“I said ‘no’!” brayed Kaelis.

  “But it is just on the tool rack beside you,” implored the Duke from the helix machine, his feelers thrust deep inside an open panel. Sparking two copper cables together, the device let out an electric snarl. “Please, if you would bring me the mallet, then I can conclude my repairs.”

  Kaelis shook her helmeted head, keeping herself firmly stuck to the spot on the wall where she’d been for the past hour. “I’m not going anywhere near that thing. If you want something, you gotta come get it yourself.”

  “Mmph…” Jira grouched out a loud grumble and pushed herself off the floor. Marching past Kaelis, she grabbed the mallet off the rack herself and made her way all the way across the lab, stopping just before the ever-busy Duke. She held the tool out for him.

  “…Ah, many thanks,” said the Duke after taking several seconds to notice her. Plucking the mallet from her hand, he used his remaining tendrils to lift up a loose panel and hold it in place over the patch of exposed wiring in the machine’s base. He then proceeded to hammer a quartet of rivets into the panel’s corners, sealing up the device completely. Once finished, he grabbed the last loose cable and snaked it over to the machine’s control panel, plugging it in and locking it with a weighty twist.

  “There we are,” he declared. He waved a feeler at Jira, shooing her away. “Do stand back.”

  Not needing to be told twice, Jira made her way back across the room to Kaelis, joining her at the wall.

  The Duke anxiously fiddled his digits. Without further ceremony, he flicked on the control panel’s largest toggle.

  At once, an intense metallic hum filled the air. The machine crackled and hissed, its metals groaning with building pressure. Kaelis bristled, jolting with alarm, an aura of energy standing her hairs on end. She exchanged a fast glance with Jira, and together the two took a step towards the exit stairway, keeping their eyes glued to the device, watching it for any signs of explosive failure. The thing whined and rattled for a few more uneasy seconds, before finally it began to settle into a state of mild simmering.

  “Aha, success!” exclaimed the Duke, throwing a few of his feelers into the air. Humming with great satisfaction, he turned his attention towards Kaelis and Jira. “There is no need to delay. I shall commence the procedure forthwith. For your own safety, I would strongly advise retreating into the lower stairwell. I would be simply shattered if your souls were mistakenly torn from their bodies.”

  Kaelis shot Jira a bug-eyed grimace. The Captain returned a strong look and an assuring nod, with only a twitch in her brow betraying her true unease. Ducking into the stairwell, the pair ascended a handful of steps and pressed themselves flush with the walls, hunkering down as far from the machine as possible while still being able to see it.

  The Duke repositioned himself next to his makeshift body. He laid his fingers on his fleshy head. In a lurching, stomach-churning display, he began to slide and slither his feelers into the holes of his skull, worming them in deep, merging with his own bones until they became like an extension of himself. Then, with his one remaining limb, he reached over and began to adjust the array of dials on the control board.

  “Point eight should suffice. Yes, yes…” he muttered, locking the numbers into place. Prepared at last, he gripped his gooey fingers around a large lever on the panel. “It will work this time. It must work…”

  After hesitating for only a beat, the Duke stood tall, as if sucking in a readying breath. “I will live again!” he proclaimed. He threw back the switch. “Contact!”

  The Angelic machine let out a high-pitched whine before ramping up into a furious frenzy. The precious metals of the helix began to dance and shimmer as the device grew piercingly loud. Then there came a jolting pulse, and the helix separated into floating pieces, lifting and segmenting, suspended in the air by some unseen force. Arcs of violet lightning crested between the helix shards, growing more intensely unstable with every passing second. An instant later, thin strands of voltaic energy erupted from the machine, shooting streaks across the walls and ceiling, showers of sparks exploding in their wake.

  Kaelis and Jira winced at the wild display of light and power. They quickly ducked deeper into the stairwell, only their avid curiosity keeping them from outright fleeing.

  The machine quickened. One by one, the arcs of electricity fused together, forming into a single beam. Then, with a great, thunderous crack, it channeled straight into the Duke, striking him like lightning. He violently shuddered, rasping out in pain as the torrent of energy flowed through him and into his patchwork body. The beam flickered faster and faster, until it became a thick tether of plasma, seemingly unmoving, as if time itself had slowed to a crawl.

  The homunculus jerked; its fingers twitched. The machine was actually working—the Duke’s soul was passing into his new body. Gradually gaining its motor skills, the body labored to curl and uncurl its hand.

  It was alive.

  “Yes… Yes! I can feel again!” the Duke triumphantly proclaimed. At once, the body’s head snapped back. A raspy voice roared from its throat. “I can feeeel!” Groaning with effort, the Duke worked to lift his new hands into the air. They trembled as they rose, a river of plasma coursing through them.

