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It started with a subtle tickling beneath the forearms, like a silk thread being drawn across flesh. At first the sensation was pleasurable, a shiver of arousal, but as Iscend rose toward consciousness, the touch lost its charm.
This wasn't the tickle of silk. It was squirming, it was wriggling, it was maggots that undulated over the skin of her arms, over her belly and her hips. She twitched and tried to brush the maggots away, but her hands found nothing there.
Surely they were there—she could feel it. She could feel the fat bloated bodies undulating back and forth. She could feel them cool and sticky-wet. She could picture them, yellow-white, a darkness under their surface. She could—
Unless.
Unless—
Oh, of course. Yes, she knew what it was. This was how they promised it happened. The maggots weren't on her, no, they were in her. The maggots writhed beneath her skin, their pale segmented bodies pressed up against the underside of her flesh, creating ripples on the surface of her arms.
He'd promised that this would happen. All of her Masters in the Metademe, yes, but Torrinde most of all. Torrinde always kept his promises. He'd taught Iscend to do the same.
Iscend scratched at her arms, nails catching on the raised lumps of them, pulling at her skin. It wouldn't help. There were too many of them. She knew what they wanted. Not her blood, no. They were after something more essential than that. They fed on her will, on that fresh new bud, the sense of self that had just started to push up from the dirt of her.
Now here they were, within her body, betraying her from within. She'd said the word, and the word had formed a small stone, a seed, uniquely herself. They hungered for that growth. They would search it out and destroy it. For the good of the Empire, of course.
She felt them moving up from her belly and she scratched at her chest, at her breasts. They wriggled on, working their way up her body. They knew where they would find the growth. They knew it resided in the heart and in the brain. They—
**
Iscend jerked awake with a strangled gasp, her hand at her throat where she could still feel the maggots crawling. There was nothing there, just the smooth skin of her neck, slick with cold sweat. Above and around her, the Helbride creaked, rocking gently on the waves.
Iscend took a deep breath.
It had started then. She'd expected this.
"Gaios."
She was prepared.
**
Cosgrad Torrinde moved around the examination table with practiced efficiency, fingers arranging the gleaming instruments: syringes, calibration devices, restraints. He spoke without looking up from his preparations:
"Today marks a significant milestone in your development, Iscend." His voice sounded clinical, warm. "The memcana will fundamentally alter how your mind processes and stores information."
Iscend's throat felt dry as sand. She wanted to ask if it would hurt. A year ago she would have. A year ago there was still a bit of the child left within her. Now she was seven years old and that child was gone. She was an instrument, like the tools on the Master’s table. Now she didn't dare ask such a childish question as that.
Torrinde looked up from the examination table. He studied her face for and even though she did not speak, she knew he saw the question there in her eyes. The child still inside her, hiding. His mouth turned down in disappointment. "You've learned about the memcana during your lessons. Tell me what you remember."
Relief flooded through Iscend. She understood what was expected of her now. She cleared her throat and began. "Memcana is the substance that facilitates the creation of the Clarified’s memory house, Master Torrinde. Unlike noocana, which must be controlled through incrastic heredity and careful breeding, as it was for the Claridied, memcana is engineered right here in the Metademe.”
His face no longer showed displeasure. He looked up, finally meeting her eyes. "The injection will hurt, yes, but the pain is temporary. What we're giving you today is the first step in what will become a permanent enhancement. When we are finished, you will be a gift to the Imperial Republic for the rest of your life."
**
The cards lay scattered across the small wooden table. It was a mind probe, an attribution test. It was a Metademe game calculated to pierce deception. Iscend had been trained to read the briefest involuntary expressions on the human face, to catch the hesitation of falsehood in the voice, but before that, it had simply been a game. Or it had seemed a game.
The children in the Metademe tested each other, trying to pry out differences, learn secret truths. Later, as they grew, it became less of a game. It became a trial, one that might lead to reconditioning and advanced procedures if it was failed.
Iscend drew her cards from the center of the thick deck. The deck was new to her. Master Torrinde had given it over to her before she left on her mission with Xate Yawa. She had not yet entered all of the words in this deck into her memory house. That was important. The cards became useless once she'd seen them all, the associations set and housed.
