No Jot of Blood
Politics is one part blood sport, four parts beauty contest. The story of how Lor'themar got his groove (and eye) back, and how Rommath showed a total inability to differentiate between right and wrong.
Warning(s): For unscrupulous 'doctors', a scoop of eye scream, and unfortunate (deeply) apprentices. In other words: implied gore. I don't think it's too graphic, but people have different thresholds, so I've rated this M.
Set during TBC, before Kael'thas' betrayal/the events at the Sunwell.
"I do believe," Rommath said, "that this is the finest magical prosthetic ever fashioned."
The prosthetic in question was an eyeball carved from soapstone, and Rommath was now describing its development in gut-churning detail. Lor'themar could not see, but from the pause and from Sister Eltharia's cooing he was certain that Rommath was showing off his handiwork.
"Astounding," Lor'themar said. "Wonderful. Thank you so much."
"The whittling process took hours," Rommath said as if Lor'themar hadn't spoken, his chair creaking. He must have been leaning towards the priestess. "I was unsure as to the shape—I wasted pounds of soapstone before I contacted Father Allesian. Fortunately, though, we had a very fruitful day at the morgue."
Eltharia clucked in interest.
"Yes, that's lovely," said Lor'themar. "Really. Warms the heart."
"After that it was artistic touches. You know I trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts as a boy?" Eltharia said that she had not. "That was before my parents realised I was Talented, of course. Still, I've always had an aptitude for such pursuits."
"Fascinating," said Lor'themar. "Tell me more."
"And the iris—that was my magnum opus. It'll look precisely like your other one, Lor'themar, complete with the fel glow."
"Fel glow?" It felt odd, addressing the faint warmth of the lights above him and not Rommath himself. "You didn't use actual fel magic, did you?"
There was a pause, and the legs of Rommath's chair creaked again. "Well..."
"And you think that this is safe?"
"We haven't any available research. I'd assume so."
Rommath's 'assumptions' were what other individuals would call 'guesses'. For instance: Lor'themar guessed that the arcane patrollers were completely under their control, Rommath assumed, and when they had run wild through the city on a rampage that culminated in the death of every banker in Silvermoon, Rommath had been baffled and blamed the engineers. Lor'themar guessed that this was a common trait in mages: an inability to admit you were something less than omniscient.
Someone dabbed at the side of his mouth. "You were drooling," Eltharia said.
Lor'themar set his teeth. The burning reek of formaldehyde assailed him, the acid of antibacterial potions, and, beneath that, hot steel and fel magic. "Can we just get this over with?"
"You don't need to act the petulant child," Rommath said. "I'm attempting to take your mind off the pain."
Lor'themar would have narrowed his eyes at him, but one of them was frozen shut and the other was rotting somewhere in the Ghostlands, leaving only a vacant eye socket pried open with metal latches. "I'm not in pain."
"Not yet."
This was not reassuring, particularly not when Rommath began jabbing at his face, trying to squeeze in the fake.
"I would... really... feel better about... having a priest." He looked plaintively in the direction Eltharia's voice had come from.
"Never fear, my Lord Regent," she said. "His Excellency is under my supervision. I will not allow any harm to come to you."
These two statements were belied by the fact that Rommath was struggling with the crank that controlled the latches, wrenching his eyelids further apart with little skill and less care. Eltharia sighed like a mother watching a wayward boy but said nothing.
"Shall I heat the poker over the fire now?" she asked.
"Oh, yes, do that."
Even the whine of the screw and the rasp of Rommath's nails against it were preferable to the sizzling that followed. "What do you want with a blasted hot iron? Is this a surgery or a torture session?"
"It's to cauterize the wound." Another, final wrench of the latches. "Or we could let you die of infection, since you seem to think that preferable."
"Can the priest not do that with her spells?"
"She can't cast healing spells." Rommath sounded put-out, as if Lor'themar were disrupting some game of his by refusing to adhere to the rules. His next attempt to shove in the eyeball involved a great deal of cursing (his) and grunting (Lor'themar's).
