Dust to dust

[wings_of_a_swan]

"I won't try to make Thalia appear," Combeferre says firmly, as he attaches the strap to Bahorel's arm. "It's much too dangerous."

Bahorel somehow manages to convey the impression of pacing recklessly despite being ensconced in a chair in Combeferre's and Enjolras's rooms.

"This won't make a daemon appear, but it should measure something correlated with the presence of a settled daemon."

Comments

[clayforthedevil]

"Then you do think we still have them here, as we are now." It would make a certain amount of sense if they didn't; something must have been left behind in Paris when they came over to Milliways.

[wings_of_a_swan]

"Oh, yes," Combeferre says unhesitatingly. "I'm sure of it. I've found several books in the Library concerning those of such worlds, and what daemons are--they represent a part of humanity. Humanity as we know it, not something exclusive to that kind of world. In fact, an explorer of that world found one like ours, and assumed everyone had daemons inside them..."

He hesitates before adding, knowing what a concession this is to Bahorel's views on everything, "And I can--sense mine, within me."

[clayforthedevil]

"But did you sense her before you knew what you were looking for?" He's not asking entirely to be contrary, though that's certainly part of the fun of it. "And if you did, what did you call it then? I thought your field still had a bit of resistance to talk of creatures living inside us as part of our lives, when we left." Or so he's gathered from overhearing Excited Medical Complaining Hour from Joly . "Talk of a whole raven under your skin, and you'd be liable to find yourself in asylum, on the patients' side-- or an atelier." All the convenient places people who see things other people don't get put to be ignored.

[wings_of_a_swan]

"I wouldn't have known what to call her--or indeed, have thought of her as a 'her', or even as a distinct part of me. But that this was an aspect of my nature--of all men's natures--well, yes. I believe, though I'm not certain, that it's the soul, or part of it. Plato's high-spirited part of the soul, if my guess is right."

"Hold still," he adds, pulling the lever of the machine attached to the strap around Bahorel's arm.

[clayforthedevil]

Normally Bahorel would make a point of dancing around, just for that-- but he's distracted by sudden sensation of being painlessly turned inside out for a moment.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre checks what the tome in the Library referred to as the anbaric spectrometer, connected to the strap around Bahorel's arm. He'd had to ask Bar for this machine, and specify materials very carefully. The manganese-titanium alloy it had called for had made Combeferre nervous; it had prompted Bar to give him a warning note with his supplies.

So Combeferre is sticking to the most conservative experiment, the one which poses no risk to Bahorel's daemon (assuming she is indeed still there).

...and the spectrometer is saying yes. More accurately, it's shouting yes.

Combeferre is grinning.

He makes a few notes on his tablet, turns off the machine, and unstraps Bahorel. "Yes," he says. "She's here--there--inside you." He thumps Bahorel on the shoulder, still grinning.

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel blinks, and laughs, a little breathless. "There's an odd sensation!--You should sell time in that thing." He spreads a hand over the center of his chest, where it still feels like something's not quite settled. "So--how do we get them out?"

[wings_of_a_swan]

"Without destroying ourselves? I can't do that, not yet."

Combeferre moves to sit on the bed. "I've only come up with one possible solution, and I'm not sure it will work. There's a place--a universe--called the Land of the Dead. If you visit it, your daemon is torn out of you. Not severed--" Combeferre shudders. "--but pulled out, and it's hugely painful, but she is still your daemon, and she will have her own body if she doesn't already."

Combeferre spreads his hands. "But, this is very speculative. I don't know it will work."

[clayforthedevil]

" Do you know how to get there?" It's the obvious question.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre shakes his head. "Not specifically. The only idea I have is to go through the Labyrinth. It probably connects to the Labyrinth somehow. But even then, I'm not sure how to get to that specific place from the Labyrinth."

He shrugs. "There might be spells. I've spoken to a lady, a Mme Strange, from a different universe--one in which there's magic. Magic that depends on study, not simply on an innate skill, I gather. I've looked at a spell book, but found nothing yet about freeing daemons, or the Land of the Dead."

[clayforthedevil]

"The Labyrinth's not an impossible sort of place to navigate. There's some meaning to it. But to look for the land of the Dead.." He grins. "We should fit in there fine, anyway. --Joly's been saying Magic shouldn't be any different than Science, it's just that no one knows the rules." Bahorel isn't agreeing; it's just a point of discussion.

[wings_of_a_swan]

"Hmm, yes," says Combeferre, "you might say the Land of the Dead is our natural place anyway...but I don't want to go there, and I suspect you would even less. It sounds...dull."

"And yes! No different from science, that's precisely what I think. Even if it's a matter of incantations rather than laboratory techniques, the method is the same, the reasoning is the same. We should be able to puzzle it out the same way."

[clayforthedevil]

"A dull afterlife--that fits at least a few stories of hell." And it may be obvious that the idea of going into Hell to liberate one's soul is not exactly discouraging Bahorel.

[wings_of_a_swan]

"I don't think it's intended to be a hell. But does that matter? A place can be hellish without the intent to make it so."

"Though," he adds, "the experience of having one's daemon pulled out and embodied must be anything but dull."

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel half-laughs at the comment about hells, but only answers " You should try your machine yourself. It's actually very thrilling, you know."

...Yes, he's teasing. Also, it's pretty thrilling!

[wings_of_a_swan]

"Hmmm," says Combeferre, feeling rather like he did when Courfeyrac talked him into zorbing.

"...very well." If Bahorel insists.

Combeferre hooks himself up, shows Bahorel which levers to pull, and waits.

[clayforthedevil]

Yes, Bahorel certainly had to twist Combeferre's arm there.A hard-fought battle, to be sure.

But he pays very close attention to Combeferre's instructions, and, in this case, actually follows them. And watches to see what the process looks like from over here.

[wings_of_a_swan]

...it is, in fact, a thrill.

It's like being electrocuted, only not painful and not fatal--that's the best comparison Combeferre can come up with. He's utterly shaken. He feels like there's been a meteor shower within his soul...oh, God help him, he's resorting to Prouvairesque hyperbole.

He sees the anbaric spectrometer, again yelling the answer of yes, and he would grin if his face could move.

After a few moments, he unstraps himself, looks at Bahorel, and finally does grin.

[clayforthedevil]

It's a fairly quiet affair from the outside, given how Bahorel knows it feels. But then Combeferre's expression, elated and wild, is probably enough of a statement. Bahorel laughs and claps him on the shoulder. "Not bad, hey? Not bad! It feels like they'd fly out on their own!"

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre stands up, shaking his head. "It does," he says. "I wish they would," he adds, before he can help himself. He does rather miss Minerva.

"But it's good to know they're still there."

[clayforthedevil]

"Hah, we'll have to mention it to our other-selves; there's sure to be a fine argument in their world over the fate of the daemon after death. No fear, friends! It stays with the rest of you, and doesn't even jump enough to leave the skin." He's looking closely at Combeferre's contraption-- with his hands clasped behind his back as he leans over, for the moment. "You know, it really does feel like this thing's about to open the way for them. Maybe you're closer to figuring it out than you thought." Come on come on come onnnnnn patience takes so lonnng.

[wings_of_a_swan]

"It would be a very dangerous experiment," says Combeferre, suddenly sober. "I won't risk having any of us destroyed, not again."

He remembers, with a sudden vivid mental picture, Bahorel's corpse. Prouvaire's last shout. The faint glimpse he got, out of the corner of his eye, when a soldier attacked Courfeyrac beside him.

Not again. Or at least, not for this.