Alchemised, page 20
Her left wrist hurt so much she could hardly think straight. A stream of blood ran down from beneath the manacle into her palm, joining Ferron’s on the floor.
She watched dully as Ferron curled his fingers. Then his eyes alighted on her hand. His jaw tensed. “You would injure the one place that is difficult to repair. I’ll have to call in Stroud.”
He turned towards one of the necrothralls.
“Take our prisoner to her room,” he said in a cool voice. “Be sure she stays there until tomorrow.”
Helena didn’t wait to be nudged along. She turned and left.
“I’ve seen that girl somewhere,” she heard Atreus say as she reached the hallway.
“She was the only southerner at the Institute, rather hard to miss, I’d say,” Ferron said, not seeming to care.
The rush of adrenaline was ebbing from Helena. When she reached the stairs, her legs trembled, almost giving out. She listed towards the nearest wall, fingertips seeking the surface and wincing as they made contact. Her blood smeared along the wallpaper.
She should have cut her throat open the instant she’d gotten her fingers on that knife.
* * *
It was midwinter when Governor Fabian Greenfinch was nearly assassinated.
It happened during the unveiling ceremony for Morrough’s new statue. The governor was giving a speech about New Paladia’s liberation, and Mandl, Warden of the re-education centre on the Outpost, whose “members” had built the statue, had been standing beside him on the dais. As the ribbon cutting commenced, a crossbow bolt emerged from one of the nearby buildings. It narrowly missed the governor, instead striking Mandl.
Mandl died.
In front of a crowd of reporters and international visitors, citizens, and foreign dignitaries, one of the Undying, whose appearance marked her as undeniably and visibly among the immortal, died.
The death sent shock waves across Paladia and beyond. The newspaper headlines were almost audibly hysterical. The Resistance terrorists believed to have been wiped out had reappeared in a spectacular manner, before an audience that could not be as easily cowed into silence as the national press was.
Lancaster’s visits to Spirefell abruptly ceased. Aurelia floated around the house, wan and paranoid, starting at every sound as if expecting Resistance fighters to emerge from the walls and murder her next. Several times Helena heard her interrogating Ferron about what protections the estate had, and couldn’t they have more necrothralls?
Ferron, when Helena caught glimpses of him, was no longer in coats and cloaks and pristine white shirts or even armour, but what appeared to be a combination of light combat gear and hunting clothes. He regularly returned to the house covered in mud, soaked from rain, and pale with rage.
Helena was thrilled.
She read the coverage obsessively, her heart soaring. The Resistance was still out there.
The papers emphasised over and over that it was a failed assassination attempt, trying desperately to gloss over the fact that someone ostensibly immortal had been killed by accident instead.
Helena knew the continent had to be alight with speculation of how it had been done, and how it might be replicated.
There was a way to kill the Undying.
Her steps were light for days.
Stroud visited again. Unlike Ferron and Aurelia, she seemed unfazed by the upheaval and new danger.
The butler accompanied her, carrying in a folding medical table, setting it up in the middle of the room before leaving.
“Strip and seat yourself,” Stroud said, patting the table and then turning to review a file.
Helena set her jaw as she obeyed.
“I would have thought you’d have more urgent concerns than coming here,” Helena said, hoping to lure out some new information.
Stroud glanced over. Her “no” was casual, like she couldn’t think of anything.
“You’re not worried you might be targeted?”
“I’m not one of the Undying,” Stroud said with a careless shrug.
“You’re not?” Helena was startled. She’d assumed anyone so close to Morrough must be.
“No. Someday, perhaps, but I have no interest at present. The High Necromancer empowers me to carry on his work so that I will not weaken or fade so long as I am faithful.”
“I didn’t know that was possible.” Helena’s fingers ached; her left hand was still in a splint, recovering from her attempt on Ferron’s life.
“There are many things you don’t know. The Toll of extensive vivimancy is reversible for those who know the means.” Stroud glanced derisively at Helena.
Helena watched her curiously. “But why not become Undying?”
Stroud shook her head. “The Undying have their own—limitations. Bennet was one of the earliest to ascend. He used the High Necromancer’s great knowledge to experiment beyond what was believed possible. He spent decades seeking to unlock the secrets of transference. Anyone who knew him could not help but appreciate his genius. I was among the few who worked most closely beside him…”
Visible emotion swept across Stroud’s face, and she cleared her throat. “But even I could not deny that near the end, he began slipping. He poured tremendous resources, including his own vitality, into experiments, and the more he did it, the more obsessed he became. The Undying frequently develop a tendency towards sadism over time. Some more quickly than others. I don’t want my work marred by such preferences. Perhaps once transference is perfected, I will request ascendance. But until then, the High Necromancer provides what I need. He knows it makes me even more loyal than the others.”
The Undying had always seemed psychotic, but Helena hadn’t realised it was a side effect of their immortality.
Stroud touched Helena with her hard, soap-rough hands, murmuring to herself that Helena was already showing signs of eating properly.
