Peculiar Soul

It has been my experience that men will readily accept that their mind shapes the manifestation of their soul, yet when I dare to suggest that the reverse might be true I am met with scorn, disbelief or even anger. I cannot bring myself to be irritated with them; the prospect of an involuntary change in one’s consciousness is frightening - doubly so given the staggering array of methods by which such a thing has been known to happen.

In matters of the soul there is a different flavor than mere fear to their ire, however, and it is the sour note of betrayal. The relationship between man and soul is a deeply-personal attachment. There is often a sharp denial, an insistence that their soul could not impress itself upon them so.

Of course, such denials miss the point entirely. Consciousness is not a sculpture or a painting, where external modifications to the base material corrupt the original intent of the creator. Thinking of oneself as a static work of one’s own will is a natural consequence of the limited and intimate perspective we enjoy into our own psyche.

Instead I posit that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon and that the self is much more quicksilver than iron. We are an illusory whole born of many inseparable influences. This is also a poorly-received idea in most cases. I do not see why; I have always found the notion liberating. I am not cold stone nor wrought metal. I am the breath of wind and the ripple of water, the fire dancing upward from the kindling of my flesh. How could I resent my soul for further stoking such a flame?

- Leire Gabarain, Annals of the Sixteenth Star, 691.

The sharp scent of ammonia clawed at Michael’s nose. He jerked his head backwards by reflex only to find it immobilized. He experienced similar trouble with his arms and legs, and for a moment the suffocating panic of claustrophobia descended over him. His vision blurred, then cleared.

Spark stood over him with a capsule of smelling salts in his hand and an eager grin on his face. He stepped closer when he saw Michael’s eyes open, leaning close over his face.

“That was quite a reaction,” Spark said. “Can you describe how it felt?”

Michael managed a slurred, croaking noise from his mouth, which felt as if it had been starched with the laundry. He worked his tongue around a few times and swallowed, then turned his gaze back towards Spark as best he could.

“You killed him,” Michael rasped.

There was a noise from the far end of the room; Michael was able to strain to see Claude closing the door behind him. Blood stained his hands and the cuffs of his shirt.

Spark looked at Claude for a moment, then turned back to Michael and sighed. “You’re not going to be bothersome about the use of human subjects, are you?” he asked. “I get quite enough of that from the Assembly. Ensoulment is an inherently human phenomenon, after all. It isn’t as though I can use rats or dogs in my work.”

Michael bit back his reply. He had dreamt, briefly, but the shards of that dream were slipping away as his head cleared - and he found that his head was clearer now than it had been for the past day. Clear enough to slip past the feeling of bemused contentment imposed upon his mind and recognize the danger he was in. The fear that Spark’s haze had kept from him began to trickle back along with the stark reality of his situation.

“Ah,” Spark said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s fascinating. Claude, take a note - after the test, the subject’s lucidity showed a marked increase. Fear, anger - much closer to the state we found him in. Haven’t the faintest idea about the mechanism, of course.” He scratched at his head, then leaned over to grin at Michael. “My boy, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such an interesting soul.”

The fear returned in full. Not only did Spark have him, he had known immediately when Michael regained some of his faculties. His upwelling hopelessness only seemed to make Spark more amused, however, as if he was watching an ant trapped under a glass.

“Not that this development is without its complications,” Spark said, straightening up. “I’ll have to ponder on what to do about it. I don’t suppose you feel like sharing your recollection of the last test with me?”

Michael supposed there was no reason to disguise his newly-recovered animosity, since Spark appeared to have figured it out anyway. “I really don’t,” he said.

“Rather uncharitable of you,” Spark said, wagging a finger at him. “If you profess to care about the life of the subjects then I should think you’d be invested in maximizing the return from their death. Without your input, their sacrifice is wasted.”

Sweat broke out on Michael’s brow, a sick metallic tang in the back of his throat. “Subjects?” he asked. “How many are you planning to kill?”

Spark looked down at him inscrutably for a moment, then walked to the corner of the room. He returned in a moment with a chair, which he set down next to Michael. Once seated, he folded his hands in his lap and paused.

“Do you know what it is that I do here, Michael?” he asked.

