This choice: Disassemble Rick, and split his essentia for maximum recycling • Go Back...Chapter #67Two-Faced Bastards by: Seuzz   Rick Bredon wants to be taken apart. And, looking at him, you can tell he's not going to take "No" for an answer.
You shrug, and no one else says anything either, not even to ask if you're sure that the sigils you spent the day making are correctly written.
They consist four overlapping circles, each with a four-foot radius, carved into the sheet of steel that Frank brought back. on the outer and inner edges of which are inscribed sigils. Each circle has its own particular use, which can be tweaked depending which set of sigils—one inscribed on the outer edge of the circle, one on the inner edge—is invoked. There is a sigil for removing and inscribing imago; a sigil for removing and inserting essentia; a sigil for removing and inserting anima; and a sigil for certain "extras." All four intersect each other at key points and can be activated singly or in combination.
Other, smaller sigils intersect these four main sigils at tangents: sigils for making, erasing and sealing masks and mind bands; for modifying imago and essentia; and for almost every other spell in the Libra.
There is also a brand-new sigil of your own design: one that you are especially eager to try out.
Just not yet.
Rick disrobes and sprawls out in the middle of the table. You set two bottles down on the essentia sigil; a mask on the imago sigil; and a mind band on the anima sigil. You dust Rick's nose with some of Blackwell's knockout powder and remove the anima band that you had placed on him in Cuthbert.
With these preparations done, you set candles at the invocation points. The sigils run with a sudden, oily light; a smell of polished metal fills the room.
First you light up the anima sigil, and a bolt of crimson lightning arcs from Rick to the mind band, inscribing the name RICHARD THOMAS BREDON on it. Then you light the essentia sigil, and a bolt of magenta arcs from Rick into the center of the essentia circle, where it splits into a red bolt and a violet bolt that separate to strike at the two bottles on its edges. Finally, you light the imago sigil, and a white bolt leaps between Rick and the mask. When the dazzling afterglows have faded from your eyes, you are looking at a bare golem of a vaguely mannish shape.
Frank and Joe are very quiet as they gather up the mask, mind band and bottles, which they set into a box. You guess that they are thinking of their erstwhile colleague, and remembering the adventures they had with him before you "turned" them to your own purposes. It leaves you feeling a little sick, and you twinge a little as you recall Rick's final warning. They seal up the box, and Joe carries it upstairs to put in Blackwell's workroom.
"Do you think he would have been okay," you ask Frank, "except for those visions that his essentia gave him?"
"That was the point of having his essentia," Frank says. Then he shrugs. "You'd have to ask Joe, though. In some other personality, maybe he wouldn't have had those visions. Anyway, it doesn't matter now, does it?"
"We could put his essentia into someone else. Make another partner."
"Jonathan, maybe?" Joe says as he saunters in; apparently he heard what you were saying. "Is that why you want him back out here?"
"He'd have to start training all over again," Frank says before you can reply. "He wouldn't have Rick's memories of how to use his prodigies."
"Well, that's not what I want Jonathan for anyway," you say. "But there's a spell on that table that let's you modify memories," you continue. "If we could merge memories—" You stop with a frown.
"If we could merge memories what?" Frank asks. He and Joe exchange a look.
"Huh? Oh, something," you say. "Just get Jonathan out here." But you sink onto the sofa with your notebook and suck on the tip of a mechanical pencil as you think through an idea you've suddenly had.
* * * * *
"It's like an Agatha Christie story around here," Joe grumbles as he tosses his boxers aside and sits on the metal slab. "People keep disappearing."
"Don't worry, Joe," you tell him as you set a blank mask into a sigil by his head. "You'll be back and better than ever." But Joe still cocks an eyebrow at you.
You don't blame him.
First Rick Bredon disappeared in a series of lightning strikes, leaving a golem behind. Then Jonathan Straussler—after having his mask removed—vanished when a similar thunderstorm transferred his constituent parts into masks, metal bands, and bottles. Now you're putting Joe in the center of the table, and he can't help but notice that you're positioning a blank mask and a candle in the same spot as you've putting the others.