“Take these.” Stroud held out several tablets.
“What are they for?”
Impatience flashed across Stroud’s face. “The High Necromancer wishes to see you.”
Helena recoiled. “Why?”
Stroud ignored the question. “If you don’t take them yourself, I have a tube here.” She pulled it out of her medical satchel. “I can paralyse you and shove it down your throat all the way to your stomach and then pour the tablets down. I’ve done it many times before. It will bruise the oesophagus, and you’ll struggle to swallow or speak for a few days. It’s your choice.”
Helena shoved the tablets into her mouth, dry-swallowing them and ignoring the way they tried to stick in her throat. As they dissolved, they burned against the tissue.
Stroud turned away, rummaging through her bag again. She’d brought considerably more items with her than on previous visits. Helena squinted, trying to make out what they were, but her vision was suddenly fogging.
“Wait—”
Stroud pulled out several vials and large syringes, laying them out in a row.
“What are you—” Her face was going numb.
She blinked. Stroud had filled a syringe and stood before her, flicking it to remove air bubbles.
Helena tried to read the words on the vial. The letters blurred.
“Don’t…” she managed to say.
“It’s all to get you ready, like I said,” Stroud said as she jabbed the needle into Helena’s arm, injecting it.
Helena scarcely felt it.
Stroud picked up the next vial and a larger syringe.
Helena’s head lolled back, and she swayed, nearly falling off the table as she tried to get away.
“Lie down.” Stroud’s words ballooned around her.
It only took slight pressure, and Helena collapsed sideways. The table was cold against her temple as another needle sank into her arm. The room had gone dark.
She heard the flick of Stroud’s fingers against another syringe.
Then she didn’t remember anything.
* * *
When her eyes opened, it was dark. She was in her bed, her arms and legs aching with injection bruises. The splint on her hand was gone.
It was like someone had kicked her repeatedly in the lower abdomen and then stabbed her all over for good measure. Her whole body had a taut, swollen feeling, as though her skin was stretched too tight. She wanted to curl into a ball, but it hurt too much to lie on her arms.
In the bathroom mirror, she found her eyes wildly dilated, the sclera bloodshot. Her mouth was parched, but water hurt inside her stomach. She nearly collapsed on the floor of the bathroom.
Ferron arrived the next day, or perhaps two days later. Helena had lost track of time.
“The High Necromancer wishes to see you,” he said. “What’s wrong with you?”
Helena had no idea what was wrong, she just knew she’d been dosed with something horrible.
“Stroud,” she muttered.
He swore and left, then came back looking incensed.
He had her carried to a motorcar idling in the courtyard. She was bundled in blankets and tucked into the back seat. The fresh air made her feel marginally better, enough that she could sit up and look out the windows, arms still throbbing from the bruises.
Rather than head to Central, the bridge they took turned towards the lower parts of the city and into a tunnel. The car drove on and on and didn’t emerge. Instead, it stopped somewhere in the gloom. Dim amber lights shone weakly through a sort of vaporous mist that hung over the ground, darkness pressing in on all sides.
The air was stale and damp. She could smell the river threatening to seep in.
Ferron got out and opened the far passenger door, his expression tense. “Can you walk?”
The few figures Helena could make out were old, rotted necrothralls. She swallowed hard and nodded.
Don’t look at the shadows.
“Come, then.” He took her by the arm. He didn’t grip hard, but it still made the bruises throb.
Helena had no choice but to follow, her breath growing short. His silver-white hair became the only thing visible in the dark. She reached out, trying to ground herself by finding a wall to touch.
A damp, slimy surface met her fingertips. She snatched her hand back.
The tunnel finally opened into a large room with green glass sconces illuminating it; dozens of other tunnels all opened into it, as if they were in the centre of a warren. The walls were covered with intricate but faded murals. It looked almost like an abandoned temple.
She’d never seen this place. She knew Paladia had been built on the ruins of a city long ago destroyed by plague. Rivertide. The site of the first Necromancy War. She’d thought all traces of it gone.
The air was thick with the smell of decay, a vile miasma that came from the far end of the room.
Her every instinct screamed to run, but Ferron pulled her forward. Her feet slipped across the floor until they reached the far end of the room.
“Your Eminence.” Ferron knelt, pulling Helena to the ground with him. “I’ve brought the prisoner. My deepest apologies for the delay.”
There was a long silence, so long Helena began to doubt there was anyone there.
“Bring her closer.” The words floated, blurred and mumbled, from the darkness.
Ferron pulled Helena to her feet and dragged her up a series of steps she could barely make out before shoving her to her knees again.
Helena stared in horror at the sight before her. She barely recognised the grotesque shape.
Morrough lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him. Morrough seemed shrunken somehow from the immense distorted being he’d been.
Now he looked as though the skin was rotting off him.