Michael gave him a scathing look. “Which part?” he asked. “The kidnapping, the murder? The experimentation on unwilling subjects?”

“Incidental,” Spark said, waving his hand dismissively. “And believe it or not, something I try to minimize. I’m not out here to create human suffering. I don’t enjoy causing pain.” He raised his eyes to stare past Michael at nothing in particular. “But pain exists. Suffering exists. And if we are to engage in research of the soul, then we must be prepared to do so across the gamut of human experience. Were you not suffering when you received your soul? From your file, you subjected yourself to years of torment in the hopes of acquiring it - and, now that you have it, you judge me for engaging in the same?”

“That was my choice,” Michael said.

“Was it?” Spark asked. “I’ve read your Institute file. How tolerant would your father have been if you refused to participate? Would he have given you a place to rest and food to eat? Did he take time to make sure you understood him and his actions, to set your mind at ease over what must be? Or did he simply demand and threaten until he received compliance?” He leaned in closer. “Would you have survived saying no to him, do you think?”

Michael saw his father’s face in the carriage for a moment, his face hardening at the mere thought of defiance - and then he shook his head, glaring up at Spark. “You should set your standards higher,” he said. “It matters very little which of you two murderers is worse. If my father’s violence was more petty and aimless than yours, you have exceeded him by far in scope. How many people on this island chose to be here?”

“You might be surprised,” Spark murmured, letting his fingers trace across the edge of the table. “We receive many of our subjects from the front - voluntarily, I might add. Until you have seen the horror of war, the grinding brutality that reduces the land to ash and men to meat - and you have not seen it, Michael. There has been nothing in your life that comes close, not even what was done to you at the Institute. The man who died today was given the same choice that they all were. To return to the front and die meaninglessly, or to come here with me so that I might put an end to the War once and for all.”

“Is that what you told the man you killed?” Michael asked. “He seems to have died meaninglessly here instead. If you put so much stock in choice, then set me free.”

A smile spread over Spark’s face. “Ah, my young friend. I would if I could, but you are unique in all the world - at least, such as I know. I asked you if you knew what it was that I researched here; I will tell you.” He leaned closer to Michael, until his face loomed like the entirety of the world. “I seek to free mankind from the shackles of chance and scarcity,” he said. “Souls are too important to be left to random allocation and haphazard use. I would see them understood, developed scientifically - and augmented in number, such that everyone may have their own.”

“That’s nonsense,” Michael scoffed. “Souls cannot be created or destroyed.”

“Ah, ah!” Spark admonished him. “Spoken like a maxim, but it is only so because nobody has yet succeeded in the task, nor understood the reasons why they failed. How many men concluded that felling a tree was impossible before the advent of the axe? That refining iron was impossible simply because they had not yet conceived of a proper furnace?”

He leaned backward and gave Michael a sad smile. “And so when they say creating new souls is impossible, my response has always been - yes, for now. Perhaps if there comes a day when we know all that there is to know about souls, someone might be justified in saying such a thing. But we are nowhere close. We make new discoveries every year, you are proof enough of that. So, my choice is a simple one: I may stagnate, or I may understand your soul.”

A chill prickled over Michael’s skin. “I asked you how many people you would kill,” he said. “You never answered.”

Spark looked at him and did not smile. “No,” he said. “I believe I did.”

Two more people died in front of Michael that day. One was a man with thick, dark hair, the other was a woman with bare skin stretched over empty eye sockets. They both died smiling, just like the first. Each time Michael was sent into a paroxysm of agony, and each time Spark dragged him back to consciousness to ask what he had seen.

Michael did not answer him, instead trying to hold tightly to the few fragments of his dreams that remained after each awakening. Spark did not press him for answers, nor did he attempt to coerce Michael further using his soul. Instead he wore an odd little half-smile and watched quietly as his subject struggled to organize his thoughts - and then began again.

When Michael awoke after the last death he had been moved to a different room, akin to the previous in layout save that he lay in a real bed, unrestrained. Only Spark remained in the room with him. Cautiously, Michael raised himself to a sitting position.