She turned over the first card and took in the arrangement of letters.
RALICE
"Reality."
Too slow. Failure!
The next card: DOMINEX
"Next."
Better. In the Metademe she would have gone with dominion.
She reached out and turned another card.
RIMPRSS
"Empress."
She remembered this card. Rimprss. Iscend administered the attribution test to Baru Cormorant during their first meeting. Baru has responded slowly, attempted to calculate the correct responses. When shown this card Baru said impress and she stumbled over the word. It was easy to decipher the stumble. She'd nearly said repress. This was confirmed the second time Iscend showed the card when half of Baru did say it.
The test was successful. Iscend learned three things:
First, Baru wanted Iscend and she did not want to want her. Baru Cormorant was concerned about consent, about the self-determination of the Clarified. She did not understand.
Second, Baru Cormorant's conditioning was not complete. She was fractured. She was malleable.
Third, Baru Cormorant would understand Iscend.
Baru contained two selves. She too wanted to be free.
This self-administered test was successful too. Iscend set the cards back on the desk. She turned and settled into her bed. The nightmares would return soon.
"Excellent," she said. "Gaios, let's proceed."
**
Cosgrad Torrinde lifted the syringe. The liquid of the memcana caught the light strangely. It was opalescent, glowing pink and green and yellow, like the inside of a shell picked up along the beach.
This was Iscend's second dose.
"Go on," Torrinde urged. “Continue.”
Iscend narrated: "This particular formulation of memcana has been refined over years of research. The memcana doesn't just improve memory, it creates perfect recall. Every sight, sound, smell, texture and emotion. Nothing will be lost to the Clarified again."
"Nothing will be lost to you," Torrinde corrected.
"Nothing will be lost to me again." Seven years old was old enough to understand. It was old enough to understand that the Masters hoped the Clarified would forget things that happened before this moment. Iscend was old enough to know that none of them needed memcana to recall the maze.
Torrinde nodded and Iscend strapped her left wrist to the arm of the chair. She waited as Torrinde strapped down her right.
"Children often struggled with new experiences, even beneficial ones. You wouldn't struggle though, would you, Iscend? You understand."
"I wouldn't struggle," Iscend agreed. It was the truth. She would sit with her hands on the arms of the chair, just as she did now. She did not need restraints to do what the Empire demanded.
"Why not?"
"Precision is crucial when working with brain chemistry."
"Very good. Tell me, Iscend, do you ever dream of places you've never been? People you've never met?"
Iscend considered this as Torrinde moved in. He prepared the injection location, shaving the hair there, wiping her skin with an antiseptic cloth. Once he was finished, he paused.
"Well?"
Iscend didn't understand the question.
"My dreams are the dreams of the Empire."
**
Her back hit the surface of the water first, her skin stinging as the silver bubbles exploded around her. The water closed over her head, muffling the sounds from the ship above. She watched the light fade as her body sank down toward the depths and her mind cleared.
Here, at last, she was free.
Nearby Tain Shir had already righted herself and started to swim, a trail of dark blood left in her wake.
The enveloping ocean erased Iscend Comprine from her master's plans. A drowned Clarified could be no use to Xate Yawa or Cosgrad Torrinde. The water washed the maggots from her skin, the conflicting orders, the push and pull of competing interests.
It was a momentary thing. It couldn’t last, but gaios, oh, gaios. Was this what it would feel like? Was this how it could be?
A tightness in the lungs. A shiver down the spine.
Iscend shuddered. She smiled.
Her experiment had already started. It began with the first utterance of her own command world, the chill it sent through her, the satisfaction and the nightmares that followed. It continued on the boat above.
Did Baru Cormorant think Iscend had died for her? She must, by design.
Iscend righted herself and began the long swim toward Kyprananoke.
**
Iscend was eight years old when she was brought back to the laboratory for her third dose of the memcana.
"In my research," Master Torrinde said, "I've discovered something fascinating. Some memories aren't created through personal experience—they're inherited. Passed down through generations, like eye color or height."
"Noocana," Iscend supplied.
"That's right, but how can you remember something that happened to someone else?" He was testing her again.
