Ghost Ascension – Episode 3

“Lucan,” you say, “I don’t remember.”

“Remember what?” he says.

“How I got here,” you say. “What I was doing.” You close your eyes, thinking. “The last thing…the last thing I remember, I was going to the Temple of Minaerys, to meet an informant. There’s an Istarish assassin named Nikaedes in the city, and he’s probably going to try to assassinate the Emperor during the Annum Imperium celebrations in three days…”

“Three days?” says Lucan, and you open your eyes at the alarm in his voice. “Caina, the Annum Imperium isn’t in three days. It’s tonight.”

Tonight? But that would mean…

That would mean you have no memory, no memory at all, of the last three days.

“When did I come here?” you say. “What was I doing? Did I say anything?”

“You…turned up last night,” says Lucan. “I hadn’t seen you for four days, so I asked what was wrong. Then…you kissed me, and said you couldn’t remember why you hadn’t done that before, and…then…”

You sigh. “I slept with you, didn’t I?”

“Yes. Well. Twice, actually,” says Lucan. “Um. And you woke me up, this morning. You were very insistent. You don’t remember…that? At all?”

You shake your head.

For a moment, just a moment, Lucan looks as if someone punched him in the stomach. Then he seems to steel himself and nods.

“All right,” he says. “We have to find out what happened to you.”

“Yes,” you say. You are a Ghost, and you think someone is planning to kill the Emperor. Your own feelings are unimportant, compared to that, and you can sort through them later.

“Your memory,” says Lucan. “You don’t have a head injury, and any drugs that could have damaged your memory would have had noticeable side effects. That leaves…”

“Sorcery,” you say.

And that is very bad. The Magisterium, the body that governs the magi of the Empire, wants you dead. Very, very badly. You’ve foiled their attempts to kill the Emperor and take over the Empire several times, and the First Magus has put an enormous bounty on your head. You’ve always assumed that sooner or later the magi will catch up to you and kill you.

Yet if a magus got close enough to invade your mind, why bother with erasing three days of memories? Why not just kill you?

And if that were not bad enough, mind-altering sorcery is incredibly destructive. Depending upon the skill of the magus who altered your memories, there is an excellent chance you might go mad in the next few weeks.

“Sorcery,” repeats Lucan, his face grim. He hesitates, and then takes your hand. “I’ll…help you. To do whatever needs to be done. If you’ll let me.”

You nod, thinking it through. You need to take action, but what? The most obvious step would be to go to the Temple of Minaerys, find the informant, and try to backtrack your steps over the last few days. That might jog your memory, or unearth useful information.

Or you could try something more risky, and visit a master magus named Septimus Rhazion who owes you a very large favor. Rhazion is in disfavor with the First Magus and the high magi, but he keeps his ear to the ground, and might know who erased your memory. And he might be able to reverse some of the damage, though you dislike the idea of letting him cast spells on you.

A knock cuts into your thoughts.

Lucan frowns, looks at the door. “I’ll get it,” he says, hand on his sword hilt, and leaves the bedroom while you finish getting dressed. You also drink the tea; black, bitter, and it helps clear your head.

A moment Lucan returns, a small roll of paper in his hand.

“It was the innkeeper,” he said. “Someone sent a message for you.”

You take the roll of paper.

“Countess,” it reads in heavy, blocky letters. “Have news about the task. Will wait for you at Mother’s until noon.”

The note is signed “Blacksmith”.

“What is that about?” said Lucan. “Some sort of Ghost code?”

You nod. “Blacksmith” is the alias of your most trusted agent in Malarae, one of the few men you trust fully. “Mother’s” is what he calls the foundry where he works and his wife lives.

Yet you do not remember giving Blacksmith a task – might he know what’s going on?

You need to act quickly. You have a gnawing feeling of dread, and not just from the memory loss. “Everyone is going to die,” that was the first thing you said on waking up.

Something terrible is going to happen – you feel it in your bones – and you need to find Nikaedes and figure out what happened to you before it is too late.

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