Lois looked around the room uncertainly once he had been left alone with Balrog. He seemed to immediately regret his decision to speak privately with the large man, and was looking around the room as though to find some sort of escape. Unfortunately, with just the bed and the side table in the room apart from the walls, there was no escape to be found. Not even a wardrobe stood in the room to give him a potential place to escape.
Fortunately, the man revealed no ill intentions in the absence of the others. He looked concerned, perhaps, but it seemed to genuinely be concern for the ermine and not that he might be found out for some duplicity. “Do you really not know me, Lois?” he asked. The ermine shook his head, keeping his eyes on the man to both be certain that he did not have any ill intentions and to see if any small nuance of Balrog’s actions triggered some hidden memory. Unfortunately, there was no such development. “I’m sorry, but I can only recall ever having met you in passing.” He winced. “To be honest, the same is true of almost everyone I have seen to this point, if I recall them at all.” “So you recall names and nothing more.” Lois sighed, nodding although continuing to avoid eye contact. “Have there been any exceptions? Anyone you recognized since you regained consciousness?” “I remembered Lucy,” Lois admitted. “I’m not certain why her in particular. Perhaps it was because I was looking for a mage, and some part of me recalled that she was one.” The ermine sighed. “A theory and nothing more… I know of no reliable way that might allow me to make progress regaining my memory.” “Start with what you do remember,” Balrog suggested. The other man snorted derisively. “That’s much the same as what Lucy suggested. Would you like to see how much progress that helped me make?” He took a small notebook from the bed where he had left it, leafing through its pages until he reached one that was not filled by Lucy’s indecipherable script. This one instead had only a few words scrawled at the top, and nothing underneath. “’Who is Vincent Lois?’” Balrog read from the page. He turned a few pages back and forth. “Nothing else?” Lois shook his head bitterly. “Since she left me here alone with that book I’ve been trying to think of anything I might possibly be able to write. That I am a man, who for some reason is as much animal as he is human? Perhaps more if you talk to some…” He trailed of and made various frustrated, wordless gestures in the direction of the connecting hallway. “Those are all things that anyone can see,” Balrog noted, ignoring the anger in the ermine’s bearing. “Exactly why I did not write them down.” The ermine paced a few more steps across the front of the bed. “Beyond what everyone can see, I know nothing about myself! At least nothing worth the writing.” Balrog nodded slowly, thinking to himself. “Why did you write ‘who is Vincent Lois?’ Why not ‘who am I?’ or something to that effect?” Lois took a breath. “I know it may sound odd, but I did not even realize that Lucy was talking to me when she first called me by that name,” he answered. “Even now, even though I know that it is my name, and that I should answer to it, I continue to have a nagging feeling that it belongs to someone else.” Balrog took only a few moments to consider before he shook his head in disagreement. “I first met you several years ago; it couldn’t be less than five, I don’t think. You called yourself Vincent Lois then and you still call yourself by that name here at the Keep. Either that is your name, or you have been using the same alias for a truly unfathomable length of time.” Lois shrugged. “With what I know of myself, that might very well be the case,” he said bitterly. Balrog shook his head. “I know that you must be frustrated, but you need to focus on what you know for certain, not wild theories that have no root in reality.” He watched as Lois sat on the edge of the bed, nodding in a detached fashion. He realized with some chagrin that Alex and Lucy had not been wrong about their assessment of Lois’ state. While he was human in size and speech, many subtle mannerisms combined with sharper facial features and a longer neck made the former assassin seem much closer to an animal than he had been prior to the events of the previous days. He wondered if perhaps the loss of memory was related to this fact, but he quickly realized that it mattered little regardless. He had no idea why either of the two issues was present. “Do you mind if I take a look at your Curse?” he asked. The ermine shook his head. “If you believe that it may be of some use, I see no reason why not. As I recall, however, no mage has been able to overturn the Curse despite nearly ten years’ worth of attempts by every mage the Keep can offer.” “At least you remember that,” Balrog said with a friendly smile. “I believe I am owed a few such strokes of good fortune,” Lois replied drily. Balrog gave a soft chuckle in support of his friend, letting his gaze shift once again to look at the intertwining lines of magic that determined his friend’s form. The ermine stood still to permit the inspection, but it mattered little. Although he had not lived in Metamor for long himself, the lutin had spent some time curiously dwelling on the intricacies of the Keep’s infamous enchantment since that time. Despite this, his opinion remained unchanged between this and his previous inspection of Lois’ form. There was nothing in the magic that seemed to differ in any significant way from the norm. Even the minute adjustment that they had made to restore him from his feral shape remained unaltered since that time. “If it is any comfort, there is nothing wrong with your Curse,” he said, returning his vision