Spark smiled and offered him a glass of water. After a moment he took it and sipped. His throat was always raw and dry when he regained consciousness, and if Spark wanted to suborn him he had more direct methods than drugs at his disposal. After the glass was drained, Michael set it aside to look at his tormentor.

“I think that should be enough for today,” Spark said. “I have no wish to subject you to undue strain.”

Michael only glared in response, unwilling to engage him in conversation. For all that Spark was reprehensible, he was correct - fatigue pressed in on Michael even as he lay in the bed. His thoughts were clouded by the stress, although they remained his own for the moment. He wondered how long that would stay the case.

Spark read the change in his eyes, giving him a tolerant smile. “I suppose you’re wondering where we go from here,” he said. “As instructive as this has been, I feel as though we’re fast approaching the point of diminishing returns. A new approach may be required.” He cocked his head. “I wish you weren’t so antagonistic. We could make much better progress.”

Anger warmed Michael’s cheeks; he sat up straight in the bed. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have killed Jeorg.”

The smile froze on Spark’s face, and for a moment Michael once again saw the dance of lights in his eyes. Then it passed, leaving behind only a wan look that emphasized the wrinkles and fine lines surrounding those eyes, a fatigue no less intense than Michael’s own.

“I will regret that forever,” Spark said. “I should have liked to speak with him one last time, at least. I - did not expect him to try to kill me without talking, and had no preparations for that circumstance. Evidently the intervening years had changed him from the man I remember.” He gave Michael an evaluating look. “Perhaps the past months more so than most. Did he know the function of your soul? Is that why he sought to keep you from me?”

He leaned in closer, an odd intensity in his eyes, the barest flicker of his soul dancing within. “What was it?” he asked. “What was it about you that changed him?”

Michael looked away, not trusting that gaze. There was nothing he could say that Spark could not twist to his own purposes, and he did not trust himself to keep a level head while talking about Jeorg - not to his murderer’s face. Nevertheless, his heart began to beat faster. He would not have dared to act this way around his father, he knew how such men rewarded defiance.

He could feel Spark’s eyes on him. Seconds passed before he heard the creak of Spark’s chair, the footsteps walking toward the room’s sole door. They paused before the door opened, however, and Michael turned to look.

“I will honor him in my own way,” Spark said. “I will observe what he taught me, and act without haste or impulse. There are none of us without blind spots, Michael. Even Jeorg had them.” He sighed and scratched at his head, turning to face the bed once more.

“I will not attempt to suppress your will again unless you give me cause to do so. If Jeorg saw something unique in you, I would like to see it as well. To that end you have your liberty, but know that there are no ways off of this island. You will have an escort so that you are not troublesome to find.” A trace of the light slipped into his irises. “Do not force me to resort to damaging measures in your containment.”

Michael stared at his captor in disbelief. “I’m not going to participate in the murder of innocents just because you let me walk around the island,” he said.

“Ah,” Spark said, giving him a dismissive wave. His smile crept back to settle about his lips, stretching them lopsidedly. “I think we have explored that avenue enough for the moment. I will confer with Claude to see if there is something less wasteful we might pursue. In the event that we come up with something I would appreciate your willing participation. If not - well. I can afford the loss of three more subjects.”

Spark exited the room, leaving Michael staring at the open doorway with bemusement. For a moment he considered following, leaving the building, trying to find something to aid in his escape - but shifting his legs off the bed felt like a monumental effort. Walking through the labyrinthine halls to the outside would not be possible for some time, to say nothing of roaming the island in search of ways to flee.

Sleep had to come first. Spark’s confidence that the island was inescapable was likely well-founded, and he would require wits and strength to contest it. Perhaps his dreams held more answers. Even if all they held was respite for a few hours, that would be enough.

Michael wandered through the torn paths of the garden and thought. Spark was supremely confident in his superiority over Michael, and not without cause. On the boat, he had been helpless to resist the numbing oppression of Spark’s will. Even now he felt the echo of that unspoken command, urging him to be passive, to sit, to wait for instruction.

There was a tree in front of him with a branch protruding at a subtly-wrong angle, he paused to look at it and thought of a day several months ago when he learned to chop wood. Jeorg had phrased Spark’s power as a matter of pushing the mind into a state it could never arrive at naturally, but in Michael’s case it felt more like severing a portion of his mind from the rest.

