Spellbound
It was the smell that first riveted her attention. Cool, dry, redolent with the odors of stone dust and pungent evidences of the ancient plant life that clung in places to the joints and cracks of the tower. The scent was powerful, almost a presence in and of itself, diverting some of her focus away from her sworn charge, the Savior of the Universe, Saren Arturius.
Unless told otherwise, Shiala did not like to pay more than paltry attention to her surroundings. She preferred basking in the glory and ecstasy of Saren's presence, perfectly content merely to be by him, awaiting his command. Nothing pleased her more than carrying out his will. Indeed, she lived for little else. If he asked her to stop breathing she would have done it gladly.
Shiala kept careful watch over Saren amid the sights, sounds, and smells of this new planet, for she had to be ready to protect him on a moment's notice. This was her most pressing concern; protecting him. The odd smell was a distraction from that glorious duty, a triviality best left ignored.
Shiala wrinkled her nose at the odor, then put her attention back to where it belonged; with Saren.
He shone like a Thessian shimmerstone in the rough against the lurid backdrop of the graveyard world of Feros, the skeleton of the once-great Prothean empire laid bare behind him. So magnificent was his visage and so great his character that Shiala would have expected mountains to make way for him.
The thought that any could be so presumptuous as to stand in his way caused anger to swell inside her. She and six like-minded asari, commandos all, formed a protective ring around him to against those foolish and misguided souls with the audacity to strike against their own savior. Behind them, hundreds of subservient geth followed loosely, examining every corridor, searching every room, to ensure there would be no surprises. Between them, the commandos and the geth made few mistakes, and missed even less in their charge of keeping their master safe.
Shiala was confident, but nevertheless scanned every shadow Saren passed with a vicious biotic attack at the ready, prepared to unleash the fury of a goddess at anything that might hurtle from the darkness to extinguish his Light. Geth fanned out in front of him, scouting the way down a dark and musty stairwell that spiraled deep into the tower. They filled the shaft with the soft tick of metal on stone as they followed, some branching off to sterilize each new level passed while Saren continued downward. Shiala and the other asari commandos watched every falling particle of dust, wary of everything as they kept close to their master.
The smell was growing stronger, Shiala realized with some annoyance. Wafting up through the cold stone walls of the stairwell, its bitter arboreal redolence invoked the clinging wetness of tropical forests and decomposing leaves. It elicited a vivid memory of being lost for eight days in the wooded wilderness of her home planet. In times past, she might have let the memory linger for a few moments, but Saren was her only concern. She frowned and focused on him, pushing the recollection back down.
For hours Saren descended into the bowels of the city. The smell grew stronger with almost every step Shiala took, until it was impossible to ignore. When he reached his destination deep in the heart of the tower and Shiala found the source of the odor, she was forced for a moment to stop and gaze in awe.
The landing at the bottom of the stairs broadened out into a wide platform, encircling a hollow core that plummeted some hundreds of feet yet to its very bottom. Simple square passageways spiraled in either direction, overlooking the openness. A vast network of pulsating grayish-pink roots clung like parasitic worms to the floor, walls, and ceiling of the observation level and the adjoining halls, snaked up and down the circular core like an obscene spiderweb. Hard as iron under her feet, the tightly-woven branches oozed a clear, sticky film that dripped down the walls, adding a sharp tang to the rest of the vociferous odors that swirled about her head. In places, the choking overgrowth clustered into enormous pillarlike branches that gripped the walls to either side of the core, supporting a gigantic, bulbous mass of pink, purple, and gray that trailed tentacles as it swayed languidly to some unheard rhythm.
Shiala had never seen a creature remotely like it. Odd sounds percolated through the core, not quite mimicking familiar sounds; like that of a tree creaking, or an Analhese bulb fern venting buoyant gases that held it upright in the heavy atmosphere of the planet it called home. Beneath the creature's oozing membrane, treelike fibers clenched, sinewy tendrils of thick purple vine stretched in a perpetual balancing act not unlike that of bone and muscle in an animal.
But this was no animal. It was something baser, yet greater at the same time. Truly was this a god among plants. Its name came to her as the slide of vines against bark, the smell of crushed leaves bleeding chlorophyll, the sting of soft needles in her palm, the taste of sweet sap on her tongue.
"Thorian."
It was only once Saren turned to her that Shiala realized she had spoken the creature's name aloud. She did not flinch from her master's piercing gaze.
"It has spoken to you?" Saren asked.
She had received a communication from the creature, she was sure of it. "Yes, Great One," she replied.
"And this--thing, is indeed the thorian?" he pressed.
Shiala nodded in confirmation, though she wondered why he need even ask--it was obvious. Saren studied her face for a moment, then turned back to face the fearsome form of the thorian, crossing his arms impatiently.
