Remnants

by Honor Raconteur

  “Are octopuses supposed to be blue?” Chi blurted out, gawking.

  “I was just about to ask that.” I looked to Rena, and she shrugged. “Apparently not. Right. Why is it blue?”

  “The ink it contained has been strained and morphed by Toh’sellor, diluted to this shade,” she answered succinctly. “Hi, Nora.”

  “Hi,” Nora responded with a long, tired sigh. “Sorry you had to jump like mad rabbits through so many holes to get here. So, here’s what I’ve got. The master of the house is keeping all three apprentices well away from the back windows, but you know how crafty kids are. I expect they’ve wiggled their way to a window by now. If they haven’t, they will shortly. Tell me you can do something about this and I won’t be forced to kill these three in front of their young mages?”

  The glum look on my wife’s face was not promising. She gamely stepped forward anyway, carefully skirting the outside of the barrier, staring at all three familiars hard. We stood silently for nearly fifteen minutes—an eternity with her eyes—as she studied them from every angle. I think we all knew her answer well before she shook her head, angry and resigned in equal measure.

  Well this day just went from bad to worse.

  “There’s the same type of barriers around their cores,” Rena explained in a resigned voice. “Well, similar in a way. They’re different from the previous versions we’ve seen. Actually, they’re slightly different from each other, too.”

  Maksohm asked the obvious question. “Why? Does it function differently?”

  “Yes, although I can’t divine to what purpose. One of them is more efficient than the others. I think it could maintain form a good day longer, but other than that? These are too experimental to really guess. Either way, they’ve been exposed to Toh’sellor’s energy too long and the core is deeply embedded in them physically. There’s no way to remove this.”

  I heard the whine of a bow being cocked and looked sharply back at Chi. “Chi, what are you doing?”

  “I never ask a mage to kill a familiar,” he explained without looking at me, his eyes on Rena. “It’s too hard for them emotionally. Nora, drop the barrier.”

  “Nooooo!”

  Jerking around, I saw a fourteen-year-old boy drop to the ground from the roof, tucking and rolling before springing up and racing for us. Vee, closest to him, quickly moved to intercept, her arms gathering him up so his feet didn’t touch the ground. He wiggled and squirmed hard, face twisting, blond hair whipping into his eyes under the force of his struggles.

  Rena, soft-hearted person that she was, went to him. “Is one of them your familiar?”

  He stopped abruptly, his brown eyes wide and terrified. “Yes. Yes, the owl, you can’t shoot him, you can’t—”

  “If we don’t,” Rena cut through, tone sympathetic, “he’ll kill you.”

  The kid stopped dead, aghast and disbelieving. “He’s my familiar.”

  “I’m afraid he’s not, not anymore. He’s been corrupted by Toh’sellor. He’s now more a minion of that thing than your familiar.” Rena pointed behind her, and I could see the cost of every word that came out of her mouth. Lines of pain formed around her mouth and eyes and a fine tremor rasped under each word. “Look at him. Your owl, your familiar, does he ever make expressions like that? You’re right in front of him, but does he recognize you?”

  We all knew the answer. The kid latched onto his familiar with his eyes, silently begging for the owl to turn, to react to him. But the owl stayed focused on Maksohm, snarling and clawing at the barrier, more intent on getting out and wreaking havoc. Even then, the kid didn’t give up, fighting hard to get free of Vee. I saw her wince more than once as his heels hit hard enough to bruise.

  Nothing good would come of dragging this out. I caught her eye, jerked my head toward the house, and she nodded agreement. Turning, she hauled him physically inside just as a harried looking mage came rushing out the back door, clearly looking for her missing student.

  After that interruption, none of us wanted to go through with this. But better now than to wait, to draw out the inevitable. The last thing we wanted was for one of the kids to watch their familiar die in front of them.

  “Nora,” Chi prompted quietly.