  Then, his hands shuttered to a stop. His body began to spasm, subtly at first, but growing more wild by the second. His fingers coiled and contorted, his arms and legs quaked. As the pulsations shuddered through his flesh, strips of muscle began snapping off their bones.

  “No!” cried the Duke. “Noo!!” He clenched his fleshy muscles, straining to keep his form together through sheer force of will. But despite his efforts, his body continued to thrash, and to crumble.

  The machine issued an ear-splitting shriek. A dense pulse of plasma surged into the body, kindling it with violent energy. Fires burst out between its muscle fibers, cooking it to a char. The Duke let out a horrid scream. Then, with a blinding flash, the homunculus exploded, erupting into a gory mist.

  A shockwave blasted out, hurling the Duke’s jar away from the slab. It skidded across the floor, its glass and metal grinding out a terrible screech before crashing into a table.

  The Angelic machine choked and sputtered, its fury winding down. It buzzed out a last few wayward arcs of plasma before finally falling to an abrupt rest. It simmered there, wisps of white smoke wafting from the base, accompanied by the sounds of loosened components pinging onto the floor.

  A moment later, and the room settled, sinking into a deafening silence.

  Kaelis and Jira slowly unfurled their heads, the foul smell of smoke and decay drifting into the stairwell. Choking on the fumes, fighting not to wretch, the pair cautiously emerged from cover and poked their eyes into the lab, examining the fallout.

  Kaelis blinked away the dark, still struggling to process the violent spectacle she’d just witnessed. As she worked to make sense of it all, she peered into the hazy ruin, searching for the Duke’s dim glow. She couldn’t find him anywhere.

  “…Duke?” called Jira, concern falling over her face.

  After a breath, a soft green light began to bloom beneath a mound of fractured wood. The Duke’s jar stirred, reappearing at last. Lumbering upright, he heaved himself out of the rubble, his fluid regaining its glow. He took a muted moment to scan around at his demolished lab, and the pieces of machine and viscera strewn all about it. Moving with limpened limbs, he crawled from the debris and over to the remains of his machine, inspecting the shattered pieces of his experiment.

  “…It… failed…” he finally murmured. Picking up a twisted shard of silver, he began to wring it in his hands. “…It failed again!” With a sudden snap, he hurled the metal at the blackboard with all his strength. The shard stuck into it like a knife. “Damn this machine!” Unleashing an anguished scream, he tore into the machinery, ripping out pieces and pitching them around the room. “Damn it to hell!”

  “Whoa! Hold on there!” called Kaelis, throwing out her arms in a useless attempt to calm him.

  The Duke reared back and wrapped his limbs around the machine’s fractured helix. With a mighty lurch, he ripped it from its base, releasing a fountainous burst of sparks. Hefting the helix high above his head, he bellowed an inhuman growl and stormed towards the exit stairs.

  “Ah!” Kaelis yelped. She and Jira flung themselves flush with the walls just as the Duke tore past them. He thundered up the steps, through the bedroom, and out into the manor grounds. The two women exchanged fast grimaces before chasing after him.

  Kaelis and Jira burst out of the manor, skidding to a stop at the edge of the porch. They peered out over the wide yard bled colorless by the dusk, and watched in dismay as the Duke lifted up the Angelic machine and, with a mighty heave, dashed into the dirt. Pouncing at it, he furiously flailed, whipping his spiderous limbs, tearing chunks from the device until it was only pieces.

  But even with the machine in tatters, its precious metals strewn about the lawn, the Duke could not be calmed. Howling, he trampled across the grounds, thrashing and threshing, tearing against the earth, raging on and on blindly, until at last he found himself at the square plot of freshly-dug graves. He flung out a wayward limb, striking a wooden headstone, snapping the name from its base.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  All at once, the Duke seized, growing as stiff as a statue, his every limb freezing in place. He stared at the broken marker in visible horror. Finally uttering a wavering gasp, he sprang back to motion, scooping up the headstone and carefully returning it to its grave. As he fruitlessly attempted to mend the break, his viscid legs began to wobble and turn limp beneath him. Gradually, his vial sank to the dirt, the last of his mania bleeding out into a whimper. Hovering there, he hugged the marker against his glass, and began to weakly hum a mournful lullaby.

  Kaelis stayed locked in place, blinking between bewildered thoughts. This had all become just a little too much for her. “…Okay, we should really get out of here now,” she wheezed, angling her eyes towards Jira. “We gotta go find Lange, report all this—”

  The look on Jira’s face suddenly gave her pause. The Captain was staring out at the whimpering Duke, her brows peaked, her eyes held wide with profound sympathy and sorrow. It was a look that Kaelis had never remotely seen on her before.

  Drawing in a heavy breath, Jira blinked and stepped forward. She moved across the lawn, approaching the Duke with caution.

  “Captain, what are you doing?” called Kaelis

  Jira just raised an assured hand, silencing her.

