The Galefast’s captain’s cabin contained the only real bed on the ship, and it was currently occupied by Creighton.

  Cole was the first of the mages to sit down, joining Rodney and everyone else who hadn't been searching the tower. Vanessa was proficient in first aid, and had stayed to monitor Creighton.

  “Has his condition changed at all?”

  “He stops fitting as long as I hold his hand.”

  A silence fell over the room, lasting just long enough for Cole to pour himself a stiff drink, and pass the bottle on.

  “Every damn thing in that tower has a four-hundred word thesis about it’s every component, everything but that mad contraption.”

  “Eugene said the Elf’s memoir swears up and down that he was doing it to see their ‘desperate effort’ to the end. I don't know. It looks like a hair-brained immortality scheme, to me.”

  “Didn't work then?”

  “He lived longer than most elves, but not that much longer. Apparently, he got increasingly incoherent after each use.”

  Rodney pointed at Creighton, asking the question everyone in the room had spent the day chasing.

  “So how does an immortality box do that to living metal?”

  “As far as I can tell, he's lost control of his mana. I can't find anything other than Vitae, and he seems overwhelmed with it.”

  “I know it all looks right on the outside, but… he's missing something important, isn't he?”

  “That's correct, he still has no heartbeat.”

  After a pointed look, the silence following Leona's statement hung only briefly. By now Vanessa was the only one who hadn't settled around the table, as she was still holding Creighton’s hand and applying wet rags to try and manage his ever increasing temperature.

  “How long until we've boarded everything?”

  “The deck cranes are making light work of it. We'll be ready by noon tomorrow.”

  “Why did we have to leave Keith behind?”

  “We didn't have to, we just decided to. Why would we ever need someone specialized in magical artificery and Living Metal?”

  “He wanted to stay. It's not anyone's fault. For all we know he wouldn’t know what to do either.”

  “Just… what can we try without a mana-smith?”

  “We could siphon out all the vitae.”

  “He's made of mana. If we suck it out, couldn't we kill him?”

  “He's a lot stronger than normal living metal. He might be fine.”

  “That does not inspire great confidence.”

  “We're not trying that. At least not yet.”

  “What if we reintroduce a normal balance of mana?”

  “That is what Leona tried first. He won't take it, and when we try to force it in, the mana just seems to disappear.”

  “We haven’t been able to come up with anything else.”

  “How much danger is he in?”

  “He might be going through the Vitae at an initially alarming rate, but with how much he has… He's not in any risk of running out. For now.”

  “Why isn't he awake right now? He shouldn't need a heartbeat, or to breathe.”

  “I don't know. My best estimation as to what's happening is that he's constantly dying, because of a lack of necessary organs, and ‘preserving’ himself with the Vitae.”

  “The only times he's ever ‘slept’ like this was when his mana was completely unbalanced, exhausted or he'd been overtaken by an excess of mana. Why would he even need organs?”

  “I don’t know.”

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  “...Okay.”

  “So, what if we just wait?”

  “He'll either wake up, or he'll run out of mana.”

  “Have we tried forcing him to breathe?”

  “I tried everything we could think of, and when I did manage to make him exhale, he would only slowly inhale. As for his heart, nothing I do seems to affect it.”

  “Does he even have a heart?”

  “I could normally search for it, it's a strong source of Vitae, but I can't detect anything the way he is now.”

  Leona had spent much of her mana and stamina trying to awaken Creighton, and by now she was too tired to continue. She and Larrik left together, passing Eugene as he entered with a stack of loose paper and a few bound books.

  “I’ve brought everything sensitive, but this book has everything we were looking for.”

  “We were looking for a couple things, which is it? Universal Translation?”

  “The book binding is enchanted with Universal Translation, and the pages within are a memoir. More or less.”

  “What took so long?”

  “I had to check it to make sure it was safe, just touching it draws your mana for the enchantment.”

  “What does it say, then?”

  “It references the artificery in question a couple times, but only in regret, nothing about how it works. It does, however, list all the families in the Conclave, and specifies not just what they achieved but also where it can be found in the tower.”

  “Does that include everything we were looking for?”

  “Universal translation, Memory Recall, Truth. Designs for the illusion and structural artificery, among other things.”

  “What about The Calamity?”

  “It’s referenced in his ramblings, along with the design of an artifice called a ‘Siphon’. I think the book itself uses the same design, just scaled down.”

  “A Mana Siphon? So that means it was an imbalance in the earth, just like Duozemek?”

