COMPANION, Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

For the rest of his life, Mane would never forget the day he died.
          Jacob stood behind the children, his expression unreadable. Eriane thrashed against Pare’s embrace, struggling to get back to Mane. Samuel, a head taller than any of them, towered behind and to Jacob’s side, a look of regret and gratitude impossibly painted across his unchangeable metal facade.
          “NO!” Eriane screamed.
          Jacob touched Pare’s shoulder and Samuel’s metal frame, forming a circuit, then tilted a knowing nod toward Mane. The air thumped a toneless bass-note and the four of them vanished among a quickly dissipating cloud of swirling ribbons of dark energy.
          The cabin’s impressive library came apart in drips, books once held to every odd angle of the walls and ceiling falling in ones and twos as the finely-honed constructions of khet eroded under the breaker’s ministrations. Mane stepped over to the thin-framed construct who‘d stayed behind when the rest abandoned ship, smiling.
          “Looks like this is it, Icariascus,” he said to his old metal friend.
          Icariascus tilted his copper-clad face toward the old man, his round eyes impassive. “It has been an honor,” the construct said, his tinny voice quiet.
          A bitter smile moved across Mane’s face. “Well done, Icariascus,” he said. “I’ll allow myself to remain convinced of your sincerity.”
          The construct nodded. “My understanding may not mirror yours,” he said, and paused, “but it is not without merit, I think.”
          Mane clapped Icariascus on the shoulder.
          From across the room, a loud clank! signaled the failure of yet another of Mane’s creations as the fireplace armature, a delicate piece of artificery designed to load wood and stoke the fire automatically (and one of Mane’s favorite accomplishments), fell away from beneath the mantle, dangling from its hinge onto the stones of the hearth. This brigand breaker was talented indeed, undermining years of complex kheomancy and artificery built into the little woodland safe-house in a matter of minutes.
          Books rained down. Mane separated himself from Icariascus. “Hopefully we can divide their attention. Just try to-” Mane found himself at a loss for what instruction to give. Ten or more invaders, at least some of them adepts, against an old mage and an even older construct. Even buoyed by experience and adeptitude, he didn’t like those odds.
          There were no defensive positions here. No bulwarks or ramparts to hide behind. His workbench offered the only real cover in the room, but as he moved toward it the front door crashed open, flinging splinters of the frame across the main room and lighting a fire among Mane’s anger and fear. They would pay dearly for their intrusion.
          First through the door, first to fall. With a flick of gathered khet, the invader’s head spun round backward and his lifeless body hit the floor before he could even register the motion. A good start, but combat had never been Mane’s forte. In his slow recovery, more crashed through the breach.
          Five, in total. So far. Splitting away from Icariascus had the desired effect, leaving Mane to deal with three and the construct with two. He had a nice store of khet now, but would need to allocate it carefully. Three against one was still bad odds.
          Mane waived off their first rudimentary constructions of khet with little effort. One used simple kinetic adeptitude to hurl falling books and tools from the workbench while the other worked more directly, attempting physical assaults like the one to which their comrade had fallen. Mane probed their defenses with a few easy cantrips, deflected harmlessly by the third in the group, clearly the most skilled of them.
          This fight required a more direct approach. Mane concentrated on the one in the back, the adept of note. After a fast and tense kheomantic dance the man blinked and sputtered as blood welled up in his eye sockets, staining his cheeks red. Getting him out of the way made easy targets of the other two. The second clutched at his throat, his mouth wide in an airless gasp as his windpipe collapsed. With what little khet Mane had left, he dispatched the third more directly, breaking his nose and shoving the bone into his brain while still a few strides away.
          Mane took note of their situation as he refilled his empty store of energy. Icariascus’s assailants lay motionless at the edges of the cabin’s main room, the construct’s attacks more directly physical. All the while Mane drew khet and raised a bump field, preparing for another onslaught. Blood trickled over his lips and left a metallic tang on his tongue from the kheomantic exertion. Perhaps he’d cut that last one a little too close.
          The second wave came on fast, fewer this time but more talented. Simpler constructions deflected away from his bump field, but the adepts worked in behind it and forced him into a purely defensive position. He spent every effort deflecting their attacks and maintaining the field as he searched for an opening.
          A deafening report slammed through the inside of the cabin. Mane felt a disturbance ripple through his bump field an instant before being punched in the chest, rocking him backward. His right arm went slack and his bump field dropped. A warm wetness spread down his chest, bringing with it a compression that robbed him of breath. His left hand moved to where he’d been struck and came away crimson. He staggered again, steadying himself against his workbench.
          His two opponents moved away, no longer considering him a threat. The distinctive crack of mafi-sticks cut through his mental haze. Icariascus lay prone on the floor. A distant voice called out, unintelligible. A tall blur approached him and the acrid smell of gun-smoke jolted him back to his senses.
          His entire workbench lay before him, filled with tools too delicate to be of any use in his old hands. A glint of light caught his eye and there, atop a short stack of books, sat the Ring of Lorrem. Two combatant serpents, cast in silver, their jeweled eyes glinting in the morning light. Samuel had brought it, thinking it was important, and Mane had told him fairy tales.
          But sometimes fairy tales were true.
          Mane snatched up the ring and clumsily slipped it over his middle two fingers just as a rough hand caught a fistful of his shirt and hauled him forward. The ring vibrated on his hand; the waves of its power almost painful through the bones of his fingers.
          The ruffian pulled Mane close, face-to-face, the light from the small round window sliding over the dark skin of his shaved head. A searing heat just below his ribcage stole his strength as the mercenary’s knife moved to finish the job the gunshot started. Mane’s knees gave way and his murderer rode him to the ground.