  Nora looked depressed enough to wish for a drink as she dropped the barrier. With his usual speed and accuracy, Chi took all three down in ten seconds flat. Screams emanated from the house then cut off abruptly. I suspected the kids inside had fainted, their minds and bodies unable to handle the abrupt severance of the familiar bonds. My own familiar bond ached in sympathy, a resounding pain that hammered through my chest, and I rubbed against it in soothing circles; not that it did much good. Part of me was grateful Chi had taken on the burden, that he’d stepped forward, knowing that none of us could stomach the job. I stared at their bodies, blood steadily seeping onto the ground around the arrows that protruded out of their chests, and wished we could have saved them.

  Those poor kids.

  “We’ll need to write reports on this,” Maksohm said softly. In the absolute stillness of the backyard, the words sounded unnaturally loud. “And I’ll have to go through a review committee.”

  My heard jerked up. That sounded alarming and unpleasant. “What? Why?”

  “Standard procedure for the death of a familiar,” Nora explained, hands gesturing for me to calm down. “Any agent that witnesses or participates in a familiar’s death has to go through a committee’s review to explain why and what happened. In this case, Dah’lil will report for all of you. Um, cousin, not to tell you your business, but you might need to go in with more than one person. Rena, maybe?”

  “We’re supposed to be on our way to Heaberlin so that Rena can help design the facility to house Toh’sellor,” Maksohm explained to her, then grimaced. “Once we find it again, at least. I can’t delay her any further. Can you serve as witness for me?”

  “No, I’m supposed to be on my way north, to Sira’s border,” Nora denied, lifting her thumb to her mouth and nibbling at the nail thoughtfully.

  “Why don’t we go with our original, original plan?” Vee offered. “I’ll stay, and Chi and Bannen can go with Rena, offer their own opinions to the architects. We’ll go through the committee and catch up with them.”

  Maksohm shot Vee a thankful look. “Let’s do that. Chi, can you scout out the area with Vee tonight and see if we had a watcher here? Someone that matched the description of the man in black in Njorage.”

  “On it,” Chi assured him briskly.

  “We’ll meet you back in Foxboro. I still need you to write a report on all of this, as I have to submit it. But tomorrow morning, you’ll need to be on your way to Heaberlin.”

  “Barring more situations like these, you mean,” Vee muttered, glaring at the dead familiars.

  “Yes,” Maksohm groaned, head sinking for a moment between his shoulders. “Barring that.”

  Chi didn’t find anyone suspicious looking. Rena hadn’t either, and her eyes were better than his. We gave up after a certain point and portaled back to Heaberlin, having no luggage with us, and still more meetings to attend. It meant that we got in very late, and we all just tumbled into bed. I found sleep to be impossible that night. Everything that happened was far too disturbing and I hated all of it. Bad enough Toh’sellor was in the hands of evil maniacs, but evil maniacs experimenting with it just took things to a whole new level that I didn’t really want to explore, thank you very much. I felt like writing them a letter: ‘Dear evil group of mad scientist-mages, can you tone down the crazy? What you’re doing will not solve any problems, just destroy the world in pieces. You know, the world you live in? Maybe think about that and stop with the shenanigans.’

  Would that work? Probably not.

  Watching how the kidnapped familiars had played out did not alleviate my fears. Knowing that they were taken from a protected place, with multiple mages in the building, that was scary enough. But seeing them returned to t
he same place, past all of those protective wards, warped beyond all recognition? There had been nothing sane in their eyes, nothing familiar, just madness and bloodlust.

  I felt a certain kinship with other familiars, even though I was human and they were not. We all served the same purpose, after all. We all focused on the happiness and well-being of a mage. I felt that in some ways, the other familiars understood me better than any other human being could.

  I know I’m human. I know it. But still, sometimes I felt closer to the familiars than the humans, and this was one of those times. I could be warped like them, changed so that I would look at my Rena and see nothing but a target. Did the familiar bond still exist in them even after Toh’sellor warped them? Did it scream in panic and desperation, frantic to stop them, to keep them from harming the very person they were bound to protect? Or was it warped too, into something that no one could recognize?

  I shuddered at the thought. Did it even matter, in the end? The result was still pain.

  I hated seeing the familiars killed today, even though I’d understood it. But a part of me, dark and insidious, whispered they’d do the same to me if I was corrupted. That feeling of fear and paranoia eroded my control, whispering to me when I tried to drop my guard enough to sleep.

