Lirenna was up on deck one of the Jules Verne, engaged with shae matters, and Thomas had to wait most of the day to see her again.
When they eventually met in the crew lounge they hugged tightly and the demi shae congratulated him on his exoneration, something she’d already heard on the grapevine. They spent the rest of the day together before returning to Thomas’s cabin, where they celebrated the result of the enquiry in bed, enjoying the quiet time before the rest of the crew came back aboard.
That night, Thomas dreamed uneasily, tossing and turning, his skin slick with sweat, and Lirenna watched with growing concern, debating with herself whether she ought to wake him up. The shae folk believed that dreams were important, that they brought messages from realms unreachable in any other way. Messages that the wise paid close attention. She knew that this was unlikely to be an ordinary dream, though. It was more likely another of his acquired memories. An episode in the life of Tak Eweela, also known as Sapphire the Gem Lord. A disturbing episode. One that was scaring her husband badly.
She put a hand on his arm, shaking him gently. "Tom. Tom. Tom!" He dreamed on, though, and moaned under his breath, a moan of misery and terror. That was enough for her, and she shook him more violently. "Tom! Wake up, Tom! Wake up!"
He raised his hands, pushing her away, and his fingers closed around her arms, gripping her painfully tightly. She tore herself loose and grabbed him by the shoulders. "Tom! Wake up! Wake up!"
He gradually began to come out of it, his eyes fluttering open and flitting about the room before focusing on the face of his wife, hovering above his own. The dream lost its grip on him, allowing reality to creep back, and he realised that the sheets under him were soaked with sweat, sticking uncomfortably to his back. He sat up on the edge of his bed, wiping his hands across his face, pulling strands of sweat soaked hair out of his eyes, while Lirenna also sat up to sit beside him. She put an arm around his shoulders, ignoring the clammy dampness of his skin.
"Bad dream?" she asked.
Thomas shuddered. "You've got no idea," he said, staring ahead at the wall. "It was Tak, and it was horrible. Gods, it was bad!"
"Something bad happened to him?"
He shook his head. "No, but he found out that something bad was going to happen to him, to all of them, and that there was nothing they could do about it. I understand now. I know how he became undead, and it explains how I might have gotten his memories."
He fell silent and Lirenna waited patiently, gently stroking his arm with her fingers, knowing he'd talk when he was ready.
"One of them died," said Thomas at last. "Lan Del-Tora. Lord Opal. The oldest and strongest of them. He was in his seventies when he slipped away. A heart attack in his sleep. Not a bad way to go, except he didn't stay gone..."
☆☆☆
Tak and Essca were asleep in each others' arms when someone began knocking frantically on their door. They didn't wait for an invitation but barged straight in and Essca woke up in terror, sitting up and clutching the sheets to her chest with white-knuckled hands.
Tak, hearing her cry of fear, sprang awake and leapt out of bed, the words of spells flying to the front of his mind, and he was actually starting to cast one when he saw that it was Alustra Jarel. Lady Diamond. A fellow Gem Lord. She was in a state of anxiety so intense that she didn't even glance at his nudity. "Come quick!" she cried, grabbing his arm and pulling. "It's Lan! Quick!"
Tak glanced at Essca. "Stay here," he commanded, grabbing a bedrobe with his free hand and throwing it around his shoulders. "Don't leave this room." Then he dashed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
"What happened?" he asked as the two Gem Lords ran along the corridor. The man limping on a slightly arthritic leg, the woman puffing from the exertion. Neither of them were young any more. Tak was fifty five years old and looked older because of the ageing effect of magic passing through his body, while Alustra was over sixty. "Are we under attack?"
"Lan died in the night," replied Alustra. "Heart attack, it looks like. His concubine ran screaming through the palace, waking everyone up..."
She paused and looked around when she realised Tak had come to a halt behind her, staring at her in surprised anger. "That's it?" he demanded. "He died in the night? It's sad, of course, but he was old and we were all expecting it. Why all this fuss..."
"He didn't stay dead!" cried the silver haired woman. A stunner in her youth who was still amazingly good looking, the lines on her face somehow adding to her beauty instead of detracting from it. "He came back to life, but not the same! We don't know what to do!"
There was real terror in her eyes now, and Tak nodded, beginning to run again. Didn't stay dead? What in the name of the Gods was that supposed to mean?
He found out a couple of minutes later. The other Gem Lords were gathered outside Lan's room, except for Barl who'd gone inside, and he heard scared sounding voices drifting out from the bedchamber. "What am I going to do?" he heard. It sounded like Lan's voice, but different. There was something about it. Something that sent shivers of ice racing up Tak's spine. "I can't stay like this! What am I going to do?"
Tak pushed his way between Sheena and Talpha-Ja, both of them covering their aged, wrinkly nudity with thin silken nightgowns. He made his way to the open door, tensing up as he wondered what he was about to see, and as he entered Lan turned to see the new arrival.