"I know you like your surprises, Will," he grumbles. "But do you mind explaining what you're about to do before you do it? You know," he continues in a sarcastic tone, "in case you're not one hundred percent on the design and there's a fatal flaw I can warn you about?"
"It's a variation on one of the spells in the book," you explain. "The one that makes those 'chameleon masks'."
You're referring to one of the spells in the mid-point, one that puts a special layer into a mask and insert more than one set of imago into it, letting you switch from one face to another without taking the mask off. In fact, you have just such a mask on the sofa and will be putting it on in a moment.
"I figured out a way to do the same thing to a person without using a mask," you tell Joe. I'm going to strip you of your imago and then I'm going put a modification of that special layer onto your substantia. Then I'm going to copy your imago and Jonathan's onto that layer. You'll have both your body and his, but without having to wear a mask."
Joe blinks and grins and exclaims "Cool!" but Frank has an objection: "You mean you're going to mix his face with Jonathan's?"
You shake your head. "No. They'll be kept separate, and Joe will be able to switch instantly between them. There's a secret word and a gesture you have to use."
"What's the improvement on having a mask?" Frank asks.
"It means not carrying around a separate piece of equipment," Joe says, and he gives you a thumb's up. "Like, no one can get the mask off you, and someone like Rick wouldn't be able to sense that there's a disguise, because there is no disguise! Come on," he adds impatiently as he throws himself back onto the table. "Let's do this! I got a girlfriend waiting for me! I think!"
You smile, and advance on the candle with the lighter.
It takes less than a minute to complete the operation. First, Joe's imago arcs off him and onto the blank mask in a blinding bolt of lightning. Then you move the candle to another sigil; when you relight it, a pattern like a rainbow ripples over the form of the golem. Then you move to another spot on the first sigil and in it set Joe's mask and the mask Jonathan had been wearing—which has all his most recent memories—and light the candle. A double bolt of lightning and a double crash of thunder rend the air.
Joe sits up and examines his hand. His brow furrows. "Not that I'm too disappointed, Will," he says, "but—"
You drop onto the couch and raise your mask to your face. You rustle through faces until you find the control sigil, and plunge into Joe.
"—taller, lankier, and a hell of a lot richer," you finish. "Okay, I just had to get that off my chest," you say as you scramble onto your haunches. "Pay attention, Frank," you tell your partner. "I'm over here now, and I'm about to show Joe how to make the new switcheroo."
You close your eyes and wipe your open palm across your face while muttering Jonathan Straussler's name. A light shudder runs through you. You raise yourself to your full height—
—and Frank has to catch you as you topple to the side. "You okay?" he asks.
"Just a head rush," you murmur. "I think." You find your footing and dance back and forth on boat-like feet. "Yeah, that's better." You can't help grinning to yourself as you think of the girlfriend, the car, the punishment corner, and everything else that you suddenly remember having.
"You have everything else Jonathan's supposed to have?" Frank asks.
"Am I supposed to feel naked without my credit cards? Then yeah, I'd say I got everything he's supposed to have." You go up on the balls of your feet and mime tossing a basketball. Then you slap Frank lightly in the chest. "What say we find a basketball and a hoop and a couple of girls to impress?"
"That sounds like fun," Frank says, "but can I have my brother back?"
With a shrug you oblige, and after something like a very long and slow blink of the eyes you are looking up at them again from the sofa.
Jonathan looks momentarily confused. Then a smile spreads across his face. He raises his palm to his face and wipes it across. He's Joe again.
Then he's Jonathan again. Then Joe again. Then Jonathan again. Then Joe again. The smile is the only constant on his face, and it gets wider and wider and wider—
"Stop that!" Frank exclaims, and strikes him across the cheek. "Pick a look and stick to it."
"I'll go with this one, then," says Jonathan Straussler. He slaps Frank back in the chest. "What was I saying about a basketball, a hoop, and some pretty girls?" He looks over at you. "Are we all moving to Jonathan's now? We had a nice set up there before Granny Weatherwax busted our paradise."  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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