SEMIRHAGE

An unusually tall, dark-eyed woman possessed of remarkable calm and grace, the woman to be known as Semirhage was known for her ability to heal any injury, even to bring back people from the brink of death when all else had failed.

- excerpt from 'The Forsaken'

Walking through the corridors and the halls where she worked, Nemene Damendar Boann's footfalls made little sound as they touched the cold floor. Here, regardless of all else, she felt safe. Inside her domain, her inner sanctum; she had requested privacy and her skills were such that people generally did as she asked. She glided softly through as a part of the place, just like the air did.

Which one today? She supposed that she knew already. Plenty of patients were kept here for 'observation', sometimes for weeks, but they mattered little to her when they were here and even less once they had gone. Upstairs, on the right. Just arrived. Some accident in the city. Details didn't bother here. But they always came to her, and she was always happy to receive the call.

That was how people knew her, she supposed. Out there. People were too often ready to shape the unknown into some familiar, an archetype they could understand. Seeing monsters in shadows. Likewise, she had heard those who did not know her giving her the strangest descriptions; warm, nurturing, mother-like. Smiling. You don't have to smile to be a mother.

Nemene smiled rarely, and even then she did so for reasons that some people found… unusual.

She valued her privacy.

"How are you today?" she asked as she brushed into the room, glancing at the man laying prone on the bed. A mere formality. She was no nurse.

"Much better," the man told her gratefully. "I had not known that even the Power was capable of such things… it's like a miracle."

So often did she hear such words. They didn't affect her. It took so much effort to make her feel. "Well, that's good. I expect you'll be able to walk around again in no time. But I have some news that you may find… unfortunate." The familiar look of uncertainty that clouded the features. "Your treatment hasn't quite finished yet." Human beings could be so predictable sometimes.

It always started suddenly – even now, her techniques had not been truly perfected – yet the lack of comprehension would take far longer to leave them. Sometimes they reacted in the strangest ways, as if they had been betrayed. But what did it have to do with her? Did they know her? No. Perhaps they thought they did, but now… well, now they got to meet the real Nemene. It was not a pleasant experience.

The man was saying something else, but Nemene was not listening. Even for someone with as intimate a knowledge of the human body as she, it was incredibly difficult to pinpoint specific parts of the brain with the Power. Luckily, only small amounts of Fire and Spirit in the exact right place produced the desired effect far better than she could have dreamed when she first discovered it. From there, it was simply a matter of the correct application, and that allowed her to make it last for hours at a time. Long, glorious hours.

"Are you going to kill me?" the man gasped between sharply drawn breaths.

They always thought that, for some reason. What possible value could there be in ending the life of a patient? Attentions would be raised and suspicions voiced if so many of the people she miraculously saved died mysteriously so soon afterwards. Even then, she had no wish to do it. Killing was as easy as dying, and any fool could do either; she had always pursued the higher arts, those needing a greater degree of skill. The beauty of the art was always one with the difficulty involved in creating it. In the eyes of the artist, anyway.

Besides, did they think that she feared discovery and capture? Nothing could be further from the truth. She knew all too well what her patients didn't, that they perhaps would not allow themselves to realise; that society only continued as it did by convincing people that they needed it to continue as it did, when in reality it needed them, it needed her. Her skills were such that she could not be ignored, and so those fools convinced themselves that she was one of them.

But what could be further from the truth? Here she was, after all, cut off from the world, in her own private dimension, her paradise, and they couldn't touch her. They relied on her to help them, and she accepted their requests with a heavy heart. Both angel and demon; worshipped in public and despised in private; neither benign nor truly malevolent, like a goddess. Like a mother.

And yet, she sometimes thought, why not bring some of that truth against them? Force them to realise what they kept from themselves? What she knew put her in a unique position, it gave her the power to start reshaping society as she saw fit. It would be dangerous, but surely worth it when they saw everything around them change into a world they could not understand… one ruled by her and her alone?

No. It was too risky. She could not live without her pleasures, could not contemplate the thought of losing them, and so she chose not to do the things that she could do. That was her choice. Or at least, that's what she told herself. Deep down, she couldn't escape from what she feared was her own weakness, too terrible to even think about. She would content herself with her pleasures, and no more. For now.

She realised that in all her thoughts, she'd forgotten to give an answer. Well, that wouldn't do, even if he probably couldn't hear her by now. "I'm not going to kill you," she told him sweetly, leaning close. "I'm going to make you wish you were dead."

And Nemene smiled, her face radiant, made all the more beautiful by its rarity.

In addition to being a Restorer, she was also a sadist… most patients were so grateful to be alive they made no comment about the suffering they endured… those people she felt society could do without, however, were not so lucky. If they did not die from the torture, she killed them after.

- excerpt from 'The Forsaken'