It would kill her. He rather doubted she’d play along with gaesh commands, even at the cost of her own life.
As Sir Oreth went to the fire to put a kettle on, the puppy growled at him and seemed disinclined to let him approach.
“Rebel, down,” Senera said. “Go to your pillow.”
The dhole gave Sir Oreth a reproachful look and circled back over to the velvet pillow.
“The dog’s name is Rebel?” Sir Oreth asked.
“Hmm. Shush. This is quiet time,” Senera said, staring at Janel’s body. She frowned.
Brother Qown shifted his position, wincing at the wounds he hadn’t yet fixed. He had a good idea what Senera attempted: healing Janel’s body before the gaeshing ritual. He also had a good idea why it wasn’t working. The same reason it hadn’t worked when he had tried it several weeks before.
If he did nothing—
Janel seemed stable, but Brother Qown didn’t know if that was due to some spell cast by Relos Var or Janel’s own magic. In either case, at some point, the spell would end and Janel would finish dying.
If Senera healed her, she’d suffer a worse fate. Being kidnapped and taken to Yor was bad enough; the dominion didn’t have a sterling reputation for its treatment of women. But if Relos Var and Senera planned to take Janel there under gaesh …
Qown thought about Senera’s statement, that death would be an escape. Thaena would bring Janel back, wouldn’t she? Maybe, maybe. But there was always the risk that it wouldn’t be Thaena who received Janel’s soul, but Xaltorath. Indeed, Qown was willing to bet Xaltorath had rigged things to obtain exactly that result. Which fate would be worse?
It wasn’t exactly a hard choice.
“You’re going to need help,” Brother Qown suggested.
Senera looked up.
“Her magical defenses are indiscriminate. It makes her hard to heal,” he elaborated. “You’ll need someone helping you.”
“If you try anything—”
“I know, I know. If I try anything, you’ll make me wish I was never born.”
“With a few variations, but yes, basically.” Senera motioned him over. “Pull up a stool, and let’s get to work.”
The work itself took about thirty minutes, and by the end, they had two cups of tea and a healthy, whole Joratese count.
Brother Qown wished he felt better about it. Saving Janel’s life had felt like a betrayal.
“Go sit back down. I won’t need you for the next part,” Senera said. “Also, this is the part where you’re likely to try something stupid from sheer moral fortitude, so it might be best to remove the temptation. Sir Oreth, if you’d like to prove yourself useful, keep an eye on the priest here. You shouldn’t need to resort to violence, but I’d keep the sword close, just in case. Oh, and it should go without saying, but don’t kill him. Yes?”
The Joratese man nodded and bent over to retrieve his fallen blade. He held the sword gingerly, as if it had just come fresh from the oven.
Brother Qown sat down again on his original bench, moving his fingers over himself to check for lingering hematomas. However, professional curiosity overcame him, and he started watching Senera paint markings on Janel’s hands, her face, and her chest.
“You’re not—” He frowned. “Who does that summon?”
Senera chuckled. “No one.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Sir Oreth looked back between the two other people. “Wait, why are we summoning a demon?”
Brother Qown blinked at him. “Because you have to. You have to summon a demon if you want to gaesh someone.”
“Oh.” Sir Oreth hesitated. “So … I mean, I’ve always wondered. What is a gaesh? I know it’s a thing you do to slaves…?”
“Adorable,” Senera said. “But as it happens, Brother Qown is wrong. You don’t have to summon a demon to gaesh someone. It’s just easier to have a demon do it.”
“And a gaesh?” Sir Oreth insisted.
Senera rolled her eyes. “It’s what you’ve heard. It keeps someone under your control. Not always successfully.”
“You rip away a piece of someone’s soul,” Brother Qown said. “You rip out a piece of their soul and use it to put them in unbearable pain if they disobey you. So unbearable it often kills.” He gave Sir Oreth a significant look. “If you recall, it’s what they debated doing to you.”
Sir Oreth looked uneasy, but he shrugged it off. “So we’re summoning a demon, then?”
Brother Qown would have expected him to fear such a pronouncement or at the very least be disgusted.
Yet Sir Oreth sounded excited.10
Senera shook her head. “I said we weren’t summoning a demon. We’re using a Cornerstone.”
Brother Qown straightened. “Which one?”
“The Stone of Shackles.”
“You have the Stone of Shackles?”
“No, but it’s irrelevant.” Senera continued talking as she sketched on Janel’s body. Brother Qown couldn’t tell what purpose the markings served, but perhaps calling on the Cornerstone’s powers required them.
Finally, she stepped back, tilted her head, and examined her work. Senera had drawn a spiraling design that covered the unconscious woman’s vital energy points.
“Now I need you both to be very quiet,” Senera said as she picked up a lion medallion from a shelf, “and I’m not joking when I say that if you defy me in this, you will spend your remaining days screaming.” She looked up at them. “Understood?”
The two men nodded.
Senera tucked her brush back into her hair and gestured toward Janel’s body. The body levitated and then tilted so Janel seemed to stand, her body vertical.
Holding the medallion in one hand, Senera touched the other to Janel’s hands, her neck, her forehead, and held her fingers in a claw shape over the woman’s heart.
Brother Qown couldn’t help but think that last gesture must be symbolic or even performative. There’s no special dwelling place for spiritual energy in the heart muscle.
He kept the thought to himself.
As Senera pulled her fingers back, thin energy strands flowed from Janel’s body to the woman’s hand. The motion reminded Qown of spinning thread: tiny strands of floss pulling from ball to spindle. As soul stuff pooled in Senera’s hand, she shaped and stretched the thread before feeding it into the medallion.
When Senera finished, anyone who held Janel’s medallion could give her any command they desired. Janel would disobey those commands at the cost of her own life.
Janel didn’t move or make a sound. She still walked the Afterlife. She’d have no idea what had happened until she woke, and then it would be the start of horrors lasting all her days.
He searched the room for anything he might use to distract Senera, anything he might use against Sir Oreth. He found nothing. He’d just get himself killed. A dead physicker heals no patients.
Finally, Senera stopped pulling filaments and closed her fist around the medallion, which glowed for a moment before fading into junk-worthy jewelry.
“All right,” Senera said, “the hard part’s done—”