After six weeks, Georg discovered him trying to pull the breathing tube out of his lungs. When he was freed of it, Georg put an oxygen feed in his nose. Hoarsely, Morgan said, “That made cantations challenging.”
“You shouldn't have needed to do them,” Georg chided.
“Maybe not, but it's natural for me to try. I'm an annoyingly hard-headed scafir, after all.”
Georg paused what he was doing. “Did you just crack a joke?”
Morgan smiled like a child just discovering something new. “Yes, I did. Is that not strange? For the first time in my life, my head is clear. No voices, no geases, no compulsions. Just me. I can think without interruption. It feels very... lonely. Too quiet.”
Georg smiled sunnily enough for Morgan to pick it up. “Let me get you some water. That gravelly voice doesn't suit you.”
Two months is a long time to nurse a grudge. It festered in Morgan's mind for three weeks, then he started plotting. He had time and quiet to plan and heal like never before. And he could triple check all his research, another luxury. Finally, he lay quiet, let the plan he etched out go dormant, and concentrated on his body healing. A peace and tranquility enveloped him as he realized that the torment and pain would be addressed and ended. Then this morning, Morgan realized he could breathe with regularity.
He fought the urge to regurgitate the first meal they brought him. Traditionally, any long period without eating angered his stomach. After muscling down the oatmeal and tea, he started to feel lively. He napped for a short while. He had been planning this long. There was no rush.
After lying awake for ten minutes to be sure he was alone, Morgan arose from the bed. He stood and found his legs rubbery. It took a few minutes before he felt steady enough to let go of the counter. He slowly reoriented himself to walking. The atrophy was minimal, but real. He took breaks as he needed them. The usual brisk pace he employed was now a tentative grope. Servants purposefully paid closer attention to their work when he came near. Finally, he found himself at the edge of the state rooms. He heard people milling about. “Help me,” he said. A maid dutifully wrapped a chintz throw around his waist while a young man took his arm and led him upstairs. Morgan thanked him and lay down. “Bring me a light meal,” he ordered. He was left alone.
~~~~~
Georg found Morgan soaking in a tub. “You're an amazing specimen,” he commented dryly.
“Healing is a luxury to me. I rarely get the time.”
“Well, now that you do, you should take all the time you need.”
Morgan sat up. “I never thought about what it would be like to just say no straight to someone's face. And now that I can, just having the choice is more liberating than actually making it.”
“Michael left you quite a gift.”
Morgan relaxed back, perfectly calm in his face, his voice was anguished. “I only wish he were here to benefit from it. I would so dearly like to talk to him now that my attention is... focused.”
~~~~~
Morgan had never learned portation magic and he'd buried his traveling cloak with his brother. But he knew deep inside he wouldn't need either. With the most humanizing factor in his life gone, there was very little humanity within him. A servant told him his brother's death mask had arrived. Morgan told him to have it placed next to his father's bust. Later, in his sitting room, he went in and ran his fingers over the new object. It was cold and inanimate and it was the last link he had to remember his brother viscerally. Michael's scent was fading from his usual seats and pillows.
He pressed the mask to his cheek and let the loneliness consume him. A sharp keening broke a profound silence. Tears carved a path down his face. When a familiar stabbing pain entered his mind, he did not ignore it. He placed the mask lovingly upon his brother's former seat and said to the ether, “I accept your summons.”
Scariel's schadenfreude was thick in the air. She was enjoying her surviving son's pain. He sensed no regret for murdering her good son. Steeling his mind, he said, “Yes, mother?”
“I told you,” she said, icily, “that you would be the death of your brother and look what has happened.”
Morgan turned his face downward, as was customary when speaking to a superior female. Respect was not his motive, though. He could feel his fangs sliding out.
“You could have saved hi-...” An incorporeal hand gripped her mind and shut off her speech.
“You,” he breathed, barely above a whisper. “You killed my brother. You killed my soul twin. You killed Michael.”
His mother was taken aback at being interrupted. Morgan had never spoken when she enforced her will over him. She still assumed a geas existed or was delusional enough to ignore that it didn't.
“I have suffered enormously because of you. Michael was the only comfort I had. And you took him from me, from everyone. You killed the one person who loved me.”
The tears came. His nose ran. It didn't matter. He didn't care. His voice wavered, but the steel edge remained. “And now mother, after all that I have borne under your servitude, this is something that will not go unanswered. I want revenge. But not simple revenge. I don't care about the torture or the deaths or the abandonment. This hurts far worse. Michael did not deserve this. And I can't let it go.”
“You're not soul twins. You have to be identical to be....”
Morgans knuckles cracked against Scariel's cheek. Scariel fell back and away, she tried to scramble away on the ground. He grabbed her ankle. “I believe this was how you did it once.”
He grabbed her by her nape and smacked her across the face. He felt bone give. She screamed loudly. “Shut up!” he shouted in her face. “You wouldn't let me scream when you did it, so shut it!”
She'll come to save me, she thought. Please, save me....
“Yes, call her,” Morgan said, regaining some composure. “Call her. I want you to know what you've done. I want you to experience what I am going through. I want you to know the pain” his voice dropped to a whisper, “of having your twin taken away.”
Scariel's eyes dilated with a fear. Morgan tugged at her soul, tasting it. No, please, no.... just kill me...
“And give you the coward's way out? No. Mother, I don't want justice here. I want retribution. I want you to suffer. I want revenge.”
He ran his hands down her leg. “Call her...”
No, Sethiel, don't...
Morgan disjointed her knee. A moment letter a bullet lodged in his spine. He twisted his hand around and drove a spike through her. “Come here,” he commanded.
Sethiel looked at him, shaking. “Come here,” he repeated. She stepped forward, numbly, unable to resist his will. When she stood at arm's length, he put a hand on her shoulder. “For thirty-seven years, I have borne your abuse. I have been used and tortured and desecrated mentally, physically, and spiritually. An enlightened man, like Michael, would forgive you and offer you redemption. But, I'm not Michael. I can't be like Michael. I am full of anger and hate and pain and suffering. I have been trained to devalue life and glory in its destruction. Michael was a good man. He could love. He could even love me.”
Morgan cried uncontrollably for a couple minutes, then clamped down harder. “But I don't have Michael anymore. I will never see him again. Never know the comfort or warmth of his presence. Whatever I am, I am now so much less. Sethiel, if you see him, tell him to pray for me, because I have nothing...”
Morgan decapitated her. “... to redeem me any longer.”
Scariel screamed in agony as her soul twin's life was taken by her son. Then, he started chanting. “Nooooooo! Noooooo! Nooo...”
Morgan felt a flash of euphoria, of potency, of a satiety unkown to most mortals as he drank Sethiel's soul. “My vengeance has been satisfied. But it's not over yet.”
He manifested a knife and cut a symbol into his blood-slicked palm. He took the carved out piece of flesh and shoved it in his mother's mouth. “Swallow it,” he ordered. When she only stared back at him in horror, he rode his will over hers and made her gulp it down. “Now, send me home.”
As he disappeared, the bright sunny day on the Scafir homeworld continued on in its cheery manner.
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