Jackal Among Snakes

The Alchemist sprawled out on the cold stone plateau. All around, voices spoke.

“Law, instead of casting judgment on Raccomen and myself, could you judge what in the blazes is wrong with the kingling?”

The Alchemist turned his head, drawn from his stupor. There, Rook, with markedly bolstered confidence, stared upward at Law as the golden figure knelt down. An army of Justiciars approached. The Stormfield was dying, so they had no need to protect the army any longer.

“I will not forget this deception. But for now, I will put it aside.” Law split his body apart, and his golden aura enveloped his champion. “Erlebnis is dead. He cast no magic before he went—I sensed only the faintest tingle of his divinity. Yet…”

The Alchemist began to make sense of what had happened. The Ravenstone had been forged out of Erlebnis’ Blessing of Supersession, long ago. With the god himself perished, the Ravenstone broke, sending him out of its protection. Fortunately, the battle was over. The Alchemist, still a husk, slowly gathered himself. He reformed his body that he might stand, and rose.

Argrave had fallen to his knees. He stared upward at the sky, unblinking as he tremored. His eyes were spasming, alongside faint twitches in his fingers. Feeling some urgency, the Alchemist approached.

“Stand aside,” he ordered Law, whose aura prevented his further approach. “I will examine him.”

The gods regarded the Alchemist with some distaste, but they knew better than to argue. All of them were familiar with the Alchemist’s expertise and his constant presence in Argrave’s company. They watched as his gray eyes glowed green, scrutinizing Argrave. Of every human, the Alchemist knew Argrave’s form the best of any—he had performed countless operations on the man, and had spent weeks deconstructing his body. He’d even wrote books on the subject. Naturally, he could tell when something was wrong.

The Alchemist quickly identified several oddities—fever, sweating, confusion, and a seizure. Beyond the skin and bone, he caught an alarming factor immediately. “He has slight encephalitis… but that isn’t something I can simply ignore.”

“Encephalitis?” Raccomen repeated.

“His brain is swollen. It’s…” the Alchemist trailed off as he scrutinized the brain closer. He grabbed Argrave’s head, his fingers stretching around and piercing the skin subtly so as to see beyond. It wasn’t merely swollen—it was virtually on fire, a hub of activity. Given the circumstances, he quickly came to a conclusion about what was happening. “It’s adjusting to knowledge that Erlebnis bestowed.”

All the deities present said no more—from what Erlebnis had said, they could guess as much.

“One of the things that Erlebnis traded in—knowledge,” Rook walked forward to stand near Argrave, peering down at him as his gray eyes twitched. “Anytime he wanted to, he could bestow knowledge. Only really did when it was part of some deal, or when he stood to benefit—the man hoarded it jealously. So… what, he gave Argrave a load of faulty knowledge, jammed his brain? Is it an attack?”

“It shouldn’t kill him. Long-term, he might even be normal. But in the short… his brain is working on overdrive not to shatter. And even once it settles, Argrave’s mind could be forever changed. It might need to get rid of some things to make room for the new. One human mind wasn’t made to handle the knowledge of many millennia.”

“You’re saying he could forget some things?” Raccomen questioned seriously.

“Yes. Memories. Lessons. Habits. Languages. Motor skills.” The Alchemist looked around. “Something needs to be done. Quickly. I intend to do that, and you will protect me as I do.”

“Sataistador is still around.” Rook pointed at the Alchemist. “Even if we have the Stormfield, I think it’s abundantly clear the god of war had other plans. We can’t stay here, guarding a lone king. We have to think of the Blackgard Union.”

“He’s right.” Raccomen crossed his arms. “Sataistador remains the threat. We must move to confront this threat.”

“Argrave is the Blackgard Union,” the Alchemist said coldly.

Rook and Raccomen looked ready to argue, but Law’s voice sounded out. “I will protect my champion.”

“Good,” the Alchemist nodded simply, then turned to Argrave. He scrutinized the King of Vasquer, studying his face and the brain within in great detail.

Apparently, it had taken a while. Rook and Raccomen disappeared long ago, but eventually Law asked, “What do you intend to do?”

“Meld my mind with his,” the Alchemist said. “It can handle more of a burden than his.”

“Is that safe?” Law asked, concerned.

“I don’t know.” The Alchemist looked into Argrave’s eyes, adjusting his head. “I’ve never done it before. Every attempt nearly broke me.”

“Yet you intend to try it now.”