People passing by the door must think we're in the middle of a tryst. And what kind of priest can't bloody heal? Probably the same kind of priest that thought it advisable to let Rommath perform a medical procedure. Never mind. Lor'themar was sure he didn't want to know.
"Can this not wait for a priest who can perform the operation?"
"You had that option and you refused it," Rommath said. "Now it is time for my expertise." He gave Lor'themar's ocular muscle an ungentle prod. "You know, Eltharia, I've been thinking. Maybe in my retirement I'll pursue sculpting."
"Perhaps you ought not pursue surgery, though." Lor'themar's voice came out gruff. "The anaesthetic is wearing off."
The 'anaesthetic' was not an anaesthetic so much as a sheet of rime Rommath had used to fix his face to the 'operating table', which was not an operating table so much as Rommath's desk.
He felt rather than heard the crackle of mana, and the ice burnt his skin for the space of less than a second before numbness settled over him again. "Much better," Rommath murmured. "Here, now I can... Ah, it's in. The first step is done. How do you feel?"
"Like I'm under a foot of ice."
"You are under a foot of ice. Are you frightened? Would you like me to give you a sedating potion?"
"No." Lor'themar tested the hold of the ice and found it firm. What was I thinking when I agreed to this? Strange—he couldn't remember. There had been a luncheon in the Spire, and Rommath had been talking about his research into tissue regrowth—regrowth? No, that couldn't be right—and he had mentioned his scar, and then they were here, but how...?
"Give him a sedative anyway," Rommath said to Eltharia; he felt the glass ridge of a bottle pressed to his lips until it rang against his teeth, the burn of potion that spread across his tongue and dribbled down his chin. "I feel I should warn you that this spell is somewhat experimental."
His entire body secured to the table, his mouth mostly immobilised, his weapons on the other side of a wall, and shortly to be drugged beyond the ability to speak, Lor'themar said, "You tell me that now?"
"Don't raise your voice so or you're going to disrupt my concentration. I've never tried this incantation before."
You would have thought that the highest-ranking mage in all of Quel'Thalas would have been able to get some mice or trolls or political prisoners to experiment on, thus sparing the Regent Lord that indignity. "You might have mentioned that earlier, too."
"I did mention it. You're being very childish. Now hold still."
Being anchored to the table did not leave Lor'themar a huge number of options in this regard, but he could also not hold his tongue. "I see no need to pursue this idiotic adventure if you don't know what you're doing."
"I see the need."
"Oh?" Lor'themar gave him what he hoped was a frosty look, and not because of the chunks of ice clinging to his beard.
"It's because you look horrific, to be frank," Rommath said.
Ouch.
"Small children wandering into the Spire are apt to weep at the sight of you."
Zing.
"Indeed, you'd have been more fortunate to lose the other eye as well. Then you wouldn't have to see yourself."
Waving a hand as best as he could (which was not very well, considered he was bound to a desk), Lor'themar said, "You're in a fine humour, Rommath. Let's just get this done with."
He could hear the scuffle of Eltharia's slippers on the marble, and a scorching wind passed over his cheek.
"Time for the poker!" she said with unsettling cheer.
"I'll let you do the honours," Rommath said. "I need to prepare the charms. Do try not to scream too loudly, Lor'themar, I need my concentration."
I'm not going to scream old man, Lor'themar thought, you see if I do.
And he didn't scream, although when Eltharia pressed the tip of the poker to his tear duct and he heard the spit and sputter of all the humours searing and evaporating he dug his nails into his palms until he felt his skin tear, and the leather of the straps on his arms (For once you were right, old man) ate into his skin. Every shift of Eltharia's hands brought with it the smell of burning flesh and hair, and the metal seemed to seep into his face as if it were dissolving paper, and the minutes were eternities, each one lasting forever and doing nothing to take away the memory of the first.
He couldn't feel Eltharia pull away; he couldn't feel anything. That's not a good sign. "It's done. Grand Magister, another sheet of ice, please—"
There should have been pain enough from the sudden cold to make him cry out, but there was nothing, just a tingling like the vibrations of a bell, and he was certain the chill did not cause his numbness.
"This looks bad," Eltharia said, timidly, as if she were afraid that Rommath would take the poker for a spin on her next. "Are you sure this is going to work?"
