Jak Koke - Stranger souls

But the second step, which involved magic, had worked on only three test subjects. Roxborough didn't understand the details, but it involved techniques similar to those used in cybermancy. Meyer had explained it to him several times, but Roxborough always had to think of it as an exchange of spirits. In cybermancy, the mages tried to tie the subject's spirit to his body even though there was too much metal in the flesh to hold the spirit. The spells acted as a tether to the subject's will.

The experimental spirit transfer was supposed to work similarly. Meyer and his mages would tether Roxborough's spirit to Ryan's body after Ryan's spirit was forced out. According to Meyer, the trick was to bring Ryan's body to the point of death, but not over, then form a bridge with blood magic such that Roxborough's spirit would cross into Ryan's body. Ryan's spirit would be released, then the body's wounds would be healed, but it would contain Roxborough's mind, memories, and spirit.

/ will be physical again.

"So," Roxborough said, letting loose with his full sardonic tone, "you want me to scrap this one, an otherwise perfect specimen, because you have an 'odd feeling' about him?"

Meyer was used to these sorts of meetings, however. "I'm

just giving you my opinion as head mage. I advise caution. After the last suite of retroviruses, we should give this subject plenty of time to adjust to your brain patterns. Your memories may take longer to settle in. If his aura has changed some by then, perhaps we can proceed with the transfer."

"Your concern is noted, Mr. Meyer," said Roxborough. "But hopefully unwarranted." His simulacrum leaned in close and his voice rose slightly. "Let me make one thing perfectly, fragging, clear. I want this one. This man's body is perfect. Unmarred. Beautiful…"

They sat speechless, knowing better than to interrupt.

"You will make it work, or I will replace you with those who can. Understood?"

Riese nodded, but Meyer just stared into the glossy surface of the board room table. "I don't think you-"

"No slotting excuses!" Roxborough's voice was blaring from the speakers now. "It has worked on our test subjects, and it will work with this one. You will make it work, or I will get rid of you…" He paused to let them think about that. Nobody left the delta clinic to pursue other careers. They would be killed and they knew it.

Meyer looked up into the eyes of the simulacrum, his face a mask of controlled rage. Mouth drawn into a tight line. "I scan," he said, then abruptly stood and walked out.

Roxborough put a smart frame tracer on him to follow him with the hall cameras. There was nowhere he could go inside the complex to escape Roxborough's scrutiny. And the great thing was-the wiz thing-Meyer knew he was trapped, but couldn't do anything about it.

That's why I'm the fragging boss, thought Roxborough. That's why I own nearly a third of Aztechnology. Power, he was addicted to it. Power over the little people. Over the information.

Power over everything, with one exception. One huge exception-his own body. His corporeal form, which had decided to eat itself up from the inside.

Soon, he thought. Soon I will have that power as well. I will be fragging unstoppable in Mercury's body. And I will have it. The man who was Ryan Mercury is gone, erased like

a recycled datachip. And in his place, grows the man who will become me. First, my personality and my memories. Then, in a few weeks or a month, the ultimate hostile takeover-my will. My spirit. Me.

"I call you Lethe," came the voice of the goddess, "for you have forgotten your way."

Lethe basked in the sound of the goddess' voice. He soaked in the blinding light that shone from her. The light and the sound that radiated from her, washing away shadow and fear.

Lethe had existed in that place of exquisite beauty for as long as he could remember. And only recently, in the last few moments as he measured time, had the goddess stopped her singing. A song so perfect, so painfully wonderful that he could not move. Could do nothing but bathe in the beauty of her song.

The goddess was smaller in form than Lethe, and she had a distinctive shape-a body, marked by symmetrical appendages. Legs and arms, he suddenly knew. Delicate and beautiful in their fragility. Her hair was black, the antithesis of the light that radiated from her, and it framed her face and gave it juxtaposition. Shadows to her light.

"Lethe, listen to me," she said, "I am called Thayla, and I need your help." A thrill passed through him as she spoke. He would do anything for her. "You are an extremely powerful spirit, and you can help me. You are here for a purpose, though I don't know exactly what it is. Dunkelzahn must have sent you, or Harlequin. You have an important role to play or you wouldn't be here. You aren't from Darke, that much is obvious, so you must be here to help."

Lethe had no memory of anything other than this place. Nothing other than the goddess-Thayla, with her light and song. He wanted to help her, but didn't know how to answer her. Her speech seemed to be a physical thing, and he had no physical form. He didn't think it was necessarily physical,

however. He approached her, and projected his emotions, his love for her. And they came out as words, "What can I do?" "Look around you," she said.

Her light waned slightly as he took in the landscape, and a stiff dry wind came up. Lethe felt it, though the air passed through him. The sky above was colorless and flatly bright without any light source. The ground below was hard and cracked, a brown rocky surface underneath him. And as Thayla's light diminished, Lethe saw that a deep chasm surrounded them on three sides. That they stood on the tip of a sharp outcropping of stone.

Thayla stood at the very tip, the chasm dropping away in front of her precipitously. Lethe had no concept of the depth of this chasm; he could not see the bottom. And as he turned, he saw the outcropping widen behind them, thickening into a broad arc. The chasm marked the edges of the arc's surface with the dark line of its abyssal depths as it stretched away behind them, widening ever so slightly as it extended. Until finally it connected with solid land in the distance.

"This outcropping is the result of unnaturally high magic," Thayla said. "The Chasm, here, is the gap between our worlds and those of the… the…" She faltered, pain evident in her speech.

Lethe turned to look out across the abyss. Now that Thayla had stopped singing, wind roared around them, throwing her hair across her face. The far side of the chasm was barely visible in the blowing distance, but Lethe could make out a similar cliff at the reaches of his perception. He could see a similar outcropping protruding toward them from the land on that side. Darkness clung to the land mass, and revulsion rose inside Lethe as he looked at it.

"I am here to prevent them from completing their bridge," Thayla continued. "They are evil and horrifying and more powerful than we can imagine. If they can finish the bridge, they will come in droves. And when they come, they will destroy everything they can touch. They will torture us. They will make us all do things…" Again her voice wavered.

Lethe shivered at her distress. Her voice was powerful even in shock.

Thayla took a breath and composed herself. "As the natural cycle of mana increases, the Chasm will grow narrower. But these outcroppings are unnatural-spikes above background that result from the use of blood magic. Our worlds are not ready." "But your singing…"

She smiled at him, the light beaming from her and warming him. "My song stops them. You see, they cannot stand to hear it, and my voice carries even across the Chasm."

Lethe knew it to be true; her song was the light. It was the beauty that had immobilized him for as long as he could remember. In fact, he recalled nothing of his existence before, if he had even had one. Time had had no meaning for him until she had chosen to stop her song and name him.