Inside the house, in his study with the table shoved to the far side, Endrance lay on the floor panting and bleeding slowly onto the stone beneath him. His chest heaved and his hair hung around him in sweaty clumps. His heart beat dully in his chest and the mage found it hard to stay conscious.
Do you see the problem now? Gullin asked.
Endrance slowly shook his head. I don't understand. He replied. What is wrong with me?
He was shirtless again and the source of the blood was the blackened lines of his meridians. Blood seeped from the lines across his body and he couldn't suppress the itching, aching feeling that dug its way into his flesh through those lines like they were made of ground glass.
Gullin, perched on the back of the chair similarly pushed into a corner, tilted his head at him. Curious. He observed. You should be able to feel the problem quite clearly.
"I can feel the problem!" Endrance exhaled, too distracted to concentrate on sharing his thoughts with Gullin. "But I don’t know what I’m feeling or what it even means!"
Gullin fluffed his feathers, causing the crimson bird’s body to briefly flicker with a crest of candle flames. I can only explain what I understand, but I should be able to provide a basis of conjecture.
"What?" Endrance asked. The pain had started diminishing, but it was not much comfort.
Your body and mind went through a great deal of stress in the last few days. Gullin observed. I could tell the moment our minds linked again. On top of the stress, you have pushed your mind too hard in the recent past.
"I did black out after binding a Succubus." Endrance admitted. The pain had faded to tolerable levels, and he labored to lever himself into a sitting position.
The binding of a creature from outside your world is very dangerous to the wizards trained in performing such acts. For you to attempt such a task on such a powerful creature as a Succubi, without that training to protect your mind, was a suicidal endeavor.
"I didn’t go into it entirely untrained." Endrance defended. "I used the knowledge I gained from defeating Kalenden to-"
You should know better than most that knowledge does not mean comprehension. Gullin scolded, narrowing his ruby eyes at him. Even the most learned man in the world can only do so well without the actual experience to back it up. Your mind might have been prepared, but your will and body were not even close to ready.
Endrance kept his familiar’s gaze. "I... I understand." he admitted, realizing that the bird was right. He vaguely remembered having had such discussions with his master, and even with Joven. "I’m sorry."
There is no reason to apologize to me. Gullin replied. It is your meridians that are overworked, and your will that is unbalanced.
Endrance held up his hands in appeasement. "All right. All right." he said. "What do I do to fix it? Can it heal in time?"
It can heal on its own. Gullin stated. But it will take years. Such damage is not to be trifled with. You may have noticed that your spellcasting is erratic when you are relying on spells you have not scribed upon your body.
Endrance remembered the spell he had devised to conjure the storm sprite. It had nearly drained his entire aura to do so, but he hadn’t realized immediately that it would drain so much power. Whatever damage had been done, it made it hard for him to gauge the energy of the spell unless he was specifically focusing on it, like he had when he’d called Gullin.
"Yeah, I know what you’re talking about."
There is a method to heal it, Gullin continued, But it would require you to learn how to visualize your inner consciousness-
"Ah!" Endrance exclaimed, holding up a finger. "I already know how to do that. I was taught by my master when I was a child."
Gullin tilted his head in the opposite direction. Did you? He asked. Very well. That will save us months of preparation. Next, you need to enter said consciousness and affect reconstruction of the damage done. Do you wish to continue?
Endrance stood, shaking his head. "How long will it take?" he asked. If the preparation would have taken months, it could take as long to fix the damage he’d done. He only had a few days left before he had to be ready to go with the men back to Ironsoul.
It will take as long as it takes. Gullin replied. But fortunately, it does not need to be done in a single session. You may take your time performing the repairs, so long as they are well structured.
"Repairs?" Endrance asked.
You will have to direct the reconstruction of yourself, or else it may heal back incorrectly, like a poorly set bone healing crooked. Gullin replied.
"Ah." Endrance stated, nodding. "I think I get it now."
Endrance held out his arm and Gullin hopped from the chair, landing neatly on his forearm. Though he gripped Endrance tightly enough to keep from slipping, his talons didn’t pierce his skin, something for which Endrance was very glad. The mage dragged the chair to the center of the room and sat on it. Gullin shifted himself up his arm until he could perch again on the back of the chair, his body along the left side of Endrance’s head.
"I’m going to begin." The mage declared, closing his eyes and focusing his mind.
It took far longer for him to achieve his concentration than before. Several times he nearly winced away from his goal, as his head started aching whenever he delved in too quickly. Never before had it hurt to enter the library of his mind, so he was unused to opposition.
"It’s difficult." He muttered, struggling to maintain his concentration.
Keep focusing. Gullin stated. I will alert you if you need to back out.
Endrance renewed his attempt, but approached it slowly and steadily. In a few minutes, he found himself finally within the library of his mind. He almost wished he hadn’t.
To say the ordinarily expansive library was in shambles would be an understatement. Endrance appeared near a cracked and empty reflecting pool in the center, his calm having been destroyed. Around him, the shelves were overturned, books scattered everywhere and the chamber was dimly lit. No torches, candles, lanterns, or braziers were lit and the windows in the back wall had been shattered inwards. Dark clouds roiled just on the other side of the windowsills, barely outside of his domain.
