Page 77 of Stitches
There was no noise from the workshop, no light either, but Braxton rarely kept it locked, and that was no different today. Everything looked as it had the last time Ashmedai was inside, except it was darker here, almost too dark for shadows, save a few at the base of the large black crystal in the center of the room.
At their approach, it pulsed with something almost the opposite of light, like Ashmedai’s shadow magic—black with hints of purple, and only bright enough for them to see where they were going.
Ashmedai couldn’t see in complete darkness, so even this lighting was difficult for him. His eyes were adjusting, but the clutter of the workshop, the shelving, the equipment, all of it could be hiding treachery where Ashmedai’s eyes couldn’t penetrate.
He opened his mouth to call out.
“Why, Levi, I believe you’re missing stitches,” Braxton called first.
Ashmedai looked around, but the voice had echoed, seemingly from everywhere, and he couldn’t locate the source. “Brax? Show yourself! We deserve answers. Levi remembers his past life and believes you murdered him knowingly, on the other side of the barrier. Is that true? It that why you were keeping him from remembering who he was? Were you not forced to kill those people?”
“No, I wasn’t,” Braxton said. This time his voice seemed to comefrom behind them, but when Ashmedai pulled Levi closer and turned to look, nothing was there. “I needed them and their parts.”
“Why?” Levi asked with a tremor in his voice. “Why did you need to make me?”
“It’s the crystals. The black crystals are what will finally free everyone,” Braxton said, not really answering Levi, with his voice coming from the walls this time, though Ashmedai couldn’t tell which one. “That is all that matters.”
“Brax,” Ashmedai bit out sharply, hating that his voice tremored like Levi’s. He’d never felt fear toward his friend before, but his instincts screamed at him to keep Levi close, so he gathered Levi in his arms and held him.
Braxton appeared finally from behind the large black crystal, wheeling forward like normal in his chair. “Do you remember when we met?”
Anger spiked through Ashmedai’s chest. “You must answer for—”
“You found alchemy fascinating, so similar and yet different from magic. It didn’t exist in your time, your world. Of course, I wasn’t supposed to know what you were, but I saw when you arrived—late at night, when you thought no one was around.
“You blipped into existence out of thin air right in front of the Amethyst. There were stories of your kind. I knew what you were, what you had to be, much as I hadn’t put much stock in myths before then. You were… ancient, with all the secrets of how magic could be harnessed within your grasp. You could have taught me endless truths of the universe, and all you cared about were the simple things—basic transmutation, farmers, children, walks by the lake.”
At first Ashmedai thought Braxton meant to sneer at him, like Ashmedai had wasted his potential, but Braxton offered a rarely seen smile, tender even, as if he found it all truly endearing.
“Your kind once used the gemstones to heighten your already endlesspower and became gods, yet you were content to watch me tinker in my workshop.”
“We didn’t become gods,” Ashmedai countered. “We corrupted ourselves.”
“Perhaps. But you became more powerful, didn’t you?”
“At a cost. Too great a cost. Brax—”
“Because you pushed for too much. You wanted the world. Someone’s world can be as simple as their home or….” Braxton’s smile turned tight as his eyes landed on Levi. “A gift from a lover.”
Levi reached for the cuff on his ear, as if he could feel Braxton’s gaze on it.
“Brax!” Ashmedai warned.
“You needn’t worry. You know what matters to me is knowledge, not power or immortality. I already have enough of those.”
“Then what—”
“I introduced you to Cullen, remember?” Braxton wheeled in front of the crystal, continuing a slow occasional spin of his wheels like a pantomime of pacing. “I hardly saw you after that, before everything changed.”
“Enough!” Ashmedai snapped, tired of being interrupted. “You will answer me plainly!”
Braxton rotated his wheels to face Ashmedai. “Yes, I murdered those people.”
Ashmedai didn’t know what he’d expected, but part of him had hoped Braxton would have a different answer. “How? How did you cross the barrier, and why kill anyone?”
“I tried to do things humanely. Do you have any idea how many constructs I went through that you didn’t even see? Do you think I did all that for a servant?” Braxton scoffed in a way that made Levi cower at Ashmedai’s side. “I needed to learn what could and could not cross the barrier. I transmuted countless raw materials into copies of myself, buttheir life wasn’t truly life. They didn’t disintegrate when I sent them across the barrier, but they couldn’t live anymore either and crumbled like useless dolls.
“I created the first black crystal to mimic the Amethyst while reversing its effects. If the Amethyst created the barrier to keep us in, the opposite should let us out. It didn’t quite work that way initially, but I was able to use the black crystals to draw the lifeless constructs back inside the barrier so I could recycle them and start again. That process, however, had an unintended effect—it also sucked out the construct’s residual life force and made the crystal pulse with power—like snuffing out one light to ignite another. That’s what had been missing. I could mimic the Amethyst and alter its effects, but I couldn’t harness enough power for anything living to cross the barrier safely. That’s when I knew the answer to freeing us wasn’t through life… but death.”
