Chapter #8Assuming Direct Control by: imaj   The next step is the clever bit. You had to design the sigil to use yourself. It is a combination of the one from the book and the control sigil that lies inside your mask. You pull up Miranda’s sweater. Before you cast the spell it fit snugly round her body, advertising the curves underneath. On her golemized remains it is loose and easy to pull away. You don’t pull it all the away off, just enough to reveal the torso of the golem. Then you use a small brush and the putty you just created to paint the sigil on the golems body. It is exacting work, for you do not want to make a mistake.
Once you put the finishing touches to the sigil, you check it for mistakes. Everything seems to be correct. The last stage then is to bring Miranda back. You fetch the Libra from the gantry and place it under the golem’s head again. The mask you used at the start to capture Miranda’s imago is also required. You place it beside the golems head. With everything in place you speak the words to activate the spell, pulling the imago from the mask and sinking it into the golem.
Miranda takes shape again, filling out her clothes until there is nothing to indicate that the Miranda on the slab in front of you is different from the one that walked into the lab half an hour ago. She looks a mess though, her clothes and hair are dishevelled. You undo the restraints and wait for her to wake.
Once she starts stirring, you lean over and start whispering into her ear. A long chain of impossible to understand words that don’t match any language you know of. You don’t know for sure that the mesmeric word implanted in the real Miranda wouldn’t carry over to her doppelganger, but all your instincts and previous studies suggest it wouldn’t. Letting it worm its way back inside her head again seems wise.
You lead a dazed and barely aware Miranda back down the stairs to the library proper. Once there you let her fall to the ground and unleash her from the stupor the word induces in her.
“Ohmygod,” you say nervously once Miranda awakes a second time. “You’re ok.” You hug Miranda tightly for a few seconds before helping her to her feet. “Thank goodness.”
“I… uh… Oh, my head feels woozy,” says Miranda.
“I think it’s the air in here,” you say, crinkling your nose in feigned disgust. “It’s so stuffy. You think they could put a proper air con system in or something.”
“You’re right,” replies Miranda, rallying a little. She’s still a little unsteady though. “I could totally sue them.”
“I think you might feel better if you went home and had a lie down,” you say gently.
“Maybe you’re right,” she replies. “Let’s get out of this dump.”
“I’ve still got a couple of things to do Miri,” you apologise. She looks at you askew but makes no comment.
Once Miranda is out of sight you bounce back up the steps to the laboratory, climbing all the way up to the gantry before collapsing into one of the chairs there. Smiling, you raise your hand to your face, mutter a few words and…
… you are somewhere else – the stairwell leading to the ground floor of the library. Your sudden forward momentum catches you off guard and you almost stumble down the stairs. The high heeled boots you appear to be wearing now don’t help any. You lift a hand to your head and tug on the hair there, lifting a strand in front of your face so you can see it. It is a vivid red. You laugh gently.
It is Miranda’s laugh, high and slightly nasal.
You reach for her memories, to check if you can access them. After a little effort you reply the conversation you just had with her from her viewpoint. It’s a little odd, but you are pleased to see she is as confused by what happened today as you hoped she would be. It’s tempting to let your hands wander a little, even more tempting to pay a return visit later this evening when Miranda is in bed. You put those thoughts to one side and wave your hand in front of your face.
You’re back in the laboratory again. It looks like your experiment worked exactly the way you had hoped it would. Blackwell had insisted the whole thing was dangerous – perhaps that’s why he was so keen to take Becca this morning – but your ideas have been proven correct. You haul the chair over to your desk with your notes and start writing furiously. Every so often you glance at one of the two clocks that sit on the desk. They don’t keep the time brilliantly. The distortion caused by the gwarcheidwad’s presence causes them problems.
The dissonance in the ticking of the clocks grows more pronounced and you look up from your notes. The shadows are lengthening about the laboratory again. The gwarcheidwad has sensed an intruder? There is ethereal shriek, followed by the entirely more mundane scream of a man. You push the chair back and leap up. The scream came from the stairwell down to the library. You lean on the railings at the edge of the gantry and look over. There is nothing visible but the unnatural movement of shadows that indicates the gwarcheidwad’s activity.
The shadows fade back to normal. Whatever it was in the stairwell is gone, chased off rather than eaten. Despite this, you look around the gantry for something that you could use as a weapon. A short plank of wood by one of the desks looks like it would do the trick. With your makeshift club in hand you climb down from the gantry and down the stairwell.
Damn. In your excitement over changing Miranda into a golem, you forgot to close the door from the library behind you. You look around the bookcases that surround the secret entrance. There’s no sign of anybody, but that doesn’t mean anything. The twisting labyrinth of shelves means that the intruder could only be a few metres away. You wouldn’t be able to see them.
Is it possible the intruder managed to find this part of the library by accident? The third floor is very hard to navigate and this part of it is very remote. A person would have to be either very lucky to find their way her or know exactly where they were going. The second possibility gives you pause. Blackwell alerted you to the possibility of the laboratories existence. He might not have been able to work it out himself, but you did. If you can deduce the how to open the door, who else can?
You sigh, the intruder will be long gone by now. Re-entering the stairwell, you make sure you close the door this time before climbing back up to the lab. You’ll have to tighten things up here. You’re sure you could alter the key to the door if you had time, but in the short term the simplest thing is you adjust the gwarcheidwad. It’s easy enough to change, you just step on the little wooden plinth in the middle of the lab and extend your will. You loosen the constraints on the creature. From now on it will attack anyone who enters viciously. Except for yourself of course.
What now though. You could make the adjustments to the key sigil, but it strikes you as a passive move. The two statues in the library at Blackwell’s house are testament to your preference for more aggressive tactics. Chasing down the intruder would serve just as well. There may not be any obvious clues around the exit from the laboratory, but there are other avenues to pursue: The security cameras round the library and the logs at the entrance would both be useful. It would mean getting help from Professor Blackwell.
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