The practice of necromancy has been forbidden since before recorded history began. This dangerous discipline trespasses upon the boundary between life and death. It is a power that goes against nature and the domain of the gods themselves, and every source of knowledge about it has been hunted down and destroyed for thousands of years. One must ask the question, then… how does it continue to persist?

  – Grayson Thaumus, Archmage

  “It is not your time yet.”

  Apexillos awoke without the slow fade-in of someone stirring from slumber. Words echoed in his head, but already his attempt to focus upon them slipped away. They felt important. He should remember them.

  He didn’t rise from sleep, but for a few moments his memories were jumbled. He remembered the bolt of force slamming his head, the sword cutting into him. He remembered the shouts, and the starfield, and tearing into the metallic skin of the starship with claws and teeth until its air spewed into the cold void of space-

  Everything snapped back into place at once.

  Apex held himself still again. His body had moved in his half-delirious state, lifting head up and moving the forelegs to grip either side of the dock he had slid in against. Claws buckled the metal, but it held despite his mechanical strength, the clamps on either side that held him in place preventing his body from bringing any leverage upon it.

  He remembered now. He was supposed to stay still.

  The docks were open to the air, but this high up in the already thin atmosphere of the planet, the workers needed suits to be outside. Apex could see many of them scurrying about, securing cargo that had been knocked over by his motion and no doubt calling for aid in handling everything, wondering what was going on.

  Slowly, Apex lowered his head back to level with the docks. A gentle release of his foreclaws made certain the walkways did not collapse, though they looked rather precarious after his sudden, vicious grip. His tail straightened out and the slight expansion of his wings was reeled in, folding them against his sides once more.

  He went still again, and hoped nobody would notice.

  “Everything okay there, Apex?”

  Naven’s voice cut through the dragon’s thoughts, reminding him that he had passengers to consider. He had no idea what his brief blackout had looked like to them, but he didn’t have time to zoom in and chat fully with them. He kept his replies to audio-only while he did a quick internal inspection.

  “An unexpected interruption due to… let us say I was very tired.” It wasn’t really a lie. Apex was now realizing that he had been continuously awake for over a week, and while that was fully possible for a living dragon, it normally required occasional mental rests. He had let his mind wander now and then, but never tuned everything out fully like he would have when alive.

  This body did not care about the state of his mind, he realized. It would keep running continuously and never tell him when he needed to rest his thoughts. He should become more familiar with it instead of merely trying to learn about this new time.

  “The lights flickered in my room, I thought you’d shut down.”

  The dragon chuckled drily. “Is that concern I hear in your voice, Naven? You need not worry about me.”

  That was not exactly true. His motion had not only damaged the docks, but it had kicked up quite a bit of activity. Workers scurried about and various lights were in different colors now.

  “Well, I’m pretty sure Sallus will just shoot me if you aren’t around, remember. But you’re also a more interesting conversationalist, I have to admit.”

  Apex let out a digitized snort, but turned his attention back to his body. Another tickle at his attention distracted him, but he paused when he realized it was a call from outside, much like the hail from the Vibrant Blade had been.

  He connected to Sallus instead. “I moved and caused some damage to the dock. Say whatever needs to be said to calm them down while I investigate a problem.”

  “What? Apex why did you even move! I told you to stay still. This is going to be a huge problem!” Sallus immediately went into lecture mode, chastising the dragon without thinking about who she was talking to.

  With a mental nudge, Apex connected the incoming call through his receiver, and directly to Sallus’s communicator. He didn’t care what they said, she could handle that while he did more important things. Things like pry deeper into his being.

  Something had felt very wrong about what little he had touched that fragment of his Essence. He needed to know more about how his would interact with it if he intended to take it back. It was too dangerous not to.

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  He already had a decent grasp of the mana circuits, his reactor, his communications and other things. Now it was time to dive deeper, to find this… soul processor that he’d now glimpsed twice. Relying entirely upon his anger and desire to regain his missing Essence had blinded him to the possibility that once found, it may not be as easy to reintegrate as simply grabbing it and flying off.

  It was time to explore his self, not just his body.

  “Apex, what did you… Apex? APEX!”

  Pan flinched as the elf, Sallus, yelled sharply and stopped walking. The woman let out a loud groan and shook her head, prompting several of the cultists around Pan to look at her questioningly.

  “That damn dragon will get us all killed before we get anywhere,” Sallus muttered under her breath. Pan was pretty sure no one but him could hear it, as he was right next to her and had painfully sharp hearing.

  He knew now that these were all cultists, and while the humans had been shocked by Therna’s outright murder, some of the others they’d met up with had been less surprised. In particular Rena, a broad-shouldered orc woman, hadn’t missed the dwarf at all… and had taken a shine to Pan, actually standing up to Sallus and insisting they stop to get Pan a change of clothes and a bath while the rest of the cultists investigated the leads Pan gave them.

  The bath was refused in favor of a cleansing spell Sallus knew, and a promise to let him have a proper one on the ship. The clothes, Rena refused to back down on. Pan was worried, since he’d just seen Sallus murder someone in cold blood, but the elf surprisingly backed down.