He could see the logic amid the chaos when he surveyed the destruction from that perspective; the damage clustered in areas where he had spent time with Jeorg - or, perhaps, where the pen of memory had written a particularly indelible mark. One area in particular was densely-tracked with gouges and furrows; there was little more left than churned soil and splinters.

Michael knelt to let his fingers feel the soil. Amid the dense, wet clumps of dirt his fingertips encountered something hard. He grasped it and brushed it clean; it was part of a small wooden figurine, a dancing woman wearing traditional Mendiko clothing. It had snapped amid the torso, leaving one upraised arm and the woman’s smiling face above a colorful swatch of painted cloth.

He stared at the tiny wooden face, then beyond to the wreckage of what had been a house - a home, for at least a little while. He tasted porridge and wine, pipe and hearth smoke mingling in the air where he stood. Tears tracked down his face as he knelt in the rubble. Jeorg had said that his garden would be with him wherever he went, but Spark had stolen even that from him. There were so many little moments that he could never hope to piece them back together, to regain the fullness of his time here.

There was a footstep beside him. Michael’s mouth pulled into a bitter smile, and he looked up to see Jeorg standing over him. “I never used to hear him move,” he said.

“Can’t hide from yourself,” Jeorg grunted. He bent down and took the broken figure from Michael’s hand, turning it over in his own gnarled fingers. “What do you plan to do about this?”

“I don’t know,” Michael said. “I’m not sure how I’ll fix all of this. There’s so much that he took from me.”

Jeorg scratched his chin. “Spark isn’t wrong about certain things,” he said, drawing a surprised look from Michael. “What did he say? ‘The key is finding the minimum. The absolute smallest change that makes the paths line up.’ Seems like good advice, even considering the source.”

“I don’t see how I’m supposed to make that work,” Michael scowled. “I’d have to know all of the potential outcomes before I did anything.”

“Maybe not all,” Jeorg said. “Maybe just enough to recognize the right opportunity.” He knelt beside Michael and grinned. “Keep your eyes open. Act deliberately.” He extended a hand and grabbed Michael by the wrist-

Michael woke with a start. Two white-shirts were standing over him, looking down with solemn expressions. One had taken hold of his wrist and was gently shaking it, he released his grip at once when he saw Michael wake.

The two men spared Michael the necessity of making distance between them, taking a few steps back to stare at him. He returned the favor for a few moments, then slowly rose from the bed. His legs were stiff but no longer fatigued to the point of weakness; he could at least walk around without collapsing.

“Who are you?” Michael asked.

The taller of the two men cocked his head at the question. It was almost odd - he acted more alert than many of the others he had encountered, interacting with Michael almost naturally.

“I’m Stefan,” the tall man said. He was red-faced and otherwise fair-skinned, with a jagged scar across one cheek. He put a hand on his fellow’s shoulder, and Michael noticed that the shorter man’s dark eyes did not track his movements.

“This is Beni,” Stefan said. “The doctor told us to stay with you.”

“I see,” Michael said. “What else did he say?”

Stefan shook his head. “Just that. We’re to stay with you wherever you go.”

“Wonderful.” Michael looked between the two of them. Beni was still staring off into the distance, not reacting to Michael’s movements. It reminded him of something - he scowled and focused on the memory, trying to narrow down where he had seen the mannerism before. A few seconds later, he had it - Sofia. He frowned.

“Beni is a spector,” he said. Stefan’s eyebrows rose, but after a moment he nodded. “What are you?” Michael asked.

“Mule,” Stefan replied. “I’m sorry, I can never remember the proper word for it…”

“Durens,” Michael said absently. “So I can’t hide from him, and I can’t outrun you. Is that about the size of it?”

Stefan looked hurt, and Michael realized his tone had been more than a little accusatory. He immediately felt horrible; these two were victims of Spark even more so than Michael himself.

“The doctor just said to stay with you,” Stefan said quietly. “I don’t know about anything else.”

