Iron Quill 2013: The Starry Road - Per Asperum

[hippodruid]

The Breach is closed. Magic is dying. I am dying. The dull, lusterless soulstone on my wall was a grim reminder of these truths, no less than the hawkish, expectant eyes of my caretakers.

For years, I prized them, worked with them, tapped into their invigorating bounty of power. When the first stones came from Malifaux, every hedge wizard, fortune teller, and doctor found a way to buy a steady supply of them, and I was no different. What little legitimate business I did, logistics and salvage mostly, was used to fuel my need for the stones with their milky gleam and infinite promise. As far as investments go, pooling one’s resources into magic will always pay rich dividends if one has the skill to apply it. And skill I had. In the final days of the Breach, I knew enough, invented enough that the stones paid for themselves, and the modest shop I maintained sprang to life with the most wondrous creations and priceless objects, all wrought by my mind and hands.

The riots on the day news reached us of the Breach’s closure rivaled the destruction of Alexandria. Hundreds of magic-users died, torn apart by spell, cannon, rifle and blade alike. Knowledge that had only just struggled into its infancy drifted back into the ether from whence it came, vanishing as so much smoke. I will never forget the dead or the manner of their death or the desolation left after they had passed. At times, however, I envy them their quick end.

The rest of us suffocated for decades, choking on the ashes of our former glory. The stones we had loved and cherished were ripped away from us in a desperate attempt to capture the dying, so many in those days, their souls fuel for impotent charms and laughable cantrips. Without magic, we withered. I survived longer than many, selling the clockwork devices that I had formed with the power of the soulstones but which were fuelled by springs and flywheels. A wealthy man once bought one of my now unpowered devices. The memory attached to it gave him comfort, he said.

My luck only lasted me a scant decade. By the end of it, I was a pauper, like so many, a ragpicker once more, trading scrap for meals and what coal I could afford. In my destitution I applied my knowledge of mechanics to the flesh of my fellow, desperate men in grisly chirurgeries. The two systems are not often compatible. The few who survived paid amply, though, and the work afforded me a modicum of comfort and respect. All the while I designed spells to ease the process, spells to steal the pain, to fortify the body. I could not practice them, but with God as my witness, I would not let magic slip from my life.

And now age has taken it all from me. My left hand failed me first followed soon by my right leg, the former taken by a terrible, twisting arthritis and the latter the gout. I applied my own chirurgical techniques to myself for as long as I could bear it. For thirty years I suffered and limped along before I surrendered. My health had declined steadily, and my ability to work kept pace with it. Expecting the end any day, I consigned myself to a nearby hospital, and I have lived there since, these past three years.

But what of my infirmity? Upon my arrival, I signed over the sum of my worldly goods that I might have a few moments of peace before my eternal rest, burrowed in the heart of one of the stones—so common in hospitals these days—I had cherished so much in my youth. Yet when the orderlies escorted me to my final dwelling place, my heart grew half a century younger. There, opposite my bed, mounted high on the wall, a single, perfect, smooth soulstone, dull as ash but beautiful all the same. I wept on seeing it. The burly, mindless aides who had brought me here paid my tears no mind. I would learn later that it was a common response, either out of reminiscence or dread.

Two months later, my ward had its first death. I woke in the middle of the night to a strange light tickling my eyelids. There, across from me, in the darkness of the room, the stone flickered. Like a candle flame of pure white it danced. I roused my aching bones, took my cane in hand and crossed the vast gulf between my bed and my dead roommate’s. The surface was smooth and cold, but I will swear to my dying day that I felt the pulse of magic within it. Magic. Even in such a small quantity so vibrant, so essential. In the darkness I whispered words I had written decades ago, stealing only a breath of that miracle, that wonder, not enough to cure me completely for the stone had no such power then, but enough to ease my pain, to strengthen my gut and my heart. Enough to live on.

In the morning, two aides came to remove the body. The one I have since come to despise the most groaned and complained that the stone barely shone, saying it would take two or three more deaths before it would be suitable. The other hushed him, and they hurriedly placed the corpse on a stretcher and carried it from the room. I had a new roommate within days, but I had other things to occupy my mind. Once again, I turned to my spells. A few scraps of paper and some charcoal nibs kept me company in the coming months, even as I fed on the deaths of those newcomers to the hospital. I became acutely aware that no spell I could draw would cure me completely, no formula or utterance enough to repair the ravages of time and hardship, even with the power of a full soulstone behind it. I would need to think in a different direction.

In these past three years, I have mended myself ever so slightly from each death in this place, just enough to prolong my existence, to chase my dream. This past night, immediately following the death of my final roommate, I began my work.

I have acquired a kind of fame or renown in the hospital, at least on this ward, as the undying man. For my pain, I have a supply of ether on hand and morphine when I request it. I give the impression of a kindly man to those who interact with me, even while they wait ever so patiently for me to die. And so it was that I spoke with one of the kinder orderlies last night, requesting a dose of the poppy. While he went to the dispensary, I readied myself by the door.

Upon his return, an ether-soaked rag robbed him quickly of his senses and continued application of the heady spirit drained wakefulness from him. Grimacing with the effort, I hobbled over to the stone and plucked it from the wall as the workers had done so many times in my tenure here. It was not shining as brightly as it could, only half so much, perhaps.

In the years of my time here, I have worked on new spells and ideas, thoughts of salvation for myself. But it would take power. More than half a soulstone’s worth. And I would need a vessel.

The design of the spells was ingenious, if I must say so myself. Much like a jar over a bonfire will only capture so much smoke, I suspected that a soulstone would only capture so much of a dying soul as it passes. The first spell would distill this. As I drew magic from the stone, I spoke the words of power over the prone man. With no more than a flash of light to signify its completion, the deed was accomplished, and the stone glowed as brightly as the ones fresh from the Breach. Beneath me the man stirred, and his eyelids snapped open. Inside was a gaze so hollow, so dispassionate, that I could not meet them. He did not resist when I closed them with a shaking hand, nor did they open again.

The next spell was more complex, more dangerous, although based in the first. Second perhaps only to the soulstone, the body is the most ideal housing for the spirit of a man. With incantation and glyph and the whole of the newly charged stone, I shackled my soul, myself to this empty, living husk. But I did not transfer over. Although it was anchored elsewhere, I could feel my body clinging to my essence. It had never been intended to leave. Fumbling in the dark of the room, my fingers caught the bottle of laudanum the orderly had brought me. I steeled myself and took the whole of it in a draught.

I lay on my bed and waited. My breathing grew quieter and quieter as my body relaxed. I imagined the husk stood and began to move about. I closed my eyes and prayed that all my magic was for something, that I could live on just a bit longer. I dreamed of all the good I could do for my fellow men. That I would amount to more than a tombstone with the words “LEVETICUS—Ad astra per asperum” graven upon it.

Before the morning, I cleaned up after myself. My toppled cane I replaced at my night stand. The stone, glowing faintly from my death, I placed in my pocket. The empty bottles I returned to the dispensary, and I left the hospital.

Already as I write this, my limbs ache. My soul is trying to make this body familiar, and I fear it will succeed before too long. I must perfect the process, and I must hurry. I cannot allow Time to conquer me. I need to transcend it, and I will. There is so much I must yet do.

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So yes, it's 101 minutes late and 182 words long, but I still wanted to post it. I promise I'll do better next round!

Secret Ingredients! The Glass Man, The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions, and To the Stars.

Edited January 26, 2013 by hippodruid
I am illiterate, apparently.