The burst of movement, like an exploding blister, from within Cirurgie's soul was so revolting that Solomon actually felt bile rise. He couldn't quite tell whether it was sound or sight, or some combination of the two, but he knew that it was glee. Anticipation. That's what the roll had been, before. Excitement of what was to come.
Solomon swallowed hard, ignoring the sound of the man's voice calling in an assistant. He didn't know quite how the man planned to do this. He didn't want to know. He didn't even want to think it. Unfortunately, Cirurgie was the type to expound. Younger than Solomon, with that delusional arrogance of a youth who believed he had overtaken an elder simply because he was younger.
"This is all fascinating," Cirurgie said enthusiastically as he approached Solomon, and the touch on his wrists as the man checked his restraints made Solomon jolt. His eyes snapped open. As difficult as it was to parse through the here and the not-here, at least with his eyes open he could see the instruments coming at him. The instruments Cirurgie intended to use, at least.
Solomon still had to turn his eyes away from the proximity of that foggy soul--the best he could do, with his head bound. Like stormclouds which had lightning within them, except it wasn't lightning. Nothing nearly so beautiful, if dangerous. Pollution, poison, plain and simple.
"Oh, don't be like that. This is a historic moment, after all."
Solomon swallowed the 'forgive me' and answered, "Somehow I'm finding it rather less exciting than you apparently do."
Something in the man's soul cooled. "Well, why wouldn't I? You're seeing into the lifestream, Cleric Wreath. If anyone else in the Temple were granted that gift, they'd be throwing themselves at my door for the chance to keep it."
Everyone in the Temple was insane, Solomon decided. Himself included. Granted, he had made the decision to change once he realised how insane he was. Quiver ... apparently had the potential, which was both a surprise and not. So maybe just Tenebrae and Cirurgie were on the current list. He would have to update it as he went along.
He must still be tired. His thought process was still all over the place. Solomon focussed on the tools on the table beside him, mentally cataloguing them even as the nurse entered and began doing last-minute checks himself. Cirurgie's hands moved from wrists to ankles to head, and the restraints tightened marginally. Enough to make his injuries sting. Enough to make it impossible to move his head even a millimetre.
He might still have answered the healer's comment, but Cirurgie leaned close and Solomon found it necessary to commit all his energy to not retching. He was so focussed on it that it wasn't until he felt the erupting pinch in his eyelid that he realised Cirurgie was pinning one upright. Holding his eye open.
Instinctively Solomon's hands jerked against their restraints. The chair rattled faintly, but he didn't move even an inch, and it made his palms throb.
"Oh, good. I was wondering if they were tight enough."
Solomon swallowed. Tried to bring his hard breathing under control. Tried not to look too deeply into the soul before him. He couldn't even squint through it to the man underneath. He had no control over this, over any of this, and it made his heart pound, his skin prickling with a hot flush of fear. He didn't even have Kian as a soothing presence. A week ago, he'd have considered it pathetic that he depended on a teddy-bear so much.
Right now, he didn't give a damn about his dignity. "Please don't."
Cirurgie didn't even pause. "Cleric Wreath, what you're about to receive today is an honour. Truly. Unprecedented. Do hold still and try to relax. Even restraints will loosen after a length of time under pressure."
Try to relax? Impossible. He was so tense that just rising afterward was going to be painful, with how his muscles would stiffen. Couldn't move. Couldn't even blink. Solomon's breathing grew shakier and he focussed on that, the only thing he could even remotely control at all. Breathe. Just breathe, and maybe--what? He wouldn't be in pain? Cirurgie wasn't even going to give him painkillers. He said that unless he had to for the operation's success, he preferred to avoid it. So the patient could give him feedback.
Sadist.
A sadist who had the best of him.
Cirurgie's hands came down, fingers resting around one of Solomon's eyes, over the bridge of his nose, on his temple and forehead and cheek.
Breathe, Solomon told himself while his heartbeat spiralled upward toward panic. His breaths were shaky, but under control. Barely.
He lost sense even of that the moment Cirurgie drew on his magic.
It wasn't that Solomon's own magic responded. He was beyond that. Cleansed of that. But the Scream heightened, and it wasn't just around him--it was touching him. It made the injuries, the stigmata, tingle wildly. Solomon's body was already tensed, a coiled spring, but now he rose instinctively against his restraints, pulling against them all in automatic denial of that metaphysical shriek of agony. His jaw was so tight he almost felt his teeth crack.
This close, Necromancy in motion still looked like shadows. Shadows which cast shadows themselves, tinged purple-red, and dragged a train of tormented souls after them.
These ones were tiny. Visible, for just a moment, at all the corners of his vision. Solomon drew in a sharper breath, enough for a word. "Don't--"
Then he lost sight of those tendrils. Magic prickled around his eye, inside the socket, a weird little cushion made of prickly wool.
