Chapter 61: Memories

She sat in the quasi-darkness, staring at the man lying on the bed. Her eyes drifted over him, from the frail, thin arms to the sunken, emaciated chest. The man’s skin was pale and clammy, even as the shimmer of her spell rolled over him. His skin was loose on his frame, revealing the bones beneath. His cheeks were sunken, his thin nose looking sharp on the pinched face. His once firm chin now looked hard and bony. Even his long, blonde hair looked brittle and gray.

She pulled her knees up, her heels digging into the plump cushion at the edge of the chair and wrapped her arms about her legs. As she sank her chin against her knees, huddled in the chair, her diminutive size made her look like a little girl. Her short brown hair curled against her rounded face. Her features were set in intense concentration, and her hair managed to reflect a shadowy counterpoint off her rounded nose and wide, thin lips.

She knew she had let this run too long. It was time to awaken him before he sank too deep and before his body grew too lean. Her slaves had been feeding him by hand, but she knew it was not enough. The body needed more than just sustenance to maintain it – and the amount of food able to be delivered by a non-responding mouth and throat was not enough to make up the difference.

“Strange that you are my only friend,” Wizard Darrowyn Caniferd reflected aloud. Her head tilted quickly and she corrected herself. “Well, my servant ... but also my only friend.”

She knew her circumstances and the date made her maudlin. Though she tried to fight it, it came upon her anyway. She had learned to live with it, though it angered her after it passed.

Her body had betrayed her. She had spent countless years ruling herself with an iron fist, focused only on the ultimate goal and refusing to acknowledge her body’s needs or desires. It had made her formidable and strong, capable of inhuman acts of patience and will. Others feared her willpower and their fear combined with her will made her extremly dangerous.

Well, she was still feared and dangerous – but there was now a chink in her armor. After foolishly loosening her hold on her sexuality – believing sex with the mindless slaves would not change her – her body’s desires and needs had crept upon her unaware and taken control. Her focus was stunted by her heat, and she had succumbed to it over and over and over again in the past year or so. Now, there was a steady truce – but it would be short-lived.

She was with child. She had looked at Isanto Hamlade as the perfect compromise. His mind merged with another far away, he had no use of his body – so she had used it. Daily. Often many, many times per day.

She had thought herself clever. She had thought she’d found a loophole. She thought she had been careful. She thought she had allowed none of his seed within her.

Obviously, she was wrong.

Hamlade could never know he was the father, of course. There really was no need. She would raise and care for the child alone. She would raise her daughter to be better than she was. Stronger. Immune from the calling of the flesh. Her daughter would be ruthless and take her place at her side. Between the two of them, they would rule this silly little world.

There was a price to pay, however. Her willpower was subservient to the hormones the growing child elicited within her. Thoughts and needs fought within her and she found herself succumbing to whims instead of plans. As a result, she was more emotional, more ... sentimental.

That, and of course the day. The anniversary.

She closed her eyes and focused her thoughts, as much as she could. She had thought about just letting Hamlade slip away. If he were dead, she need never worry he might find out her daughter’s parentage. She couldn’t bring herself to do it, however.

He was her only friend.

She released her power, breaking through the bonds that held the younger, less powerful mage. She un-merged the two minds, painstakingly separating the one from the other. It was not easy. The spell was only intended for a few days – maybe a ten-day at most. Isanto Hamlade had been merged for nearly three times that long. Certainly she’d awakened him once – but she knew the brief reprieve would not be long enough to truly unbind the two minds. Still, he was strong, which is why she had allowed him as her student.

“It’s time to awaken, Hamlade,” she said quietly as she severed the last connection. She pulled her power back, waiting to be sure the man would re-learn the trick of breathing on his own without the mind of another echoing the need. “It’s time for you to rejoin the world.”

She watched as Isanto struggled for a moment, his breath coming in fitful gasps. His eyes opened wide and rolled in confusion and his thin, emaciated hands gripped the coverlet in a tight, firm grip.

“Where...?” He asked. “What...? How...?”

“Slowly, Hamlade,” Darrowyn murmured, sinking her chin back on her knees. She watched him – not with concern, she would never be concerned about him, but with ... curiosity. “You’ve been merged for quite a while. Take some time to gather yourself and get your bearings.”