  Kaelis bit her lip—whatever the Captain was up to, she wasn’t about to let her do it alone. She followed behind at a safe distance, watching her comrade as her face grew more plaintive with each weighted step.

  “…Duke?” said Jira softly, stopping a few feet behind him.

  “…What have I done…” he whispered, staring down at the headstone cradled in his inhuman limbs. “If only I had fled like they had asked. I could have had… a true life. Instead I… I chose this. And my family, my joy… They are gone because of me.”

  Jira moved in closer. She sat herself down beside the Duke and gave him a tender look. “What happened?” she asked.

  The Duke remained still for a long moment, as if collecting memories long scattered. Finally he spoke, his voice soft and spiritless.

  “When… when the Unbound came, my family had begged that we flee, but I resisted. I told them of my plan to see the Angels, convinced them of its merits. And so we hid. And I worked. And when my procedure proved a success, I had my family gather in my lab to deposit their souls in turn. But in my rapture I… miscalculated, misdirected. And then the machine, it… it…” The Duke faintly croaked, barely able to speak. “…I spent six centuries in the dark… without them.”

  Jira’s frown furrowed, her eyes rounding with empathy.

  Kaelis felt her breath escape her lips, her heart stuttering at the Duke’s horrific story. She couldn’t begin to fathom what kind of hell his prison must have been like.

  The Duke carried on. “It is only by a twisted turn of fate that I was freed,” he said. “Flung to the floor by a mighty earthquake. A crack in the casing was enough for me to take form again, to claw myself out of my self-made grave and truly see how foolish I was. All of this… for nothing.”

  As the Duke spoke, a glimmer of azure light broke through the clouds, washing over the fields. His gaze was drawn up towards it. Greeting him was a sliver of amethyst sky, the stars just waking from their slumber, and the moon, bright and blue, dominating the heavens.

  At the edges of the moon, shrouded in the darkness of a waning crescent, was the golden glow of artificial lights, neatly arranged in a latticed pattern—the distinct layout of a grand city, visible through the vastness of space. Emris Xiarra, the holy city. There it was, unchanged for centuries, a constant reminder of the Angels’ looming presence, and of their continued silence.

  The Duke extended out a single limb, reaching towards the moon and cupping its shape with a slimy palm. “The Angels…” he longed. “There they are. So close, and yet… why do they hide? Why won’t they come back to us? I… I only wanted… to see…”

  Jira lowered her eyes to the ground and kept them there for a long, breathless moment.

  “…I don’t revere the Angels as you do,” she finally whispered. “But I’ve lost much in the name of the gods, and I too know their silence.” Lifting her head, she peered into the sky, past the moon to the stroke of stars beyond. “I’ve learned… it’s not our place to know their designs. All we can do is follow the path, and hope it’s enough to save us.” She swung her gaze over to the Duke and gave him the slightest comforting smile. “That is our faith.”

  The Duke angled himself towards Jira. He hovered there for a beat, thinking deeply before speaking. “Perhaps this is justice…” he croaked. “Perhaps this is the Angels’ means of punishing me for defying the Archmother's natural order. I am now trapped, broken… alone. My family is gone, and it was by my hand…” Laying down the headstone, the Duke gazed at his transmuted fingers as though they were stained with blood. “Even if the Angels permit me into the Dream, how can I ever face my family? I will never… be forgiven…”

  Jira breathed out, straining to find the words. “…They say, if you were loved, then you will always be forgiven…” She looked back to the stars, deep heartache etched into her eyes. “I choose to believe that…”

  The Duke pondered for a pause. “…I must make this right,” he then said. “Yes, yes, I must.” Carefully, he crawled forward, positioning himself between the four graves. “I know now the Angels may never come, but perhaps they are not as silent as they seem. Perhaps my prayers have been answered after all. They have sent you to free me, to reunite me with my family. Please, you must help me. You must release me from this prison. You must deliver me to the Dream.”

  Jira twitched, greatly taken aback. “I…” Trailing off, she glanced over at Kaelis, as if begging her for answers.

  But Kaelis was just as lost as she was. She could only stand there, slackened, and offer her comrade the slightest tilt of her head.

  Jira returned her eyes to the Duke, her face contorted with deep disquiet. “…No…” she finally answered. “I won’t… I can’t. I know how you feel, but death… it will not set you free.”

  “Please,” begged the Duke. “This is the will of the Angels, I feel it in my being. This form cannot be allowed to endure. I am a mockery of nature, a life lived far beyond its given time. I can no longer evade the hereafter. My soul must be returned. Please, Jira. Help me.” Gazing down at the graves, he lovingly scooped up a handful of the loose soil. “All that I wish is to pass on at this spot. Here… with my family.”

