Tethered Spirits

by T. A. Hernandez

Jameson’s eyes brightened. “Well, as I’m sure you can attest to, a curse is different. It lasts much longer.”

  Amar nodded. His own curse had lasted decades, at least, and as far as he knew, no Tarja had been renewing it all those years. “How?”

  “It’s hard to say for sure. Much of what we once knew about curses has been intentionally erased or lost through the years. But a curse is stable, powerful, and long-lasting in a way that other types of magic aren’t. My research suggests that there’s really only one way to manipulate magic to be all of those things at once. You have to channel altma directly from its source—from life itself. And in a much bigger amount.”

  “You’re talking about blood magic,” Lucian said. “Draining so much altma out of a living thing that you actually damage it. Maybe even kill it.”

  “Yes. At least, it makes the most sense that curses would have been closely tied to blood magic. The amount of altma required to sustain one would have been tremendous.”

  “Isn’t blood magic forbidden?” Kesari asked.

  Jameson nodded. “The practice was widely condemned in Kavora a few centuries ago, and any Tarja found to be practicing it were killed or imprisoned. And that was after curses were eradicated, so any knowledge of links between the two has long since been forgotten. Most of the information I managed to dig up is purely theoretical or based in myths and legends.” He paused to take a quick bite of his food and leveled his gaze at Amar. “Despite that, I do believe Tamaya was right. You are cursed. It’s the only explanation for how the magic keeping you alive could have lasted so long.”

  “But that means he had to have been cursed before that knowledge was lost,” Mitul said. “How long ago exactly did you say that was?”

  Jameson shrugged. “Five hundred years ago, give or take a few decades.”

  It lined up with everything they’d learned from Tamaya, but still, the sheer vastness of all the time Amar had lost was dizzying. Half a millennium. How many lifetimes was that? How many deaths? How many people whose faces he had forgotten?

  “You mentioned something before about getting his memories back,” Mitul said.

  “Ah, yes! The idea is that if we can go back in Amar’s memories far enough, we’ll be able to discover when he was cursed, and why, and possibly even how to break it.”

  “And you’re sure it can be broken?” Saya asked.

  “I don’t see why not,” Jameson said with a shrug. “All the stories about curses mention some way of breaking them. There’s usually some kind of stipulation or condition woven into the magic itself.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Saya said with a frown. “Why bother with something that requires so much energy if the curse can simply be broken?”

  “Lucian and I came up with a theory on that.” Jameson turned to the Spirit Tarja. “You should explain. It was your idea.”

  Lucian smiled and seemed to grow a little larger, as if he were puffing himself up. “Let’s imagine that a curse is like this tower,” he said. “Now, all magic has weak points—that’s unavoidable. It’s unstable, it doesn’t last long, or it can be diffused if you go at it just right.” He hovered over to float near the wall. “If this tower was missing a few stones here and there from top to bottom, those would be obvious weak points, and there would be a high risk of the entire thing crumbling as soon as it was attacked. But if you can move your weak point to a single, hard-to-reach location—maybe somewhere at the very top—suddenly the tower is more stable, more defensible.”

  “You can control the circumstances it will break under,” Jameson said. “And as long as those conditions are never met, the curse can continue indefinitely.”

  He strode over to the table and pushed aside a few stacks of books until he found his green journal lying open beneath a pile of papers. After flipping through a few pages, he ran his index finger over the notes scribbled there. “In all the stories and legends, there’s usually some very specific condition that has to be met before the curse can be broken. It was often part of an incantation, which makes me think a curse had to be spoken aloud to come together properly. Some stories talk about curses that were hereditary—maybe an illness passed on to all the males in a family for a specified number of generations. Sometimes they were a little more vague—a curse on a king’s land that could only be broken when he made a great sacrifice to his people, for example. True love’s kiss seems to have been a popular curse-breaker, at least until people realized how common true love actually is.”

  “So we just have to figure out what the weak point is in my curse,” Amar said. “Then we can break it.”

  “Yes. That’s why we need to explore your memories.”

  “And how do we do that, exactly?”