“Master,” the man breathed. His voice was harsh and coarse, sounding like he had gravel lodged in his throat. He raised his head, but it was almost sad – his chin drew up, struggling to get to his chest, only to fall back onto the pillow. He looked so old, yet Darrowyn knew Isanto was countless centuries younger than she.

Darrowyn waited like that, her chin on her knees, her eyes carefully watching her underling. She knew pressing him would do no good, but she would not have him lazing about either. There were things to do and no matter her melancholy, she would have answers.

“Report, Hamlade,” she intoned when she sensed he was beyond the worst of it, a touch of steel creeping into her voice. Eventually, she knew she’d have to feed him and let him rest, but she wanted answers now. Three weeks was a long time to be merged with another mind, but the man was alive and that was enough.

“D-d-dragons, master,” Isanto stuttered. His eyes were closed, and his head rested on the pillow.

“What nonsense are you talking?” Caniferd grated. She would not have him passing fanciful fluff. The merging affected the entire consciousness, blurring the line between wakefulness and dreams but she expected him to be made of sterner stuff. She expected him to recognize reality from fantasy.

“The armored man and his companions were attacked by dragons,” Isanto wheezed, his breath coming in painful gasps.

Darrowyn Caniferd’s eyes narrowed as she regarded her underling. Her first thought was that he had succumbed. The extended merging had broken his grip on reality. He must have been hallucinating – or stuck in a dream his host was having. “There are no dragons, Hamlade. Well, there are – but they’re kept as pets by the elves. The last of the true dragons died out eons ago. All that was left was a small group of Titanium dragons the elves subjugated. The elves wouldn’t allow them out to hunt. They’ve gone to too much trouble to make the world forget them.”

“Not titanium,” Isanto grated, his voice weak and gravelly. “Blacks. Reds. Yellows and golds.”

“You’re still stuck in a dream!” Caniferd exclaimed harshly. “Don’t test me, Isanto. You will not like what you find. I will have the information, or I will break you!”

“M-m-master,” he wheezed. “It is true. All of it ... true.”

“Then why are you not dead?” Caniferd sneered. “Without magic to repel it, a single dragon should be enough to handle a whole platoon of knights, much less four of them.”

“Six of them, master,” Isanto groaned. “My host ... my host ... my host had been taken to a Tyln priestess for healing. His betrothed saw to it. She bargained for it, agreeing to become a priestess of Tyln in exchange. It was doubly a fool’s bargain. I sensed the priestess would accept much less but jumped at a new recruit. Besides which, her betrothed is so enamored of his self, there is no room for another. He tries to love her, to see her as his wife, but it is not within him to love anything more than himself.”

“Still, she managed it unawares,” he reported. “The Tyln priestess managed to heal him ... almost as good as new. He ... we ... I watched as the dragons dropped from the sky. I’m ... I’m not sure how many. At least six. Maybe as many as ten. It is so strange ... to view...”

“Yes,” Caniferd interrupted impatiently. “I know the limitations. A dream within a dream. How did they push the dragons back? How did they survive?”

“He wanted to run,” Isanto wheezed, his words coming between his gasps of breath. “So badly. He wanted to flee. To run from them. I forced him to stay. I pressed him to stay. At the end ... at the end, I think he might have known. I think he might have thought...”

“I didn’t ask you to report on the host,” Caniferd interrupted again. “I could care less what he thinks or knows. All he’ll have is suspicion. Report on what you believe to be dragons. How did they survive the attack?”

“They ... they ... they killed them,” Isanto rasped. “The knights ... the guards ... they killed them.”

“Impossible,” Caniferd screamed. “You’re lying. Or deluded. It would take at least three to five wizards to kill a single dragon. There is no way a rag-tag company of knights and guards could do it.”

“The blue knight led them,” Isanto managed to get out, spitting the words. “The armor ... the armor is even more powerful than we suspected. He ... he ... he lead them.”

“How...,” Caniferd started, but Isanto interrupted her.

“He ... he was helped by a ... by a white dragon,” Isanto continued, his voice trailing off weakly.

Caniferd’s eyes grew dark, and her face became a mask of rage. “There is no such thing as a white dragon, Hamlade. You’ve been dreaming and filling your head with fluff and nonsense.”