“You’ve heard the alternative.” The Alchemist pulled out the scalpel Argrave had given him years prior, bringing it forth to the man’s face. “Best have your Justiciars shield us. This won’t be a pleasant view for his army.”

The Alchemist cut into Argrave’s face, starting just below the chin. He stuck the blade deep, deep. Once it was at its deepest, the Alchemist began to turn it counterclockwise. The blade zipped through, rising up the jaw, past the ear, around the top of the head, then back down. Having cut a perfect circle, the Alchemist grasped Argrave’s face and pulled lightly. All of it came free, revealing the brain within. The Alchemist carved away a few more hanging bits, then set aside Argrave’s face.

“Perhaps he should have—” Law began.

“Shut up,” the Alchemist interrupted the ancient god. “I need to concentrate.”

The Alchemist slowly reached one hand of many toward Argrave’s spongy brain. He rested his fingers atop it… and then slowly began to sink in, as though pushing through water. Unpleasant squelching noises filled the air. The Alchemist took a deep, deep breath once his hand was far inside, then began to interface with Argrave’s mind.

At once, a torrent of overwhelming power fell upon him. Not knowledge—the Alchemist could handle that. One of the reasons he had long avoiding directly touching another’s mind was related to the Smiling Raven. To escape that beast, he had cut away parts of himself. And those parts… those human parts, that led him to commit the single largest act of genocide in history…

They all came rushing back, as he joined with a mind that still had what the Alchemist had lost.

#####

Argrave felt like he was wandering for a very long time. He walked across a desert of white sand, and at the end of it all, an empire of dead children smiled down on him like blinking stars. But before this long journey, he was certain he had been doing something else. He had been trying to take something… and someone else was stopping him. Names floated—Anneliese, Fellhorn, Galamon, Melanie, Sataistador, Law, Elenore… he had vague associations for each of them. Family, ally, enemy… but the wires were crossed, and the currents flowing through them led him nowhere in particular.

He talked to so many people, and they told him so many different things. They asked for something from him, and he gave them something in return. Specifications for a bomb, detailed lineage of a child, the secrets of untold magic, the truth of a lover’s affair… all so vague, with enough faces on each of them he started to forget what his own looked like. As a matter of fact, he was having some difficulty remembering his own name. Did it start with a ‘v,’ or an ‘a?’ He thought both were true, but it was difficult to work it all out. Perhaps ‘Erlebnis’ was his name. That name rung out so often, surely it had to be related to him somehow.

Erlebnis started to scan through all of the things that he saw, recontextualizing much of what was there. If he took this name as his own, things started to make a little more sense. It gave him perception of self—it gave him a place in these countless knowings, these countless millennia of words and the names born from them. Yet as he did so, he felt them seize up, catch in the gears of the machine. He saw other memories, too, locked away and fragmented. Someone named Argrave, looking up at his father the king. Those felt different. Realer, somehow.

Then, the haze broke. Argrave felt as though he’d been pulled up out of the pool he’d been drowning in, and clarity that he’d lost suddenly returned. He felt sick, broken, battered… he’d been swimming in a pool of thoughts and knowledges not his own, and now something pulled him up from the surface. When he finally remembered how to see, he saw a gray-haired man holding him by the neck.

“Raven?” Argrave asked.

“Yes,” he said without affect, then clutched his throat and seemed to be in agony. “Yeah, it’s me. Feeling more yourself?”

“A little… what the hell is happening?” Argrave straightened himself, looking around. He couldn’t even tell if he was standing, if he was doing anything at all.

“Erlebnis’ gift,” Raven said. “Tried to just take it from you, but it didn’t work. I didn’t move fast enough. This package he sent—it’s entwined with your mind now. Everything from your speech, to your muscle’s function. I take it, I vegetablize you. We have to sort this out.” Raven clutched his head, then hunched over. “At the same time, I’m fighting other things.”

Argrave had vague memories of this so-called gift—he’d received it in a forest, right? Or was it a snowy tundra? Or… the Palace of Heaven?

Reminded, Argrave grabbed Raven as he hunched. “I can’t be here. I have to stop the god of war, Galamon.”

Raven laughed loudly, then fell to the ground. “Yeah? Galamon? Seems we’re two psychos, one mind, sorting out both our damned problems.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve got to fight to keep your head functioning… reasonably well.” Raven wobbled his hand. “You might drool a little by the end of this, might have a bit of a bum leg, but I think we can partition your mind enough to preserve its function. And my hope is that, by the end of this… you can help me make up my mind about a little moral dilemma called potentiation. But let’s start at the beginning, and work from there… which limb could you do without?”