There was the collection of memory and thoughts that I identified as Irion. But there were others too. There was one: a maker of undead slaves and master of his craft. There was another: cruel, cunning, ever-working. Yet there seemed to be a looming fourth being, one who settled on us like a fog. Darker, this insidious force felt much older, and it was this one who I cried out to inexplicably in a dialect from times long ago, “What is thou which touches me?!”

I, Maecidion, then felt a rebirth that few creatures can know. Without eyes I saw; without body I began to feel. “Worry not, young one,” I said.

Pathetic whimpers and yelps in the periphery were all that was left of Gormorster Toadly and Denoreyph Belot. “I, I am sorry,” that which was still Irion said. “Forgive me, my Lord. There was no way of knowing. I thought maybe, maybe that you had gone mad in your final moments.”

Irion was sophomoric, but audacious and physically able. It was why he had been chosen, as both the other two had been chosen for their greatest endowments. Their poor qualities melting away, the synthesis was congealing as that which was still Irion pled, “Your Virulence, please—”

What was once Irion remained only a moment more, a fluttering of two memories: perusing a scroll under candlelight at the lyceum, and then the midnight garden in our family keep, playing with his cousins under the moon. As excited cries carried on the night wind, he ran from his hiding place. Finding his playmates, what was once Irion faded as if never existing at all.

I looked at my hands, then my feet. I breathed in the air of the splendid early morning, then extended my arm for my imp to perch.

—

The morning was the shade of gray that always brought rain. I, once again, stood at the giant obelisk of Maecidion the Virulent. I was mostly still garbed in Irion’s black, adding only one of Belot’s black cloaks. A satchel was slung over my shoulder; in it, a few coins and choice components to retackle the world, my beautiful coiled imp, and my lapis lazuli hand.

I smiled at the obelisk. My obelisk. The world could see this testament to my departure. The more, the better. Times were changing; that part of him had been right. Even an ancient must adapt. The man the world had known as Maecidion was just an earlier vessel, and the predecessor before Maecidion the same. I could hardly contain my amusement; simply clearing out the clutter of a closet was enough to mask my plan. I cared nothing for the recipients at what I’m sure was a riotous hearing, and prior to had laughed as I’d laid dying and Morfil penned their insignificant names.