Inhuman - Chapter 3
Chapter 3Flicking a piece of flint across a steel starter inside a shallow pit, Grym took only a few moments to light the campfire. The woman watched him with growing interest. She wondered why the need for such technology when he could create a fire spell. Just as she was about to ask, the pine needles flamed up, and he diligently added sticks to the growing flames. Perhaps he’s saving his aether? Valary worked for years to become a mage. She understood the limits of her craft. One thing she knew for certain was the nature of aether. No human, or creature for that matter, carried the ability to store or push aether beyond a few feet without an artifact. She had felt no artifact on Grym before, and that was part of the reason for her shock at his spell against the monster. Magic still prevailed as a tool for healing, assassination, and close combat. However, spells could not overcome the overpowering speed and long range of the cannon and musket bullets. Her lessons came back as she considered the man at the campfire. Magic once ruled their world. In the ancient past, chants and runes were powerful enough to destroy people, animals, and equipment. Fighting with small armies equipped with swords and spears worked with mages to win battles. Eventually, human ingenuity discovered ways for commoners to overwhelm the forces controlled by mages. With steam-driven technology and modern weapons, sorcerers became less useful in modern warfare. It was a simple problem of scale. Kingdoms and empires found the cost to maintain large standing armies with modern weapons a greater benefit. Mages and sorcerers were rare and specialized. And the common citizen found little benefit in their lives from magic users. Stories of dark mages and evil gods showed up in their newspapers, which frightened the population as well. Some officials claimed magic should become a lost art. At one time, Valary scoffed at the idea. After all, she basked in the spotlight of a healing hero who could save people on the verge of death. Only someone with her capability could return soldiers to their units so quickly. Valary remained convinced that technology and industry could never overtake the value of magic. Her beliefs changed during her time with the Musketry Cavaliers. The bloody campaigns her unit witnessed showed her the fast changes happening in the world. Railroads, steam-powered ships, and airships came into existence during her time. The empire even strung telegraph communication wires between the major cities to keep things moving. Major bloody campaigns against the Arok Confederation showed what bullets and cannon could do to a powerful race of magicians. The world changed along with her naive views. But the underlying corruption and tyranny of the empire remained. Even her status as one hero of the empire failed to save her from downfall. As she wasted away in that dark tomb, Valary recognized her plight came because they feared her ability. Immortality took away some of the emperor’s control. Still, despite the technologies available, she believed the idea that magic would fade away was nothing more than a fool’s dream. The world’s natural order might allow science to keep a lid on sorcery, but its useful nature still held the interest of many people. After all, the world still held lands filled with monsters like those in her tomb. Other dark creatures walked the planet as part of the dark gods’ plans. Many times, only light magic would defeat such creatures. The rumors of scientists who joined with mages to create even more powerful weapons based upon magic told her as much. Grym’s movement brought the woman out of her thoughts. She turned to look at the night sky and frowned. Her time in her tomb meant she still could only see two fuzzy white orbs for the moons above. She turned her attention back to the ghoul as he scanned the darkness outside of the campfire light. She assumed he could see into the shadows by his expression. Nodding to himself, Grym pulled a bag of oats from the saddle bag hanging on a nearby limp. He partially filled the wooden bucket sitting by the horse before he grabbed his rifle. Without a word, he left the camp. As she lay on the ground, Valary kept replaying the man’s words over in her mind as hunger suddenly overcame her. It was a sensation she had not experienced for many months. After the monsters filled themselves on her aether, the woman’s body used the same substance to sustain her. Now outside of the aether-less tomb, the hunger overwhelmed her thoughts. Her body rebuilding itself required food. When Grym returned with the bucket filled with water, she asked him a question about food, but he ignored her. Instead, he bent over next to her after pulling a knife from his belt and dug into the soil. He created two rows in the dirt about the width of his hand before going to the closest pine tree. After hacking off several branches, he placed on top of the rows of turned earth. Finally, Grym picked up the bucket and poured the water over the branches. Valary could not understand what Grym hoped to achieve by his actions. The man dropped to his knees and held his hands over the clayish mud and bare tree pieces while chanting an ancient verse. Valary recognized some of the words came from a Summara dialect she used in her healing spells. Then, she recognized a chant which came from an illegal tome called Manteía. The priests described it as an evil book for its obscene spells involving death and resurrection. Having