  “That is the only rational assumption. It seems that they are also responsible for the forbidden land’s wandering, and the Broilstorms.”

  “What should we do about them?”

  “There are apparently four locations, all along the shoreline. All ‘as far north, east, south, and west as the bedrock goes.’ As for what to do about them, he projects that ‘The Cataclysm’ would be averted after five hundred years of their use, but I haven’t been able to verify the dates.”

  “If we went to check them, would we be able to tell?”

  “That’s your wheelhouse, not mine. If I had to guess, it should be obvious.”

  “Can we hit the eastern one on the way back?”

  “We should be able to, but I wouldn't advise turning only one off. Currently, the Siphons should be fighting each other, dragging the island towards the area with the highest local mana density. If we turn just one off…”

  The conversation continued as the sun set, and stars slowly populated the sky above, only finally ending late into the night. Not everyone stayed the whole time, many leaving to eat or sleep. It wasn't until just before sunrise that Vanessa was awoken by Creighton’s fitting.

  ~~~

  The bath was warm, but I was surrounded by a suffocating darkness, and a deep exhaustion I hadn’t felt since basic. I just wanted to lay there, and find solace in the feeling of the warmth seeping into my bones. That was before a headlight lit up my bathroom window. This tub was my tub, from my apartment. When I sat up, I could feel the water splashing around me, and then the car was gone, and I was in the dark again. I reached over to the edge of the tub, groping around until I found my phone.

  Turning it on, I used the light of its screen to stand up. Everything seemed to be exactly where I had left it, though the hamper was empty, despite the fact I was sure I hadn’t done the laundry. Getting out and leaning on the sink, I turned the light on, but my reflection was not the one in the bathroom mirror.

  “Jerahmeel?”

  Before he could answer, lightning struck just outside, and by the time my eyes returned to the mirror, there was only darkness, no bathroom, nothing. I stepped foreward and my arms struck a hard metal wall, and the air turned faintly acrid. My lungs were burning, the ladder, it was just a few more steps this way. I could see the thin sliver of sunlight from where the hatch was still ajar, but when I turned around I could see Phil passed out in front of me.

  I struggled back the way I had come, back towards him. The single worklight we’d brought had fallen to the floor, and rested against the far wall, providing almost no light. I grabbed one of his legs and tried to pull, but every breath was draining me of my strength. I slipped on the now slick floor, but never hit the deck.

  Laying on my back, I could feel a cloth wrapped loosely around me. My body felt weird, heavy and tight, but the burning still clung to my arms and face. As I struggled to move I could feel the coffin’s lid start to open, and my vision was briefly obscured as the flag dropped to the floor. When I sat up the priest balked at me, and all the parishioners, including my family, were staring slack jawed in horror. Just before I could start screaming too, someone grabbed my hand, and the scene around me was gone.

  Hey, hey. Calm down. You were dreaming. You're okay now.

  “Dreaming? How can I be dreaming? I was… in that tower.”

  You got caught in one of the many magical devices collecting dust in that place. It's severely unbalanced your mana.

  “What does that mean?”

  You passed out because you absorbed too much Vitae. It’s not going to get better on its own.

  “What about everyone else? Won't I be dangerous to them, if I can't resist absorbing their mana?”

  You're a bit overstuffed to absorb any more mana right now. And as for them helping you, there's a chance. I’d not count on it though.

  “Why not?”

  Well, they'd either have to force all that excess mana out while simultaneously providing you with new, reasonably balanced mana, or feed you something ‘human’ in essence.

  “What?”

  Before this happened, you had taken on your human form, but you’d also removed a number of weaknesses. Now you can't wake up without a heart, or proper lungs. Or a nervous system.

  “That doesn't make any sense. I'm not human anymore. Why would I need human organs? I'm made of metal.”

  You are made of mana, not metal. And right now, you're almost exclusively made of Life mana. Look at yourself right now? Do you look like you're made of metal?

  Right now my arms do look normal. Like I did before. I've even got one of my old shirts.

  Your brain is now behind by a year’s worth of sleep. It's sort of like you went from software emulation to emulating the actual hardware.

  “What do I do about that?”

  Well, in order, let your brain continue to sort itself out while dreaming. In the meantime, your friends are still trying to figure out a way to fix you. Once you get a heart, you can use it to regain control over the Vitae that's crippling you.

  “That dream was intense. How much more of that will I have to go through?”

  This next dream will be different, just make sure to focus on getting back.

  “Getting back? What does that mean?”

  Exactly that. Good luck.

  “Wait, we're already done?”

  “...”

  “Jerahmeel?”