"The incantation uses necrotised flesh, and burns are the easiest manner of creating that. I read it in a book. So yes, thank you, I am sure."
Well, at least someone was.
"Now. Stand back, my lady—yes, there. I need some space. Etlat gart'ak ed—"
This time, when It touched him, Lor'themar did scream. He screamed and screamed and screamed until his throat was raw and the air around him seemed to ring with the noise of it, and then he screamed some more.
"Stop, stop, stop!" Eltharia was screaming too.
"What are you shrieking about you, you... you infant? Eltharia! Why is he making that unholy noise?"
"You're killing him! Stop channelling the spell!"
"I have, fool girl!"
The poker had been fire and heat and blistering, but It was nothing, a complete absence, a cold withered finger that tore across his skin, peeling back muscle to reveal bone, and the smell of it was like nothing he had ever—but no, he recognised it, meat wagons and rotted flesh. There was pain, but the pain was two-parts horror and disbelief and the revulsion of it, of what was happening to him and what it meant.
And then, abruptly, it was gone, and he was back in himself. When he opened his unfrozen eye, he realised he could see. Sort of. Rommath was standing over him, pale-faced and with some vile black ooze dripping from his hands. It stank of decay and filth and the grave.
"Oh." Eltharia's voice was very small. "Grand Magister, generally healers think it's good form to warn the patient before painful procedures."
"Really?" Rommath's ear twitched. "I would have thought the opposite."
The room tilted and swung above him, and Lor'themar was certain that if he did not get off his back he would choke on his vomit.
Eltharia noticed. "He's going to be sick. Help me sit him up."
They wrenched the straps from his arms, and the priestess's surprisingly strong hands gripped his shoulders, tilting him so that he was staring at the ground.
"Not in here, Eltharia, by Sun—" Rommath began, but Lor'themar was not listening. He threw up everything in his stomach, including the potion they'd force-fed him, the potion that was supposed to have been a sedative but was probably berry-juice. His entire body shook with the effort, his stomach wrenching, and he spat out bile until he felt hollow as a scraped gourd.
When he was finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I am going to... Rommath, I will... mark my words..."
Eltharia's skin was cool when she touched his brow. "How do you feel, my Lord Regent?"
Like putting an arrow through that damned mage's forehead. "As if... as if I just took a trip down a hill inside a coffin. One filled with nails."
"Very dramatic." Rommath sniffed. "Can you see?"
"Actually." He blinked. "Yes."
The look of joy that passed between Rommath and Sister Eltharia did not improve his mood; it just confirmed the fact that neither of them had expected the procedure to work. He tossed his hair off his face, noting with distaste that there were blue clumps of potion stuck in it.
"Excuse my language, but what the fel did you just do to me, you old coot?"
Rommath bristled. "How dare you speak to me like that? I am not some ranger for you to snap at like a mangy dog. I just saved your vision. Ingrate."
"That was shadow magic." He sat up, shaky. The ceiling was weaving itself into a Mobius strip overhead and his stomach threatened to jump ship again.
"Oh, no," Sister Eltharia said, "not shadow magic. It was actually—"
"Shut up, Eltharia," Rommath said. "He doesn't understand the ins and outs of magical theory, and he doesn't care to." His gaze, when he turned to look at Lor'themar, was cool, his forehead and the edges of his mouth unmarred by wrinkles, unmarred in general save for the scar that crossed his face from lips to ear. "Go look for yourself. The proof, as the humans say, is in the cake."
"Pudding," Lor'themar said, wincing, as Eltharia helped him to his feet. "The proof is in the pudding."
The mirror Rommath kept in his office was full-sized and stood in a beam of flattering light. Lor'themar was certain this said something about his colleague, something that was mean and cutting and that demonstrated Rommath's poor character and vanity, only he couldn't think about that at the moment, because at the moment he was occupied with not throwing up. Again.
"What do you think?" Eltharia said. She stood behind him in the glass, weaving her fingers together.
The skin where she had used the poker on him was red and swollen, and he was sure the wounds would be suppurating within hours. He prodded at it gently but still felt no pain.