"Meld with it," he commanded. "I must learn what it knows."
A trill of pleasure coursed through her at knowing his command, and immediately she bent her body and mind to the task. Purging herself of all conscious thought, she began from a void and reached out, firing tiny flares of biotic energy to help her thoughts - infinitesimal discharges of electrical force jumping across a fleeting spark of nothing - bridge the gap between her mind and the mind of the creature.
By rote, she silently mouthed the words of tradition for the joining as she felt her tentative bonds begin to take root and become solid. The thorian was tantalizingly close, waiting for her on the other side of an infinity that dwindled with every impulse of her brain. Time ticked away slowly as the barriers fell and each thread of consciousness strengthened, ready against the moment she would plunge into the void and fill those as-yet empty passageways of thought with the light of consciousness.
Her whole body tightened with concentration. Shiala felt herself reach the climax of the joining. As she had countless times before, she embraced eternity.
An infinity of time and space collapsed into nothing in less than a trillionth of a second. Two minds meshed into one with all the subtlety and gentleness of comets colliding. Thought dissolved, disparate sensations ran together into a single homogeneous current, memory failed before the awesome might of the now.
Shiala was swept away in the glory of the shared consciousness. No mind she'd ever touched had been the match for this one, whose memory spanned millennia, whose senses encompassed an entire world. The breathtaking power of its intellect was undeniable, and awe-inspiring. Within its bounds, she could feel the essence of millions of Prothean minds, their lives inconsequential and their deaths meaningless to the thorian, but their knowledge, their culture, the substance of their very existence retained as water absorbed in a limitless sponge.
Feeling that essence, the Cipher, Shiala reached for it, let it seep into her as the capillaries of a noble oak tap the flow of a mighty river. She could not hope to drink it all, but even the tiniest sampling would yield the same as a great gasping draft.
Once her task was finished, Shiala knew she had to leave to ecstasy of the joining, but she wanted to stay there forever. When compared to this intimacy, the world outside their melded minds was a harsh and cold thing she had no desire to rejoin. The only thing that convinced her she must withdraw from the thorian was the thought of Saren waiting for her.
Saren needed her to bring him the Cipher. He could not continue his quest without her.
Thoughts of him immediately jumped to the forefront of her mind, filling her with a renewed sense of purpose. She knew what she had to do, she had what Saren needed. Yet it was still with some reluctance that she cut the umbilical of biotic energy that linked her to the mind of the thorian.
As her thoughts rushed back into her own brain, the corridors she'd constructed fell silent and quickly split away, separating them once more.
It was over for but a fraction of a second, and then the thorian pulled back.
A thousand white-hot lances of agony pierced her skull as alien bonds took sudden root in the freshly severed thought-bridges gone quiet. There was no rapturous melding of two minds, no instantaneous thrill of inhabiting and becoming the other; there was only a vile, desolate feeling of invasion.
The overpowering presence of the thorian in her mind made it impossible for Shiala to even scream against the murderous pain. She was weak, as pliable in its grasp as a bolt of silk, and could not hope to resist as it filled her with an irresistible hunger, an urge so powerful it was almost a force of nature. Her consciousness was subjugated as the thorian stripped away pieces of her mind to make way for its all-consuming hatred of everything it touched.
As the thorian possessed her, Shiala knew that anything she had to offer it would not even begin to slake its lust. It hungered not for what others did. Knowledge, wealth, political status, sexual gratification; none of these meant a thing to the thorian. What it craved and lusted after was nourishment and dominion. The dead would feed it and the living would serve it, forever. She heard its whispering inside her skull, demanding her capitulation and servitude.
But Saren needs me! Shiala thought in a blind panic. In answer, the thorian twisted the pain tighter around the base of her skull, punishing her for the thought. She tried to hold Saren's image in her mind, to draw strength from it, but even this was wrenched from her grasp.
The thorian was too powerful, its impervious strength overwhelmed her feeble efforts as an avalanche swallows a sapling. Its alien thoughts thundered through her head, appropriating the use of her tongue and lips to address the others.
This one has touched the Old Growth. She does the bidding of the one who now stands before thorian. Speak, invader, the Old Growth would hear your reasons for surrendering her.
"It is quite simple," Saren said, unconcerned. "You possess knowledge that I must have."
More thoughts not her own roared through her as the thorian made its reply. Shiala was barely aware of the world around her, too lost in the pain and her desperate need to do Saren's will.
She has learned much. But the Old Growth carries a trove of history as infinite as its reach and as eternal as its existence. No mind of flesh can comprehend the grandeur of the thorian, to suggest it is sacrilege.
"It is the lore of the Protheans that I seek, it is their knowledge I require."
The souls of those who have come before are the sole domain of the thorian. This one is a meager offering for the price you request.
"Of course, she is not all I offer."