  Jira sat there for a long moment, her lips turning thin, her eyes weighed down by the gravity of the Duke’s plea. She clenched her arms, digging her fingers into the canvas of her jacket. “…I’m sorry…” she croaked. Climbing heavily to her feet, she turned herself away. “I want to help, but… I just can’t do it…”

  Dispirited, the Duke wilted, sinking his vial even lower to the ground. A soft lull fell over the mesa.

  Kaelis stood silently by, her head spinning in circles. Nothing about this day had gone anywhere close to how she’d expected. To think, they’d come to put down a monster, and now here it was—not it but he, the soul of a man trapped in a self-made prison, begging for death. She gazed over at the Duke, sitting there atop the buried remains of his long-lost family, and felt the cloud of his anguish, enough to choke her throat and water her eyes.

  She had to do something. It wouldn’t be taking a life, but setting one free. The Dream was real, she knew it in her heart, and if she released the Duke’s soul, then he would find his way back to his family again.

  …Nobody gets left behind.

  “I’ll do it,” she said.

  Jira and the Duke both turned themselves to face her.

  “…You will?” whispered the Duke.

  Kaelis pulled off her helmet and shook the hair out of her eyes. She gave the Duke a nod and a promise. “I’ll set you free.”

  The Duke returned no words. He just hovered there for a long breath before finally he forced his body to move, bowing at Kaelis with the deepest of debts.

  Placing down her helmet, Kaelis moved across the lawn towards the graves, drawing her pistol from its holster. The iron felt especially heavy in her hands. She planted herself behind the Duke’s vial and brought her gun up to the glass.

  Jira took a step back, drawing Kaelis’s notice. The Captain’s thoughts were clearly consumed by troubles old and new, her pupils shimmering, her face twitching with a hundred shades of surprise and dismay. After a moment, she and Kaelis met eyes. Tightening her jaw, steadying herself, Jira worked to settle her emotions. She gave her comrade a grateful look.

  Kaelis nodded back.

  Drawing in a breath, she returned her gaze to the Duke.

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  The Duke sat upright, taking one last look upon his old home before positioning himself into a final, dignified pose. “…I am,” he whispered. “…Thank you. Both of you.”

  Kaelis steadied her hand. The world grew still.

  …BANG

  A stroke of thunder broke through the silence. Shards of glass rippled across the grass. A rush of radiance burst from the shattered vial like a prismatic cloud of fireflies. It swirled and danced along the surface of the earth as if caught on a breeze, before lifting into the air and dissipating into a dazzling starfield.

  Basked in blue moonlight, the fractured jar of the Duke of Saruleah slumped over and sank into the soft earth. The primordial fluid that once housed his soul drained out of the vessel, pooling into the ground around it. As it touched the open air, the liquid began to react, bubbling and frothing, becoming unstable. An instant later it broiled and then burst into solid forms, erupting into a fountain of purest plantlife. Moss and shrubs and flowers of every hue blossomed and bloomed all around the vial, covering the graves in a garden of vibrant color.

  Kaelis let out an astonished gasp, the dazzling bloom glistening in her eyes. She took a long step back, joining her captain’s side, and together the two women staggered away, staring awestruck as more and more flora flourished from the fluid. Moving to a safe distance, they settled to a stop, continuing to watch on in stunned silence.

  The ground beneath the Duke’s jar soon shimmered and shook as the liquid sank deeper into the dirt. Then, in a span of seconds, a slender tree trunk extruded forth, swallowing the vial. It flowed into the air like a river, its branches clawing at the night sky. Dense roots ebbed outward, winding across the earth, gliding over and into the graves of the Duke’s family, entwining them all together as one.

  “…Wow…” Kaelis finally managed to whisper, her gaze following the tree as it grew thicker and taller, its iridescent leaves gently flaring open. Suddenly, a soft sniff caught her ear, seizing her attention. She turned her eyes towards Jira.

  The Captain stood staring at the tree and the graves, her fists clenched, her lips trembling, thick tears streaming down her cheeks. She sniffed again, making no effort to dry her tears, or to hide herself from Kaelis.

  Kaelis’s cheeks reddened, her eyes growing with compassion. Respectfully, and without a word, she turned away.

  Something about this whole experience had struck the Captain to her core, unearthing a pain long buried. If only there was something she could say, something she could do, to soothe Jira’s troubles—though at this point, she knew better than to try. Instead, she just stayed with her, listening to her captain softly sob as the evening pulled them both a little closer.

  A long while passed. At last the bloom settled, coming to a dazzling standstill. The Duke’s vial and his family’s graves had vanished from view, now covered completely by the lone tree and the sumptuous garden. Kaelis stood with Jira for just a while longer, listening to the gentle rustling of the flowers, absorbed in the somber beauty of the moment. Drawing in a long breath, she finally felt the slightest trace of comfort—it was finished. After six hundred years apart, a broken family had been reunited at last, bound together both in spirit and in nature, embracing again, now and for all time.