  “Magic, of course. It’s a healing technique. I’ve used it a few times on people who’ve injured their heads in a fall or experienced a decline in memory as they age.” He tilted his head to one side and stared at Amar contemplatively. “I’ve never had to go back more than a few decades, but with you, we’ll be going back hundreds of years. That could complicate things.”

  “How?” Mitul asked. He glanced at Amar, his brows furrowing in concern.

  “Magic always has risks, especially when it’s experimental. And the mind is a delicate thing.”

  “I don’t care,” Amar said. “Do what you need to do.”

  Mitul put a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe you should give this a little more thought before you agree to anything.”

  “I don’t need to give it more thought. I want my memories back. What’s the worst that could happen—I die? I’ll come right back as good as new, so what does it even matter?”

  “You’ll forget everything again,” Mitul said.

  “It’s not like I haven’t had to deal with that before.” He said it dismissively, although if he was being honest with himself, that possibility did give him some pause. All this time, he’d tried to convince himself that his companions didn’t know him, that they meant nothing to him. But somewhere in their travels together, that had changed. They were all he had, and he didn’t want to lose them or forget about them again.

  But he also wanted to remember whatever history he, Mitul, and Saya had shared before—a desire that only had grown more intense the longer they’d traveled together. He wanted to remember everything.

  “There’s a risk your mind could be damaged in the process,” Jameson said. “Perhaps permanently. All of this is theoretical, and some of it is pure guesswork. I can’t say for sure that any of it will work, or that it will even be safe.”

  “I don’t care,” Amar said again, his mind firmly made up. “I can’t keep living like this. I’m tired of not knowing who I am.”

  Jameson regarded him with narrowed eyes, as if searching for any sign of fear or doubt. But Amar had none, and after a few seconds, the Tarja nodded. “All right then. But I’m going to need some help.”

  “I’ll help,” Mitul volunteered. “Whatever you need, just say the word.”

  “Actually, I’d prefer for you and Saya to wait outside,” Jameson said. “There’s someone else more suited for the job.”

  Mitul’s shoulders slumped a little, but he nodded.

  “Lucian has already agreed to be present for consultation during the process,” Jameson went on. “And Kesari, I think you should be here, too.”

  Her eyes widened, and she stuffed her hands stiffly into the pockets of her coat. “Oh, I don’t actually use magic anymore.”

  Jameson waved a hand dismissively. “I know, but you’re more familiar with it than any of your friends. At the very least, you can keep an eye on Amar during the procedure, watch for any signs that things are amiss.”

  Kesari started to protest further, but Amar cut her off. “I’d feel a lot better having a friend with me.”

  She stared at him for a few seconds, mouth agape, and he offered what he hoped was an apologetic smile. Saya had briefly told him and Mitul what she’d learned about Kesari’s history. This, of
course, had made Amar feel like a complete ass for having been so hard on her before. He still owed her a real apology, but for now, this would have to do. And it was true, anyway. Whatever ordeal he was about to go through, he didn’t want to face it alone.

  “I…of course,” Kesari stammered at last. “I’m happy to help however I can.”

  “Wonderful,” Jameson said, clapping his hands together. “Let’s finish our lunch then, and we’ll get started.”

  Kesari sucked in a breath. “Already?”

  “No time like the present,” the Tarja replied.

  Amar immediately began to wolf down the rest of his food. He couldn’t agree more.

  30

  Kesari

  "I don’t know if I can do this,” Kesari whispered to Lucian. They stood alone near the fireplace while Amar ushered Saya and Mitul outside, his low voice reassuring them that everything would be all right. Jameson had set about clearing the entire room, humming to himself as he pushed the table and all its mess under the stairs and arranged the chairs neatly around the curved wall of the circular room. The hollow pulsing behind Kesari’s ribcage had grown deeper and stronger over the last few minutes, reverberating off every nerve in her body. Maybe she shouldn’t have agreed to this.

  “You’ll be fine,” Lucian replied. “All you have to do is watch.”

  Kesari twisted the cuffs of her coat between her fingers. “Can’t Saya or Mitul do that?”

