Some would have called my actions foolish; I know Hardt did. But there was nothing foolish about them. Aerolis saw me as another worthless terran. A life to be toyed with and discarded on a whim. A nobody and a nothing. Fuck that! I needed the Djinn to see me as an equal, or at least as close as possible to it. A part of that desire was pride. Aerolis had shown deference and fear to the Iron Legion, and I would demand the same. Of course, the Iron Legion had fought with the Djinn, and I was trying my best to avoid just that. I was certain Aerolis could still swat me like a fly if he really put his mind to it.
"I figured out something else, Aerolis. Something you didn't mean to show me. I know where you come from." I looked up towards the moons. Lokar was prominent, clearly visible despite the bright day. The blue of his bulk shielding much of Lursa's red.
"And you think that knowledge matters?"
I shook my head. "No. I just wanted you to know. I'm not here to threaten or coerce you, Aerolis. I'm here to offer you a deal. Our third and final deal." And this time I hoped to get the better end of it.
Chapter 14
Josef was drugged past the point to resist. I cannot begin to imagine how that must feel. He found himself a prisoner as surely as he had when he was down in the Pit, but worse. Down there he had been forced to dig, beaten occasionally for little to no reason at all, and fed the most meagre of rations. With the Iron Legion there was no digging, no beatings, generous food, and a warm bed, yet it was still so much worse. With the Iron Legion, Josef was forced to kill.
Disobedience was met with punishment; the death of another. The Iron Legion had no conscience, a life was nothing to him but a resource to be spent. Perhaps he couldn't see, couldn't imagine all the little threads that connect a person to the world. A life branching out into a countless number of connections. Family, friends, enemies. He couldn't see the pain it caused, or maybe he just didn't care. Some people are like that, unable to feel anything that does not directly affect them.
These are not my memories. They are Josef's.
It was time. Time to take the drug. To give away control of his body to the mad man. Time to kill. No! He couldn't think like that. He wasn't killing anyone. It wasn't him. Wasn't his choice. It wasn't him. It was all Loran. All Loran. It had to be.
Josef takes the Sweet Silence and swallows it willingly. What other choice does he have? Last time he resisted, the Iron Legion killed a young woman with dark skin and a scarred face. He remembers her, the fear in her eyes as Loran sucked the life from her. Then he forced Josef to take the drug anyway. A meaningless death. They were all meaningless deaths.
He feels his will drain away as the drug takes hold. Everything goes fuzzy around the edges. The niggling, scratchy pain from his cut throat fades. And then there's nothing. No feelings. No thoughts. Nothing but sweet silence and the commands of a monster.
Prisoners are brought before him. Not one or two, or ten or twenty. Hundreds of prisoners. Cages full of whimpering terrans or pahht, many are too malnourished to even stand, others rage at their confines, scream insults and threats, or make promises they have no hope of keeping. Some are criminals, some farmers, some shop owners. Some are just children. All are brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, parents. It doesn't matter who they were. They're nothing but fuel to burn now. A voice screams in the back of Josef's mind and it sounds like his own, but he can't really hear it and it doesn't matter. None of it matters.
They're in the lower laboratory with its reinforced walls, cages to the sides, chains on the ground, a wide-open space in the centre. Off to one side stands a single desk, an inkwell and a book sitting upon it. All the Iron Legion's notes on the experimentation are there. His successes, failures, formulae and calculations, numbers. All his research. Josef stands in the centre of the laboratory, waiting for instruction. Thinking nothing. Feeling nothing.
The Iron Legion picks up a small sceptre of plain grey metal. On the end of that sceptre sits a Source the size of an orange, clear and colourless. He moves closer, hands the sceptre to Josef, and goes back to his desk, flipping open his notebook and leafing through the pages. Josef waits. Again, he hears a voice screaming in the back of his mind. A wail of pain maybe? It doesn't matter. It's not his pain. He has no pain.
"Swallow your Biomancy Source now, Yenhelm." Josef obeys without question or hesitation. No thought. Only obedience. He takes the Source from a pocket in his trousers and pops it in his mouth, swallowing hard. The power sits inside his stomach. He can feel it. He can feel… No. There is no feeling. Only the cloying fog in his mind.
"Infuse the Source with their lives, one by one." The Iron Legion scribbles something in his notebook.
Josef turns away from his captor and approaches the first of the cages. It holds a woman of middling years with hair the colour of straw and skin as dark as coal. Her left arm was missing, taken above the elbow, the wound long since closed. Her eyes are full of sorrow and pleading. The voice beyond the fog in Josef's mind screams, but he can't hear it. Not really. And it doesn't matter. He reaches through the bars, grips hold of the woman's ankle, and sucks the life from her. It does not pass quickly, nor easily. She clings to what little life she has left, but in the end her resistance is futile. Josef's Biomancy is far too strong. The life, her energy passes through him and into the sceptre. The Source atop it begins to glow a little, as if lit from inside. It's faint, so much so it's barely perceptible. The screaming voice beyond the fog subsides, but Josef is certain he hears a faint sobbing in its place. It doesn't matter. It is not him. It can't be him.
How much was a life worth? A slight glow. A trickle of energy. The first of many. More prisoners are brought before Josef. He takes the life of each one, sucks them out through his Biomancy and pushes them in the sceptre. Into the Source. The sobbing behind the fog grows quieter.
Two hundred and sixteen terrans pass before him. Two hundred and sixteen lives he feeds to the Source. That's the number. The number of terran lives a single Rand is worth. That's what the Iron Legion's calculations have taught him. People with families, hopes, dreams. All gone.
Josef is crying. The sobbing no longer trapped behind the fog. He feels again. Thinks again. When had the Sweet Silence worn off? When had he gone from unable to follow Loran's commands to following without question? Why hadn't he stopped?
Two hundred and sixteen lives, now nothing but corpses littering the cages behind Josef. Why hadn't he stopped? Why hadn't he stopped? The Source is glowing with an inner blue light so strong it hurts to look at. So bright they could snuff out all the torches and still see into every corner of the laboratory. So fierce it looks like a snowstorm caught in a marble.
The Iron Legion makes another note in his book. "Now absorb it, Yenhelm. Take it in and give birth to a new Rand."
Should he fight? Resist. Loran will just kill more. Murder another and force him to do it anyway. It's easier not to struggle. Easier to push down the hate and guilt and grief. Easier to pretend he's still drugged. It's not his choice. Not really. It never was. He has no choice but to do what he's told.
On the bottom of the sceptre is a spike and Josef stabs it into his left hand, the metal piercing all the way through his palm. It's not like before, when he absorbed the Source from the sword that had run him through. That Source was dead, utterly lifeless. But this one is charged with life, primed with the energy needed for rebirth. He tries to absorb the Source, tries to open himself to it and draw it in. Something fights back. It resists him, pushes away. The Source glows brighter and brighter still. It hums with an electric energy. And then it explodes.