"It will heal," she said. "Give it a few weeks, but it will heal as if it had never been there at all."
He could tell that she was right; he'd had worse injuries. Perhaps the poker was not as hot as I'd imagined.
And beneath that—beneath that the area was perfect. As if he had never fought the Scourge, as if his eye had never been lost at all. His vision was coming back bit by bit, and with it his depth perception and a piercing headache. He reached out and put a hand to his image. I am whole again. I am reborn. I am—
He turned away from his reflection.
"Pretty convincing prosthetic."
Rommath pursed his lips and nodded.
"Feels almost..." Lor'themar affixed him with a glare. "...Real."
"Oh?" Rommath cocked his head and regarded him from the corners of his eyes. "Must be my great craftsmanship."
"Oh yes." Lor'themar looked him up and down, scowling. "Must be that."
Apprentice Verana had been waiting for Apprentice Thaeril for forty-five minutes when he finally showed up. Verana's mood had been growing darker as time passed—the day was sweltering, and her curls were starting to wilt, and they had planned to look at fancy robes at Lithara Sunstone's boutique to wear to the Gala coming up later in the month—but all thoughts of the passive-aggressive comments she was going to make vanished when she saw her friend approaching.
"What happened to you?"
Apprentice Thaeril looked at her miserably, his remaining eye filling with tears. "I don't even know!" he wailed. "It's just... it's horrible."
Verana leaned forwards. Thaeril was so pale he'd turned a washed-out green, the edges of his lips the faded grey of old milk. He was wearing a black eyepatch just like the ones pirates wore in stories. It was an incredibly bad fashion choice with his diamond earring and silk scarf, and a lesser woman would have allowed him to make a fool of himself. But Verana was a good friend and deemed honesty the best policy.
"Why are you wearing that thing?" Verana frowned. "Are you going to a costume party or something? You look awful."
Thaeril was wringing his hands. "Rana'tha, it's gone it's gone I don't know where it went but I woke up and I didn't have it anymore and I don't know what to do and help."
Verana scrunched up her mouth and stared down her nose at Thaeril, just as Arcanist Teseldra always did to her when she hadn't prepared her hexes. This, however, did not produce any change in her friend's behaviour whatsoever; he kept glancing around like a rabid dog, frothing and twitching. "What do you mean, it's gone? What's gone?"
"My eye!" Thaeril's screech drew looks from a few passing magisters, none of which were friendly. Verana gave them a watery smile as Thaeril continued to moan and pule. "I just woke up this morning and my eye was gone."
"Just like that?" Verana said, and snapped her fingers. "Are you sure? It couldn't exactly walk away, could it?"
"Are you simple? It's my eye, of course I'm sure!"
"Calm down, Apprentice Thaeril!" Verana placed her hands on Thaeril's shoulders, admiring the thickness of his brocade robes as she did so. "Calm down, and tell me what happened."
Thaeril took a deep breath and stared down at his hands. "Well, remember that new magistrix who was telling me how impressed she was with my progress on those folios? She was talking to me about it last night, and she told me I had really beautiful eyes, and she asked me if I wanted to, you know, join her at her estate—"
"Oh, Thaeril, you tramp—"
"Well, I went, Apprentice Verana." He squared his shoulders. "It was a very good career choice—or I thought it was, only when I got there I drank too much wine and passed out. It was extremely strong wine. And it tasted like vinegar and death—strange vintage for a woman that rich, she must be cheap—"
"Just finish the story, would you?"
"Well, when I woke up this morning I was lying in the gutter in Murder Row, and half my face was buried in a tray of ice, and my eye was gone."
Verana gaped at him for a moment. "Where did it go?"
"By Anasterian's golden prick, where do you think it went? She took it, you stupid little bi—"
"I told you not to go home with strange women," Verana said, exasperated. "Now look what happened. You'll have to get the healer to find you another one, and it's going to be painful, and we'll have to miss Magistrix Zaedana's tea party."
"Oh no," Thaeril said quietly, staring at his hands. "I love tea parties."