          Mane grabbed the killer’s wrist. The ring pulsated with the slowing beat of his heart, focusing his mind and giving him the last moment of clarity he needed. A ragged breath shuddered in his faltering lungs. Khet gathered and coursed through him, the ring acting as a conduit, amplifying his effort. As his last breath escaped into the morning air, he released his hold on the power he’d gathered. Exhilaration built as what felt like a tidal wave of kheomantic force rolled through him, down his arm and into his hand, out through the base of the serpent ring.
          The world froze.
          Nothing happened.
          The experience of dying mirrored accounts he’d heard of near-death experiences. First, a flash of bright white light filling all of his vision. As it faded he found himself in a foggy tunnel, drawn toward an even brighter white light. Unlike the descriptions, though, he didn’t simply walk or float through the tunnel. Instead, he hurtled toward the light at its end as though falling from a great height.
          His life did not flash before him. He had no reckoning of his joys or his regrets. He had time only to feel sorry he’d left Icariascus in the hands of these killers, and to hope Jacob had been successful in spiriting away Samuel and the children. The end of the tunnel rushed to meet him and he slammed into the light, a more painful experience than he would’ve expected.
          He was dead, after all.
          Every nerve in his body reverberated with a wave of shock as the light consumed him. His entire consciousness tore to shreds, only to be rearranged and crammed back together in an explosion of sensation. Racking pain faded to sleepy calm washed away by almost orgasmic pleasure, only to be swept aside once again by searing agony. The pain subsided and he was left with a tingling numbness. The white light receded and he strained to make out shapes as his blindness faded.
          Color seeped back into his vision and he found himself staring down at his own face. He hovered over his own body, which lay on its back on the floor of his cabin, behind his old work bench. The corpse’s face contorted into a death mask of pain and surprise, the sight of his lifeless eyes more than a little disconcerting. He floated upward, away from himself, and saw the expanding pool of blood around his recently murdered form.
          The numbness began to fade, replaced by the pins-and-needles of returning circulation. An odd sensation, he thought, for a disembodied consciousness. A noise to his right jolted him back to reality and he realized he was not floating—he was standing.
          Blood stained the dark skin of his hands. In his right he held a short but cruel looking knife whose blade shined through a coating of red. Breath came without pain and feeling returned to his muscles. Every sensation, even the pain, was unmistakably altered. Every breath, every tiny movement, every sound and smell, just felt… different.
          Realization dawned. Mane had discovered the true nature of at least this particular Ring of Lorrem: the transference of consciousness. Eat your heart out, kheomantic scholars.
          But this was not the time to gloat.
          Icariascus lay prone in the middle of the cabin floor, surrounded by mercenaries with mafi-sticks at the ready. In the doorway stood a man with close-cropped blond hair and a scarred face, surveying the situation with the air of a military commander, his silver eyes scanning every inch of the cabin interior and coming to rest on Mane.
          Mane’s every instinct screamed to kill the man on the spot, but when those malicious eyes betrayed no reaction, he forced down his instincts and tried to settle into his new role. “The old man is dead,” he said in a deep, foreign voice, wiping the blood away from the blade in his hand. The silver eyes rolled off of him and toward Icariascus as another mercenary stepped through the doorway to stand behind him.
          Mane’s gaze flitted back to his construct friend. The odds were against them, even now. Five other men in the room, three of them surrounding the construct, and maybe more outside. Even if he could take out one or two of them, there was no escape for he and his old construct. But maybe they could still do something to help.
          He walked calmly toward Icariascus and tried to pull khet from his surroundings, a once familiar process made suddenly difficult, like attempting fine embroidery while wearing armored gloves. The tiny amount of khet he could gather wasn’t enough to mount any sort of offensive, and the cap-lock pistol at his hip hung useless, already spent.
          Mane watched his options dwindle. He couldn’t devise a way to save Icariascus from them now, and the result for the construct would not be pleasant. His only hope would be to take as many of the mercenaries out in one fell swoop as he could in the hopes of preventing their pursuit of Samuel and the children. A plan formed in his mind, and he could only hope Icariascus would understand. Mane already died once today; a second death didn’t seem that worrisome.
          Mane sauntered his new body over to where Icariascus knelt, every step an interesting new sensation, and bent down close to his face. “I’m going to enjoy watching this,” he said. Then, in a lower voice, “Icariascus.” As he spoke, he released some of his meager gathered khet into Icariascus’s frame, hoping it would help restore some of the energy the mafi-sticks had sapped. Icariascus tilted his head, just barely, a meaningless gesture to most of the room, but significant to Mane.
          He pointedly looked over his shoulder at the merc near the door, then tapped the handle of the pistol at his hip. When he turned back he tapped on the center of his chest, hoping it would be enough for Icariascus to understand.
          “Wot’d you call it?” one of the mercs asked.
          Before he had to think up an answer Icariascus lurched. Mane only just raised a small bump field around his hand as the construct landed a rocking punch to what should’ve been his sternum. The cabin sailed by beneath him and he slammed hard into something softer than the wall, a pleasant surprise. Another mercenary crumpled behind him, having broken his fall by slamming into the doorjamb. He thanked the Vells he was at least still able to raise a competent bump field, or he’d be crumpled to the wall like Icariascus’s other opponents.
          Mane rolled and snatched the downed man’s pistol. As he came upright, he cocked the hammer back and took aim at Icariascus. His friend understood perfectly, and mirrored Mane’s earlier gesture by tapping a spot just below his chest with his thin metal fingers. The air around Mane prickled with the energy of someone’s massive khet draw. The crack of the pistol drowned out the silver-eyed man’s scream.
          The bullet struck home and the cabin erupted into a blinding explosion, lifting Mane clear off his feet. The mottled grey of an overcast sky dominated his vision for a long moment before a bad landing, and everything went black.