Tak

Experiments - Part 9

     "No, Khalkedon thought that the real threat came from Barl Hobson. The ginger haired wizard had been snooping around where he shouldn't have, poking his nose into his most private laboratories and workrooms, and if he was allowed to continue there was a chance he might discover something dangerous. Barl had to be punished, therefore. He would have a ward with Gal-Gowan about it, and meanwhile Tak would be safely out of the way. No need to worry about that one..."

     Or so he thought," said Lirenna with a grin. "Did he learn the secrets of the raks?"

     "Oh yes," relied Thomas. "Everything. All the things that we're taught routinely in the second year of apprenticeship plus a whole lot more. Things that I bet only senior wizards are allowed to know these days. Knowledge that he could have used to become a rak himself. In fact..." He paused, looking worried. "In fact, yes, I think I remember it all, or most of it at least. I could become a rak myself, if I wanted. Me, Thomas Gown."

     "But you wouldn't, would you?" asked Lirenna, suddenly looking scared. "I mean, when we were talking about using Tak's knowledge to extend your life..."

     Thomas laughed and took her hand, squeezing it reassuringly. "Don't worry, I'm not in the least bit tempted. Potions of long life would be one thing, if Tak ever knew how to make them, but rakhood... No. I'm content to live my natural span and pass away when my time comes, just like everyone else."

     Thomas was only middle aged, though. The spectre of decrepit old age, which had driven better men than he to despair, had not yet begun to raise its hideous head before him. One thing that did worry the wizard, though, was a vision he'd had during his second visit to the Emerald Oracle, many years before. The Oracle appeared to those who saw it as an older version of the viewer, so that a young soldier might see an old, battlescarred warrior, while a cleric might see an ancient healer. Withered and bent by a lifetime of holy power flowing through his body. When Thomas had seen it for the second time, for one brief moment he'd seen the hideous, mummified form of a rak.

     The possibility of rakhood was there for him, of course, just as it was for all wizards, and Thomas had told himself that that was why he'd seen what he had. Because there was the possibility, no matter how remote, that he would one day become a rak. It didn't mean it was going to happen, though, and he'd long since put the worry out of his mind. Now, though, it began to creep back as the knowledge of how to make the transformation echoed around in his head, silently mocking him. Tempting him. Power! Immortality! Centuries without end in which to seek out the world's secrets! How could he let himself die with so much still unknown? No, he assured himself, however. It's not going to happen. I will never become a rak. Never!

     Was it possible that Tak had succumbed to the temptation, though? He remembered that, when the acquired memories had first started coming, he'd asked Saturn about them. The senior wizard had speculated that Thomas had, at some point, come into contact with an undead being and had formed a brief telepathic contact with it, without even becoming aware of it. It needn't have been a dangerous creature, a powerful spirit of some kind. A simple, harmless shade might have been the culprit.

     Later, after Thomas had given up seeking advice from him, he'd formed the opinion that he was the reincarnation of Tak, despite the declarations of the worshippers of all the known Gods that reincarnation never happened, but now he began to wonder if maybe Saturn had been right after all. Maybe he'd come into contact with an undead being. The undead spirit of Tak himself! Maybe Tak had turned himself into a rak, and after thousands of years of change and evolution his freezing, mummified body had disintegrated completely, leaving him a creature of pure spirit. Pure speculation, of course, and useless to dwell on things that couldn't be verified in any way, but disturbing nonetheless.

     "So," prompted Lirenna, unaware of the mental turmoil affecting her husband. To her, this was little more than a good story, with little if any relevance to their real lives. She was eager to hear the next chapter. "Did he use that knowledge to kill Khalkedon?"

     "Eh?" said Thomas, snapping back to the here and now. "Oh. Oh, yes. Together, they killed him, the seven of them together, but do you mind if I tell that bit some other time? I'm almost asleep here, you know. I'm not going to be any use for anything tomorrow as it is, if it's not tomorrow already."

     Lirenna was disappointed but reluctantly agreed and so they went to bed, but it was a long time before Thomas was able to get any sleep. He kept seeing the Emerald Oracle in his mind's eye. The Oracle as he'd seen it for that brief moment as he'd entered its audience chamber for the second time, looking for the Scrolls of Skava. In his mind's eye the rak was still staring at him, the fiery pinpoints of light that served it as eyes staring at him as if it knew something he didn't. Its black, shrunken lips drawn back from its rotting grey teeth in a gleeful, knowing grin...