The Memory Bank & Trust
Patrick Hurley
The girl in Vanan Quick’s Memory Bank & Trust wore the dark robes of the desert nomads. Perhaps fifteen, she was thin, with vacant eyes, and hair shorn close to the skull. Not the usual class of client Vanan Quick served in his shop on Varrowmind’s elite Street of Sorceries. And not, he was sure, an applicant for the valued position of apprentice.
But he was ever the professional. “What can I do for you, young miss?”
“You are the memorist?”
Vanan blinked in surprise. Not at the question, for he was indeed a master memorist, having graduated at the top of his class from the Gray School before setting up shop in fabled Varrowmind. It was the sepulchral voice in which the girl spoke that gave him pause.
He reached for the jade amulet at his neck. “I am. And what, pray tell, are you?”
“A jinn, in need of your services.”
“Perhaps you are,” said Vanan. “But we have laws in Varrowmind prohibiting forced possession.”
The girl’s head tilted to one side, studying Vanan. “I will pay well.” The head tilted to the other side. “And the vessel is willing.”
“Of that I would require proof.”
“As you wish.” The girl’s brown eyes quickened to life. Her body relaxed.
“And who, pray tell, are you, young lady?”
“Serefina.” The light voice whispered like a desert breeze. “A merchant took my sister Ela and me as payment for our family’s debt. I escaped. The jinn found me and promised help freeing Ela if I would but host him. A deal I chose freely.”
“Just a moment, Serefina.” Still holding his amulet, Vanan took a small loupe from a vest pocket and affixed it over his spectacles. He focused it and examined the girl.
“It seems you’re telling the truth, Master Jinn,” said Vanan eventually. “You’ve relinquished control of the young lady’s essence. She could cast you out if she chose.”
The girl’s eyes unfocused and her posture stiffened once more. “So, Vanan Quick,” the jinn’s deep voice returned, “we can do business?”
Vanan released his amulet. “Yes. And your name?”
“Never will you know that, memorist. But call me La Nar.”
“Very well. I rarely work with jinn, but most of the usual services are possible — memory extraction, duplication, preservation, recovery.”
La Nar was long silent. “I am old for my kind,” he finally said. “So old, my body of flame has extinguished, leaving me a being entirely of memory.”
“A Flameless Jinn! No other beings on this plane hold such accurate and vivid memories.”
“But mine have been poisoned. I opened forbidden knowledge — the location of the god Lokonos’s hidden treasure temple — and it brought down a curse upon me. It spreads through my mind like a ravening beast, corrupting all it touches, blurring and tangling everything I know into nonsense. Victories become defeats. Delights become nightmares. I am weak and in agony. You must remove this curse before I lose all.”
Vanan stared. What sound, taste, or scent could coax forth the cursed memory of a Flameless Jinn? Would arthane scalpels sever it from his mind? What receptacle could secure it? No bell jar or sea conch nor iron-bound chest could long hold it fast. In a human it would die with its host, but who would take on such a burden? And what preservative would accord with the memory… amber, wine, living blood? Vanan spread out his hands helplessly.
“Master Quick, you are the best of the Gray School.” The jinn’s voice wavered. “If you can’t save me, I’m doomed to torment until I fade utterly.”
Such confidence in him from a fabled Flameless Jinn, ancient spirit of vast memories, was not without effect. “I could try… but the materials for extraction and preservation alone would cost more than my shop.”
“I am old and was once powerful. For thousands of years I amassed treasure… it is at your disposal.”
“But I could not guarantee the result. And the risk is great.”
“But worth it, I think. In payment I offer you memories. Memories of such wonder all Varrowmind will line up at your door to sample them.”
Vanan kept his face and voice impassive. “So promise many adventurers in need of coin. Yet I find their slaughter of mythic beasts distasteful and dull.”
“Bah! Such things are dust to the ancient memories of a Flameless Jinn! I’ve seen the birth of civilizations and their cold, dark death. I watched as the foundation stones of Varrowmind, City of Steam and Crystal, were laid down. I stepped into the fabled paintings of Saramando. I read the lost Books of Night of the sorcerer Degyr. If you aid me, once I am free, one of these memories will be yours, for yourself and for others to sample to your great profit.”
Vanan placed a steadying hand on the counter. The origins of Varrowmind were fiercely contested; primacy would deal out supremacy or destruction to its competing factions. It was said Saramando’s paintings opened gates to other realities. Degyr had risen to attain the might of a demigod, so powerful his name was still whispered with respect, and fear.
“Each memory is a gem. Yet,” Vanan paused, “there is great risk, and I will have to close the shop during this work. I would ask for all three memories.”
“Done.”
Vanan blinked at the speed of the jinn’s acceptance, and a tendril of wariness curled up inside him. “And what of Serefina? What treasure did you promise her?”
“She will be amply rewarded.”
“I would have her speak for herself.”
“As you wish.”
A moment passed. The girl’s form and face relaxed. “Freedom,” she said, “for my younger sister. Soon the old merchant will want more than just labor from her. La Nar will give me his memory of hidden treasure, and I can free her.”
