The Blunt Reaper

The next several days settled into a routine that left Mara exhausted long before the Forty-Second’s evening bells sounded.

Her mornings began beneath Beacon Hall, where the accelerated Reaper course forced several months of instruction into a handful of lessons. There was no time to explore every type of Abomination or memorize every creature recorded by the Bastion. Instead, Talren and the other instructors concentrated upon the information most likely to keep a new Reaper alive.

Mara learned how to distinguish hunting grounds from feeding grounds, how to recognize when the remains scattered across a road had been placed deliberately and why silence around a water source was often more dangerous than the sounds surrounding it. They taught her which tracks belonged to an Abomination dragging part of its body and which had been left by something carrying prey. Broken branches, displaced stones and strips of remembered flesh could reveal the direction a creature had travelled, but only if the signs had not been placed to draw Reapers toward it.

Tracking an Abomination, Mara discovered, often began with identifying everything that had chosen not to enter the area.

"If the small abominations disappear, something drove them away," Talren explained. "If the small abominations remain but stop feeding, something is close enough to frighten them. If they continue feeding while you hear something large approaching, then whatever made that sound is probably not the thing you should be watching."

Rook attended most of these lessons from the rear of the room, where he slept, pretended to sleep or interrupted whenever an instructor gave an answer he considered likely to get someone killed. His presence remained necessary because of the contract, but nothing could force him to participate politely.

Whenever Talren explained the recommended method for identifying a creature’s territory, Rook supplied the parts missing from the manual.

"Don’t crouch over tracks you haven’t checked," he said during one lesson. "Some Abominations leave pieces of themselves behind. You bend close enough to inspect one, it grows teeth."

Mara remembered the slime that she stepped on part of it, and how it almost ended her journey to reach Yama not even an hour away from the Eleventh.

The student examining the sample immediately stepped away.

Talren waited until the nervous laughter ended. "Unfortunately, that is correct."

They learned about the equipment carried by travelling Reapers. Some of it Mara had already seen inside Rook’s coffin, though she had never understood why he needed so much of it until the instructors explained how quickly any single tool could become useless.

Ordinary rope could restrain a soul, but it often slipped from the malformed bodies of Abominations or tore apart when their flesh shifted. Grave-rope was woven from memory-treated fibers braided around thin strands of iron. Once secured, it tightened against changes in shape rather than loosening with them. Properly made rope could bind remembered flesh, survive exposure to corruption and remain attached even after the limb beneath it changed.

The Forty-Second produced it by soaking burial fibers in diluted memory residue, braiding them around an iron core and curing the completed cord beneath the Soul Beacon. The process required several days and more patience than Rook appeared to possess.

Mara examined the remaining coil attached to his coffin after the lesson. Several portions had been replaced using different materials, leaving the rope unevenly colored.

"You made this?"

"Most of it."

"It looks terrible."

"It works."

"The instructor said the braiding needs to remain even."

"The instructor makes rope inside a Bastion. I repair mine while something is trying to eat me."

Other lessons covered repelling powder, thunder charges, lantern oils and herbs capable of affecting creatures formed from corrupted memory.

Mara wrote down everything she could.

The accelerated course did not give her enough time to learn how to prepare every mixture or construct every weapon. It taught her enough to recognize what she might need and how not to kill herself while using it. By the end of each morning, she knew a little more about the contents of Rook’s coffin and considerably less about how he remembered where anything had been placed.

"You carry enough equipment for ten Reapers," she said after an instructor spent an entire lesson explaining the proper storage of thunder charges.

"I’ve broken enough equipment for twenty."

"That isn’t better."

"It explains the extra."

Her afternoons and evenings belonged to physical training.

The Forty-Second did not attempt to turn her into a master swordsman within a week. The instructors concentrated upon weapons that required little strength, could be carried without slowing her and remained useful alongside a close-range Death Imprint. Mara trained primarily with daggers, short swords and narrow blades light enough to redirect quickly.

She was better with a dagger than a sword, though that said more about her problems with the sword than any natural talent. Her reach became predictable whenever she used the longer weapon, and she often committed too much of her body to every swing. The dagger forced her closer but allowed her to recover before the training dummy punished her mistakes.

The ranged training irritated her more.

The instructor placed a shortbow in her hands, corrected her grip and ordered her to fire at a row of targets positioned across the yard. Mara struck the outer edge of the first target, missed the second entirely and sent the third arrow into the wooden frame supporting the wall behind it.

She lowered the bow. "My ability only works at close range. Why am I wasting time learning this?"

"Because your ability works at close range," the instructor replied. "The farther you remain from an Abomination, the longer you stay alive. Arrows, bolts and thrown weapons allow you to injure it, test its defenses and force it to reveal how it moves before you place your body within reach."