  Now, Sallus was personally looking over him again, but things were different than before. She shook her head in disgust at something and sighed. Gently, she pressed on Pan’s chest, at his neck, over his shoulders. The gobling felt a light tingle penetrate his body each time, and fought down the urge to squirm.

  He’d never had a chance to get examined by a real mage. It was long overdue, since he knew his body’s problems were related to his mana processing, but how could he afford to get a real magiphysician to look at him? In a way, this situation – aside from the scary cultist part – was the best thing to happen to him.

  “This is Captain Sallus Bower of the Draconis vessel Apexillos, I’m patched in but not present at the ship. What seems to be the problem?” She spoke to whomever had called her with a brusque yet polite tone, just before grasping Pan’s chin again and guiding his head up and to the side, then to the other side.

  “I know what the name means. And it’s an old ship, it sounds like something went wrong. No, I don’t know yet.” She paused, and squeezed Pan’s jaws, before whispering, “Stick out your tongue for me?”

  Pan obliged, despite the blush that heated his cheeks and ears. He knew his teeth – a scraggly and asymmetrical mix of sharply-pointed goblin teeth and even elf teeth – were one of the features that made most recoil in disgust. He’d seen it often enough as a child that he’d just learned to keep his voice soft and not open his mouth much. Just one more detail he’d learned to live with, along with the nightly aches and shivers.

  “I’m returning to the ship right now, I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Do NOT attempt to enter the ship without me there, the automated defenses are dangerous.” Sallus paused, and then said, “I understand. Please make a record of my statement, then.”

  The elf sighed, then stood up and wiped her hands off. Rena stepped forward, the orc looking more cautious than before. “What’s wrong with ‘im?”

  Sallus looked at Pan, then shook her head, as if deciding something. “He probably already knows, but it’s prenatal mana disconnection. His mother must have been on some variation of kaleidoscope – and probably more mundane drugs – while pregnant with him. I could tell earlier from the ears, but whatever she was on must have been potent to do this.”

  Pan’s ears burned with heat as he heard that casual dismissal of his mother, and he weakly spoke out. “She tried to hide it from me. I think she knew it had ruined her. She wasn’t a bad mother…”

  That made Sallus pause. Rena looked at Pan with pity, but Sallus stared a long moment before her face softened subtly. She placed a hand on his shoulder and spoke quietly.

  “My mother was also a good person in a bad situation. I understand and meant no offense.”

  Pan blinked. Sallus had never been one to offer comforting words, from the brief time he’d seen her, and very few spoke of his mother like that. He wasn’t sure what to say. Instead, he just swallowed and nodded.

  One of the other cultists nearby – a human Pan hadn’t caught the name of, yet – crossed his arms. “Will he even last the trip? What does this do, Priestess?” Pan did catch the subtle undertone there. The implication that his imminent death would make him effectively worthless. Not worth the loss of Therna.

  The so-called priestess just shrugged. “It’s an insidious effect. Scope works by forcing more mana through your pathways, temporarily widening them. The pathways affected depend on the type of drug, but prenatal exposure is unpredictable. It makes the mana channels grow wrong. They have gaps and width differences naturally, so the body’s natural mana can’t flow properly. Eventually it starts to leak out and damage the muscles… bones… organs.”

  Rena grimaced before she grunted, “Is it treatable?” Most people knew the side effects of long-term ‘scope usage, but this sort of situation was a lot more rare.

  “At this stage?” Sallus rubbed her chin, then motioned for everyone to pick up their supplies – most of them raided from Talc’s place – and get moving. “Without any treatment, I’d guess three to six months, but this isn’t my field. I could be wrong. With a better diet and less hardship, a couple years if he’s lucky. I think with some quintessence-based infusions he might make it years longer, but the last few won’t be pleasant.”

  Some of the other cultists flinched this time. Not from the news… a terminal diagnosis wasn’t a strange thing to them. Sallus saying it in front of Pan so callously, after showing a hint of tenderness, was just like a slap in the face. At least, for them.

  Pan smiled weakly. “I knew it was something like that. It’s fine. I just wanted to see space before I died. Maybe do something so someone would remember me.”

  The man who had asked if he’d last the trip clapped Pan on the back lightly. “Well… if that’s what you want, we can probably handle that much. You’ve signed onto the right crew then.” He gave a grin, though it was a little forced. “Especially if you really can cook!”

  The others laughed or chuckled, some weakly and others genuinely. Many of them were obvious in their attempts to make him feel better… but that was okay.

  These people were zealots and possibly crazy, he’d seen that already. Pan didn’t care. They were the first people to put an effort toward making him comfortable at all. The first who had stood up for him since his mother fell into that unresponsive sleep that led to her wasting away.

  It was better than the life he had.

  Sallus glanced back at him and smiled. A gentle and almost playful smile, not the cold and humorless ones he’d seen before.

  “If I have my way, little Pan, the whole galaxy will remember you forever.”