Beyond the flattened mushroom martyr and the ghosts wearing the face of my captor, beyond the veins of gold running through the wall and the chest overflowing with gems, the second room waited.

  It was also circular, though much smaller than the first—still far larger than any found outside of a palace. Perhaps fifty feet in diameter.

  Barrels of sand were stacked around the doorway, though I couldn’t say why. Little hourglasses dotted the floor. At the far end of the room a pile of bloody clothing lay in a heap. To paths waited for us, one to my right the other continuing south, straight ahead.

  An hourglass crunched behind me.

  I spun around.

  Attart had stopped moving.

  She wasn’t standing still, nor frozen in fear, she’d stopped. Entirely. She wasn’t even breathing. Her foot remained partly off the ground, just above the broken hourglass.

  I eyed the other hourglasses scattered about the room, the barrels of sand, and then the pile of bloody clothes. Were they related?

  I moved over to the clothes first. I didn’t want to touch the barrels unless I had to.

  I moved slowly to avoid the hourglasses, but even with caution I nearly trod on one. They seemed to shift and roll underfoot the moment I took my eyes off them. Like they wanted to be broken.

  The majority of the fabric turned out to be a scarf, with the rest being a pair of loose trousers. Both were so dark a blue as to be black. Power emanated from them like heat from a stove. There were answers there, if I dared.

  I didn’t like all the blood.

  Hourglasses, their sand, or bloody clothes. My options weren’t inspiring. The blood hadn’t even dried.

  I gingerly gathered up the clothes in one hand and my spell book in the other. The ghosts of Neferhi better not have been watching.

  TransportII

  My gear ended up in a pile a few feet away on a bare stretch of floor. The scarf and trousers landed beside them, free from blood. I’d worried the clothes themselves were bleeding for a bit.

  I put my shendyt back on and re-secured my belt and pouches. Then I withdrew a round bottle from my belt.

  The potion of sins.

  I downed it before I lost my courage.

  The room was free from sin. None had died here, or at least not in a way the potion considered blasphemous. Even the pool of blood didn’t elect a response. Hopefully it would wear off before I found the suffocating suit of armour again.

  So, the clothing was safe, despite the blood, or at least not murderous. It also looked like it would fit. The trousers were large enough even with my new size, and though a scarf didn’t have to be fitted to anyone, this one was long enough it would serve on a giant.

  I pulled on the trousers and wrapped the scarf about my neck.

  Then I unwrapped the scarf and pulled off my trousers.

  With my other set of arms.

  If that wasn’t disconcerting enough, the scarf was still on me, as were the trousers. My arms were now undressing the rest of me. Removing my pouches, my belt, my shendyt. As they did so my arms reached up and unwrapped the scarf and pulled off my trousers.

  My arms still hadn’t moved. And the scarf was still wrapped around my neck.

  Now my arms were corking the potion in preparation to remove my pouches, while my first set of arms lowered my spellbook.

  My arms—more of them every couple minutes—were going back in time, but not taking me with them. They looked as solid and real as any other set of arms, but they could pass through each other as they went about their business. I even felt I was controlling them, yet they performed their strange duty without fail.

  The sight was so mesmerizing, so unlike anything I’d ever seen, it took me a moment to realize my skin had turned as black as the night sky. The same colour as the trousers and scarf I wore.

  The hourglasses nearest me were flowing backwards

  That seemed promising.

  One of my many hands opened, palm up, and sound emanated from the space above it, like the noise of a blooming flower.

  “I can save her.”

  The voice was that of an old woman, a decrepit hag. It came from nowhere, from the air above my palm.

  “How?”

  My own voice had changed. It sounded like the hag might have when she was young, though slightly deeper, more melodious, and perhaps even more powerful for it. A young woman’s voice, vibrant, firm, free, full of life, yet tempered with an edge of wisdom.

  Another hand, another palm unfolding into the voice which set the hairs along my spine on edge.

  “With a thought.”

  “Please.”

  This voice was similar to my own, and yet, not my own. Still that of a young woman, but without the burden of the years.

  “I can save her whenever I want,” she said.

  “Then please do so. What do you require of me?” I replied in nearly an identical voice. It was so hard to keep track of which words were mine I started doubting which thoughts were mine.

  “I can do whatever I desire.”

  Had that been me, or her?