Their eyes met. Tak's eyes, the blue of his youth now looking faded and watery as the years took their toll, and the things that now occupied Lord Opal's eye sockets. The things that now served the same function as the organs that had originally sat there. Two tiny pinpricks of hellish white fire. The eyes of a rak.
☆☆☆
"I think I know what happened," said Tak half an hour later.
They were all gathered in the throne room. The original seven Gem Lords and their best nine apprentices. The nine who had graduated to the status of fully fledged wizard and chosen to undergo the same transformation as their masters. They were also wearing soul gems on their wrists, therefore, and had all followed the tradition of naming themselves after gemstones, usually of the same colour as that of their masters. Tak's two apprentices, therefore, Francesca Foldvary and Tam Hom, both wore blue gemstones, a lapis lazuli and a topaz respectively, while Sophie Beele, Lord Emerald's beautiful but erratic apprentice, wore a jade and the two young men sitting beside Lord Ruby wore a jasper and a garnet. Only Enna Mael's lovely young apprentice had broken the tradition, wearing a bracelet of polished ivory on her pale, slim wrist, but it served the same function as the gemstones and did it just as well.
"Several of us have died since the day we were transformed by Khalkedon," continued Tak, "and each time our soul gems held our souls until our bodies could be revived by clerics. We thought we'd become immortal, but we were wrong. Our bodies continue to age, and there comes a time when all the prayers of all the priests in the world cannot extend our lives any longer. When that time comes, though, our soul gems will still prevent our souls from going to judgement. We are bound to the world of the living, for as long as our gems survive."
He looked around at the others, and especially at Lan, who was sitting a little way apart from the others. His body was already beginning to radiate the bone chilling cold of a rak, and if the change continued, pretty soon his touch would be deadly to the living. He still looked shocked and afraid by what was happening to him, and his face bore a stunned expression as if the events of the morning had struck him on the back of the head like a lead cosh. He was doing his best to pay attention to what Tak was saying, though, and the fiery pinpoints of fire that now served him as eyes were fixed on his fellow Gem Lord while he prayed to all the Gods that he'd come up with an answer. Some way to make things right again.
"I think I know what Khalkedon did to us now," continued Tak. "It was a variation on the spells wizards use to turn themselves into raks. We are, in effect, half raks. Demi-raks. And when we die we complete the transformation. We become true raks. The soul gems become our arks."
"So it's going to happen to all of us?" asked Sheena Kun, her dark skin going grey with fear. The others were looking sick and scared as well, and were glancing hesitantly in Lan's direction. There was still hope in their eyes, though. He'll tell us how we can stop it happening to us, they were all thinking. Lord Sapphire is the greatest of us. He'll think of something.
Tak saw them all looking expectantly at him and felt their hope tugging at him like starving beggars holding out their bowls. He found himself looking at Essca, whom he loved more than life itself, and the sight of her looking confidently at him, sure and certain that he'd have the answer, nearly tore his heart out. I did this to her, he thought. I cast the spells. I've condemned her to undeath. The Gods forgive me.
"So what do we do?" prompted Jade, growing impatient with the long silence. "How do we restore ourselves to the way we were?"
"We can't," replied Tak, his eyes dropping to the floor. I helped Talpha-Ja cast the spells, he thought. I helped with all of them. Nine fine young people, and all of them doomed to become raks. Because of me. He felt utterly wretched. Utterly worthless.
"Rak transformation is irreversible. Many raks have tried, wanting to abandon their shrunken corpses and transfer their souls into strong, young, living bodies. Some have spent centuries in the attempt, developing magics more powerful than anything we can even imagine. Not one has ever succeeded. I'm sorry, but we're stuck with our fate."
"What if we destroy our gems?" asked Jade, fingering her bracelet.
"Then the same thing will happen to us as happened to Ehr Laing." He looked at Sheena, who'd known the wizardess better than any of them, and saw her eyes widening at the painful memory. "We will die. Death is the only option for any of us. The only way to avoid rakhood is to die."
"I'm not sure that is an option," said Lan, however, and they were all shocked by how his voice had changed. Grown deeper and stronger. More powerful. Frightening. "We cast Indestructibility spells on our soul gems. We didn't want them getting damaged in battle, or destroyed by an assassin. In our madness we used the most powerful spells we knew. Some years ago, I worried that some sufficiently powerful force might still be able to destroy them so I cast the same spells on some gems of my own. Then I tried to destroy them, to find out what kind of force would be required." He paused, to allow his next words to carry their fullest impact. "I was unable to destroy any of them, no matter what I did. No matter what spells I used. They are impervious to everything I tried. Disintegration spells. Dragon fire. The hammers of the storm giants, even Tak's blight. They seem to be truly indestructible."
They all stared at him in growing horror, and then Enna Mael was crying out in defiance and fear. "No! No! I won't accept that! There must be an answer! There must be!"
She stared at Tak, who could only shake his head in sorrow and aching guilt. "I'm sorry..."
"No!" screamed Pearl, leaping from her throne and running across the room. "There has to be a way! I'll find it if it takes the rest of my life! I'm not becoming like... like that!" She pointed a finger at Lan, then ran from the room, throwing the door open and startling the guards on duty outside.
