I am on the verge of success, I can feel it. Five subjects have survived the procedure and two show real promise. Terran 24 and Terran 25 need to be nurtured and directed, not sent off to die in my brother's pathetic war.
And, of course, Bell and Elsteth and Marrow have complained about my experiments directly to my brother. He'll order me to stop, I know it. He's always loved ordering me about, ever since we were children. But I cannot stop. I cannot allow him to stop me.
I have developed a new technique. It is monstrous. I know it is. Biomancy should never be used this way. It should never be used to take rather than give, but I don't have a choice. The only way to bring back the Rand and Djinn is to balance the equation. Life must be bought with life. I must find out the worth of a single life and this is the only way to do it. It is the only way. It is.
Josef reads more. Flicking through page after page and discovering the truth. It was clear the man writing the passages was growing more agitated with each entry. More agitated and more monstrous.
Year 611 – O 9th of Abaster
It takes something from you. I realise it now. Now it is too late. Now it has taken enough from me that I have perspective.
The lives no longer matter like they used to. I can remember they did, but how did it feel to take a life? I used to feel guilt at using my Biomancy to take another person's life and add it to my own, but not anymore. Guilt is a word with no meaning. A feeling I am now beyond. I have surpassed so many of the terran emotions. Ascended. Yes, I like that word. I have ascended. I am not longer a normal terran. I am greater. I am immortal.
The Rand and the Djinn are immortal. Age and time mean nothing to them. But no matter how many lives I have taken, all I am doing is preserving what is left of me, and that is far too little. My flesh sags, my bones ache. My mind is as clear as ever, but the flesh fails it.
The Djinn, Aerolis, said immortality is not possible for a terran. It's a lie, but also a truth. The Djinn may be masters of time, but the Rand are masters of flesh. The Rand have remade terrans before. They can do it again.
The original plan still stands. I must bring back the Rand. Enough of them to remake me. Not as a terran, but as something greater. Something immortal.
Josef shuts the journal with a slap and listens to his own rapid breathing. It feels as though the book is staring at him, judging him somehow. It's just a book. But it's not. It's a descent into madness. He snatches it off the desk and throws it away, listening to it slide along the floor into the darkness.
Is that his fate? Being forced to steal lives from others until he no longer cares? Until guilt is a word with no meaning? No. He can't do it. He can't become that.
Josef stands and calms his breathing, remembering the old techniques the tutors taught him. Deep breaths in and out, slow and rhythmic, in and out. He has to escape. There must be a way to escape. And he will find it.
Chapter 20
Weeks after Horralain's death and Coby had yet to show herself again. I wasn't fooled. The vengeful Aspect was still out there somewhere. Hardt had returned, sullen as a storm cloud. We didn't speak, just shared angry glances. I missed him. I needed someone to talk to about Horralain, someone to share my pain and anger with. Ishtar just pushed booze at me whenever I brought up the subject. Imiko vanished the moment I said his name, and Tamura claimed the thug was still with us, as though he could see the ghost who drifted after me. Horralain's spirit was as watchful of me in death as the man had been in life. I considered unravelling him like I had with Deko, to give him a measure of peace in the nothing of true death, but I couldn't. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to another friend for good. I wasn't even sure it was what he would want.
Under guidance from Ishtar, I sent scouts out toward Juntorrow, the capital and seat of the Emperor's power. We all knew he wouldn't allow me to fester inside his empire. Word came back that an army had been raised, two thousand soldiers at least, and a handful of battle Sourcerers. It was more than enough to crush my little rebellion ten times over, but sometimes it's good for a ruler to crush their enemies into the ground. It makes an example of them, reduces the probability of others rising. Besides, we were the first real rebellion since Orran fell. The Emperor intended to put us down hard. I was ready for it. I knew it was going to happen. But being ready for something and being prepared for it are two very different things.
Ishtar told me we couldn't win. Hardt said the same, though he wouldn't say it to me directly. The soldiers who had joined me from the Pit were loath to agree with anything Ishtar said, and most of the time they barely acknowledged her existence, but on this they agreed. We were a few hundred people, and only half of those had any battle experience. I was one Sourcerer. We couldn't win against an army, nor against an empire drawn against us. Some counselled surrender, others said we would be wise to flee into the Forest of Ten and hide amidst the dense trees. I chose another option. I chose to meet the Emperor and his army before he reached my city, and I chose to leave all my soldiers behind.
I marched south with all the bravado I could muster and gave Tamura orders to keep the home fires burning. The old Aspect was far better at organising the day to day affairs of a city than I ever was. I thought Hardt would stay, leave me to my madness, but the big man joined me without a word. Ishtar too, though that was no surprise. My pahht sword tutor was sick of the stares and whispers. She was sick of Terrelan. I was most surprised that Imiko joined me. She wanted nothing to do with war, of course. I have often thought about Imiko and why she followed along as she did. I believe she was swept up in my wake, lost and unable to realise she would have been so much better off by abandoning me and my lost cause. Things would have gone so much better had all my friends just left me to face down the Emperor's army alone. I suppose that is the truest act of friendship I have ever witnessed. They were willing to follow me into the depths of madness, even knowing it was suicide. They couldn't have known I had a plan, because I didn't tell them.
Many times, I have ruminated about my own reasons for taking the fight to the Emperor and his armies in such a brazen way. I have concluded that war is a part of me. I have often thought that children born in war never truly leave it behind. The Orran-Terrelan war was already well under way when I was born and more than that, I was raised into it. I was raised for it. The tutors at the academy taught me to kill for one simple reason. I am the weapon. War is who I am. I cannot seem to leave it behind no matter how hard, or how many times I try. Even in times of peace, surrounded by friends and loved ones, I still look for the next fight.
Three days south from the Pit we made camp. It was far enough that my city would not get caught up in the battle, and also far enough we would have time to prepare. In some ways it felt a lot like old times, a small group of us battling hardship. But too much had changed. Ishtar worried, always finding a new blade to sharpen and never seeming happy with the result. Hardt grumbled to the others and said not a word to me, even when I faced him and demanded it. Imiko looked sick to her stomach by the thought of what was to come. She had no idea.
That first night I left them to their fire and melancholic company, striking out alone into the darkness. "Are you ready?"
Are you?
"No. But I don't think I have much of a choice. We're running out of time. His armies will be here soon."