PHANTASIA

by R. Atlas

  The doctor that Arkan had spoken of was located only a few minutes away from their own suite; his laboratory occupied a space at the eastern edge of the raeth wing. Red suspected that it couldn’t have been a coincidence — Arkan likely stationed him there and worked alongside the doctor on various projects. The prince’s writings had spanned such a wide breadth of topics, Red imagined that he must have taken great measures to surround himself with people he could consult with on all the subjects that interested him. On the way there, he also spotted a sickbay for critters, and a workshop with several people engineering weapons of various sorts.

  Upon entering the laboratory, Red understood why anyone would want to work under Prince Arkan in the first place. The lab held nothing back when it came to furnishing itself with equipment and necessary facilities. The place was manned by at least fifty other people, some of whom were young researchers simply observing the going-ons of the lab, and others who were of an older age, running in between different sections of the workspace while shouting orders, statistics, and ideas. It occurred to Red that every room he had entered thus far in the palace seemed deceptively small from the outside, and then opened up into its own world. Magnus was unsurprised by the size of the lab, but smiled at the wonder it held for his team, seemingly satisfied that they were impressed by all of the Alcazar’s marvels.

  “This place must have cost a fortune!” Butz exclaimed.

  “Science does not believe in fortunes, it believes in building the future as it pleases,” A hoarse voice replied from behind them. Red turned around to see a gaunt figure in a blue lab coat, holding in his right hand the segmented limb of a critter and in his left, a pair of enormous scissors. Arkan nodded his head in greeting, and took the limb of the critter from the old man to study it himself.

  “Excellent. Excellent work. Doctor Lurch, my nephew’s friend here requires a syntechdage, his hand was cut off in an accident during an academy field test. Will you take a look?”

  “Of course,” replied the doctor, holding out his hand towards Red, who hesitated for a moment before resting the stump of his right hand on the doctor’s palm. Doctor Lurch’s hands were long, thin, and mottled. He grabbed Red’s wrist so suddenly that Red almost jumped at the touch. The doctor’s face had a strange resemblance to someone else they had all recently seen, but Red hoped it was just a memory bias on his part. Wrinkles make all elderly people look similar, that must be it, he thought to himself. Doctor Lurch must have been at least a hundred and fifty.

  “Lurch, I’ve heard the name before,” Magnus replied.

  “Likely you have. A family of several prominent scientists will do that.”

  “You invented crystalized Cron.”

  “Afraid that was a cousin.”

  “Weren’t you one of the first to discover the Xenosite on Eaut?”

  “A brother.”

  “Oh,” Magnus replied bashfully.

  Stepping closer to the man’s face, Red realized that the similarities between Doctor Lurch and the bladed man were too striking to be a coincidence. The doctor had the same, cruel, penetrating eyes — the ones Red had seen in his memories.

  “Come, this shall take only a few minutes,” the doctor replied while ushering their group to a section of the lab filled with different human parts, some mechanical and others that looked almost identical to real limbs. A large machine resembling a giant microscope stood in the center of the space and Doctor Lurch ordered Red to sit in the center of it where several green lights scanned his body back and forth. Raven, S, Magnus, and Arkan stood by him while Butz went off to find Linx. The cat had wandered somewhere into the lab.

  “Have you ever had a syntechdage installed before?” The doctor asked.

  “No,” Red replied. “Does it hurt?”

  “There is no such thing as pain,” the doctor replied brusquely. “Do you wish to keep your memory of the incident?”

  “My memory?”

  “Once a syntechdage is installed, it shall operate with your nerves just as your original hand did. This machine, an orgoprinter, is scanning your body to replicate an identical version of your hand. Once it is installed however, no matter how accurately the hand was replicated and how precisely the augmentation was done, your mind shall remember the hand as a prosthetic one, inhibiting your ability to function at full capacity. To fix that, I can delete a segment of your memory, the part that involves the loss of your hand. Your brain shall make up another event in its place. There are rarely any side effects, although some do come up from time to time.”

