The Scrolls of Skava

The Ruby Keep - Part 2

     “And physically?”

     “A genetic predisposition to heart disease, but that’s easily cured,” replied Jasper. “Other than that he’s in good shape, as Jade just pointed out.”

     “You’d say he’s got the strength and stamina to survive the procedure?” asked the Gem Lord.

     “Definitely,” agreed his subordinate. “Whether he accepts or rejects the implant, he’s in no danger.”

     “Let’s hope we’re successful this time,” said the man in blue, coming forward. “We have so little time left. What chance do we have of finding another suitable host before... You know.”

     “It’s nothing less than a miracle we found this one,” agreed Garnet.

     “Indeed,” agreed the Gem Lord. “Imagine if we’d had to search all the cities of the world looking for a suitable host. It would have been hopeless! It was Lord Emerald’s genius to make them come to us instead, to create a place to which anyone with the right mental attributes would be sure to come sooner or later. Who else but he could have conceived of the Oracle? Haven’t I always said he was the greatest of us all?”

     Jade glowed with pleasure, as she always did when someone gifted her master with such high praise.

     “Pity the Oracle couldn’t have sent him to us last year, during his first visit,” said the man in blue sullenly.

     “How could it have, when he didn’t ask his question?” snapped back Jade defensively, her green eyes flashing. “It did as much as it could when it informed us that a possible match had been found. We just had to hope that he would return one day to ask his question, as indeed he did.”

     “Calm down, the pair of you,” said Lord Ruby, turning his smouldering red eyes on each of them in turn. “Laz, you have the seed?”

     “The woman in blue reached into a fold of her robes and produced an object about the size of a blackbird’s egg. It was round, made of something that looked like blue glass or polished sapphire, and shone with its own inner light.

     “Good,” said the Gem Lord. “Are we ready?”

     Jasper and Garnet glanced at each other, then looked down at the naked wizard breathing softly on the couch. They strapped his arms and legs down, put a strap across his chest and put a strap of leather in his mouth, between his teeth. “Ready,” Garnet then said, looking up.

     “In an ideal world, we’d ask for his consent before we did this,” said Topaz, frowning in concern as he regarded the sleeping wizard.

     “In an ideal world we wouldn’t have to do it at all,” replied Lord Ruby.

     “We should still ask him!” the man in blue protested. “Wake him up, explain it to him...”

     “And what if he says no?” asked the Gem Lord gently. “What then?”

     Topaz had no answer to that, and simply watched guiltily as the woman in blue drew some shapes on Thomas’s chest with her finger. “Will he feel it?" she asked, staring at the sleeping wizard with an intensity that caused the Gem Lord some concern. He would have preferred that Lapis Lazuli not been there, but the woman had been adamant and had further insisted that it be she who carried out the procedure. Since it was a simple enough operation he'd given in to her request, but seeing the look on her face now he found himself beginning to regret it.

     “He won't feel a thing,” Jasper said reassuringly. “He’ll just sleep right through it.”

     She nodded and continued her preparations, muttering strange words under her breath as she did so, and Topaz moved closer to stare down into Thomas’s sleeping face. “Forgive us,” he said in a soft voice. “One day you’ll understand why we have to do this.” The wizard just carried on breathing softly, oblivious to everything that was going on.