A dark suspicion fluttered through Vanan’s mind. A cursed memory?
“Cost is no object,” boomed the jinn, with sudden energy. “And I can stay here and acquire whatever you need. Master Quick, do we have an accord?” Jinn and girl stared expectantly at him through the same eyes.
Well, one step at a time. He put up the Closed sign on his shop door. “My workroom is in the back. We have much to prepare.”
The work went slowly. Whenever Vanan needed to hire artificers, La Nar and Serefina would leave and return with the necessary funds within hours. At first they had brought treasure, but too many ancient coins and fabulous jewels raised more questions than Vanan wanted to answer, so now they brought unquestioned coin of the realm. And when sent to purchase rare ingredients, Serefina was a fierce haggler.
After one of their expeditions, Serefina came back with a cut lip and a bruise under one eye. It was then Vanan learned jinn and girl made quite the card-playing pair.
“A Varrow princeling took offense at getting out-played by a desert rat,” she said as Vanan applied a poultice to her eye. She squared her shoulders. “He’ll think twice before attacking another rat.”
One day Vanan allowed Serefina to watch as he referred to a book of glowing runes for inscribing protective wards, and she asked, “Why do you put memories in a vault?”
Vanan straightened and looked at her. “Memory is the most precious coin there is. More valuable than gold, more vital than bread. What are they compared to the memory of a first love? Or the voice of one’s mother singing in the evening? The jinn aren’t the only ones made of memories, child.”
“When you store memories, do people forget them?”
“I leave a copy if I can. Memories may fade with age, but well stored, they stay as pristine as the day they were decanted. If a memory is at risk, a client may store it in my vault and return to view it as often as they wish.”
“But you can remove memories,” Serefina asked, her voice soft. “Make it as if something never happened?”
Vanan paused. “I am not of the School of Oblivion. Removal leaves holes in one’s being, gaps in the structure of the mind. The memory’s effects live on, past one’s knowledge or control, to color one’s being. I am a Restorationist. On the whole, it makes for a healthier life.”
“But… ” and then her voice deepened to that of the jinn’s.
“May we get back to the work? My mind’s time is limited and this cursed memory is painful.”
As he returned to warding the containment vessel, Vanan wondered what memory the girl wished to forget.
Filling half the room, the finished crystal containment sphere was inscribed with ancient and powerful memory wards. To a panel on the sphere were attached long heavy sleeves ending in heavy gloves. Inside the sphere were arrayed the most potent instruments of the memorists’ trade: crystal arthane scalpels, and tongs of iron and silver.
Tall glass cylinders held swirling aether. Prepared from blood rubies crushed in Elysium wine heated over the spirit fire of a blue salamander, the aether was meant to cling to the cursed memory down to its slenderest wisp.
Vanan slipped on a protective coat and purple-lensed shielded glasses. Serefina sat in a heavy chair with coils and tubes running to the sphere.
“In case there are convulsions I must strap you in.”
She simply nodded and closed her eyes. He connected the tubes to her temples with suction cups. He turned a lever and white light flowed along the tubes into the sphere. Serefina shuddered and twisted. Her eyes rolled back and she struggled to breathe. The sphere grew brighter, the jinn’s light filling most of the space, and becoming almost blinding as the last traces of La Nar entered it. Serefina sagged in relief.
Even with the glasses Vanan could hardly face the light. Brilliant rays illuminated every corner of the memory-filled workroom, and little spirits that had lived quietly in the darker corners for ages flitted behind vessels for refuge. Vanan studied the jinn’s mind with amazement. Most memories were random nodes in chaos. More organized minds had a memory house, and the most gifted had palaces. But the jinn’s mind was a whole country of fascinating, wildly varying landscape. This was the light and mind of a weakened jinn?
Vanan opened the valve on the pipe leading from the aether cylinders, and purple aether swirled into the crystal sphere. As it touched the jinn’s mind it thickened and darkened, transforming into jagged lattices weaving their way through the webbing of the curse. Now he could see the curse infecting the heart of the memory country and spreading outward.
Eyes blazing in concentration, Vanan slipped his arms into the gloves, flexed his fingers, selected a scalpel, and began to cut. And nearly pulled back out in shock as the memory attacked.
Usually, these were soothing operations; the subject relaxed, sipped their drink, and told a story while he worked. The arthane scalpel was rarely necessary. The right trigger of scent, taste, or tale called forth the memory and Vanan contained it in a proper receptacle.
But this memory shifted away from Vanan’s blade, its tendrils twisting and lunging, ensnaring his gloved hands. He excised the tendrils but noted they left marks on his gloves, regenerated almost as quickly as he cut them, and attacked again. So he cut again. And again the tendrils regenerated. Reflexes from his days as a fencer served him as he parried and slashed. Flashes of forbidden knowledge crashed against the crystal sphere and faded, but to his horror the protective gloves began to wear thin. Would the gloves, treated with the sandworm ichor, give out before the curse?