The Scream rang inside his head. Literally. Inside. Radiating through his face and in his temples, sending a red haze through his vision and a pound through his bones which sounded like--
'pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseohLordhelpme--'
A voice. A soul. Solomon let out a strangled cry, his hands jerking hard at the restraints over and over again, his back arching while he tried to twist his head away from that sensation, from that tormented soul, and failed. The tingle in his palms and feet, in all the injuries he shouldn't have had, turned into a sharp stinging tug, like scabs broken under their bandages. Warmth pooled against his skin as they bled.
"Just a moment ..." Cirurgue, breathing the words. Focussed on the delicacy of his magic. Sensing things out with it. Where he needed to send those minuscule blades. What he needed to cut. "Aha. There."
In the same instant as he spoke, pain erupted behind Solomon's eye, so sharp it felt as if someone had driven an ice-pick into his skull and sent his thoughts scattering on the wave of agony. He screamed, bucked mindlessly, fingers scrabbling at the armrest. Over and over he screamed, unaware of anything but the little needles drilling inside his head, feeling out everything they needed to destroy to give him a skill he hadn't wanted.
There was no telling how long it was before the Necromancy began to recede. When it finally did Solomon's consciousness came slowly back with it, once more taking command of his numb body. He was trembling. The stigmata throbbed as if newly inflicted; his breathing was fast, but hitched with the pain in his side. He could feel something thick on his cheeks, congealing--tears of blood. If he'd had the energy, or the dignity, he might have tried to withhold the little sobbing moans of absolute torment, little primal sounds of an animal too hurt to do anything but whimper.
He couldn't even see anything. Absolutely nothing but a red haze, burning in the sight of that eye, pain made physical. Focussing on the voices talking around him was impossible.
A moment or an eternity later he felt something light rest over his eye and flinched with the expectation of pain, crying out hoarsely, "Don't!"
"Now, now, Cleric Wreath. He's only going to make sure there's no internal bleeding."
A change. Not painlessness, but the slow itch of a wound healing over. Scarring. Solomon tried to jerk his head and couldn't, gripping the armrests tight, his body still lifted against the restraints across his chest and shoulders. That itch--it wasn't pain, but it was unbearable. The whimpers turned into whines and Solomon writhed in the chair.
Finally it ended. Finally the itching turned into the dulled ache of a newly scarred injury. When the hand drew away it took with it the red haze of the Scream and left a trail of ungrounded lifestream ripples in its wake. Solomon trembled violently in the chair, panting and whimpering, eyes wide, unable to do anything but exist in those moments after the wash of agony.
no subject
Solomon swallowed hard, ignoring the sound of the man's voice calling in an assistant. He didn't know quite how the man planned to do this. He didn't want to know. He didn't even want to think it. Unfortunately, Cirurgie was the type to expound. Younger than Solomon, with that delusional arrogance of a youth who believed he had overtaken an elder simply because he was younger.
"This is all fascinating," Cirurgie said enthusiastically as he approached Solomon, and the touch on his wrists as the man checked his restraints made Solomon jolt. His eyes snapped open. As difficult as it was to parse through the here and the not-here, at least with his eyes open he could see the instruments coming at him. The instruments Cirurgie intended to use, at least.
Solomon still had to turn his eyes away from the proximity of that foggy soul--the best he could do, with his head bound. Like stormclouds which had lightning within them, except it wasn't lightning. Nothing nearly so beautiful, if dangerous. Pollution, poison, plain and simple.
"Oh, don't be like that. This is a historic moment, after all."
Solomon swallowed the 'forgive me' and answered, "Somehow I'm finding it rather less exciting than you apparently do."
Something in the man's soul cooled. "Well, why wouldn't I? You're seeing into the lifestream, Cleric Wreath. If anyone else in the Temple were granted that gift, they'd be throwing themselves at my door for the chance to keep it."
Everyone in the Temple was insane, Solomon decided. Himself included. Granted, he had made the decision to change once he realised how insane he was. Quiver ... apparently had the potential, which was both a surprise and not. So maybe just Tenebrae and Cirurgie were on the current list. He would have to update it as he went along.
He must still be tired. His thought process was still all over the place. Solomon focussed on the tools on the table beside him, mentally cataloguing them even as the nurse entered and began doing last-minute checks himself. Cirurgie's hands moved from wrists to ankles to head, and the restraints tightened marginally. Enough to make his injuries sting. Enough to make it impossible to move his head even a millimetre.
He might still have answered the healer's comment, but Cirurgie leaned close and Solomon found it necessary to commit all his energy to not retching. He was so focussed on it that it wasn't until he felt the erupting pinch in his eyelid that he realised Cirurgie was pinning one upright. Holding his eye open.
Instinctively Solomon's hands jerked against their restraints. The chair rattled faintly, but he didn't move even an inch, and it made his palms throb.