  “Like what?” Raven quickly asked. Her reaction seemed to have caught Arkan’s attention, but only for a moment.

  “There are patients who, for instance, replace the lost memory with that of losing another limb, one that they do have, leading to a psychosomatic inability to use parts of their bodies that are healthy. While we can delete the new memory as well, deleting made up memories creates further complications. Too much memory slicing can lead to complex side effects. There is always a price to pay when it comes to science.”

  “I’ll do it,” Red said. “If it’ll help me cast like I did before, I’ll take the small risk it comes with.”

  “Excellent, then,” the doctor replied.

  “Are you sure?” Raven asked. “Your casting ability seemed fine with just your left hand.”

  “How exactly did you lose your hand?” The doctor asked. “Out of curiosity?”

  Starting from the Ignot Gilas, Magnus quickly recounted their adventure in the Alloy desert, continuing briskly even after Raven shot him a cautionary glance after he mentioned the appearance of the bladed man. Red studied Doctor Lurch’s face carefully as Magnus told the story, but the doctor remained impassive throughout. He shrugged off the doctor’s resemblance to the bladed man as a coincidence.

  Prince Arkan cut Magnus’ story off just then, interrupting him with a wondrous look.

  “Did you say… a blade with an eye?”

  “Mmhmm. A blade with an eye that looked like it had a life of its own.”

  “Describe it for me, every detail you can muster up,” the prince asked. Magnus began depicting the blade — and the man that wielded it — as best as he could. Red added in a few details here and there, but nothing seemed to be able to satisfy Arkan’s need for specifics. The prince continued on for ten minutes, asking about the length of the blade, the width and color of the eye, and a number of other trivial details.

  “The hand itself, it throbbed lightly, and the eye had no lashes” Red said.

  “Hopefully, your new hand won’t throb,” Doctor Lurch replied. Red hoped he was kidding, but his sincere tone said otherwise.

  The machine whirred for a minute and inside of a glass cube next to him, Red could see a hand beginning to take shape, modeled by the lasers strapped to the roof of the laboratory.

  “The machine will take care of everything from here on in, but I shall have two attendees oversee the process till the end,” the doctor said while gesturing over to two younger technicians from an upper level. “This is where I must say goodbye, Prince Arkan. The polymerization machine requires my full attention,” the doctor added while pointing to the segmented limb of the critter he was holding onto earlier. “I trust you will be at the ociramma tomorrow?”

  “Of course. I would not want to miss what the Priori are presenting,” Arkan replied.

  “You would be wise not to. I have seen what they are going to reveal. I daresay it will change the face of our struggle against the Xenosite permanently, and maybe much more than that.” The doctor turned around to leave, but slipped a tiny note into Red’s left hand before he went. Assuming it was a private matter, Red opened the note in his palm and read it as subtly as he could. All it said was: Urgent. You must meet me in private at the ociramma tomorrow. The Evil Eye comes for you.

  Chapter 10: The Priori of Light

  Red woke up the next morning with an ear splitting headache, feeling as though someone had drilled a hole into
his skull overnight. Magnus and Prince Arkan were standing idly by his bedside, quietly watching him as he struggled to sit up. Magnus had on a light blue tunic with plain lateral designs, while Prince Arkan, in a much stranger fashion, sported a fake beard, an odd pair of goggles with pitch black spectacles, and rubber gloves that were locked onto his wrists.

  “Ociramma…” Red mumbled, barely able to drag the word out of his mouth. “What time is the ociramma?”

  “It has already started. Bless the stars, we’ll be arriving a few hours late on my count,” Arkan replied heartily while checking his pocket watch — an obsidian timepiece with crystal green knobs and a dialite face. Red had never seen someone with a traditional watch on their person before. The broad capabilities of microAIs had made such tools unnecessary, but he imagined it was more out of taste than necessity for the prince. The device matched Areopa’s palate for antiquity. Magnus has one too he remembered, although it was not as ornate as Arkan’s.

