Chapter 114: Awake

Mara ran back through the hall, boots striking hard against the stone. The feline lifted its head as she passed, a small instinct to hunt running prey seemed to perk its ears. However it was soon drowned out by the command instilled in it by its owner.

The urgency in the old man's voice had drawn Mara toward the treatment room. She entered expecting to find Rook convulsing upon the table or the old man struggling to contain whatever he had uncovered inside him.

Instead, Rook remained perfectly still.

The curved knife no longer touched him. It rested upon the stone beside his head while the old man stood over the table, examining several faint threads suspended in the air above Rook's body. Exhaustion had settled into his face. The damaged fingers of his right hand had recovered most of their shape, though their tips remained pale and smooth.

"What happened?" Mara asked. "You called me like something had gone wrong."

"Nothing has gone wrong yet." The old man lowered his hand and looked toward her. "I need your help restraining him before I reconnect the final section."

Mara glanced at Rook's motionless body. "You healed him. Why would we need to restrain him now?"

"Because his flesh was never the dangerous part of this procedure. People do not always welcome memories simply because those memories belong to them. When several years return at once, the mind may lose track of which moment it currently occupies. He could wake believing himself somewhere else, surrounded by people who hurt him, and react accordingly."

The old man crossed to one of the cabinets and removed a coil of grey rope. It appeared rough and heavy, but bent easily between his damaged fingers when he tested it.

Mara accepted one end. "He's going to hate this."

"I imagine he will. Hatred is manageable. If he wakes in panic and tears open what I have repaired, we will have to begin again with fewer pieces than we possess now."

They wound the rope around Rook's chest first. The old man directed Mara to keep it above his ribs and away from his throat, leaving enough room for him to breathe even if the bindings tightened. A second length secured his upper arms against his sides, while separate loops held his wrists near the edges of the table.

Mara tightened the final knot reluctantly. Rook had spent their journey protecting her from nearly everything in the Underworld. Now she had brought him into an abandoned Bastion, allowed a stranger to cut through his memories, and helped bind him to a stone table while he remained unconscious.

The thought became uglier each time she examined it.

As she stepped back, something above Rook's face caught the white light. A strand emerged from the center of his forehead, thinner than thread and almost invisible except where it crossed the glow. Its other end wound around the old man's ring finger before disappearing beneath the first joint.

"What is that?"

The old man raised his hand and examined the connection. "A safeguard for both of us."

"That explains very little."

"I have recovered almost everything that remained inside him. Memories lost through ordinary decay were simple enough to restore. Those buried beneath later experiences took considerably longer, and several had been sealed so deeply that his own mind no longer acknowledged their existence."

His attention shifted toward Rook's arms. The dark Brand remained visible beneath the torn sleeves, its markings extending farther than those carried by any other Condemned Reaper Mara had encountered. They swallowed nearly all the flesh from his wrists to his shoulders.

"The final memories are connected to those marks," the old man continued. "Whatever happened before his death shaped more than the man he became afterward. Once I restore the connection, he will not experience those events as something distant. To him, no time will have passed between then and now."

Mara studied the strand again. "And if he cannot handle it?"

"If he wakes unable to distinguish the memories from the present, I pull this free. Doing so will sever the pathways I restored and place those memories beyond his reach again. Nothing will be destroyed, but he will return to the condition in which you brought him to me."

"He has survived in the Underworld for three hundred years," Mara said. "He has fought Abominations, died before, and experienced more battles than most Reapers ever see. I think he has enough mental strength to survive remembering one life."

"Perhaps. Endurance is not immunity." The old man adjusted the strand carefully around his finger. "A person may survive three centuries precisely because certain memories were absent during those years. Returning them can remove the distance upon which that endurance was built."

Mara watched Rook's face. He looked peaceful in a way he never did while conscious, without the irritation that seemed permanently carved around his eyes. "What would make you use it?"

"I will not seal anything merely because he wakes frightened or angry. Both responses would be expected. I will use the safeguard only if he no longer recognizes where he is, becomes uncontrollably violent, or attempts to destroy himself before his mind settles."

"You may have difficulty telling the difference. He was already violent, and his sense of self-preservation has always been questionable."

"I noticed. There is still a difference between risking death for a reason and seeking it because the mind can no longer bear its own contents. It may not be obvious to someone meeting him for the first time, but it becomes unmistakable once you have seen both."

The certainty in his voice stopped Mara from arguing further.

They checked the bindings once more. The grey rope tightened when Rook's body shifted but did not cut into him. Once satisfied, the old man placed one hand against Rook's forehead and picked up the curved knife with the other.

"Hold his shoulders," he said. "Do not lean over his face when he wakes, and do not attempt to force him silent. He will need to hear his own voice before he recognizes that it belongs to him."

Mara braced both hands against Rook. The old man waited until she had planted her feet, then drove the curved knife into the stone beside Rook's temple.

The blade passed through the surface without producing a crack. No blood appeared, and the metal never touched Rook's flesh. The old man twisted the handle slightly, catching something beneath the visible world, then drew the knife back.

Rook inhaled with enough force to wrench his chest against the ropes.

His eyes opened, but they did not see the treatment room. His gaze passed across the ceiling without recognizing the stone above him, and then a scream tore from his throat.

The sound travelled through the abandoned Bastion and returned from the empty chambers beyond. Mara recoiled before forcing herself against the table again. Rook twisted beneath her hands, his wrists pulling in opposite directions as the ropes creaked under the strain. The stone table shifted across the floor.

"Rook!" Mara shouted.

He did not hear her. Panic had emptied his face of everything familiar, leaving no trace of the anger he usually sharpened into insults. He fought without thought, every movement directed toward escaping the surface beneath him.

"Let me out! Get these off me!" He jerked one arm hard enough to tighten the rope around his chest.

"No more! I said no more!"

The old man kept one hand near the white strand but made no attempt to pull it. His voice remained level, neither commanding nor falsely gentle.

"Rook, you are in the Underworld. You are inside a sealed Bastion beneath the Skyraisers. The restraints are temporary, and no one here intends to harm you."

The explanation never reached him. Rook dragged at the ropes until the restored flesh around his wrists reddened, his eyes still fixed upon something beyond the room.

"Get the chains off me! I'm not going back in there!"

"They aren't chains." Mara pressed harder against his shoulders. "Rook, look at me. It's Mara. You're inside a Bastion. The Pale Abomination nearly killed you, and this man healed you."

His eyes found her for half a second, but there was no recognition in them. They passed through her as if she were only another shape standing between him and escape.

"You don't understand," he said. His voice broke around the words. "Get them off before they put me back."

Mara tightened her grip. "Nobody is putting you anywhere. You came here with me. Try to remember what happened before you woke."

Rook's gaze snapped toward the old man. He recoiled so violently that his head struck the table.

"Get away from my head!"

The old man did not move. "The procedure is finished. The knife is no longer inside your memories, and I will not touch them again while you remain conscious."

"What the fuck did you do to me?" Rook demanded.

"Who gave you permission to go through my head?"