Above, the ceiling was staved in, large swatches of stone and wood simply missing. Burns seared the edges of the devastation. Whatever he had done to himself, it had used a huge amount of his power.
Endrance continued his look around. The destruction was not limited to the first floor; the second floor had also been thoroughly trashed by the damage to the library. If he didn’t know better, he’d say that an earthquake had nearly shaken the building down.
"Well this is about the most awful thing I’ve ever done to myself." He observed. "I don’t even know if I can fix everything."
As he surveyed the damage, he decided he should start by separating the things that could have gotten knocked loose. He looked over to the shelf that contained Kalenden’s knowledge. He stared, uncomprehending for several seconds.
The iron grate covered and chain locked bookshelf had been torn open. Metal bars and chain links hung at odd angles from the shelving and the books were missing.
He took a step forward to investigate closer, and a ripping growl tore through the air around him. Endrance whirled towards the source of the sound in surprise, and nearly fell on his backside when he saw it. A blood tiger stalked towards him, climbing gracefully down from a shattered bookshelf.
Endrance stumbled backwards through the empty reflecting pool. "What the hell?" he asked.
The tiger pounced, several hundred pounds of coiled muscle like bands of steel hidden under hide as strong as armor. Endrance threw himself to the side, tumbling as the tiger slid across the slick marble surface of the pool, unable to get any traction.
The wizard ran for several feet and then ducked to his right, dashing down an isle of broken shelves. The tiger was not far behind. Faster than a gazelle, the tiger closed on the mage again. He did not have the time or the ability to consider how o
r why he was running from a killer animal inside his own head.
"Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!" he cried out as he ran. He turned another corner and panicked as he realized that he had run himself into a dead end.
The blood tiger burst around the corner snarling with bared teeth, and Endrance ran for his life. He would go over the bookshelf if he could, though he was certain the tiger would be on him before then. Endrance’s foot landed squarely on a fallen book, and the thing slid across the stone floor causing him to fall on his back just as the tiger pounced a second time.
The blood tiger crashed into a shelf and toppled it, causing several more of them to fall in a cascade. A second shelf fell on top of the first, temporarily pinning the tiger between the heavy wooden shelves. It hissed, snarled and spit as it thrashed about, trying to break free. Books fluttered up into the air as it kicked at the shelving and wriggled out from under it.
Endrance gasped for breath. The tiger was trapped, but not for long. Pulling himself to his feet, he saw the tiger finally extricate itself from the shelves. He scrambled to back up, but it was clear that the tiger would recover and be on top of him before he could get far.
At the moment it pounced at him again, a golden haired warrior stepped between them. She caught the tiger across the chest with a shield and her spear punctured its belly as she assisted its leap over their heads. The tiger crashed to the ground on the other side of the mage, bloodied.
Anna turned to Endrance, her face a mask of consternation. "About time you showed up, dear husband." She said loudly enough to be heard over the growling of the tiger. "Now if you don’t mind, we should retreat."
"Why?" he asked. "We can take it together."
"Love, I am the weakest of the echoes." she declared. "I am not sure I can even remain here much longer."
"What?" Endrance asked, and then saw the tiger take a step towards them. "Never mind! Run!"
They bolted towards the toppled shelves. Together, they leapt onto the top edge and carried on over the tops of the cascade of fallen shelves. The blood tiger powered on after them, the wound in its stomach hardly slowing it down at all.
Endrance desperately tried to focus enough to mount a defense. He was in his own mind, dammit! His head was in such a jumble; focusing seemed impossible. He had to first clear his thoughts-
He tugged on Anna’s arm. "This way!" He shouted, leaping off the shelves and running across the open stone towards the reflecting pool. Anna shouted wordlessly as she changed direction, her shield barely rising in time to deflect a slashing claw from the blood tiger. She leapt off after the mage, her hair streaming into the air behind her as she ran.
Endrance skidded to a stop at the pool center. He held his palms out towards the surface and concentrated. Anna skidded to a stop near him, her back to the mage as she prepared to defend him without needing instructions.
The building shuddered and the stone under his feet rumbled. He concentrated harder, focusing on clearing the chaos in his mind.
The blood tiger charged, barreling towards them with lethal abandon. A roar echoed through the library and out through the shattered windows and roof as it leapt through the air at them.
Endrance blocked it out, instead imagining his reflecting pool as it once was. Clear and clean, it had been carved out of stone. He instead imagined it lined in silver, and the water was as clear as crystal.
Underneath their feet, the stone shifted, rippling outwards. As the ripple passed, silver replaced marble. The silver hit the lip of the pool and all the cracks and breaks in the pool were repaired. As water started to bubble up around the soles of his shoes, filling the pool, the tiger reached the threshold. It collided with some unseen barrier in midair; a sickening crack resounding as it crumpled to the ground, momentarily stunned.
Within a scarce few seconds, the pool was full again with clear water. The blood tiger slowly picked itself up off the stones and glared at the mage, fangs bared and body quivering with barely contained violence. Anna exhaled, turning to look at the mage.