One of the faces in the throne was briefly illuminated in the dim light, and Helena thought it might be Mandl’s old face, but she couldn’t be sure because the throne shifted, lifting Morrough towards her.
Morrough tilted his head, his empty sockets like blackened holes. “Have I thought too well of you, High Reeve? I wanted those memories by now, and you’ve brought me only scraps.”
There was something wrong with Morrough’s tongue, the words slurred as if he were speaking around some large object in his mouth.
“I apologise. I will strive to do better.”
“Yes, you are always striving, aren’t you?” The words did not seem kindly meant. “I shall inspect these memories myself. Hold her fast.”
There was a pause, and the only sound was the heaving of the decayed bodies. Another face appeared, half rotted, but she recognised the wide scar that ran along the side of Titus Bayard’s skull.
Before she could shrink back, Ferron’s knee lodged between her shoulder blades and his hands wrapped around her jaw, holding her in place.
Morrough extended his decrepit right hand, over-large with fingers jointed like spider legs. The bones were emerging through the tips of his fingers, except for two which hung limp, dangling strips of flesh.
The resonance that struck Helena was blistering in its power. It jolted through her like a live wire, charring her from the inside. Her body spasmed, jerking violently.
She screamed through her teeth as it ravaged its way through her skull.
Morrough’s examination of her memories wasn’t some disorienting state of reliving; it was like having her consciousness flayed. Morrough peeled her mind apart, ripping her memories from wherever he found them.
While he’d said he wanted to see the lost memories, he seemed in no hurry to find them, instead focusing his attention on her imprisonment at Spirefell. The claustrophobic monotony, the endless isolation, punctuated only by Ferron’s occasional appearance to check her memories or perform transference.
Morrough seemed particularly interested in the transference sessions and the nightmares and fevers that followed. He found her fears amusing and the agony of transference a novelty, replaying it over and over, Ferron crushing and consuming her until there was no end or beginning of either of them.
It was only when she’d stopped screaming and gone limp, no longer struggling at all, that he finally turned to the glimmers of memory, but even those he distorted.
Luc on the roof, but stripped of all the details that had made the memory beautiful: the white fire, the light in his eyes, the gilding of the city at sunset, each disappeared until all that remained was the distance between them, the way Luc recoiled from her, the reproach in his voice, and the drug washing him away.
Morrough watched the memory of Lila asking about the trainees several times with a sort of idle curiosity, but it was her memory of Lila scarred and crying that he took the greatest interest in.
When he tired of it, she hoped he was done, but he was not. He went back to the last transference session.
Whatever power she’d briefly possessed to push Ferron from her mind failed her now. Morrough stretched the memory, drawing out every excruciating moment of Ferron’s mental violation, the backlash from her attempted resistance, until she didn’t even realise when he finally stopped.
Her mind was awash in so much pain that it blotted out everything else until she grew aware of her lungs seizing. Her eyes unable to focus. She had no sense of where she was until she felt her pulse fluttering against the pressure of Ferron’s fingers, his knee pressed against her spine.
“So…” Morrough’s voice came from somewhere in the dark. “The Eternal Flame’s animancer is not dead after all.”
“You believe Boyle is still alive?” Ferron sounded startled.
“Who?”
Ferron loosened his grip on Helena, and she slumped against him in the suffocating darkness. “Stroud mentioned her. Based on the Resistance records of Elain Boyle, it was presumed that she—”
“Boyle was no one. Haven’t you noticed that the transference was different with the others?”
Helena’s eyebrows furrowed. Others?
“I was told that the transmutations in her mind would cause difficulty,” Ferron said.
“Those difficulties are because she is resisting, because she can resist. This—she is the animancer.”
There was a pause punctuated only by the heaving rhythm of necrothralls. Ferron seemed frozen with surprise.
“You did not notice, or even suspect?” Morrough sounded so enraged, he had to pause to catch his breath. “I had wondered at your progress, the reported intensity of the brain fevers in her, unlike our test subjects. How could so much be concealed if the mere penetration of her mind is so difficult?”
Morrough spoke so slowly that dread seemed to build with his every word. Ferron remained silent.
“There is only one answer: She is the animancer. Even now, with her resonance all but gone, she is still resisting. She erased her memory of what she is in an attempt to escape me.”
The pressure growing in Helena’s head was so intense, her vision disappeared.
“Surely not.” Ferron’s voice broke through. “Stroud said it was impossible for any person to erase their own—”
“What does Stroud know of anything? She cannot imagine talent beyond her own abilities. This is the animancer. I could feel her attempts to resist me.” The corpses oozed Morrough towards Helena again, his eye sockets looming, his resonance a sharp hum in her bones.
“I beg your forgiveness for my failure,” Ferron said, his voice sounding hoarse with shock. “I never considered it.”
Morrough was silent for a long time, his skeletal face bloated and rippling in her vision.
“Your father was recently here, begging for an audience as you now beg for forgiveness. He claims he tried to tell you what he remembered, but you did not listen.”
