Chapter 4 - Part IX

"The task is done, Davin and I were successful. The ritual was performed without error, and the little I could derive from my surroundings in the dungeon while I molded the dead flesh to the souls of the prisoners suggests that the Lady suspects nothing. She saw them in those bodies, not the bodies of her slain guardsmen.

"As it is that her thoughts are that the two have perished, no doubt she will change her strategy, but as to what that move shall be, we are uncertain at this time. We would be wise to keep other bei close at hand." Anita sat on the floor and began to stretch; her limber arm easily grasping the flats of her soles. With her other hand she mindlessly touched the bridge of her nose, still covered in its entirety by the blindfold.

Gregor wondered about what lay underneath the thin, exotic looking fabric. Her eyes were rumored to have been beautiful once. Tales from beyond the Teeth lived in Heilithian legend that claimed her people were a folk constructed of porcelain, sapphire and obsidian, but to him she had never seemed more than cut of broken glass. He wondered if she ever considered herself beautiful. He wondered what she saw when she looked into the mirror of her mind.

The young Lithenese bei'thal however kept all such wandering notions caged in the recesses of abstract thought. He beckoned her to continue.

"A far stretch though it may have been, it was worth it, Gregor." she offered, almost contrite, as if a bei could ever feel humbled. "She will be useful for the Empress, and the pnum bei'thal, first in that order." The bei's words were projected from lips now loosely covered by elongated gloved fingers. In the glow of the fire, the angle of Anita's jawline cut cruelly against the smoothness of her neck. This was the weapon Gregor was here to command.

"That one guides her own dreams and turns thoughts into fortresses. She is the master of her domain and even for a true pnum bei, I do not think infiltrating her mind at full strength would be possible. More likely it would be lethal."

"Yet you managed the deed though you are not a compromised of the spirit? How?" Gregor knew little of the process of the compromising ritual, or how it formed different bei, but he did know Anita and Davin had given up their sight for ears more sensitive than those of dogs. Their's was not a sacrifice of the mind.

"All bei lose a portion of their souls, it is the cost of our sacrifice." she answered emotionlessly. So it is true, Gregor mused. He wondered just how true she was. "It makes us who we are." she continued.

"The ritual was easy. The girl is battered and malleable. I suspect she is still in a numb shock that she is likely not aware of herself. Pushing her soul into the carcass at the Archne Estate was simply a matter of good sheep herding. And sculpting the flesh around her spirit was pure art. Her force of will made the flesh no more than yak butter." A small smile curled in the corner of her mouth as she related the memories of her labors. Her pride in her work was perhaps all that remained in her shell.

"So you said. And the Lady was taken in by your craft. But why does she slumber still?" Impatient, the bei'thal tapped his left toe against the oaken wood floor.

"I thought to herd her into her own body, much as Davin had done for Cedric, but when I returned to her, she was nowhere to be found. You must understand this. Were I to force the blood burn ritual on you at this instant, I would come upon the cluttered mess of your every thought. I would walk the roads of Lithentown and Honeyport to arrive at the color of chivalry. The taste of the air of your mind would boast the bittersweet tinge of a brother here, but lost. I would see the face of your mother on the walls of University on High, I would feel your last erection and know if your belly had been filled recently. Humans imprint their stamp on every action, every thought they commit in a day, but most of what they do in a day they try to hide in the hidden strongbox of their minds.

"But when I got to the girl, there was nothing. No lampposts, no memories of indigestion. There were no fathers or brothers, no sky, no smell; nothing!" The memories of frustrations she had, searching, getting lost in the big empty blackness of the mind of another poured into her voice thickly. "Only the dead have nothing! If... were she not to have been found I would have been as trapped as she, and this body," she pointed to the sleeping Nü, "would have decayed in front of your eyes even as it yet drew breath."

"At first I thought her dead, that I had failed and her soul lost, but slowly I could hear the crescendo of thoughts, desires and experiences, hidden and obvious, rush past me, constructing a wall, a web to repel and forget the injuries done. It was nearly undetectable at first. Even as it became more obvious, I could never tell where anything was headed. I never found the corner of her mind where she had crawled.

"But I didn't need to. Whatever she has been through, it had maimed her before we got to her. She has been weak and in reaction her mind gave her a fever to kill the sickness she bore from her injury. It was along the conduit of fever dreams that her memories traveled to her.

"In a fever dream, the mind beckons and traps powerful memories and ideas which can no longer escape. This is the nature of humans I suppose. To dwell on the intense passions and obsessions of the past is your way sometimes. A fever is particularly adept at destroying any other distractions of lesser emotions and daily life. It was the seeds of a fever dream, the call to strong passions, where I found my escape. Her memories knew to whom they belonged. I need but ride them to her."

"You followed a memory?" he asked, not sure he understood how one might accomplish such a feat.

"Yes, a particularly strong one. And when I reached the walls she had begun building, or rebuilding, I had no choice but to become one with the memory. To speak through it. I would not have been able to permeate her defenses otherwise.

"Now she slumbers because she is rebuilding her defenses, she has risen from her shock. She will not hide again, but nor will she suffer another invasion."

"So you say that through her memory you could finally communicate, even lure her out of her shell. But do you not know what the memory was?"

"I can't be sure. It was simply the vessel of my message. Most likely it was the memory of a person. To her, my words probably came from kin. Perhaps her mother's lips delivered echoed my will. Though more likely it was a lover. The memory was quite strong."

Gregor was certain that this final information was not likely to help his cause, and now he simply felt intrusive. He blushed, a fact that was thankfully concealed by the light of the fire coals. Anita may have been blind and thus could not see the cool pink pigment splash upon his cheeks, but he did not want even the hint of weakness in front of her. As Anita prepared herself to leave, Gregor took a moment to absorb what she had told him, but his thoughts could not help but to delve into curiosity. "Before you go, Anita, tell me one thing."

"Yes my keeper?"

"What would I find if I performed the blood burn on you?"

"Two rows of five empty, granite houses." With that she exited the room.