"What happens when the arrows don’t hurt it?"

"You learn that from a safe distance instead of discovering it while standing beneath its mouth."

Rook, watching from beside the wall, nodded once.

Mara looked toward him. "You could have explained that."

"I thought it was obvious."

The instructor placed another arrow against the bowstring. "Again."

Mara continued until she could strike the target more often than the wall behind it.

The most important discoveries came during the examination of her Death Imprint.

The first tests confirmed what they already knew. Mara could manifest the wound that killed her through her palm and drive it into anything she touched. The effect passed through flesh, wood and thin layers of metal without requiring a physical blade, though the cost increased with the depth and resistance of whatever she pierced.

They tested stone, armor and several sections of preserved Abomination tissue. Each activation produced the same clean channel, as though the target had always possessed a wound and only remembered it when Mara touched it.

On the third day, Talren gave her a dagger.

"Attempt to manifest the Imprint through the weapon."

She held the dagger before her and reached for the memory.

The familiar cold returned beneath her ribs. Mara forced the recollection away from her body and into the weapon in her hand.

Something extended beyond the dagger’s point.

At first, it resembled heat distorting the air. The shape gradually became clearer, forming a long translucent blade that continued nearly two feet beyond the physical weapon. No steel occupied that space, but the light behind it bent around a narrow edge.

Mara turned the dagger slowly.

The invisible extension moved with it.

Rook pushed away from the wall. "That’s new."

Mara approached the nearest dummy and swung.

The translucent blade passed across its chest.

A deep cut opened through the training material, continuing far beyond the reach of the dagger itself. The manifested edge disappeared the instant the wound formed, leaving Mara holding nothing more than the original short weapon.

Talren examined the damage. "Manifest it again."

Mara repeated the process. This time, she thrust toward the dummy’s chest from beyond the dagger’s normal reach. The translucent point entered first, piercing the torso and producing a wound deep enough to emerge through the opposite side.

The extension vanished upon impact.

"It can cut," Mara said.

"And pierce," Talren added. "The weapon determines how you express the wound, but the Imprint provides the reach."

They continued testing until the limitations became clear. Mara could extend the edge of a dagger to approximately the length of a short sword, though reaching farther increased the strain. The manifested blade remained until she struck something solid, lost concentration or released the memory willingly. The first successful cut or puncture consumed it, forcing her to manifest the Imprint again before using it for another attack.

It could not be used for prolonged exchanges.

It provided one attack.

One unexpected reach.

One wound delivered from farther away than the target anticipated.

Rook examined the split dummy. "Better than touching it."

"That almost sounded like praise," Mara said.

"It was an observation."

"The instructor already observed it."

"Then he agrees with me."

The tests also established the cost.

Mara could use the Death Imprint three times during a single waking period without losing the ability to fight. The first activation caused mild nausea. The second weakened her arm and made the wound beneath her ribs feel fresh again. After the third, her balance worsened and every breath carried the memory of cold steel inside her chest, but she remained conscious and capable of moving.

The fourth activation was different.

Talren allowed it only under supervision. Mara manifested the translucent blade, drove it through an armored dummy and immediately lost her grip upon the dagger. Her knees struck the ground before she realized she was falling. The training yard vanished beneath the memory of her death, and for several seconds she could feel someone holding her upright while the weapon entered her chest again.

She returned to the present with Rook’s hand supporting her back.

Talren crouched before her. "Name?"

"Mara."

"Location?"

"The Forty-Second."

"How did you die?"

She looked down at her chest. "Someone stabbed me."

"Can you see them?"

"No."

Talren checked her eyes, then the response of her hands. "Four activations place you near memory displacement. You will treat three as the absolute limit outside controlled conditions."

Mara remained on the ground until the yard stopped moving. "What about five?"

"No."

"We need to know."

"We know enough."

Mara insisted until Talren agreed to another test the following day, after a full period of recovery and with two examiners present. She reached the fourth activation more slowly, rested between each use and forced herself to remain conscious through the nausea.

The fifth rendered every precaution irrelevant.

Mara remembered raising the dagger.

Then she woke upon a narrow bed in the examination room with Rook sitting against the opposite wall, sharpening a crooked sickle.

"How long?" she asked.

"Several hours."

"What happened?"

"You fell."

"I gathered that."

"You also threw up something that looked like black water."

Mara pushed herself upright. Every part of her remembered body felt heavy. "Did the fifth attack work?"

Rook tested the sickle’s edge with one thumb. "It pierced the target."

"Then five is possible."

"If the first four didn’t kill whatever is trying to eat you, I doubt the fifth would be helpful."

The examiners recorded the final restriction. Three activations remained the practical limit. A fourth could be attempted only in an emergency, and a fifth meant surrendering consciousness regardless of whether the attack succeeded.

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