  I approached Attart’s frozen form. My forest of arms followed, attached at my shoulders like any other. It was a wonder I could move under the weight, yet they felt only as heavy as any other pair of arms.

  There was no response from the blooming air palm voices as I carefully made my way back through the hourglasses which still sought to fall underfoot. Whatever the clothes did, they didn’t fully protect me. At least, not to my desired level. Perhaps the hourglasses would no longer trap me in time, or the effect would reverse as soon as it began like my arms.

  I didn’t want to find out, and so I couldn’t.

  Some of my arms extended toward Attart as I drew close, reaching into her pockets, under her sash. Searching, searching, but never finding.

  A hand opened, palm up.

  “How long am I going to let her stay like this?”

  “Never. Please. Please fix her. Save her.”

  The arms continued to rummage.

  “I can save her whenever I want.”

  Were those... my thoughts? They sounded nothing like me, nor even like my reflection. Did I now have the power to save her?

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I reached out a hand, one of dozens. The skin and nails were as black and as firm as stone, like I’d been carved from granite and polished smooth.

  Hesitantly, my finger touched her cheek.

  That was all it took.

  Attart’s foot finished crushing the hourglass underfoot and she let out a curse of pain.

  Neither of us were wearing shoes, but unlike me, her skin did not carry the strength of iron.

  I caught her in my arms and lifted her before she could fall or step on any more hourglasses.

  She shrieked and then clamped down on her mouth, forcing back control.

  “Oswic? What happened. You look like you would give nightmares to a spider. Did the hourglass do something”

  A palm unfurled, “She is pretty.”

  At the same time I responded, “Yes, but not in the way you think.”

  The sun rose with Attart’s eyebrows.

  Then set, then rose again. Itself caught in the strange loop of time.

  My hands reached out and rummaged through her clothes. Even the memory of what I hadn’t done was reflected in the arms endlessly seeking the past.

  Attart’s eyebrows rose further.

  Greater Heal IIII

  I set her down once her feet healed, “I don’t know why my arms are doing that, or why any of this is happening.”

  A palm opened, “I am looking for four lost years. She should have them somewhere.”

  Attart laughed, “If they were in my pockets I myself would have found them by now.”

  Another set of arms reached for Attart, causing me to carefully step back.

  “I can give them back. I should give them back.”

  “Is that you or,” Attart gestured at the wall of arms about me, “whatever this is speaking?”

  “It’s not me, nor my thoughts, though I might be her thoughts, for what little sense it makes.”

  One of my arms sheathed my cutlass in preparation to fight the Shadowmaster.

  “But does she want to go back?”

  It was the younger voice this time.

  Attart looked at me with large eyes, “If I can regain four lost years, I would.”

  “Even if you lost your memories, your experiences?” I asked. At least, I think it was me.

  “Would I?”

  “You would,” the voice replied, at least, I think it was her. The hand closest to Attart had opened anyway. A direct address if I’d ever seen one.

  “Is there any way to keep them? Anything you can do?”

  The hag replied.

  “Your body and soul remembers as much as your mind. If you keep your soul you will remember. The hobgoblin will not be freed, neither will the one you bound all those years ago.”

  Another hand opened, this voice the younger woman.

  “Keep your mind along with your body and soul, or restore all three. Those are the choices if you wish to regain four lost years.”

  That was hardly a choice at all.

  “I can always change my body later within the dream realm.”

  “You can change your mind even easier.”

  “And my soul least of all.”

  Maybe it was a choice.

  “What will happen to me once I am free? Will that other still be bound?”

  “I will restore everything or nothing. Your soul is your soul, no matter where your body dwells.”

  She looked at me and bit her lip, “I should like—I would like to be restored. Even if it lost me my memories. Four years imprisoned and four years taken is far too many for any life to recover. If I have a chance...”

  Something twinged inside of me, but I tried not to let it show on my face. This was her decision, not mine. To me, the decision was the wrong one. I’d lost years to injury, but I’d learned all paths turned out the same. I’d regained those years by advancing myself with their wisdom. I would have rather not lived them all the same, but I couldn’t deny what had been.

  That said, if I could, perhaps I’d jump at the same opportunity. Though in my case without experience I’d be led to the same mistakes. I was the sort who needed to burn himself on the stove before he understood its heat.

  She looked about nervously. Her fingers played with fabric of her dress, “So, what now? What need I do?”

  The young voice replied.

  “I will embrace you.”