Michael shook his head. “It’s fine, I’ve had a - very bad day,” he said. “Not your fault.” He paused and looked between the two of them. “Do you know the island well?”

“Beni does,” Stefan replied. “He’s been here longer than anyone I know.”

“I see.” Michael managed to suppress a wince; no wonder the man wasn’t talkative. “How about you? How long have you been here?”

Stefan pressed his lips together. “A year, maybe.” He traced his fingers over the scar on his cheek. “I went to the field hospital for a shrapnel wound, they said I could redeploy here instead of going back to the front.”

“Do you like it here?” Michael asked.

If Michael hadn’t lived through it himself he would have missed the small pause in Stefan’s motions, the blank look that flitted across his face as his thoughts collapsed into a disorganized mess. Then it passed, and a smile pasted itself across his face.

“Yes,” Stefan said enthusiastically. “I love it here.”

Michael couldn’t bring himself to smile in return. Instead, he looked at Beni. Stefan followed his gaze, then shook his head slowly.

“Beni doesn’t talk,” he said. “Lost his tongue.”

Michael frowned. “In the War? Forgive my saying so, but he looks Safid.”

Another discontinuity rippled over Stefan’s face. “I don’t know where he lost it,” he said. “He’s Safid, but he was never in the War. Someone once said he was a ship’s lookout.” A troubled look crept into Stefan’s eyes. “Someone - I forget who told me.” He clenched his fist, then opened it spasmodically. Muscles bunched in his neck, his eyes widening to show their bloodshot whites.

“I forget,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “I-”

Stefan’s eyes glazed over, and he smiled sheepishly at Michael. “I forget a lot of things, these days.”

It was hard for Michael to keep the horror from his face. This was the first time he had interacted with the white-shirts since becoming aware of Spark’s meddling with his own mind, and seeing the telltale signs of it in another’s actions was extremely disquieting. He did not want to imagine what manner of place Stefan’s mind saw, when it contemplated itself.

He frowned. There was the thread of an idea there, if he could stitch it together. He closed his eyes to better focus on the truncated strands of memory that still drifted through his mind. A few drifted forward in response to his focus, he reached for them-

The door opened suddenly; Michael’s focus shattered. He scowled at the intruder, then raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Luc,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

Luc smiled and shrugged. “I saw the doctor not so long ago, he said you were finished helping him. He was worried you might get lost, said I should keep an eye on you.”

“I thought that’s what these two were for,” Michael said, looking at Stefan. “He sent them here with the same instructions.”

An amused look spread over Luc’s face. “You must take a lot of watching, yes?” he said. “I suppose he thinks it’ll take three of us.”

Michael froze. Spark’s voice echoed in his mind, the resigned tone of the last words he had said before leaving. Exhorting Michael to participate willingly, or else - I can afford the loss of three more subjects. “Oh,” Michael said quietly. “Oh, damn you.”

“What was that?” Luc said, frowning and walking over beside Michael.

Michael shook his head. Part of him wanted to tell the three men everything, to persuade them that Spark was using them all - but he knew that wouldn’t work. Stefan and Beni likely couldn’t think about disobeying Spark without consequences, and Luc loved the man like a father.

So instead Michael looked up and smiled at Luc. “Nothing,” he said, long years of practice keeping the emotion from bleeding into his voice. “I’m just very tired, and I’d like to get outside for a bit.”

“Fair enough,” Luc said. “Anything you want to do?”

Michael’s smile became a bit more real. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ll keep my eyes open and see if anything catches my interest.”

“Good man,” Luc chuckled. “We’ll figure something out.” He looked up at the two white-shirts and beckoned them toward the door.

Michael followed suit, keeping a neutral look on his face. Luc was talking again, but his voice was not the one Michael heard. Jeorg had spoken in his dream about the horror of Spark’s murders, told him to look at it clearly. To decide if it was something he could learn to live with, or-

His teeth grit, his fists clenched. No, not something he could learn to live with. Luc reached the outer door and pushed it open, the light catching on the small window set into the top. For a moment Michael saw a mirrored image of the world in its reflection, a twinned version of the sky and trees that glimmered in his vision a bit longer than it should have - and then it was past, and he followed the others outside.