Free Beyond the Pale by Jak Koke

up in Marseilles,” Jane said.
    “Great,” Ryan said. “Now let’s go over the details again.”
    The flight went quickly as they worked the plan over and over. Ryan was satisfied, his confidence high as they began their descent into Marseilles. And it stayed that way as they transferred the cargo to the waiting helicopter.
    Ryan put on his Phillips tacticom unit, sliding the tiny ear piece into his right ear and taping the thin wire microphone to his throat with mimetic tape. Axler and Grind went off to gather the scuba equipment and begin the underwater trip out to the island of Chateau d’If. It would take them a couple of hours to get there. That gave Ryan and the others plenty of time to prepare for meeting Harlequin.
    Too much time perhaps. Idle time to think about the consequences of failure.
    The fate of the world rests on my ability to convince this elf to help me. I cannot fail.

8
    The spirit Lethe looked at the astral images of the technicians and mages hovering over Billy’s cybernetic body. Billy was asleep; they had done that with their drugs and machines. But they couldn’t put Lethe to sleep.
    Billy’s body was flat on its back again, paralyzed and strapped to another operating table, this one at a cybermancy clinic somewhere in the heart of Aztlan. Lethe knew of cybermancy from Billy. Cybermancy had created Burnout—the creature who Billy Madson had become after his magic was lost and his body had been replaced by synthetic materials, hydraulic muscles, and electronic nerves. All that remained of the original Billy was part of his brain and spinal cord.
    Cybermancy is also what had trapped Lethe. Intricate blood magic had been used on Burnout to prevent his spirit from leaving his body. Powerful spells had been quickened to make them permanent. These spells formed a mesh of magic that held spirits in, and when Lethe had taken possession of Burnout to prevent him from harming the Dragon Heart, he discovered that he could not escape. Soon after, his spirit had become intertwined with that of the cyberzombie.
    Burnout, however, was gone. Lethe wanted to believe that he had influenced the change in the cyberzombie, but he had to admit that Burnout’s change into Billy had occurred when Ryan Mercury had nearly killed them both. Unable to escape. Burnout’s spirit had suffered severe trauma, leaving only the naive Billy.
    Lethe liked the change. Billy was young and full of hope. Lethe’s natural state was pure spirit, but he had grown accustomed to inhabiting Billy’s body. It was as though the cyberzombie’s body belonged just as much to Lethe as it did to Billy—a physical manifestation that they shared.
    Technicians worked diligently to fix and replace their damaged parts. New skin was being grown and applied; a new articulated arm had been attached to replace the one Ryan Mercury had broken. Burnout’s extendible fingers were replaced, his integrated gyromount. Everything was being made new.
    Everything physical that is. The mages couldn’t seem to figure out what had happened to the cyberzombie’s spirit.
    Two mages examined him in astral space, scrutinizing his aura, which Lethe had tried to mask to look like a mundane human with lots of cyberware. These were sophisticated mages, however, and they saw through some of Lethe’s masking. He was sure they could tell that Burnout was not a typical cyberzombie.
    “What do you make of it, Meyer?” asked one. In astral space, Lethe understood the meaning of their words, though he couldn’t actually hear what they were saying. Billy’s ears had been deactivated.
    The one called Meyer was an elf with the aura of a powerful initiate. “It is beyond my experience,” he said. “All the cybermantic magic is fused with his spirit, and . . .” Lethe noticed recognition dawning in the elf. “I think he can see us, Vendic.”
    “What?” Vendic said. “That’s impossible. He’s unconscious.”
    “I mean astrally.”
    Vendic laughed.