  Attart moved within reach of my arms, this time they did not grasp at her, merely continued to replay the past. I twisted as a could to avoid any cutlasses or spears from poking out her eye.

  “Could you kneel for me?” She asked, looking up.

  I did so.

  Attart wrapped her arms about my neck and kissed me on the cheek, “Thank you for everything. You saved me, and I hope will save me still. Some part of me, if only the part you carry in you, will always love you.”

  I wrapped my arms around her, “You do what you need to do. I’ll look out for you, memories or not.”

  “Goodbye Oswic.”

  I could see the tears reflected on her face I felt on mine.

  “Goodbye Attart. I hope we meet again.”

  A wave of hands descended from above and cracked Attart open like an egg. She folded outward, growing in size until she was even slightly taller than she’d been before absorbing Tom. Her form continued to spill outward even as her body which had become her shell shrank away to nothing, clothes and all.

  A naked young man was in my arms a moment later, eyes wide and staring.

  “Where? The warlocks. Where am I?”

  He struggled free of the mass of arms, I let him.

  His eyes searched the room frantically, latched onto something only he could see (his ghostly warriors perhaps?), then darted back on me. I was more than a foot taller than him, my black as midnight skin glowed with the light of the sun, my eyes burned red, and I was ringed by a dozen arms wielding weapons and books of spells. He was naked and unarmed. He made his decision.

  He covered himself with his hands.

  “I’m here to help,” I said, raising a pair of black arms placatingly.

  He took a step back, thankfully to a bare patch of ground.

  “How?”

  I unwound the scarf from around my neck and pulled down the strange trousers. My shendyt preserved my modesty, though that still left me at an unfair advantage.

  My skin burst into gold and the forest of arms about me disappeared.

  “I am Oswic...” My voice trailed off. My brush with... with whatever the arms of time had been had not left me unmarred. I still spoke with her voice. The young at least, instead of the old.

  “I am Oswic. A Magus of the Sacred Order. I’ve come to rescue you from the warlocks and bring their citadel down around their heads.”

  “Your voice. You sound like a god. Though your body doesn’t match.”

  “Hey, you try maintaining a physique on dried fish and ogre slaying alone.”

  The man laughed, “You escaped as well?”

  “I slew the Shadowmaster to escape. Then I slew Dave. The warlocks are my enemy.”

  “What kind of name is ‘The Shadowmaster’?”

  I laughed in return, “The warlocks’ names are not pretentious, despite how they sound. They do hold mastery over their domain.”

  My voice was starting to scare me. It had been bad enough when warped by the dark altar, and again when saved by the druidic rune, but now I sounded like a puppet for a goddess. And I kept unconsciously trying to make my voice deeper which just made me sound sultry.

  “What do you last remember?”

  “I’d just escaped from my own cell and had recovered some of my things. I was just about to pick up a grimoire of sorts which had caught my eye on the ground. No, not a grimoire, it looked like one, but it was a book on etiquette or some such. And then I was here, for some reason.”

  A chill ran through me. I’d brought him back to the moment precisely before he’d been lost—The black multi-armed goddess thing had, not me.

  “Then I have much to tell you. You were trapped in the book for eight years. It warped you, twisted your mind and body and drove you to suicide and despair.”

  “Despair? Hard to believe. I feel light. Lightest I’ve ever been save in my happiest moments. Ever since you appeared things have seemed wonderful.”

  “That is the breaking of the warlocks’ mosaic you feel. There is much to tell. For now, suffice to say I rescued you, but your body and your soul were not your own. We were companions for several days before I found a way to restore your body mind and soul to the point before you were trapped by the book. But your memories were lost in the bargain.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “It is. I have companions who can verify parts of my story, though not all of it. For the moment, your name is... Attar, correct?”

  He nodded with a frown, “You know that much.”

  “And you are a necromancer. You should have six or seven spirits about you now. Ones you do not recognize, who bear real weapons and armour.”

  His frown deepened, “I was wondering about that.”

  “More importantly, some part of you is still trapped in that grimoire. Probably. I’m not sure how my control of time managed the trap. But we should hurry in case, before the other you is lost.”

  Attar took a slow look of the dark cobbles in the distance, the laughing walls, and then beacon of light pooled about me, “I think I’ll be sticking by you, regardless of your reason. If that is alright with you.”

  Relief mix with pain filled me, threatened to break my heart at the same time it warmed me from head to toe, “I’d like that.”