to the material world. “Unfortunately, that also means that you have no idea why I should be without my memory, or why I should be more animal than man.” Balrog conceded his point with a grimace, and Lois nodded with resignation. “I suppose a magic cure for either affliction would be too convenient to expect.” “Sometimes we just have to do things the hard way,” Balrog confirmed. Lois scoffed and shook his head. “You sound so certain that there is a way,” he groused. Balrog smiled. “Someone once told me, ‘you might have to clear some underbrush before you find it, but there is always a way.’” “I said that, didn’t I?” the ermine asked quietly. His forehead wrinkled in consternation, and he paced around in a circle for a few steps. Balrog left him to consider the question for a few moments, heeding Lucy’s counsel to try to let Lois make his own connections as he regained his memory. “I recall… a patrol? We were sitting outside of a tent discussing… some business or other, the details I cannot recall. I do remember saying that, however. You still weren’t convinced.” Balrog chuckled. “See, you can remember! Now, it wasn’t exactly on patrol, but the confusion is understandable.” The ermine raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest, awaiting an explanation. “This happened several years before either of us came to Metamor permanently. We were in the field, yes, but not on a patrol as such.” Lois squinted as he thought, as though doing so would help him think. “I remember having been human, though I suppose the fact remains that I could not remember being an ermine when I first regained consciousness. Still, what little memory I have seems to focus on this Keep.” He shrugged. “There are bits and pieces of other memories, but everything else is indistinct, at best.” Balrog nodded sympathetically. “It may take some time before you are able to recover your memory to anyone’s satisfaction, but the rest of us are frankly quite relieved that you will have the opportunity to do so. These fetish stones that our enemies are using are devious creations. There was no certainty that you would ever recover your humanoid form. That you did in so brief a period is a wonder.” Lois nodded slowly, but he looked distracted. Finally, turning towards Balrog, he arched an eyebrow. “Why haven’t you changed?” Balrog blinked in surprise. “What?” “If that night occurred before either of us came to Metamor, then neither of us should have been Cursed. I recall being human, although only just. You, however, I never recall being anything but a man. Why haven’t you been changed by the Curse?” Balrog gave a small smirk. “Ah, that is a secret that we agreed we would never reveal. Perhaps you will recall, however, if I give you a small hint.” With a small force of will, Balrog altered the illusion around his body so that just his ear reverted slightly to its true, pointed form. Lois did not notice for a few moments, until Balrog subtly gestured towards his ear. It still took a moment, but a look of dawning revelation appeared on Lois’ face. “You’re a...!” “Ah!” Balrog wagged a finger reprovingly as he allowed the illusion to return to full force. “Remember, it’s a secret.” Lois stopped when asked, clearly needing some time to come to terms with the realization. Finally, he spoke, though slowly. “I remember discovering that,” he said quietly. A little hope could be heard in his voice, though it remained uncertain. “I didn’t tell anyone else; you were one of the best mages I had ever worked with, and I considered you a friend.” He looked up at the stocky man. “Do the others know?” “If by the others you mean the Keep at large, no. Your patrol does, as does mine, but besides that I suspect only the Keep’s intelligence community is privy to my secret.” He shrugged. “It’s just as well for me. Some might understand, but Keepers have ever had a hostile relationship with lutins, and not without reason. I could not blame those who found it difficult to forgive and forget if I told them what I was.” Lois nodded. “The ones who do know haven’t given you any trouble yet?” Balrog shook his head. “So far they have been tremendously calm about it. I suspect that part of that was simply due to the fact that I am a mage with some knowledge of the Curse, but I doubt that this fact accounts for their lack of hostility entirely. I am grateful that Alex at least seems to be fully willing to respect the Keep’s recent diplomacy attempts with my people.” “Alex…” The ermine turned his eyes again towards a nearby wall before returning them to Balrog’s face. “My commander; he’s the lynx, isn’t that right?” Balrog nodded, smiling broadly. “See? You are remembering things very quickly!” Lois scoffed quietly. “I am remembering fragments, names and the people to whom they belong are nothing. I remember only a few specific events, your revelation being the most familiar. Beyond that, there is a decades-long gap where my memories should be.” He sighed. “I hate to sound so desperate, but my mind just feels like a yawning void. If my memories do not return, and soon, I feel like I will go mad!” “I understand, Lois.” Balrog carefully stepped forward, making certain that Lois did not feel threatened by his approach. The ermine did not react, and so the larger man gently laid a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder. He could feel the man’s muscles tense erratically when he felt the contact of the disguised lutin’s hand, but Lois made no attempt to dislodge it, and a few moments sufficed for him to calm enough to relax again. “Thank you,” the ermine said, sounding clearly shaken even as he tried to get ahold of himself. He shook his head. “I suppose you would like to know why I was so angered