trying to focus on the positive, Alex continued altering the machine.

Nearby, the two giants assisted him with the preparations, following his instructions.

“Looks like this…thing’s ready,” Bjorgrund called, staring at a huge device even taller and broader than he was. It whirred, hissed and rumbled. “That little crystal light on the side went from purple to blue.”

“Good, then throw the switch: the one I labelled,” Alex said.

“Will do,” the young giant sounded unsure. There came a loud clunking noise as Bjorgrund pulled the switch. The machine whined then began rumbling, the noise sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a deep, metal drum. “Uh-uh, did I break it?” he cried in alarm.

“No!” Alex called back. “Just give it a few seconds…I think.”

The young wizard swallowed; from speed-reading Kelda’s notes, he’d learned the purpose of, and how to operate every piece of equipment in the lab.

If she’d recorded anything incorrectly—or if her notes were incomplete, or the machines had degraded over time—there was a good possibility that something would go wrong. Catastrophically wrong.

At worst, an intense burst of energy could kill them by completely annihilating their souls.

“It’ll work. It has to work,” Alex muttered again. He’d been saying that a lot lately.

“What was that sound?” Birger shouted over the rumbling noise.

“Nothing to worry about,” Alex said quickly. “How is that tonic coming?”

The old giant stood in front of an enormous cauldron, stirring the brewing liquid while keeping a close eye on it. “It's been quite a while since I brewed a potion…but, right now, it's a nice golden colour. Is that okay? Is it supposed to look like that?”

“Does it smell like flax seed, coal and old fish?” Alex asked.

“Oh yes, it’s not the most pleasant scent.” Birger wrinkled his nose.

“Then it’s fine,” the young alchemist said. “If it's gold coloured and smells kinda nasty, it's nearly finished. As soon as the liquid starts shooting little sparks—like hot iron under a smith’s hammer—shut the heat down and press the glyph I labelled on the cauldron.”

“Okay.” Birger’s voice sounded tense. “Are you sure this is going to work?”

“It’ll work. It has to work,” Alex said again, finishing the last adjustment on the Cage.

They were almost ready.

----------------------------------------

“Well, this is what the machine spat out.” Bjorgrund handed Alex a shard of material looking like a glowing, red, salt crystal.

“It’s perfect.” The Fool of Thameland took the crystal, and headed toward the Cage. “It's the same colour as my mana…the size and consistency are right…it’s exactly as it should be, Bjorgrund.”

“All I did was follow your instructions,” the young giant said, modestly.

“You'd be surprised how difficult that is for some people.” Alex opened a slot on the side of the Cage’s control panel, loaded in the crystal, then closed it. He pressed a series of buttons, and a crystalline panel on the device began glowing, emitting amber light. “Alright, the material’s the right composition. That’s step one finished. Birger?”

The old firbolg was floating toward Alex, carrying a stoppered potion bottle full of golden liquid. “I think it's ready…Like I said, I'm not sure if I knew what I was doing there.”

“That's okay, we're going to test it,” the young wizard said.

Taking the potion, Alex moved to a table, where what looked to be a blank sheet of parchment was waiting. A slightly acidic scent was drifting from it. He picked up a copper needle and pricked his fingertip, drawing a bead of blood, dripping it on the paper.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It immediately turned blue.

He unstoppered the potion bottle next, dropping a dollop of the viscous fluid on his blood, turning it from blue to silver.

“Good sign,” he said. “Now, for one more test.”

He took another bottle from the desk—the bottle of soul-substance he’d been harvesting over many months—unstoppered it, and poured a droplet onto the silver mixture.

It began glowing yellow, like a tiny star.

“That's…wow!” Bjorgrund clapped his hands.

“Wow is right,” Alex said. “The tonic’s mixing well with both the blood and my soul stuff: good job, Birger.”

“Glad to hear it…I guess, but what's the potion actually for?” the old giant asked.

“It prepares my soul for the process. It's a dye that'll let me see the difference between the Mark, and my natural soul more clearly. It should also help protect my soul from the trauma of the process,” he said. “The crystal you made, Bjorgrund, is a concoction of engeli blood, dream sand, devil spit, and some other ingredients. It'll act as a catalyst and help generate a visual to guide the soul operation.”

“I know some of those words. Not many, but some,” Bjorgrund said. “So what comes next?”

“Now, you both leave.” The young wizard put the potion bottles down, looking up at the giants. “It's time for me to get inside that Cage and see where this all ends. I'll make a portal in the kitchen that'll take you to the southern border of the Empire. I'd rather send you to either Generasi or to Greymoor in Thameland, but it looks like the sanctum can only open portals in certain places…or at least, it seems that way. I haven't had time to examine the controls in depth.”

He paused for a moment, considering sending the giants to the Cave of the Traveller; a function on the controls would open a portal there, but within a heartbeat, he’d discarded the idea; the Thameish army had control of the Cave, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if members of the secret church had infiltrated their ranks.

So, sending his new friends there wasn’t an option.

“In any case, I'm going to close the portal that leads from the lab to the kitchen once you leave me. Then, I want you to wait for an hour,” he continued. “My soul can only take the energised state of the process for so long: basically, if you don’t see me in an hour or so, that means I’m…gone. At that point, just leave.”

