by Frank Morin
Wolfram said, “Negotiations will take some days to conclude, no doubt. Then there will be the celebration feasts. I’m sure Hamish can send another Builder back for us.”
Mattias frowned, but couldn’t find a reason to argue. He finally said lamely, “It’ll look bad.”
“I’m sorry, but it has to be done.” Connor couldn’t bear to wait any longer. He had to talk with Kilian. “Eystri, will you convey my sincere apologies to the Alrun?”
Her face shivered, her expression hardening, her back straightening out of the timid slouch she’d huddled in. She spoke in Student Eighteen’s voice. “Mattias can tell her. I’m coming with you.”
“Are you sure? There’s lots to study here.”
Student Eighteen shook her head. “It’s better if we leave with you. Now that the excitement’s fading, people might remember what we did in Raufarhofn. It’s a wonder Eystri’s cover wasn’t completely destroyed. Better if we don’t return until memories fade.”
“We’d love to have you,” Connor said sincerely.
“Good because on the trip we need your help.”
“With what?”
“It’s time to try resurrecting Aifric.”
48
Totally Mental
By noon they were speeding west over the Kalfafell mountains, the cabin of the Hawk awash with mouthwatering aromas. The entire cargo area in the back was packed with foodstuffs, from bags of cookies and sweetbreads to soups and roasts, packed in insulated, cast-iron pots.
Five huge cakes took up most of the extra seats in the second and third rows, although the nearest one was already half consumed. It was a delicious, dark confection that the Althins called chocolate. Connor hoped they never realized how much he and Hamish loved it, or they’d probably make access to chocolate a condition of a future treaty. Leveraging that clause could win them lots of concessions.
Hamish whistled softly as he flew, looking as happy as he could be when separated from Jean. Student Eighteen sat on the opposite side of Hamish from Connor. She said, “We’re ready, Connor. Time to try rebuilding Aifric.”
He dearly hoped they could really somehow bringing Aifric back, but felt nervous too. How could they ‘rebuild’ Aifric? She was a person, not a crafting like the little squirrel with big feet that he sometimes conjured.
“You’re sure it’s possible?” he asked.
“You’re the only person who might be able to do it, and we need to. The sooner the better.” She did not try to hide her concern.
“Her death somehow hurt the rest of you, didn’t it?” Connor asked.
Hamish looked surprised by that, and he stopped whistling to listen.
Student Eighteen nodded. “Queen Dreokt crushed Aifric, and she caused some collateral damage, although I don’t think she understood what she was doing. We’ve tried to stabilize our mind, but without Aifric, I’m afraid the damage may continue to spread.”
“You mean more of you might die?” Hamish echoed Connor’s fear. Connor couldn’t bear the thought of seeing more of their friend fade away.
Student Eighteen gave them a brave smile. “There is danger. We need you, Connor, and I believe you need something to take your mind off your troubles.”
“I’ll be fine when I get to Kilian,” he insisted.
“Are you having other problems?” Hamish asked, sounding surprised. “Did Harley leave you oozing somewhere unmentionable?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.”
He grinned. “Did she fill your ears with wind from that earth tube she raised at the end? Is it still rushing around in there? I bet the echoes are terrible with all that unused space.”
Connor chuckled. Hamish’s good humor helped take the edge off his worries. “I’m fine. It’s just, something’s different. It’s like I’ve got access to another power source, but it cancels out my normal affinities, especially the elements.”
Hamish grimaced. “I thought you were just suffering from lack of sugar when you mentioned that at Raufarhofn. Wow. You take that breaking things talent of yours to some pretty disturbing levels sometimes.”
“I just need help figuring out what’s going on. Student Eighteen, that’s why this might not be the best time to try helping you.”
“Your secondary affinities are still accessible?”
“They seem stronger than ever.”
“That’s all we need. What else do you have to do for the next day and a half?”
“Eat,” Hamish said immediately.
“If this works, Aifric will challenge you to a sausage eating competition. She’s our champion, and I saw a box full of smoked sausage in the back.”
Hamish grinned. “Now you’re talking. Connor, what are you waiting for?”
With the Hawk cruising high over the nearest peaks, Hamish wasn’t really needed at the controls, so Connor switched seats with him. He still felt hesitant until Student Eighteen said, “Aifric’s already dead, Connor. It’s not like you can kill her again. As long as you focus on that one segment of our brain, the danger to the rest of us should be pretty minimal.”
“And you’re all willing to take this risk?”
“Like I said, it’s necessary. Aifric’s partition was centrally located.” She tapped the side of her head. “If we don’t get her restored, at least some of us will most likely die too.”
Connor’s problems didn’t seem so desperate compared to hers. He didn’t think he could handle dealing with a close friend’s death if they died in his mind. “Why don’t you do it yourself? You’re the one who knows what you’re doing.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t ascended. I don’t have access to the abilities required to partition or re-partition a mind. Only you have that power.”
He took a deep breath to settle his nerves. “All right. What do I do?”
She extracted a couple small pieces of chert and handed one to him. “We’ll link our thoughts, like we did on the speedcaravan when I was helping you hide your porphyry memories. This time, I’ll draw you into my head. The tricky part is to link to all of our minds, not just Student Eighteen. You should be able to sense all of our partitions. Aifric’s spot is pretty obvious.”