"Oh, good. I was wondering if they were tight enough."
Solomon swallowed. Tried to bring his hard breathing under control. Tried not to look too deeply into the soul before him. He couldn't even squint through it to the man underneath. He had no control over this, over any of this, and it made his heart pound, his skin prickling with a hot flush of fear. He didn't even have Kian as a soothing presence. A week ago, he'd have considered it pathetic that he depended on a teddy-bear so much.
Right now, he didn't give a damn about his dignity. "Please don't."
Cirurgie didn't even pause. "Cleric Wreath, what you're about to receive today is an honour. Truly. Unprecedented. Do hold still and try to relax. Even restraints will loosen after a length of time under pressure."
Try to relax? Impossible. He was so tense that just rising afterward was going to be painful, with how his muscles would stiffen. Couldn't move. Couldn't even blink. Solomon's breathing grew shakier and he focussed on that, the only thing he could even remotely control at all. Breathe. Just breathe, and maybe--what? He wouldn't be in pain? Cirurgie wasn't even going to give him painkillers. He said that unless he had to for the operation's success, he preferred to avoid it. So the patient could give him feedback.
Sadist.
A sadist who had the best of him.
Cirurgie's hands came down, fingers resting around one of Solomon's eyes, over the bridge of his nose, on his temple and forehead and cheek.
Breathe, Solomon told himself while his heartbeat spiralled upward toward panic. His breaths were shaky, but under control. Barely.
He lost sense even of that the moment Cirurgie drew on his magic.
It wasn't that Solomon's own magic responded. He was beyond that. Cleansed of that. But the Scream heightened, and it wasn't just around him--it was touching him. It made the injuries, the stigmata, tingle wildly. Solomon's body was already tensed, a coiled spring, but now he rose instinctively against his restraints, pulling against them all in automatic denial of that metaphysical shriek of agony. His jaw was so tight he almost felt his teeth crack.
This close, Necromancy in motion still looked like shadows. Shadows which cast shadows themselves, tinged purple-red, and dragged a train of tormented souls after them.
These ones were tiny. Visible, for just a moment, at all the corners of his vision. Solomon drew in a sharper breath, enough for a word. "Don't--"
Then he lost sight of those tendrils. Magic prickled around his eye, inside the socket, a weird little cushion made of prickly wool.
The Scream rang inside his head. Literally. Inside. Radiating through his face and in his temples, sending a red haze through his vision and a pound through his bones which sounded like--
'pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseohLordhelpme--'
A voice. A soul. Solomon let out a strangled cry, his hands jerking hard at the restraints over and over again, his back arching while he tried to twist his head away from that sensation, from that tormented soul, and failed. The tingle in his palms and feet, in all the injuries he shouldn't have had, turned into a sharp stinging tug, like scabs broken under their bandages. Warmth pooled against his skin as they bled.
"Just a moment ..." Cirurgue, breathing the words. Focussed on the delicacy of his magic. Sensing things out with it. Where he needed to send those minuscule blades. What he needed to cut. "Aha. There."
In the same instant as he spoke, pain erupted behind Solomon's eye, so sharp it felt as if someone had driven an ice-pick into his skull and sent his thoughts scattering on the wave of agony. He screamed, bucked mindlessly, fingers scrabbling at the armrest. Over and over he screamed, unaware of anything but the little needles drilling inside his head, feeling out everything they needed to destroy to give him a skill he hadn't wanted.
There was no telling how long it was before the Necromancy began to recede. When it finally did Solomon's consciousness came slowly back with it, once more taking command of his numb body. He was trembling. The stigmata throbbed as if newly inflicted; his breathing was fast, but hitched with the pain in his side. He could feel something thick on his cheeks, congealing--tears of blood. If he'd had the energy, or the dignity, he might have tried to withhold the little sobbing moans of absolute torment, little primal sounds of an animal too hurt to do anything but whimper.
He couldn't even see anything. Absolutely nothing but a red haze, burning in the sight of that eye, pain made physical. Focussing on the voices talking around him was impossible.
A moment or an eternity later he felt something light rest over his eye and flinched with the expectation of pain, crying out hoarsely, "Don't!"
"Now, now, Cleric Wreath. He's only going to make sure there's no internal bleeding."
A change. Not painlessness, but the slow itch of a wound healing over. Scarring. Solomon tried to jerk his head and couldn't, gripping the armrests tight, his body still lifted against the restraints across his chest and shoulders. That itch--it wasn't pain, but it was unbearable. The whimpers turned into whines and Solomon writhed in the chair.
Finally it ended. Finally the itching turned into the dulled ache of a newly scarred injury. When the hand drew away it took with it the red haze of the Scream and left a trail of ungrounded lifestream ripples in its wake. Solomon trembled violently in the chair, panting and whimpering, eyes wide, unable to do anything but exist in those moments after the wash of agony.