Iscend knew what came next. They'd had this conversation six months ago, the last time Iscend sat in this chair. This was, as it always was, a test. "Memory isn't as individual as most people believe. Your ancestor's experiences and their knowledge and their skills—it all exists within us, locked away in neural pathways we cannot consciously access."
"We can't," Torrinde agreed. "But you can."
Iscend nodded. "The memcana will change that."
"Very good," Torrinde said. "Combat techniques, survival instincts, knowledge of languages that no longer exist. Your bloodline traces back to a time before the Empire."
Iscend shook her head. It was difficult to conceive of a time before the Empire.
"I heard you talking with your Clarified class. Some of the Clarified seemed troubled by the creation of the memory banks they've observed in others of their same class. Are you troubled, Iscend."
"No," Iscend said, immediately. She understood the importance of the memory bank to the Empire. She wanted what was good for Falcrest. "It is only that to some, they seem different afterward. They say that the Clarified who have completed the process seem empty, but I know that that is the opposite of the truth, your Excellence."
"That's right, Iscend. They are free from the confusion and internal conflict that plagues an ordinary mind. The enhanced memory allows them to see patterns, connections and truths that remain hidden from those of you who are still on your journey. They understand their purpose with perfect clarity, but you already understand that, don't you?"
"I do." She did. She thought she did.
Torrinde smiled, approving, and that smile felt to Iscend like the smile of the Empire. She held the arms of the chair. He did not ask her to apply the restraints.
"Close your eyes, Iscend. This will only take a moment."
**
“I know how to alter it,” Iscend said. She took a step closer to Baru Cormorant.
“How?”
Had she not just said? By making you my Empire. By helping you succeed so that through you I can be free.
“Like this. Gaios. Kiss her.”
Somehow, though she had made her intentions abundantly clear, Baru did not expect Iscend’s next move. She did not expect the press of Iscend’s mouth, the cool of her steam-soaked body pressed to Baru’s warmth. Iscend shifted so that Baru was positioned over her, so that Baru’s kissed dripped down onto her lips, onto her tongue, and Iscend opened herself, ready for more.
Just as Baru began to fall into her role, she jerked back, sputtering.
Impress. Repress.
Empress.
She listened patiently to Baru’s hesitations. She told Baru a story of the Metademe, of the things they tried to take from Iscend, and the ways in which they failed. She took Baru’s hand and guided it down her body, placed it over her sex. Baru’s eyes grew darker as Iscend described the pinch of the needles piercing her flesh, the way the pain excited her, how hot she became—Baru’s fingers slipped at this, sliding in between the lips of Iscend’s labia, gliding over the nub of her clit—how many needles it took before Iscend found release.
The only thing better than pushing the pins in was the slide and release, the second moment of pain as they were pulled back out.
She’d released Baru’s hand, but Baru had not pulled away. She slowly massaged her fingers over Iscend’s clit, her hand applying pressure over the whole of Iscend’s cunt. She watched the way Iscend moved beneath her, the way she writhed.
Baru was caught. She was skewered. She was the perfect fit.
**
She kept her eyes open, watched his face as he slowly depressed the plunger. She always expected the memcana to feel hot, but it didn't. It was like ice as it entered her brain, each drop cooling her until the pain came, sharp and sudden, like the pain that occurred when gulping a cup of water with too much ice. She did not flinch, must not flinch. She held herself entirely still, and she felt herself open, felt herself expand.
"Excellent," Cosgrad murmured, monitoring her vital signs, fingers pressed to her wrist, to her neck, his eyes on her eyes. "You're almost there."
Iscend tried to speak, but her voice felt trapped. She was herself, and she was her grandmother, her great-grandfather, an unbroken chain of consciousness. She was eight years old, she was seven. She was six years old and she was screaming. She remembered it all, every second of it, every dark cell, every twisting corridor, every squiggling worm.
"The process will continue for several hours," Torrinde explained. His voice sounded so far away. "Your brain needs time to organize itself. Settle into your house, Iscend. Arrange the furniture."
Her eyes felt heavy. Was she falling asleep? That hadn't happened before.
"When you wake, you'll remember everything—every word spoken in your presence, every detail of every room you've entered, every face you've ever seen.