such a book that the priests had suppressed since the Great Awakening in your possession meant death to the holder. How did he find that book? At first, Valary thought Grym used the combination of healing and alchemy chants for a nature trap. Grym laid his hands upon the branches, she saw the pine needles instantly dry up and fall away. At the same time, the sticks moved like snakes and wound together into something like an inner core. The moist ground lifted under his hands and bubbled through the sticks, gradually covering the long mound with a clay-like material. Gradually, the mound elevated under his hand until two long tubes formed where branches once lay. The smell of sulfur filled the air as Grym stopped his work. He picked up the clay cylinders in each hand and dragged them over to Valary. Pulling away his long coat which covered her body, the woman suddenly gasped at her vulnerable exposure. She began to wriggle around like a worm. “Calm down, I need to put these on your stumps,” he glared at her. Valary returned his glare, but she quit moving. He positioned his mud creations around Valary’s lower body, then pushed one of her exposed leg stumps into the clay. “A ghoul only fucks a person to make a mortal suffer before he eats them,” he pointed out. “Didn’t they teach you anything?” “What are you doing? It looks like you’re building a weird golem.” “Quiet and learn,” he placed his hands on her pelvis. She felt the burning sensation coming from one leg as the clay-like tube melted into the raw stump of her thigh. Valary screamed out in anguish as the mud burned into her flesh. “Bite down and endure it.” Grym stuffed the edge of his filth-covered cape into her mouth. “I have to attach the other one.” The next tube of clay pushed into her other limb with the same effect. Again, a muffled cry erupted from Valary. After a while, an eerie quiet settled over the campsite as the woman slowly recovered from the torturous events. Her breathing finally calmed, and she watched Grym step over to the ends of her earthen legs. He quickly cut off the excess with a knife before he molded the moist ends into rudimentary feet. When he finished, the inhuman placed a hand on each foot and looked up at the sky. After a couple of deep breaths, Grym lowered his head, and a strange red and yellow glow gradually filled his hands. It’ll never work! As a healer, Valary understood the idea behind using a golem structure for missing legs and arms. But she knew such the underlying magic remained fundamentally weak. Attempts to use the methods were nearly useless since flesh and muscle would never remain attached to the golem pieces. Valary looked down when she sensed something fill her lower leg stubs. A strange warmth flowed into her flesh and into her hips. Then an almost orgasmic sensation hit her and she arched her hips. “Stay still!” he barked. Suddenly embarrassed, Valary lifted her head to look down at her body. She the inhuman’s upper body with his head focused on his work. His arms trembled as if the man were pushing his entire weight into the soil. The campfire light revealed places where his robe opened. She caught glimpses of his desiccated gray flesh, tightly drawn against his rib cage. Horrifying as the sight was to her, Valary could only stare in wonder while the sensations from his magic swept into her. Suddenly, a flash of searing pain made her gasp. Her flesh burned while Valary’s lower body trembled. Lost in her agony, she failed to see her muscles, flesh, and nerves melded together with the crude golem legs. When Grym finally finished. He stood, teetering slightly from a lightheaded feeling. Shaking his head, the ghoul went behind Valary to lift her into a sitting position. She felt the sensation of pain fade. Still, her new legs did not impress her. “Yeah, brown muck you’ve changed into a form of a golem. The magic will last a few hours,” she mocked. “And you spent all your aether. Worse, my light magic won’t work with your spell.” Grym released the woman, and she fell back. Her reaction caused her strange limbs to kick up in the air. “You learned little for a grand mage,” he scoffed at her. “Clearly, you don’t recognize the spell, or you would not say such nonsense.” Valary wanted to retort, but she realized he was correct. “Anyway, you must relearn your walk,” he continued. “I embedded the casts into your muscle and bone. With work, you’ll feel these legs.” “Impossible,” she replied. “Right, everything is impossible until you will yourself to do it,” he mocked her with a glare. “Those limbs will do until we reach the next place, which is several days away. The tree limbs are now solid as bone and still somewhat flexible. It’ll take a while for your mind and your muscles to sort out how to move. But you had better learn quickly. Right now, you’re nothing more than a burden. Your first step is to learn to stand.” He walked to the horse and untied a pan and a bag from the back of the tall saddle. Valary frowned, then rolled over to her side. With difficulty, the woman focused her mind on her lower extremities. At first, she simply tried to move her rudimentary feet. The feeling shifted from pain to numbness. She frowned again at the fact that the inhuman was correct. She could feel something within the foreign limbs. After a while, the woman finally made a foot jerk at the end of one leg. Paying no attention to his slave, Grym worked to make a simple meal. He put dried meat and dry beans with water in the pan and brought it to a boil next to the