by Lucy and Alex mentioning how much I looked like an animal?” he asked. The lutin removed his hand from his friend’s shoulder and shrugged broadly. “I thought the reaction was reasonable given the circumstances.” Lois nodded. “None of you were aware of the full extent of the circumstances, however,” he noted. Taking Balrog’s silence as a cue to continue, Lois said, “After Lucy left me here to look for you, I sat down and tried to write what I could remember in the notebook. As I tried to collect my memories, however, the only ones that were clear enough to give me a trail to follow were my memories of the moments after this… fetish spell, I think you called it?” Balrog nodded and Lois continued. “I could only recall the moments after the fetish spell had affected me. It was something at least; I remembered a few moments of humanity, perhaps I could trace it back to discover more about my past. “As it turned out, however, the only clear memories of those moments were the ones during and immediately following the spell’s effects. As I recalled the moments when I was forced from man to animal, I found myself shrinking here, in this room, my form changing much as it had then.” Balrog winced. “That is a function of the Curse, I am afraid,” the lutin said, his voice consoling. “An animal-Cursed Keeper is able to assume the form of that animal completely. I have not had that experience myself, but I hear that visualizing the change is the easiest way to trigger it.” The ermine nodded. He sat back down on the edge of the bed as he continued his story. “I thought that whatever spell you had devised to rescue me had failed, and I soon found myself standing on four paws, trembling as I stepped out from under this robe. I was an animal, truly and thoroughly, and every moment I was terrified that the magic would exert its full force once more and rob me of my mind. I braced my will against that thought, and after a few moments of retaining my mind, I grew bold enough to try to will myself back to human form.” “It is good to see you succeeded.” “I had only just regained my current form a few moments before you arrived. The thought of it made their inspection sting, even if their words were true.” He looked up at the lutin. He barely remembered the man, yet for some reason he felt safe confiding in him with his most troubling secrets. “It is a comfort to know that such a change is normal in the Keep, at least.” Balrog nodded, running fingers through his beard as he considered. “Have you tried willing yourself to be more human than you currently are?” he asked after a moment’s pause. Lois nodded. “I did everything I could to change myself back. To be honest, however…” He stopped, and then shook his head with a forlorn sigh. “To be honest, I cannot even remember what I should look like as a human.” He looked up at the lutin, the deep blue of his eyes almost mesmerizing. “When I first awoke in this room I was surprised and mortified to find myself turned into an ermine, but now it is the only form I can recall even in part!” Balrog frowned. “Are you certain?” When the ermine nodded, the lutin arched an eyebrow and twirled one of the forks of his braided beard around his finger. “How could a man so thoroughly forget his life, even so far as forgetting what he looked like?” he mused to himself. “I wish I could tell,” the mustelid replied. “I fought the Curse for whatever headway it would give, and the only reason I stopped was because I could think of no further ground I could possibly gain.” Balrog nodded slowly. He hesitated for a moment, but finally he did sit down beside the troubled ermine. He turned and looked at his friend, even though Lois would barely lift his eyes to match his gaze. “The Curse has troubled Keepers for nearly ten years now, and there’s not a man or woman among the defenders that doesn’t wish that things could be different somehow,” he spoke softly. “At the same time, it doesn’t have to be a death sentence. It does not change who you are, not matter how much it changes your appearance. Understand, when Lucy and Alex were speaking of you having the proportions of an animal, they were doing it out of concern for you. They both have to deal with their own Curse as well, and it was due to their efforts that you have recovered your mind at all. They understand how it feels to question yourself because of how you’ve changed.” Lois nodded. “I know. I do not believe that they meant any harm, but I barely even recall who I was, and I fear that the void will be filled with the animal.” Balrog nodded his understanding. “If it is any comfort, there has never been a Keeper who has suffered such a fate, and I doubt that it will start with you.” Lois finally did turn and look at him in the eyes. “Are you sure about that? If it had happened to them, how would they have communicated it to anyone else?” A chill ran up the lutin’s spine as he realized that he could not be entirely certain of his own words. Fortunately, this realization brought with it a renewed resolve. “Lois, I will not let it happen to you,” he promised. For a moment, Balrog thought that his friend would press him further on the matter. After a brief silence, however, Lois nodded and gave a small smile. “I believe you,” he said. “Perhaps that makes me a fool, but I need something to hold onto if I want to keep my sanity. I trust you.” Balrog smiled. “I will not let you down.” In the back of his mind, the lutin wondered how he could possibly hope to keep those promises beyond the possibility of failure. It did not take him long to resolve that failure was not an option he would permit. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
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