  “They don’t know magic the way you do. They wouldn’t know what to watch for.”

  “I barely know magic at all anymore.”

  “You do,” Lucian said. “How much time did you spend learning as much as you could about magic before we even met?”

  “A lot,” Kesari admitted with a rueful smile. She’d sought out every book and story about magic she could find as a child and had pestered any Tarja she met to answer her questions. For years, her heart’s only desire had been to wield that same power herself. Rajiv had called it an obsession. It was why he’d brought Lucian’s spirit to her in the first place, and why she had been so eager to form that Bond with him.

  “You still have all that knowledge,” Lucian said. “And Amar wants you here. He’s going to need the moral support. The way Jameson describes it, pulling memories from a person takes a toll on their body. The fact that we have to go back centuries complicates things. He shouldn’t go through that without a friend by his side.”

  If that were the case, then Mitul would have been the better choice, but he and Saya were already outside. The door was shut, and Jameson was guiding Amar to the center of the room, and it was too late for Kesari to change her mind. Instead, she took a deep breath, shook out her arms, and approached the two men with Lucian trailing along behind her. She could do this.

  Jameson rubbed his hands together as his gaze slid over each of them. “Let’s go over how this is going to work,” he said. “First, I’ll put Amar to sleep. He’ll lie on the floor in the center of the room here, and I’ll start delving into his memories.” He turned to Amar. “It’s safer and easier for both of us if you’re unconscious during the procedure, but you should still be able to remember everything once we’re finished. Typically, this works better if I go backwards incrementally, though the mind does have a tendency to snag on the important bits.”

  “What do you mean?” Kesari asked.

  “Significant moments, traumatic events—maybe the birth of a child, a wedding, a death, or any other experience that had a major impact on the person. Our memories of those things are more powerful, and when the magic catches on an event like that, the mind wants to go through it in its entirety. It takes a few minutes for me to correct things and get back on course, and it’s usually easier to let it play out.”

  “But that will be better for us anyway,” Lucian said. “We’re specifically looking for whatever event led to Amar’s curse, which will undoubtedly be one of those important memories. The mind will naturally be drawn there, once we go back far enough, and we’ll be able to see exactly what happened.”

  “Wait.” Amar held up a hand. “You’ll be able to see my memories?”

  “Not just see them,” Jameson said. “We’ll hear them and smell them and feel them, too. As I extract them, they’ll fill this whole room. There will be gaps, of course. No memory is perfect. But yes—we’ll be able to see your whole life. Almost like a stage play, but far more immersive.”

  Amar frowned. “I didn’t realize it was going to be so…public.”

  “Afraid we might find something embarrassing in there?” Lucian asked with a sharp grin.

  “As if you’ve never done anything humiliating,” Amar shot back. “I have hundreds of years’ worth of memories, and I’m sure some of them include things I’d rather keep secret. If that’s not possible, so be it, but don’t go telling stories at my expense when this is over.”

  “Touchy.”

  Kesari shot the Spirit Tarja a look. “We won’t say anything,” she promised.

  “Of course not,” Lucian agreed. “I wouldn’t dream of causing you any embarrassment.”

  Amar raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced.

  Lucian let out a sigh, making his flames flutter. “I’d put my hand over my heart and swear on my own life, but since I don’t have any of those things anymore, you’ll have to take me at my word.”

  Amar rolled his eyes.

  “What do you want me to do?” Kesari asked Jameson.

  “Look after him. Sometimes people vomit, so you’ll want to make sure he doesn’t choke. If he starts thrashing about, he’s having a seizure. We can’t stop that, but you will want to make sure he doesn’t hit his head. Sometimes there’s bleeding from the nose or the mouth. A little blood isn’t anything to worry about, but a lot is cause for concern.”

  “This is sounding more and more fun by the second,” Amar muttered.

  Jameson went on as if he hadn’t heard him. “I’ll also need you and Lucian to pay attention to the magic—the way it feels, the way it looks, anything out of the ordinary. I’ll have to focus all my attention on Amar and his memories, so I’ll be counting on you two to let me know if something seems off.”