fire. Using his knife, he stirred the mixture around occasionally while staring at the fire. A moment later, the ghoul appeared lost in a meditative trance. Valary’s struggle to gain control of her legs continued. Sweat covered her face as the noise of her gasping finally brought Grym out of his daze. “When you can stand, you can eat,” he advised. “Curse you! You could help.” “Why? Are you not the mystic healer trained by the Priestess of Light? I’ve seen children do a better job of learning. Focus some of your aether into your new legs to help you.” “That’s imp…” she stopped when she saw his fed-up expression. Grym’s announcement to change her thinking about sending aether into an inanimate object made no sense. The whole idea goes against everything she knew! “Don’t learn, and I’ll eat you. Perhaps I can gain your magic from that.” His growl cut through her thoughts. Grym went back into his trance as Valary stared daggers at him. While his tone remained serious, she decided he wouldn’t go to such trouble to find her unless he needed her. With a grunt, she turned back inward to making her mind control her legs. After a moment, she finally realized what he meant. Her power came from the flow of her aether, most often using healing spells that went into the bodies of the injured. Her role in the Musketry Cavaliers required an ability to counter the magical spells of the enemy mages. But she became famous for her light-based spells to stop bleeding or lessen traumatic injuries using her aether. Healing magic worked on living tissue, but only to a limited degree. Even more, healers could not rebuild bones or regrow limbs. Such things were impossible. Her training and experience made it clear. Aether ran through the body like an invisible force, and it needed a live body. Still, death came when a sword blade ran through the heart or a bullet blasted into the brain. No amount of aether or training stopped or healed that. The dead became the same as the broken sticks stuck in her legs. Yet Grym wanted her to flow her aether into the mud of her golem-like legs to make herself walk. It’s crazy! She had seen a golem mage before. The man’s creatures looked like blocks of concrete with wheels used to move. Not even a dark mage like a necromancer could make puppets of the dead walk as if they were alive. It was one of the ways her team learned to spot them on the battlefield. Valary glanced over and noticed Grym carving a piece of wood with his knife. Frustrated, the woman bit her lip as her stomach growled again. She had so many questions, but she knew he would ignore her. So she took a deep breath. What choice do I have? The woman cleared her mind and gradually focused her thoughts on a small spark glowing like a candle that always came to her. Instantly, she calmed down and felt the glow disperse as she looked down on her body from above. In her vision, the flow of the aether moved to the strange limbs attached to her body. Valary suddenly felt the twitch. She opened her eyes and looked down to see her one foot like an appendage move. At first, the action seemed to be a fluke. Then, using her will, the other limb moved. It took several more tries before the woman’s new golem legs finally understood the commands. By the time she got to her knees, Grym came out of his trance. “I’m tired of this. You need to crawl over by the fire, and I’ll feed you. Then, you can use the tree to stand and learn to walk again. In the morning, we’ll be riding to the next destination.” “What about my arms?” Only one leg bent at the knee when she lost her focus, causing her to fall back to the ground. “You get arms when I trust you. We both know that a healer, especially a hero with some luck, can still overcome a standard slave spell. Besides, giving you your arms wouldn’t do much good. You can’t even stand yet.” His condescending tone made her glare at him, but she went back to learning to use her legs. After a while, Valary finally got her legs under her, and she awkwardly crawled over to the fire. Grym put the knife into his belt, then walked over to pull the bubbling bucket away from the fire. In his other hand, he stirred the contents with a crude wooden spoon he had made from his carving. “Alright, open up!” The hot liquid burned her mouth, causing her to spit out the contents. “Cursed idiot, that hurt!” His face drew close. “Do you want to do it yourself?” He growled. “Try burning yourself. Or, just give me arms and hands,” she shot back. He remained close, his glare chilling her. Still, she remained defiant even as her stomach growled. Grym pulled back, and she expected the man to leave her. Instead, he stirred the liquid in the pail. “I’ll let it cool first,” he told her. “Unfortunately, you are human.” She watched him for a moment, trying to get a read on his impassive, masked face. “You can always taste it yourself,” she replied. He shook his head and continued stirring. Valary watched him for a while, growing hungrier at the smell filling the surrounding air. “That should be fine now,” she stated. The next spoonful was too hot, but Valary refused to react as she gulped down the salty broth and beans. The woman nodded for more while trying to speak between bites. A few minutes later, she looked down at a nearly empty bucket. “Aren’t you eating?” “That’s a ridiculous question,” he stated as he rose. She waited for a more, but Grym picked up his rifled musket and walked away from the camp. What is he doing now?
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