The Old Growth will not bandy words forever.
The pain in Shiala's head lessened. Saren had drawn the thorian's attention with his proposal. Just the sight of him revitalized her, filled her with hope. Her faith in him was unwavering, despite the dominating influence of the thorian.
She knew he would save them all, and had absolute trust could save her too.
Yet, he made no move to aid her. Indeed, his gaze seemed to see right through her, straight into the core of the malignance residing inside her. His mouth curled coldly. "In return for the knowledge I seek, I will give you humans."
The thorian grumbled inside her. An accord was reached, a bargain struck. More than anything, the thorian craved new thralls; she was but a momentary diversion from its endless hunger, so the promise of fresh sustenance was too much for it to resist.
The thorian accepts your bargain. This one has obtained the knowledge you request, and will deliver it to you this once.
Though the thorian roared the command in her mind, Shiala needed no coercion to join her mind with Saren's, to share what she had learned. He needed what now only she had; the Cipher, the captured essence of countless Prothean lives entombed in memory forever. His quest, indeed the entire galaxy, depended on it, and her.
Despite her eagerness to help Saren, however, she was drained from her previous joining with the thorian, and further worn by the thorian's invasion of her mind. Rather than being a glorious experience, joining with Saren simply fatigued her further. Transferring the Cipher from her mind to his was torturous. Shiala pushed herself to her absolute limits, forcing herself to be strong, to finish the task Saren with which had charged her. Saren needed her to be strong, it was for him that she suffered.
When she finished, Shiala could barely stand, nevertheless, she remained alert and ready for his command.
But no command came. Saren looked at her strangely, then merely turned and left.
Shiala started to follow, only to be paralyzed by a sudden lightning bolt of pain in her head as the thorian reasserted its control over her. She watched Saren disappear from her sight, helpless to follow, desperate to know his wishes, unable to do his bidding. Like a puppet master, the thorian strung her along, dragging her away from him.
But Saren needs me! Shiala wailed silently. The thorian was unsympathetic to her plight.
Sticky roots like coils of steel reached for her, pulled her into the wall. The thorian's control over her was so complete that she could not make one single motion of struggle as the pink roots and vines enmeshed and cocooned her against the wall, slimy strands of gelatinous mucus forming a filmy sac that gradually encased her. Soon, all light and sound from the outside was shut off completely.
The thorian claimed her as its own.
The passage of time was stretched all out of proportion for Shiala in her seamless prison of slick membrane barred with tightly woven roots. Slime covered her from head to toe, filling what little space was left inside her tiny pod of isolation. Flooding through her nostrils and mouth, thick in her throat, the viscous, syrupy mass breathed for her, binding her that much more tightly to the creature that owned her.
The violation was sickening.
With every beat of her heart, Shiala could acutely feel the thorian tearing through her mind, feeding off of the love and devotion she'd dedicated to Saren's cause, uncovering her most intimate of thoughts. Nothing was safe from its cold purview. She cried out as memories were ripped from her, the thorian greedily devouring the contents of her mind against her impotent protests. Her resistance only bought her the stinging kiss of morbid agony clenching her heart in a taloned fist.
The thorian cared nothing for her. The torment was exquisite, seeming to last for days on end. Eventually, Shiala learned simply to stop fighting it, let the thorian take what it would. It did not matter to her anymore; Saren had abandoned her, and that pain hurt her more than any torture the thorian could inflict.
Without Saren's voice in her ear, without his command to follow, there was no purpose to life anymore.
Time passed interminable. Minutes, hours, or years; its passage was impossible to mark. Shiala knew that eventually she would be consumed by the thorian. Feasting on the thoughts of her sentient mind would only divert its hunger for so long. She had seen to the depths of that rapacious lust when she touched its mind.
The thorian saw itself as above all other creatures, it saw itself as a caretaker, and thus the only being worthy to be master of all. It could not suffer any to exist beyond its domination, for it craved control over all things. Living bodies were fit only to serve, the corpses of those that had expired its food. Its voracious appetite knew no compunctions, for life was beneath the thorian, intelligence of little concern.
Too, the constructs of creatures other than itself were not tolerated by the thorian. Steel corroded with time, stone cracked and crumbled under the patient work of the thorian's million arms. Eventually, all of Feros would succumb to its irresistible influence.
Shiala resigned herself to oblivion. Her time with Saren already seemed to be a lifetime away, her memory of him so faded that she began to doubt whether he'd ever been real. She tried hard to remember something about him - anything - but found that she didn't care to. He'd abandoned her to the thorian. Without so much as a word to her, he traded her to this soulless horror, and for what?
The memory would not come, the reasons she'd given up everything for him stayed frustratingly ambiguous. She knew they were there, somewhere in her mind, but she hardly knew herself anymore, so much of her had been taken by the thorian. First her will, then her body; now, it seemed, her very ability to think.