Verana squeezed his shoulder. "Well, maybe we can go to the priest after. Your eyepatch doesn't look so bad, you know. And I'm sure the girls are going to like it."
Thaeril stared into the distance, lips turned down in a frown. "But what would she want with an eye?"
"I'm sure it's for something important," Verana said, patting her friend on the arm, but she wasn't convinced. Maybe stealing boys' eyeballs is a thing for her. Her mother had told her that there were not nearly so many perverts around when she'd been a girl. Perverts were coming out of the spellwork these days, and even the remaining noblemen were prone to strange indiscretions like publicly breaking down into sobs and experiencing terrifying hallucinations that were apt to ruin dinner parties.
No doubt about it: Silvermoon had gone to the trolls.
Rommath was tired after such a taxing day, but he did take the time to stop into Magister Duskwither's apartments to fill him in on the results of their experiment.
Duskwither met him at the entrance, and he greeted Rommath with a snifter of brandy in hand and a simpering familiarity he disliked.
"How did the operation go, Doctor?"
Rommath allowed the servant girl to slip his cloak from his shoulders, not deigning to look at Duskwither as he addressed him. "Extremely well. I confess that I was concerned that the spell wouldn't work in localised areas, which would have been disastrous, but it surpassed even our hopes."
"How exciting!" Duskwither said, giving a shiver. "Indulge me."
"And give away the keys to the bank vault without a single drink?" He quirked a brow. "Oh, I think not."
"My wine cellars are yours," said Duskwither, though Rommath suspected from his dishevelled hair and his too bright gaze that if he looked, said cellars would be near empty.
"I'll pass," Rommath said, heading towards the sitting room without waiting for an invitation. "I appreciated your assistance in the matter, though."
Duskwither struggled to keep up, a fact complicated by his difficulty in walking in a straight line. "And the illusion charm? Acceptable?"
"Perfect. The little fool had no idea who I was; he was practically drooling in my lap. I fed him some cockamamie story and he bought it like a trophy wife at a jewellery store."
Duskwither laughed, loudly. "Witty as ever, my friend. And the drug I gave you worked too?"
"Almost too well." When he'd left the fool boy, Rommath had worried that he'd sleep forever. Not that it was his problem, but corpses rotting in the streets were terrible for tourism.
"The poor thing is going to run his mouth."
Rommath sighed. "Yes, I know. But he thinks he was tricked by a woman, not the Grand Magister, so I'm unconcerned."
"A magistrix," said Duskwither. "If the Regent-Lord puts two and two together—"
"He'll get five. He's a ranger, magister, be serious. He'll never figure it out, not if he thinks it over from now until Winter Veil."
Duskwither laughed again but broke off abruptly when he collided with his couch. He managed to crawl into a sitting position, pausing to slurp back some more of his drink. "I hope you plan to monitor the Regent-Lord."
"Of course." The Extremely Trustworthy Individual (i.e., demon) he had completely accidentally and unintentionally summoned and spoken with had assured him of the safety of the spell, but he was not going to accept that assurance without question. That was why Rommath had performed the spell on Lor'themar and not, say, himself.
He stared at his fingers, lost in thought. "Do you have any idea what this success means for our people, Magister Duskwither?"
"I think so." While Duskwither considered this he splashed half the brandy in his hand onto his lap. "I've always wanted a tail, you know."
"A tail, magister."
"Yes." Duskwither glanced over his shoulder, eyes glazed. "A red, swishy tail."
Rommath shook his head, still drumming his nails along the arm of the couch. "I was thinking more along the lines of magister-healers turning the tides of battle, but... I suppose there's that."
The End
Author's Note: Or, It's Not Fel Magic If It Makes You Pretty.
I am actually ashamed of myself for thinking of this, particularly for involving poor little Apprentice Thaeril, but it's Rommath and every time he does something it seems sketchy or dangerous or unethical. This isn't, of course, intended to seriously postulate what happened to Lor'themar's eye—it's meant to be a gross crackfic. If it were canon, Duskwither would have a tail, and he doesn't. Unfortunately.
As an added aside, I pictured Rommath doing the deed with an ice cream scoop. Just reflect on that for a moment. You're welcome.