Hours passed before he cut away the last traces, his gloves now barely gossamer. He had left uninfected memories intact, but even so the jinn was much reduced. Vanan sealed off the tubes and filtered the purified jinn into a smaller globe. He wiped the sweat from his brow and sank trembling into a chair.
“Sir jinn, rest. The memory is removed. How are you?”
La Nar, a much smaller whirling country of lights, darted to the small speaker box attached to the glass globe. “I am diminished, but still myself. And clear again. Thank you, Vanan Quick. The memories you desire shall be yours. So… the curse is placed in the girl?
Vanan looked grim. “So you did intend her to receive the curse.”
“Of course. My possession of her body made her ideal. I assumed you knew this.”
“Such a burden would drive her mad.”
“The sacrifice of a mayfly for my eons of life.”
“I’ve not unleashed your cursed memory into the girl,” Vanan said.
There was a pause. “And why not?”
“I dislike dooming young women to madness and death. A small quirk of mine.”
The containment globe shuddered slightly. “What then have you done with the memory?”
“I have countless receptacles in my vault. One of them will suffice to hold the memory.”
“A non-living receptacle will break down. And then Lokonos’s curse would seek me out.”
“It will never escape my vault.”
The globe shuddered again. “While you live. For me, that is the barest flicker of time. I require a more permanent solution.”
“We could find a person soon to die and promise to pay their heirs…”
“Wait for a human willing to give themselves to cursed madness? The girl is here. Use her.”
“I cannot accede to that request,” said Vanan softly. “Master Jinn, I will find a way to destroy the curse. And I will settle for just one of your memories, instead of three.”
The globe dimmed and hummed. “A better alternative suggests itself.”
“And that is?” Vanan kept his voice steady.
“I seize your body and use it to place the memory in the girl.”
Vanan reached for his jade amulet but lost his grip as the jinn burst out of the globe and slammed into him like a bolt of lightning.
The memorist shuddered and collapsed, falling through hot ice, drowning in a whirlwind of freezing dark.
“You forget,” the jinn’s voice filled the room, “I move as quickly as thought.”
Vanan reached again for his amulet, but his hand froze.
“I’m aware of your pathetic little amulet, memorist of the Gray School,” La Nar mocked.
Vanan’s mind was crushed beneath the torrent of the jinn’s ancient intellect. The room grew dim. His gleaming shelves, filled with the preserved memories of generations, faded from his sight.
As darkness took him, a cool stone was slipped in his hand. His fingers could move now, tracing the amulet’s warding sigil, sending warmth coursing through him. With a thunderous roar the jinn’s mind entered the amulet. It began to grow hot.
Sound and light came crashing back to Vanan. He lay on the floor, Serefina crouched over him, shaking him, a fierce focus on her face.
He slowly forced his fingers to unclasp the burning amulet. From within, the smooth jade, now an angry dark red, smoldered.
“Not such a pathetic little amulet after all, La Nar,” Vanan said, his voice a cracked wheeze. He would have to find safe receptacles for both jinn and curse.
“Serefina. How… did you break free?”
“I learned long ago how to escape from bonds,” Serefina hissed grimly. “Perhaps even vile memories serve a purpose after all. I should have known better than to trust La Nar. Now I have nothing.”
The memorist studied the fierce girl. “I’ve been looking for an apprentice.”
The desert nomad raised an eyebrow. “A good trade, this, but I am no fancy Gray School graduate.”
“Stay and I will teach you.”
She shook her head. “No. I have to save Ela. I’ll steal her back. We’ll run.”
“And be caught. Here you will be safe, trained, paid well.”
“While my sister lies helpless with a depraved merchant? A cursed memory indeed!”
“Memories can be removed.”
“Better I die with her in the desert.”
Vanan smiled and nodded. “Good. I value loyalty. I will pay your family’s debt, buy your sister’s freedom, and sponsor an apprenticeship of her choice. Perhaps beside her sister, learning from a fancy Gray School graduate.” He could see her gaze taking in the measure of him in a long slow study.
Serefina nodded and smiled. “This is a memory I can live with.”
“The Memory Bank and Trust”, © Patrick Hurley, first published April 30, 2019, here in Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores
Patrick Hurley lives in Seattle where he enjoys hilly walks and eating far too much sushi. He’s had fiction published in dozens of markets, including Galaxy’s Edge, Portals, Flame Tree Publishing, New Myths, Abyss & Apex, and The Drabblecast. In 2017, he attended the Taos Toolbox Writers Workshop. He was one of the finalists for the Baen Fantasy Award in 2018.
lead illustration by Fran Eisemann; stock used: Pixabay and:
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bottles – raduluchian.deviantart.com/art… frozenstocks.deviantart.com/ar…
wizard shelf – zememz.deviantart.com/art/3D-P…
book shelf – zememz.deviantart.com/art/3D-B…
Potion, Window. Shelf, fairytales 32 UNRESTRICTED, DSC 0150 Egyptian Museum,Turin, Alchemists Library, DSC 0029 Crystal Ball and Rose Stand, Book 8 -Stock, Wizard Props, Flame, UNRESTRICTED – Stacks of books renders II,Cabinet 1+2, Candle 31
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