That could be intriguing or unnerving. He decided to pick intriguing. “What do I do then?”
“I’m going to cede that area to you.”
“So Connor can mess with minds like the queen?” Hamish asked.
“Not quite, but better than anyone else.”
“You’re trusting me in your head, knowing that I could scramble things worse?” Connor felt the weight of responsibility resting heavily on his heart. The queen had killed Aifric. He could do the same, or worse, to the rest of her.
“We trust you, Connor.”
The simple declaration buoyed his confidence. Good friends were far too rare to lose simply because he was poking around in her head with powers he’d never used before, in an attempt to resurrect an imaginary person and give them control over part of her fractured mind.
Actually, when he thought about it that way, it sounded totally mental.
“Wait, I thought you said creating a new personality takes weeks of preparation.”
“We’re not creating a new personality. We know Aifric. She was part of us. We have all the information about her. We just need you to help prepare that segment of our mind and rebuild the container for her. We’ll fill in the rest.”
Hamish asked, “You can really do that? You can make her exactly like before?”
“This is the first recreation attempt, but we think so.”
“Could you make her better?”
“You didn’t like her?” Connor asked.
“It’s not that. I was just thinking if I ever got the chance to make myself from scratch again, I might like to slip in some improvements. You know, like deciding right from the start never to willingly eat boiled radishes ever again. Think of all the suffering that could be avoided.”
That was a good point. Connor wouldn’t h
ave thought of it, but Hamish had developed the curious inventor side of his mind in the months he spent working with Verena.
She hesitated. “We’d be happy just getting old Aifric back.”
So would Connor. Aifric was a long-time, trusted friend. She’d risked everything helping him and had paid the ultimate price. He might be the first person to ever have the opportunity to restore a lost loved one.
“Don’t limit yourself,” Hamish urged. “There has to be something. She’s already the best eater, so she’s got good talents, but what could she do better? Can she speak a lot of languages?”
“She’s fluent in Obrioner, and knows a bit of Grandurian.”
“So what if she ends up assigned to heal a Varvakin? She wouldn’t know how to ask them what they had for breakfast or anything.”
“Do you have people in there who speak Varvakin?” Connor asked.
“Between us, we know all the continental languages.”
“So you could give her a language upgrade,” Hamish said excitedly.
“We’ll think about it.” She closed her eyes for several seconds then said, “Let’s focus first on restoring the same Aifric. That would be a spectacular success.”
“You’re missing an opportunity.”
“It’s my head, Hamish,” she said, a hint of warning creeping into her tone.
“Fine, but when we get back, maybe I’ll do some exploring with Connor and see what else we can do.”
“Please don’t try quickening chert. We have no idea what that might do to your mind.”
“I’ll try it on Dierk first.”
She glared and Hamish raised his hands in surrender. “Just kidding.”
Connor wasn’t so sure. One more reason for Verena to awaken soon. She could help nudge Hamish toward more productive ideas and keep him from some of his wilder suggestions, like the flap-jacker. That one was supposed to capture pigeons, pluck them, and make pies all in a self-contained package. Connor had seen the plans and shivered to think what would really happen to a pigeon caught in that contraption.
“Connor, are you ready?” she asked.
“Yes.” He swore to make it work. Somehow.
She gripped his hands, with the chert between them. “Then let’s do it.”
Connor focused on the little stone. Almost immediately the sound of rushing wind began whooshing through his mind. He liked it, but still didn’t understand it.
As soon as the chert activated, his gaze locked with Student Eighteen’s. Her big, brown eyes seemed to grow wider and deeper, until they consumed his vision. The rest of the Hawk’s cabin faded away as her aura intensified into a bright, golden glow like it had in the speedcaravan.
The link between them snapped into place and it dragged his mind forward, plunging his thoughts through her eyes and into her head. He landed on his feet on a soft surface, but couldn’t see it. Deep, brown shadows, exactly the color of her eyes, obscured everything.
“Hello?” His voice echoed back, as if he stood in a vast cavern. Was that her mind? With nineteen people living in it, he’d expected it to feel crowded.
A very faint aroma of mixed spices tickled his nose. He couldn’t quite identify it. He caught a whiff of clean cotton, stone baking under a hot sun, and a dash of spice root, but there was much more. The scents blended into a unique aroma that he decided he liked. It smelled like all of her, wrapped together.
He felt kind of dumb standing around waiting for something to happen, so he willed himself forward. It helped to imagine himself walking, as if he stood in her mind in a tiny body. The soft ground gave slightly underfoot, reinforcing the illusion. Was he stepping on her brain matter? How would that feel to her? He decided he was wearing soft shoes.
Through the brown gloom, a huge shape began to materialize. As he approached, he eventually realized it was a gigantic wall, extending out of sight above and to both sides.
“Welcome to the common area, Connor.” Student Eighteen’s voice echoed out of the gloom, as if emanating from the wall.
Rith’s confident voice sounded from his right. “The link is strong. Come a bit closer, Connor.”