  “In other words,” Amar said, “don’t let him blow us all up or anything like that.”

  His tone was sarcastic, but Kesari’s stomach was twisting itself in knots. This was far out of her depth—much more so than she’d originally believed.

  “Well then,” Jameson said with a smile, “let’s begin. Amar, please lie down on the floor and try to relax.”

  Amar lowered himself onto the blanket the wizard had spread out, muttering to himself. “Relax, he says. Like it’s so easy after he’s just listed all the ways this could all go wrong.”

  Kesari sat on the floor next to him, and Lucian took up a position facing her, hovering over Amar’s body. Amar’s jaw was set as his dark eyes darted between them, then back to Jameson, and Kesari thought she could see a hint of fear behind his determined gaze. She reached out and placed one hand over his. He flinched a little, eyes widening ever so slightly as they flitted back to her face. Then he relaxed and wrapped his fingers around hers. “I’m ready,” he said.

  Jameson stood at his feet and waved a hand over him a few times. A glowing dust-like substance drifted down from his palms and melted into Amar’s clothes and skin. Within seconds, his eyes had fluttered shut, and he was breathing deep, heavy breaths.

  “He’s asleep,” Jameson said. “I’ll open a bridge to his mind now.”

  A stream of golden light snaked its way from the wizard’s fingertips and into Amar’s forehead. Jameson held it there for a few seconds, then the light began to fade. Kesari continued to watch Amar’s face and the rise and fall of his breaths, but nothing changed. It seemed like nothing was happening at all, and she was about to voice this concern when the room suddenly filled with vivid, three-dimensional images that shifted and flickered back out again as quickly as they had appeared.

  The images were acc
ompanied by a plethora of smells and sounds, but they came and went so quickly that she could never get a firm hold on any one thing. Most of it seemed to meld together into an indistinguishable cacophony of sensations, but her eyes did manage to pick out certain familiar elements. She caught glimpses of Deveaural, the red sands of the Sular Desert, their fireside meal among the Sularans in Hayathu. For a moment, Mitul’s voice floated above all other sounds as he sang to a crowd on the streets of Sharmok, and then he was gone, replaced by Lucian’s smirk, Saya’s strong hand clutched around her bow, Kesari pulling at the sleeves of her coat, Tamaya’s wrinkled face, and dozens of other images.

  Then, all at once, everything stopped.

  Kesari blinked, head spinning as she tried to regain her bearings after the chaos that had come before. She looked down at Amar. He was still breathing deeply, but his eyes moved rapidly behind closed lids. Was he seeing all this in his mind as he slept? Did he think he was dreaming, or was he aware that these were all memories he’d actually lived?

  The darkness of night had fallen over them, though Kesari was sure they hadn’t been working that long. She looked up and could no longer see Jameson’s tower room. Instead, they were on a path surrounded by trees, with the fresh, green smell of the forest blowing on a gentle breeze. The ceiling above had been replaced by a night sky full of stars, and Kesari’s mouth dropped open. She’d seen plenty of clever illusions woven by magic before, but this was better than any of them. It seemed so real.

  Figures came into view nearby, and their voices rang out clear and familiar. Saya and Amar shouted to each other as they fought off the young Visan woman and dodged her magical attacks. Lucian and the other Spirit Tarja chased each other through the air in a wild dance. They were all so close and so realistic that Kesari jerked back when the fight drew closer and their attacker’s lightning shot out in a jagged blue line. She flinched as it passed through her shoulder but felt nothing.

  Then, Amar’s sword was in the young woman’s hand, and the point slashed across his body with a sickening squelch. It happened impossibly fast, just as it had on the night these events had actually occurred. Kesari knew it was only a memory, but somehow it was worse, seeing it all again from this angle, this close, now that she knew Amar and thought of him as a friend. She stifled a scream as he fell. Then she saw herself and Mitul burst out of some trees, and all the awful turmoil she’d felt that night as he begged her to save Amar came rushing back like a wildfire across a dry field.