“Elaine, listen to me. In a moment you’ll feel me start, and I’ll need your help. I’m not very strong right now, so if you resist at all, I may not be able to do what’s necessary. You feel as if you’re suffocating, so a sensation of panic is entirely natural, but don’t push me aside out of reflex,” I said soothingly.
She nodded, her eyes watching me as she drew in rapid, shallow breaths. Closing my eyes I began, or I tried to anyway. With my eyes shut, my magesight seemed sharper, but it still wasn’t as clear as I remembered. Elaine’s body glowed with the force of her aythar, and it was made brighter still by her struggle to survive. Sending my thoughts outward, I tried to enter her body but found myself quickly rebuffed. It was hard enough to force myself out of my own form, but as soon as I came in contact with the raging torrent of her aythar, I snapped back into myself.
Part of the problem might have been that I had never attempted to do such a thing with another wizard, at least not while they were conscious, or still fully inhabiting their body. I needed to be stronger; I simply didn’t have the power necessary to push my way inside. There’s a lot of power in the girl, I thought. It’s a shame I can’t use it.
But perhaps I could, in a sense, if I tried to do what Moira Centyr had done to help me when I was trying to save Penny. Pushing my thoughts outward again, I sought Elaine’s mind first this time, as if I were trying to establish a mental link with her. Help me, draw me in.
Her response was powerful, and I found myself caught, as her will latched onto me and pulled me inexorably inward. It was a sensation that was frightening, in large part because I had so little control over it. I was within her now, surrounded and engulfed by her power and simultaneously bombarded by the pain radiating from her lower body. There was a tightness in her chest and a feeling of weight, as though a heavy man were sitting upon her, making it difficult to breathe.
I needed to find the source of the problem. Luckily I already knew where to begin. Follow me and watch, I told her mentally. Narrowing my focus I delved inward. Using the pain as a starting point, I began following the veins leading from her ruined leg back toward her lungs, until at last I arrived at the obstacle causing her problem. A large clot had partially blocked the pulmonary artery leading from her lungs to her heart. If it had been completely blocked she would have already died, suffocating even as her lungs continued to work, unable to return oxygenated blood to the rest of her body.
Wasting no time, I opened the artery with sharp precision and forced the clot outside; her body could reabsorb it later. I might have broken it apart within the vessel, but I feared that smaller parts of it would block arteries further down or seed the formation of still larger clots. Her body briefly sent blood rushing out the opening I had created, until I had sealed it again. Whole once more, the vessel began sending the proper amount of blood back toward the heart, and I felt her breathing begin to slow as her body no longer had to struggle to keep itself alive.
Thank you, her thoughts came to me, along with a profound sense of warmth and affection.
Not yet, I answered. There is much more to do.
I wanted to restore her, completely, as I had with Penny. I didn’t have the strength, but I knew how. Don’t panic when you feel the change. You will have a sensation as if you’ve become someone else; don’t reject it. I need to become you.
What?!
I listened. My own power was small, but she was full of strength, strength I needed if I was to mend her broken body. I couldn’t use her power, but she could. Moira Centyr’s words echoed through my mind as I remembered our conversation from long ago, ‘An archmage does not wield power, Mordecai. An archmage becomes that which they seek to wield.’
What I was doing was dangerous. I had never sought to incorporate another sentient, conscious, human being as part of myself. The danger was similar to what I had done before, but the possibility that I might forget my own identity was greater. Or is it? I had no way of knowing. Pushing my doubts aside I listened, at first merely to the sound of her heart, beating solidly, more easily now that the clot was removed. Gradually I became aware of a vibration, a song, something bright and feminine. It was vibrant and alive, and as I became aware of it, it in turn became aware of me.
I was in touch now, not with Elaine’s conscious mind, but with her very being, the core that gave rise to the thoughts and feelings she experienced. It was a primal thing, not to be lightly tampered with, for it was the source of life, consciousness, and perhaps even free will.
It was me.
And then I knew no more.
Chapter 32
I woke gradually, feeling a pleasant tension forming in my shoulders until eventually I was forced to stretch, arching my back. I felt uncommonly good, which was unusual, particularly because it was not an adjective I usually associated with waking up or morning. My body seemed rested and healthy. My memory was a little fuzzy though, and for some reason I thought that perhaps that should not have been the case.
Something told me that I should feel bad, but I wasn’t really sure why. The door opened at that point and Penny walked in, her eyes immediately taking in my wakeful state. “You’re awake!” she almost shouted.
“So are you!” I shouted back, thinking she deserved the same encouragement.
Then she started crying.
Damnitt! I chided myself inwardly. I always manage to say the wrong thing, even when I don’t know what might be wrong… or right, for that matter. Seriously, it was a gift. I was the idiot savant of making women cry. You’d think that given complete ignorance of the situation, I’d at least have a fifty-fifty chance of saying something that would make her laugh, but it never seemed to work out that way.
I managed to untangle myself from the sheets quickly enough to catch her before she threw herself into the bed with me. Standing, I caught her in my arms as she ran toward me. It wasn’t long before I realized her tears were of the ‘happy’ sort, which all things considered, is a bit better than the other kind. I considered myself a bit of an expert in diagnosing the different sorts of crying, since I had witnessed plenty of it first-hand.
I spoke soft, comforting words of no particular meaning, while I stroked her hair and held her close, giving her time to wind down. Over the course of my marriage I had learned that frequently tears were a type of stress relief for Penny. Me, I preferred to just go break something or simply ignore my feelings, they usually went away on their own after a while anyway. One of the many differences between us, I supposed.
At some point she gathered her wits together enough to begin a proper conversation, “I don’t know whether to be mad at you for taking such risks or glad that you made it back.”
I buried my nose in her hair, inhaling the soft fragrance of the woman I loved. “You’re such a crybaby,” I said affectionately. “I’m not even sure what happened,” I added.
She growled into my shoulder, but I held her tight so she couldn’t get enough space to take a swing at me. Well, I tried to hold her tight… the earth-bond had given her physical strength far beyond what I could handle. Our embrace turned into a one sided wrestling match, with me laughing as I lost. In the end I wound up flat on my back, in the bed, with her looking down on me. She had my arms crossed and pinned. Tears ran down her nose to land on my chest. I hoped they were tears anyway, the proper definition probably depended upon whether they had exited her eyes and run down the outside… or the inside, of her nose first. I suppressed that squeamish thought quickly.