  Turning onto my side, I tried to get my mind to shut off: relax every major muscle group, slow the breathing, set aside the worry and heartache for tomorrow. Calm, calm, relax.

  Somewhere outside, a dog barked.

  My eyes sprang open.

  Okay, clearly I was not getting any sleep tonight. Rena had taken ages to settle down, her mind constantly going over the problem on a loop, trying to find some solution. Eventually, she’d given up, sleep claiming her. I both envied her ability to sleep and felt grateful for it. A sleep-deprived Void Mage was one of the scariest things in existence, bar none. I’d much rather have me sleep-deprived than her.

  Finding it impossible to lay still in the bed, I decided I’d better get out before I woke Rena. I slid free of the sheets, threw a shirt on, then wandered downstairs. If I couldn’t sleep, I’d snack. Had to keep my energy up somehow.

  The bed and breakfast lay still and dark, everyone else seemingly sound asleep in bed, the dastards. I wasn’t truly angry with them for being asleep, it was just frustration on my end. As I approached the kitchen, though, I saw mellow light spilling out through the doorway. Huh. Someone else was up after all. Getting closer still, I heard voices, male and female. Nora and Maksohm?

  Oh. Duh. Today’s events would’ve hit those two hard. They’d both lost familiars, after all. It might even be more than that, in a sense. Vee had never lost a familiar, as Seton was more or less immortal, I’d live nearly the same lifespan as Rena, barring outside forces; so in a way we couldn’t understand their pain. I’d had a twenty-four-hour experience of not being bound to Rena, and just the memory of that made the familiar bond twist and shudder unhappily in my chest. But that seemed such a minimal thing to compare to their sorrow. Maksohm hadn’t had a familiar in two decades. Nora nearly as long. I’d never asked them if they still felt the pain of that truncated bond. I didn’t want to know if the answer was ‘yes.’

  Even if it was only a memory, they knew exactly the pain we’d been forced to dish out today.

  I stopped just outside the kitchen door, hovering, not sure if it was wise to step in just then. Would I help or hurt the situation?

  “I shouldn’ have let Chi kill ’em,” Maksohm’s voice slurred. “That’s my job.”

  “Screw your job,” Nora rebutted, sounding just as drunk. “Wait, I think you said tha’ before. Did you say tha’ before?”

  Okay, if they’d gotten to the point of drunken ramblings on repeat, definitely time to interrupt them. Shaking my head, I walked in and found both of them sitting side-by-side and half-collapsed over the wooden kitchen table, an open bottle of wine—scratch that, two bottles of wine in front of them. No glasses. Yeah, that’s, that’s all sorts of not good, right there. When a person skipped the glass and went straight for the bottle, they’d hit their limit. I came in close, wrapped my arms around both of them, a subtle way of getting my hands on the bottles and behind their backs before they realized what I was doing. “Hey, you two. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  Maksohm blearily blinked up at me, trying really hard to focus. He didn’t quite manage it, gave up, closed one eye, and then beamed when he managed to focus on the left side of my face. “Bannen.”

  “That’s me,” I agreed amiably. Why was that expression so funny? I felt the strangest urge to pat his head.

  “I’m sorry you watched Chi kill ’em,” he apologized with a hangdog expression. “I shoulda sent you off. It must be hard to watch us kill ’em.”

  I flinched. Sards, this man was sharp.

  He waited on my response. Somehow, I found my tongue and managed, “I can’t say it was easy, no. But I wouldn’t have been able to leave Rena’s side during all of that anyway.”

  He nodded forlornly.

  “We shoulda been explorers,” Nora announced, her voice too loud for this quiet, solemn mood.

  “Born too late to explore the world,” Maksohm disagreed, leaning companionably into my side, letting me support him. “Born too soon to explore the galaxy.”

  “Explore the ocean,” she retorted.

  Maksohm jerked upright in alarm, nearly falling off his chair. I had to catch him before he hit the floor. He pointed an outraged finger at Nora. “Sards no! I’m not going into tha’ giant bathtub, there’s big scary fish things in there.”