  “What?!” Red yelped. “I’m so sorry, was I asleep the entire day? What happened? I remember going to Dr. Lurch last, to fix my broken hand, but everything’s a blur of motion after that. I don’t even remember coming back to this room.” His last clear memory was of Dr. Lurch slipping the note into his palms.

  Magnus, whose face was suddenly swept by a look of relief, was about to speak, but Arkan cut him off with a cautionary glance. The interruption made Red wonder what Magnus was about to say, but he thought nothing significant of the exchange. “The machine that fixed your broken hand used a bit too much anesthesia, I suspect. Are you feeling alright now? Dr. Lurch had told us to report any feelings of…strangeness.”

  “Yah, I guess I feel okay,” Red replied. His right hand itched severely, as though it had been bitten by insect critters all over, but it felt normal. He summoned a wisp of fire on his palm, which was easy enough, but he had to overcome a numbing sensation to do so, one that made his hand feel like it was being pricked all over by needles too sharp to hurt. The paralyzing feeling subsided after a while, but he had to keep flexing his hand to prevent it from cramping. It was no longer limp, he was sure it wasn’t broken anymore. The doctor had done his job, but the feeling of controlling his hand now felt awkward, as though it were somehow resisting his impulses. Its probably just a side effect of the anesthesia he thought sullenly.

  “Ahh, magnificent!” Prince Arkan shouted unexpectedly. “To be perfectly honest, the procedure we used to fix your hand was still in its experimental stage. We had been waiting for a second test subject for quite a while now. Luckily your injury was spot on. Terrible things could have happened if Dr. Lurch had made a miscalculation of sorts.” Both Magnus’ and Red’s eyes darted between Arkan and each other in horror.

  “What happened to the first test subject?” Red asked nervously, unsure if he wanted to hear the answer.

  “Ahh yes, that one. It was nothing too significant, we had accidentally shot his memory away. All of it. But his body was perfectly alright of course, well, most of it at least. Your memory seems to be functioning correctly though, eh? You remember who both of us are?” the prince asked nonchalantly, as if that was all it took to be sure that Red was fine.

  “Yes, I do. My memory feels fine…I think. Besides last night. I guess I wouldn’t know what I forgot anyways, right?” Red replied while making a mental note never to take Arkan’s assistance on a matter of health. He could not imagine why his memory would be affected by a device geared to fix his hand, but decided he should still ask Dr. Lurch about it, just in case. Truthfully, he was looking for a reason to speak to the doctor again. No…he can’t be the truth sayer. Can he? Would the truth sayer even be a human? Or someone who took a human form?

  “What do you remember of your hand?” Magnus asked, interrupting Red’s train of thought.

  “Just breaking it when I fell into the twilight caverns through the whirlpool, and not being able to use it until now.” He flexed his right hand again. It seemed perfectly functional but still felt awkward to control.

  “All is well then!” the prince cheered while grabbing Red’s hand and shaking it vigorously in observation. “Let us be off soon, I believe the light has a surprise for us.”

  “Were the both of you waiting for me this entire time? I’m sorry again, I didn’t mean to wake up so late.”

  “Don’t apologize, it was the best thing that could have happened,” Arkan replied blissfully. “The presentation is not till the end of the ociramma. I could not have asked for a better reason to miss all of the beginning hospitalities than to observe the results of a test subject. Far too many civilities are demanded at such ostentatious events. Handshakes, and hugs, and laughs — terrifying business, all of it.”

  “Yah, I wasn’t looking forward to the beginning either, just a bunch of boring introductions,” Magnus replied. “But lets not miss the presentation, it should be starting soon,” he added hastily.

  “Mmhmm,” Red replied before trying to shake his head free of its migraine. He pulled himself to the bathroom where a quick shower somewhat relieved his headache. He stuffed his face with food as fast as he could, and then came back to his room to put on his Crest Academy combat suit when Magnus handed over an outfit identical to the one he was wearing, but sized smaller.

  “Wear this,” Magnus pointed, handing over the tunic and a pair of beige pants. “It’s Areopa’s traditional outfit, what all the male Basil’s wear. We have simple tastes here.”

  “But I’m not apart of your family,” Red replied.