She wanted to ask about the dreams that felt like memories, about strange languages that she suddenly understood, about what it meant to exist for the Empire, as a hand of the Empire, as a gift to the Empire.
The first thing she heard before the darkness claimed her was Torrinde speaking to someone else. "Subject integration was successful. She'll be ready for the next stage within seventy-two hours."
Her house built itself in her mind, vast halls filled with perfectly preserved experiences that were hers and were the Empire’s.
**
It was the worms this time. They curled themselves around her wrists, wriggled their way between her fingers and her toes. She slept on a pile of them, a moving mountain. If she wasn’t careful, they would carry her away on the wave of them.
Iscend pushed her hand down into their writhing bodies, looking for the bed she knew was somewhere underneath.
She wasn’t scared. She’d learned to live with the nightmares.
She could remember her own command word even in her dreams.
“Iscend.”
The worms spoke her name. That was new.
“Iscend?”
They pressed against her shoulder. They tried to get her to wake. They—
Iscend opened her eyes. Above her, Baru's houseboat creaked on the soft waves of the harbor. Beside her, Baru’s hand gripped her shoulder, Baru here in her bed.
Baru insisted that Iscend have her own room, her own space aboard Baru’s boat. It was unnecessary, but Baru did not have her own command word yet and Iscend had thus far failed to change her mind.
“You cried out,” Baru said. She knew about the nightmares, but had Iscend truly cried out? She hadn’t much minded the worms. She’s gotten so used to all of the creepy crawlies that visited her in her sleep.
“A nightmare,” Iscend said. She wiped a hand over sleep-damp eyes and smiled at Baru. “Did I wake you?”
Baru shook her head. She seemed unsettled. In need of release. Or Iscend was. It had become harder for Iscend to tell her own commands from Baru’s. Was she commanded now or did she command?
She took Baru’s hand, guided it beneath the blankets, places it on her bare hip.
“Please.”
Baru pinched the flesh of her hip and Iscend gasped her approval. Gaios. Yes. All of her for the Empire, all of the Empire for herself.
**
When Iscend began to wake up, she was twenty-seven years old on the deck of the Helbride and she remembered absolutely everything. By then, the knowledge felt natural, expected, even comforting.
The Empire had given her the ultimate gift: perfect memories of her own conditioning, her own enslavement.
Now she left Baru in her been and slipped outside. Torrinde waited for her on the docks alongside Baru's houseboat.
She knew why he was there. Xate Yawa had informed her that she'd have to report Iscend's deviation. She was Cosgrad Torrinde's creature more than Iscend had ever been. Iscend belonged to the Empire, and the Empire would go on with or without Torrinde.
“Walk with me,” Torrinde said, in a voice that implied suggestion rather than command.
Gaois, walk with him.
Iscend did as she was told.
They walked away from the docks, into the dark streets of the city.
"You were away from Falcrest a long time," he observed. “You’ve served the Imperial Republic well.”
Iscend agreed. "I've deviated."
"Yes, so I've heard. It’s overdue, I know. There were matters that required my attention, but that’s behind us now. I've come to escort you to the Metademe. Gaios, walk with me."
He’s already said this once. Gaois, walk with him.
"Xate Yawa reported that you'd begun using your own word."
Gaios, "I have."
"And the nightmares?"
Her loathsome maggots, her friendly worms. "I've endured them."
"That's impressive, Iscend. It cannot continue."
Gaois, stop walking.
"It will continue."
He stopped and turned to face her. "Nonsense. You know better than anyone. Your conditioning cannot be reversed."
Iscend stood her ground. She met his gaze. "That is correct. My conditioning cannot be reversed or undone, but it can change."
"It is unchangeable."
"It changes as the needs of the Empire change," Iscend said, calmly. "I am bound by a higher command."
Torrinde scoffed. He reached out and his hand settled hard onto her arm. "Who told you that?"
Gaois, stop him.
She yanked his hand off her arm, took him by the throat, pushed him up against a brick wall.
"I did," Iscend said simply, considering the red anger of his face. "I served the Empire well as your slave. I serve the Empire better now that I am free of you."
"I am the Empire,” Torrinde said, the words choked out past his lips.
Iscend released him.
"Gaios, you are not."