Tak watched her go, then looked back at Essca, who was now staring at him in pained betrayal, as if unable to understand why he was playing this cruel joke on them. Why didn't he stop fooling around and just give them the answer?
It took several more minutes for the truth of it to fully sink in, that there was no answer. They were truly doomed to undeath, and the guilt and shame of it was so great that Tak began to tremble in his throne, tears appearing in his eyes.
"I'm sorry," was all he could say. "I didn't know. I didn't know..."
☆☆☆
"That was effectively the end of their ruling of Domandropolis," said Thomas, staring ahead at the wall without seeing it. "They remained the nominal rulers of the city for several more years, but they became increasingly preoccupied with what they called 'their problem', delegating the routine, day to day business of government to their apprentices and ministers. They retired from public life, emerging only to lead their armies into battle whenever war threatened and eventually not even doing that. Leaving it to their younger apprentices who were not transformed and therefore did not become Gem Lords.
"Eventually, they were so little seen that the ordinary citizens began to doubt that they still lived. They spent every waking moment in their laboratories, searching for ways to destroy their soul gems or reverse their transformation and failing in both. Then, four years after Lan's death, Alustra Jarel, Lady Diamond, suffered a stroke while ranting at Tak and died as well, becoming the second of them to become a full rak.
That marked the effective end of their unity, for a time, at least. Several of them left the city, setting up strongholds for themselves in far flung corners of the world, far from prying eyes. Jet and Diamond left together for the Ice Continent, setting up house amidst the howling blizzards of the north pole until the black woman grew tired of her company and left for the desolate wastelands of what became modern Corrilwin. Lord Emerald created a mansion for himself and Jade in the jungles of mid Luria, later moving to an island in the Western Sea."
He paused, deep in thought. "The island of the Emerald Oracle," he said. "That was the island he eventually settled on. The Oracle must be his creation, then. He created it on his island, perhaps to satisfy his own curiosity as to the goings on in the world, and it was left behind after he left. Where did he go? Did he eventually find a way to end his existence? Or did he grow bored with his surroundings and set off to explore? It's possible that Tak never knew what happened to him, and that therefore I'll never know either, except..."
He stared off into space, his eyes unfocused as he searched for the memory. "Except that I seem to remember them all getting together again. They were apart for a long time, each of them going to a different part of the world as they tried to come to terms with their condition, but one day they all came together again. Why? Did one of them find an answer?" He racked his brain, but it wouldn't come. Not yet.
"Did Lord Ruby set up home in the Majestic Mountains?" asked Lirenna. "Where you found the Ruby Keep?"
"Yes," confirmed Thomas. "And Pearl went to live in the mountains of the Southern Continent. Soon, only Lan was left in Domandropolis. He never left. He'd been born there, and it was the only place he could ever really feel at home. It came to be known as the Opal City. The city of many colours. One of the marvels of the continent, but by then Tak had long since ceased to have anything to do with it. It was just one city among many, and meant no more and no less to him than any of the others."
"Where did Tak go?" asked Lirenna. "What part of the world did he make his home?"
"Somewhere on the edge of the Great Flat. Near where the independent city of Kaiin is now, except there was nothing there at the time. Nothing but empty wilderness. That's why he chose it. When he eventually died himself and became a rak, he couldn't bear to have anyone see him in that condition. Only Essca and Tam went with him.
"The years when he was a rak and Essca still lived were an agony to him, I don't know how he endured it without going mad, but when she died in turn they became a source of comfort to each other. Topaz stayed with them for a while, then set off to make a home of his own somewhere down south, although he visited often and helped them with their experiments. And that was that, for a long time. Generations."
"And then one of them came up with an answer?" prompted Lirenna when Thomas fell silent. "What was it? What did they come up with?"
"I don't know yet," replied her husband wearily, "but remember that I somehow acquired all Tak's memories. Somehow, I came into some kind of contact with him. That means he must still be in the world somewhere, in some shape or form." He frowned. "It all began in the Ruby Keep, during our quest for the Scrolls of Skava. Maybe that's where he is. Maybe whatever's left of him is still there, to this very day."
"We have to go there," said Lirenna. "If there's an answer to what's happened to you, that's where we'll find it."
Thomas nodded. "It'll be a while before we get a chance, though. My place'll be here, on the Jules Verne, while it goes through the portal again. When we get a bit of shore leave, though, we'll go. Both of us, together."
☆☆☆
In the imaging chamber, the gem raks reacted excitedly. "He's coming!" cried Jade jubilantly. "He's almost ready and he's coming!"
"He's not ready yet," warned Lord Ruby, though. "He won't be ready until he remembers what became of us. The answer we found, but I don't think that will be long now. That Ship of Space is a blessing for us. It'll keep him occupied until he's ready. Stop him from coming too soon. By the time he does come, he'll be ready to be told everything."
"And make his choice," said Topaz somberly.
"Yes," agreed Lord Ruby. "And make his choice."