  I doubled over laughing, still with a hand on his back to keep Maksohm upright. My emotions settled a little, enough I thought I could sleep. Clearly, I needed to get Maksohm drunk more often. Who knew he’d be entertaining? “Is that why you hate being near the ocean? The big scary fish things?”

  “Yes,” he admitted petulantly, bottom lip sticking out in a pout.

  He looked five. Seriously. “Alright, when you get to the stage of being adorable, it’s clearly time to pour you into a bed. Come on, both of you, up you come. Let’s go beddy-bye.”

  Nora threw both arms around my neck, plastering herself against my side. I kept an arm around her waist, just in case. Maksohm hauled himself up, then stared at me beseechingly. “Bannen?”

  “Yes, my brother?” I answered, still amused.

  “What if Tohsie’s near the ocean?” He looked very worried about this.

  “I’ll protect you from the big, bad fishie things,” I promised solemnly. It took willpower to keep my lips from twitching. Tohsie? Did he really think of that chaotic monster as Tohsie? “Promise.”

  He finally relaxed against me, amiably following where I led. And believe me, hauling these two drunkards through a narrow doorway was not unlike managing a three-legged race while experiencing vertigo problems. I had to duck to keep a shoulder under Nora’s arm, but Maksohm was tall enough that he leaned over my side, literally tilting me into the woman on my other side. It led to a banged elbow and even more upset balances as Maksohm listed dangerously to one side.

  “Bannen,” Nora said into my chest, “you’re the best brother ever. I’m going to keep you.”

  “You do that.” I really hoped they remembered all of this tomorrow. Just so I could tease them with it.

  I woke with a gasp in my throat, my body locking up, the dream still caught in the vestiges of my mind. It took several deep breaths before I felt my senses fully returning, the strange taste of dust fading from my mouth, the darkness of the bedroom overcoming the weird color of sky. I used Vee’s trick and started with the bed—the texture of it, the color of the bedspread, the way it felt cushioning me. The dream faded in increments as I cemented myself to the here and now. When the dream finally dissipated, I lay there staring at the blank ceiling, tired and frustrated. I’d greatly appreciate it if my brain would decide to stop replaying that particular nightmare over and over. As much as it scared me in my s
leep, it only—okay, I couldn’t lie, it scared me in my waking hours too.

  That was the problem.

  Carefully, I turned my head to look at Bannen, but he was still out for the count. I was glad to see it, as he’d been struggling to fall asleep before I went to dreamland. I think he’d hit his limit. I thought about snuggling in against his side and trying for sleep again, but I suspected I’d fall right back into the nightmare if I did.

  Instead, I rolled right out of bed, not trying to sneak. I’d learned this the hard way. The fastest way to get a warrior’s attention was to be stealthy. Anything that smacked of skulking alarmed them, said there was possible danger, and I had seen Bannen flail awake mid-snore because of my tiptoeing. On the other hand, they were used to lots of activity around them, of sleeping in every possible place, so noise didn’t bother them. I could stomp around the room and Bannen would sleep right through it.

  Not that I stomped. A glance at the clock told me it was just after three. The others were hopefully sleeping. I just walked naturally out of the room, closed the door behind me, and tried to remember where I’d set my book down. The main coffee table, I think?

  I went three whole steps into the living room before I realized that Chi lay stretched out along the sofa, arms resting comfortably on his stomach, wearing loose fitting clothes appropriate for sleeping in. Was he sleeping? Please let him be sleeping. I took two more cautious steps to the side, watching him, then realized his eyes were open and watching me in turn. I could see the moonlight glint off of them. Sards. Of course he wasn’t sleeping.

  “Nightmare?” he greeted huskily, the word barely stirring the night air.

  “Unfortunately.” I approached, but didn’t feel like taking one of the chairs. Instead, I sat on the table, staying close to him so we could talk softly. “I thought you’d sleep tonight.”

  “Why?” he asked humorlessly. “Because Bannen was doing his best to wear me out and Vee was being snuggly?”