Suddenly, she felt the thorian roil in anger, its roar of fury thundering through her. Its mind enmeshed with hers, she could sense the cause of its outrage.
Cold Ones, betrayal! the thorian hissed. Its thralls were dying.
Shiala felt its rage, the seething hatred exuded from every pore in her prison of flesh. It sensed the presence of Others that it could neither dominate nor consume, impenetrable bodies of metal dispatched to kill those who served the thorian's will. It smelled the duplicitous breath of the one called Saren fueling their actions.
For a brief moment, while the thorian raged, it withdrew partially from her mind, and Shiala remembered. Saren, Cold Ones; the Reapers! He had come to Feros to expedite their return!
Her moment of triumph was short-lived, as the thorian brought the strength of its wrath down on her, for it knew well her connection to the one who had betrayed it.
Up until then, she had been terrifyingly numb to the world, blinded, unable to hear or feel, completely cut off from everything that had once been her life. Suddenly, Shiala found that she could feel everything, as the whole of her body lit with unimaginable torture. Nothing could withstand the agony the thorian heaped on her as punishment for Saren's betrayal.
All at once, she felt as if her brain were being pulled from her skull and all her limbs ripped away, every bone broken a thousand times, and her muscles stretched so taut that they began to unravel, one strand at a time.
Oblivion claimed her.
Shiala awoke as if from a nightmare.
Her prison had not changed, but her mind had. The thorian's overpowering lust no longer filled her consciousness, examining her every thought, gorging itself on every intimate detail of her existence, things she kept behind locked doors within her brain. She had control of her body again, could feel once more without the astonishing pain of resisting the thorian's influence.
Her mind was returned to her. She was free, finally free.
So unfamiliar was rational thought to her that it took Shiala a moment to realize that still trapped within walls of flesh, her throat and lungs filled with the thorian, she had no way to breathe. Somewhere beyond her, the pulse of the thorian's unknowable lifebeat had ceased, and it no longer breathed for her. Already her lungs burned for air, she choked on the viscous ooze, trying to expel it from herself while she clawed about with her newly liberated hands at the slippery walls of her membranous cell.
Thickly intertwined roots lay just beyond the inner wall of her prison, clustered tightly in nearly every direction. It felt cold and dead under her fingers, but still unyielding as steel. Her heart raced as she frantically probed and felt around for a weak spot where she could plunge her hand through and hopefully reach air. The only of direction she could feel to any degree to was the ever so slight downward pull of gravity, otherwise she was completely blind to her surroundings.
She could have been trying to dig through solid rock with but her fingertips and never have known it.
Panic's icy hands threatened her. It had been so long since she had only herself to rely on, so long since she had thought for herself, that Shiala contemplated simply letting the darkness take her, letting the struggle end.
It took her only a moment to discard the notion.
She remembered too much, had seen too great a deception. In a way, her imprisonment had been beneficial, for she now realized the length and breadth of her foolishness, and understood the magnitude of the horror she had helped unleash.
Countless hours of intense mental and physical training under extreme conditions most would never pass had prepared her to survive much worse than this. She would survive.
A silent prayer for strength was on her lips when Shiala's hand burst through the cell wall. She felt the roots beyond; sparse, underdeveloped. Reaching her other arm through, she was able to pry them apart and begin levering her body out of the mucus filled sac. She began retching immediately, instantly coming to regret it for the fierce lances of agony each spasm sent through her as she kept blindly groping and pulling herself forward.
Finally, something snapped and the entire slimy mess belched free of the thorian. Shiala landed on stone amid a wash of sticky mucus and broken root fragments.
For long minutes she lay curled in a fetal position, coughing violently, putting all her concentration into the task of disgorging every last vestige of the thorian from her. At first she thought the pain would never end, that the sweet taste of breath would never again grace her lungs, but after a terror-filled few minutes, she began to feel the cool rasp of air on her tongue once more.
The pain lessened with each new tentative breath, until finally she was strengthened enough to open her eyes and behold the world she'd thought denied her forever.
Colors seemed brighter and more vivid than before, when Saren was the only light in her world, sounds sharper, smells crisper. Even her body itself felt more invigorated, more alive, than she'd ever felt. Truly had she shed the chains of two masters.
"...Commander, over here..."
At the sound of a voice, Shiala looked up to see figures wafting in her vision like apparitions. When her eyes adjusted fully to her surroundings, a concerned turian stood over her, the bony plates of his face a familiar mix of naivety and utter conviction, but clear cognition in his eyes. At his back stood a human woman, whose obvious attention to detail bespoke the consummate professional, as well as a human man Shiala recognized. He was the one who could stop Saren, stop the true nightmare.
Shiala smiled.
"I'm free!"