"What was that?" She asked.
"It’s my mind." He said, still struggling to concentrate. "I will be in control." he emphasized the ‘will’ in his statement.
"I don’t know." She replied. "But how are you going to hold the blood tiger back? Your will was broken."
"My will is damaged. I do not believe it is broken." Endrance countered. "Otherwise, I would not have been able to resist at all."
"So what now?" she asked. She looked down and noticed that while the water lapped around the sides of her shoes, he stood serenely on the surface as easily as if it were rock.
"We talk. He waits." Endrance replied.
"Talk?" She asked.
Endrance opened his eyes to look at her. He had finally stabilized his thoughts and cleared his head. She was just as beautiful as he remembered her. After the day she died, he had not seen the body until it was sent back to her family. Seeing her again was a surprise, but not a bad one. A twist of dull pain curled in his chest.
"Yes. We can talk." he said. "You have been here all this time?"
Anna shrugged. "All of the echoes are here, Love. It’s just that in your rigid way of looking at us, we were impressions, nothing more. So when you visualized this place, you did not see us. When you broke the place, we managed to steal away the volition to act freely."
"So that’s why you and the blood tiger are here." Endrance stated. "But that means-"
"Yes." Anna confirmed. "He is here too. And an ugly little thing."
"Goblin." he answered automatically. "It’s a goblin shaman. First person whose magic I captured when he died."
"We are but echoes, dim patterns of our selves read in the power our bodies released and copied into your mind by the bracer and your power." Anna stated. "I cannot explain how I know these things, since they are things I should not know."
"You’ve been in my head for over a month now." Endrance replied. "You’re bound to learn something interesting."
"It’s sad," Anna said, looking at her reflection in the pool, "I learned something new, but I am only a figment, an imagining and a memory of the original, long dead."
Endrance didn’t know what to say in response, so he said the first thing that came to his mind. "Life cannot be reclaimed, the sands cannot be reversed, the clock unwound. We only have what we make of it. You are a memory, but for now, you can think and choose."
Anna nodded. "I chose to help you. I know that were I live again, I would choose to do it all over again."
"And that is why you were the Draugnoa that everyone else turned to. You were protective, wise and learned." He felt his eyes watering. "I know this is self-serving, but I am glad I had the chance to speak to you and settle some issues I’ve had."
"There’s more than this you need to worry about though, Love." Anna said, gesturing to the tiger with her spear. "You need to do something about all of this."
"You said that I had not provided the echoes with a place to be, and so they fed off of my volition to have a choice?" he asked.
"Indeed." she replied. "We can only present in the way you imagine us."
"And if I take back my volition? What then?" he asked.
Anna shrugged. "I know not. Perhaps we return to the formlessness we had before."
Endrance thought about his options. He couldn’t begin repairs while trying to take control of his emotions, but he couldn’t just take the echoes away from their forms without causing further damage to his structure.
"Then I will begin with him." Endrance turned to the blood tiger.
The tiger paced back and forth in front of the pool, uncertain how to get at the prey beyond it. Already it had circled the silver disk twice. Endrance looked it in the eyes, remembering the day that he had gathered its power.
"I have decided." he said.
The tiger’s motion froze and it sat suddenly, its tail flicking idly. Nothing else seemed to change in the creature. No wave of energy, no change in the ligh
t, or even the tiger’s eyes. Endrance walked towards the tiger, his footsteps across the water leaving concentric ripples on the surface.
"You are a guest in my mind, my house." He declared loudly. You are an echo, and will reside here because I allow it. You will never again attempt to usurp control of my body, nor will you assail me again."
With total confidence, Endrance stepped off the pool of water. The tiger lunged forward and Anna jumped in surprise, trying to move to protect the mage. The tiger closed the distance instantly, butting his head against the mage’s hand. Endrance raised his hand to pet the tiger and smiled as the blood red and black beast purred under his palm. The wound in the tiger’s belly had disappeared at some point, forgotten.
He felt some of his strength return, and knew that he had recovered the volition that had been stolen by the blood tiger. No longer self-determining; Endrance had chosen the tiger’s actions for it.
"What a beautiful girl." He observed. "Now, I want you to find someplace out of the way to sit while I fix the rest of my mind, all right?"
The tiger padded away immediately and silently. It leapt effortlessly onto a shelf that had remained upright and draped across it lazily.
"That was..." Anna replied. "I didn’t know that you could do that."
"It’s my mind." Endrance replied. "I am the master of my domain. It is the only place where I am in control."
From one of the side doors in the library a commanding voice rang out. "I don’t think so."
Kalenden stepped out from the area that he had previously imagined as bedrooms. The now dead king looked as menacing and powerful as he had in life. A huge man, clad in black metal armor and carrying the same barbed sword Endrance knew was jammed into a wall in the real world. His hair was blackened and moved on its own, as if it was in a perpetual breeze. The king’s brutish features glared menacingly, more frightening to Endrance than the blood tiger had ever been.
Spellscribed: Ascension Page 11
