LIII.

LIII.

Jakob sat in the morgue, his two Birthed Sentience servants doing his work while he contemplated the decision he had made the previous day. Seeing Pernille stir to life had both brought a sense of accomplishment and joy to him, but it had also imbued him with the dreadful realisation that not all dead are meant to be given a second chance.

Upon realising her circumstances, Pernille had fainted, and Bastian had carried her to a private carriage, a few of his closest staff following him on horseback, as they rode off into the night, going who-knew-where to live out the remainder of their lives together, never to ever be apart again.

Seeing Jakob sitting on his stool staring at the floor in contemplation, Harmlig had asked him, Why did you do it? Who was she to you?

Or perhaps Jakob had only imagined he was asked the question, for when he looked over, the Magister was engrossed in his work and seemed to not spare him a single glance.

It was a momentary lapse in judgement, Jakob confided in him. Harmlig, for his part, did not move from where he stared at the many samples of the typhoid parasite he had collected through the lenses of his contraption. I wished to repay a gift given to me in the past, and I believed it was the best way to do it.

But you regret it now?

Perhaps I regret the means by which I did it. It was hasty and thoughtless.

What exactly does the ritual do? I am no occultist, and the words you spoke were meaningless to me.

Jakob let out a sigh of spent air, which quickly lifted towards the ceiling and mixed with the fog of Harmligs vented vapours, though the scents they cast into the air were obscured totally by the stench of putrefaction and death that the basement was forever stained to bear, even if the epidemic came to an end and bodies no longer piled high along the back of the expansive room.

When two hearts are twinned together by the Eternal Serpent, they are fused together in mind, heart, and soul. Their thoughts are forever shared. Their hearts beat to the same rhythm. Their bodies are like twin vessels for one unusual soul to occupy.

Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but would that not mean that they share the same life energy?

They do. If one falls ill, they both fall ill. If one dies, they both die.

But it seems a small price to pay, to see your beloved brought back from the dead.

Perhaps, though they have now become slaves to each other. They can never stray far from the other, lest the bond forcefully snaps and they both are sent to the abyss of the beyond. They may also harbour no ill will towards the other, for it too will violate the sanctity of the rite. Further, given that one was dead and the other nearing his final decade of life, even well-off as he is, they must share a quite limited time together, before death takes them both.

After returning the animal to the stable where they kept it, he went to the morgue basement and excitedly told Harmlig of his next construct he would make.

You have changed as of late, Harmlig remarked.

Jakob scratched the top of his pate under his hood, where hair was starting to grow in, itching a lot as a result. Perhaps this is who I was meant to become, he replied.

Or maybe your regrets about resurrecting your lady-friend have manifested into some manic aberration to your demeanour. I have seen it before, you know. There are many Magisters who suddenly find themselves in love, or discover a new passion, following a tremendous setback in their professional work or some near-death experience.

Jakob took a deep draught of his scent-mask. Are you going to help me?

I dont know a lot about equine anatomy, the Magister replied.

Nor do I, Jakob admitted.

Harmlig got up from his seat, where a shine had been worn into the wooden surface due to him always using the stool. Lets see if we can find some old draft horse or something to use for studying.

Jakob nodded. He liked this about the Magister: he was resourceful.

The thing in the swaddling cloth would not stop squirming, as Ngel rode north towards Sirellius hometown of Hesslik. It seemed an ominous thing that the Fleshcrafters Apprentice had visited not only the obscure village of Hekkenfelt where Harland had done his research, but now also the city where the Old Advisor had spent his youth. If he did not know any better, he would think that the Apprentice had some disturbing grand plan to undermine all the major players on the continent, one-by-one.

Of course, there was the possibility that these were all random occurrences, but it seemed quite unlikely. After all, Ngel knew for a fact that a vile spell had been cast on his mentee Harland to cause him to publicly kill himself. And having witnessed the autopsy of the Gold-Ranker, he knew that they had not managed to recover any scraps of his torn-off face that he was supposed to have swallowed.

What use could the face of a Gold-Ranking Adventurer be worth to the likes of him?

The wriggling thing urged him onwards yet again, its impatient motions seeming to sense the distance to his target growing shorter by the moment.

O Keening, render thy aural onslaught.