“I'll wait for two hours,” Bjorgrund said. “And maybe you should leave the portal to the kitchen open so we can come help you if anything goes wrong.”

Alex gave him a grim smile. “Listen, Bjorgrund, if this goes wrong, I don't think a god would be able to help me. Besides, I don't want to risk any backlash hitting the two of you through the portal.”

“That’s fair…I suppose,” the young giant said quietly.

“Anyway, I'm going to set your exit doorway to close in three hours: I don't want anyone wandering in here. Especially not the church. If you're not out by then, you'll be trapped. And I damn well don’t want that happening.”

He looked at the giants. “Listen, I'm not going to pretend like the last few months were the easiest of my life or the most fun. I'm not going to pretend that we didn't have hard times…but seriously, thank you for sticking with me through all of those sleepless nights, those blizzards… everything. If I don't come for you, be well and live well.”

Alex shook Birger and Bjorgrund’s hands, squeezing them.

“You helped get rid of those that were hunting me,” Bjorgrund said. “If something happens to you, I vow on my honour that I'll see your enemies slain.”

“I agree with my son that you’ll be avenged, I promise you that,” Birger said. “And I'll sing you a dirge like no other.”

“Let's hope it doesn't come to that…but thank you,” Alex said.

After a couple of pats on the back, the young wizard watched them leave the lab. At the sanctum's control panel, he poured power into opening a new portal to a remote location on the southern border of the Irtyshenan Empire.

He set the portal to close in three hours, then shut the doorway leading from the lab to the kitchen.

Alex was alone now, looking at the Cage, taking slow, deep breaths. Kelda’s impossible machine would either be his salvation, or his doom.

It was time to discover which.

He picked up the tonic Birger had brewed, and drank it down, grimacing at the taste all the while.

Screwing up his face and wiping his lips, he set the bottle down then walked toward the Cage.

----------------------------------------

Alex lay naked on the operating table, the Cage bars glowing around him.

He gripped the cool metal of the controls, his eyes fixed on the bane scalpels above, he tried to stay calm.

The tonic warmed his belly, a tingling sensation spread through him. Nearby, the Cage’s mana generator hummed, growing increasingly louder. Bands of energy were running all along the Cage bars.

The foreboding device was warming up, preparing itself to do what Kelda had created it to do.

Closing his eyes, the Fool of Thameland contemplated his relatively short life to this point. He thought about his early years in Alric, when it was just him and his parents. He remembered when Selina was born, and their little family had grown a bit bigger and even happier.

The alehouse fire had destroyed that happiness and cut their family by half.

Then came the days of growing up in the Lu Family Inn. Days he spent playing with Theresa, helping Mr. and Mrs. Lu, and eventually, he remembered the dark times of working for McHarris.

He remembered time passing and one day, going into the church school’s library where he’d found a strange, lean book. The spell-guide for forceball. He had no idea how many hours he’d spent on that spell, learning it all on his own.

It was strange thinking back on that now: years of learning spellcraft with a quiet mind, with no Mark to attack him.

He'd forgotten what that felt like.

If this worked…he'd experience it again: spellcraft without obstacles that created chaos in his mind, without the bombardment of failures that he had to guide himself through each time he tried to cast a spell.

He almost cried, thinking about it…and about all the things he'd be able to do for his friends and family.

But, he couldn’t ignore the other possibility: maybe the machine would turn on, and that would be it. He would be undone, becoming an infinite nothing: no more than an empty shell sprawled on an operating table all alone…likely forever.

Alex shook his head. “It’ll work. It has to work.”

As the mana generator’s hum reached a peak, he reached out toward Claygon. He’d already told his golem what he was going to do today.

He’d warned him.

Now, there was only one last thing left.

‘Claygon are you there?’ he said.

‘I am…here, father,’ the golem answered.

‘It's about time, buddy. I just wanted to tell you one more time that I love you, and if anything happens to me, tell Selina and Theresa again that I love them both, and I always will. Tell Khalik, Isolde and Thundar that they’re the greatest friends I could have ever wanted. Tell Professor Jules I wanted her to know that she's the best teacher and mentor ever, and tell my other professors I’m glad that I knew them. When you see Baelin again, tell him I said thank you, and that I would never have been a Proper Wizard without him. Tell Toraka and Lucia I'm sorry I couldn't finish our businesses together. Let the Heroes, Kybas, and Grimloch know that they meant a lot to me and I was glad to have known them. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Lu for raising Selina and me, and that I want them to know I wouldn’t have turned out to be who I am without them…and—”

The Cage’s controls suddenly sounded like a cross between a mechanical hum, a ringing bell, and a war horn.

Alex swallowed. “It's time. The machine’s ready. With any hope, I'll be talking to you in an hour, buddy.”

‘I love you, father…we’ll talk soon...’ Claygon said.

Alex felt the connection die.

All around him, glyph-etched bars shone.

Energy peaked.

Once more, Alex repeated those hopeful words: “It’ll work. It has to work.”

Curious energies flowed from Kelda's machine, washing over him.

A piercing scream abruptly tore through the lab.