Other voices whispered from the shadows to either side, not quite clear enough to make out, but Connor didn’t see anyone. That common area seemed uncommonly creepy with those voices echoing all around like spirits.
As he drew closer, he realized the wall wasn’t a single, unbroken expanse. It was all fashioned of perfectly cut stones. A seam of different stones met directly in front of him and ran vertically up the wall. To the right, the wall was built of immense basalt blocks, while the left was fashioned of a mixture of glittering obsidian, gray flint, and the distinctive, mottled pattern of serpentinite.
As he scanned the wall, he caught sight of a large door set into the basalt of the wall to his right, shadowy in the distance, about fifty yards away. An identical door broke the wall to his left. Both were made of a dark wood, covered with ornate carvings of flowing, geometric patterns. The ancient symbols of the affinity stones were carved into the center of each one.
Connor walked to the right to inspect the one set into the basalt wall. A shiny, gold plaque was inset above the swirling, circular symbol for basalt.
Rith.
Connor touched the door and immediately felt Rith’s personality snap into sharper focus. Her thoughts rushed into his mind as fast as she rushed around the outside world. Her overwhelming confidence radiated through everything, but he clearly read her sorrow at Aifric’s death, her nervous hope that they might succeed in restoring her, and her burning desire to find a way to exact revenge on the queen.
“This is my partition, my personal mind space,” she told him.
“Wow.” Connor was tempted to push the door open and peek inside, but would that plunge him into Rith’s mind and knock him out of this weird limbo common area?
“So who’s over there?” he asked, pointing back to the mixed obsidian wall.
“I am,” Student Eighteen said.
Now it was starting to make sense. “The walls are built with your individual affinities?”
“Very good,” Student Eighteen said. “We all start with a blank, wooden wall, but as we establish affinities, it changes.”
That was so fascinating. He wondered what his mind might appear like to her if she visited. Maybe a high mountain peak, with spectacular vistas over Alasdair before it was destroyed. It would probably have a fresh kill roasting over a fire next to a huge pot boiling with all of Hamish’s jokes.
“Where do I find Aifric’s area?”
“Farther to the right, past Cacilia and Tresta.”
Connor jogged in that direction. The basalt wall of Rith’s partition ran for another fifty yards before transitioning to a mixture of granite and limestone. The door bore Cacilia’s name, and when Connor placed his hand on it, her mind touched his gently, like the caress of a rose against the skin.
First he sensed only the demure, polite facade she portrayed to the world of lords and ladies of Granadure. Then she allowed him to sense the adventurous, rebellious side bubbling underneath. She loved those moments of delicious daring when she pushed the boundaries of expected behavior. She loved even more how furious her father became when he heard the rumors her escapades generated. Connor felt his face redden as he caught glimpses of some of her more scandalous adventures.
She spoke to him then, a wicked laugh in her voice. “The others will never admit it, but that Kilian’s got mystery and style dripping off him in waves. I don’t think he’s had a girlfriend in ages, but I’d love to find out how to catch his attention.”
Connor fled.
He tried banishing the astonishing suggestion while her soft laughter chased him right past Tresta’s solid, granite wall. How would anyone even attempt to date the fractured woman whose head he was running around in? Would Kilian even consider it? What if . . . No, he forced the thoughts away.
When he reached the next partition, he stopped and stared. Tresta’s
wall ended in a jagged seam that seemed to be flaking and crumbling along the edges. In the far distance, he could just make out another similar, crumbling wall where the next partition started.
The space between was simply gone.
Stygian shadows swirled in that empty area, obscuring everything. The air around him chilled as he cautiously stepped along the perimeter. The ground felt hard and brittle. When he crouched to peer closer, it looked charred, and the finger he slid across the surface came away streaked with soot. It was like the queen had detonated one of Hamish’s enormous diorite bombs in there.
“She’s completely gone,” he whispered into the stillness.
“But not forgotten,” eighteen voices whispered back in their various tones and accents. The sounds swirled around him softly, but with unshaken hope.
“How can we rebuild this?” He felt totally out of his depth, as if he was again sinking into Loch Sholto above Alasdair, but with no lifeline tied around his waist. He definitely didn’t want to blast his way out this time.
The other voices faded away and Student Eighteen spoke close behind him. “The walls are illusion, Connor.”
He spun in surprise and found Student Eighteen standing next to him. She was dressed in a soft, black, silk gown with golden pedras stitched all down the length of the fabric.
She chuckled. “You look like you’re seeing a spirit, Connor.”
“I just, I mean, I didn’t expect to see you standing inside your own head,” he stammered. The idea was so weird, he wondered what trips down memory lane looked like for her.
“It’s not so surprising. We all create images in our minds all the time. We have this common area to share and we project ourselves here in bodily form sometimes. It makes holding conferences feel a little less schizophrenic.”
“I imagine.” Actually, he wasn’t sure he could. “Where are the others?”
“They don’t want to distract you, but they’ll appear when we finish.” She gestured toward the broken expanse of her mind-scape that had housed Aifric’s mind. “We decided to present our mind to you like this to help you relate. It’s an illusion, an image we agree to project here, but inside our mind, images are thoughts and thoughts have power.”