  “Meh, I’d say you are,” Magnus laughed, unaware of how much his comment had meant to Red. “Gave one to Butz too, but I ended up picking the wrong sizes for him. I told him it was traditional for the clothes to look too large, but I’m sure he realized by now, it’s not.”

  “What’s it made out of?” Red asked while carefully kneading the material with his fingertips. It was sleek and cold to the touch, exactly what a cloud would feel like if it were tailored, he thought, half certain that he had just answered his own question.

  “A Plutostratus cloud. The material is called kerebricrite after its sewn into clothing. Its stronger than the Neutrium our combat suits are made of, and as light as air, literally. You’d be hard pressed to find anything stronger or of better quality in Areopa. It’s heat resistant too; it should be able to handle orange and blue level casts with ease. So it’ll be good for you for another month or so,” Magnus winked.

  Red thanked Magnus several times over before rushing to put it on.

  “May I ask why you are…in disguise, Prince Arkan?” Red asked as they stepped out of the suite.

  “So that no one will recognize me, naturally. I thought the purpose of disguises was self explanatory?”

  Not trusting himself to inquire further, Red quickly finished getting ready and then followed Magnus and Arkan out of the suite. The three of them leisurely strolled to the spectra courtyard, a massive field on the eastern side of the Alcazar where Magnus had told Red the dinner was being held. Prince Arkan seemed to be inclined to take as long as possible to get to the event, stopping at various points to brief Red and Magnus about everything he could deduce from a guest that walked by.

  “Are the three of them at the event already?” Red asked, feeling slightly disappointed that Raven had not waited for him. He knew it was unusual to expect such a thing, but the feeling stubbornly lingered in his mind.

  “Yup, they’ve been there from the start.”

  “Well, thanks for waiting. Sorry again. Have you seen your family yet?”

  “Yup, did the rounds through all of them while you were asleep. My younger siblings have returned from their universities as well. And don’t be sorry, I’ve already been to a hundred of these, nothing I haven’t seen already. I’m not to keen on meeting people from The Priori of Light anyways,” Magnus replied as they crossed a pair of double doors into a vast field that Red assumed must have been the spectra courtyard. Hundreds of gold and blue tables were lined in a circular
fashion around the Ocrimmar, a giant critter that occupied the center of the room. Ocrimmar’s reminded Red of the gemini. They were tall, centurion shaped creatures with beetle heads and squishy bodies. Their primary feature, and what an ociramma was essentially based upon, were their cralanxes — long tubes that extended from their torso and expunged a smokey liquid that had an intoxicating and euphoric effect on other creatures. While being farmed for their bodily fluids seemed like a torturous existence, Magnus had explained to Red that the creatures were treated on par with royalty. Ocrimmar farmers were paid fortunes to rent their broods for ocirammas, and the creatures themselves produced better quality cral in higher stages if they were well taken care of.

  Silently ushering for the both of them to follow him, Prince Arkan went straight for the Ocrimmar without an introductory word to anyone at the event. There was music and dancing around the tall creature, and an immense black box stationed behind it, which Red assumed was the object of the presentation. At the far opposite side of the entrance was the table arrangement for the royal family, easily identifiable by its extravagant decorations and the Talakrash, felion soldiers that served as that king’s personal bodyguards. There were five next to the king, three chimeras and two sphinxes. There was one other breed of felions, lycans they were called, but Red did not spot any of the wolfish, humanoid creatures around.

  “What’s the name of their city?” Red asked Magnus while pointing over to the felions and tiptoeing for a better look at the king of Nimbus. Artemis Basil, despite his age, a hundred and two according to Arkan, looked like a man no older than fifty. He had a tall and expansive frame, like Magnus, a cheerful expression, and spoke in animated gestures as he entertained those that beckoned for his attention. Red was going to ask Magnus to introduce him, but there seemed to be a line, and thought it better if he waited till later. The king’s broad build and striking similarities to Magnus suddenly brought to Red’s attention how different Arkan looked from the two of them. The prince was only of average height and had a thin, spindly frame.