Mind-Crushing

"Beleren!" Tezzeret screamed through the pain, each word bringing another bubble of crimson-flecked foam to his lips. "I swear to you, I'll survive this! I'll find you, and when I do-"

"You'll do nothing." Jace allowed the lingering mana in the etherium arm to flow through him, and thr*st his mind into Tezzeret's own. Exhausted, wounded almost unto death, and without the stores of magic in his artificial arm, the artificer might, just might, be vulnerable to…

Yes!

For long moments, Jace found himself in the agonized, infuriated hell that was Tezzeret's mind. He winced at the images that assailed him, recoiled from sensations he never wanted to know, as he sifted through the artificer's thoughts. And there it was, finally, the knowledge he would need, the knowledge that would allow Jace Beleren to rule the Infinite Consortium as thoroughly as Tezzeret ever had. Names, locations, artifacts, all of it.

And Jace… Jace sighed once and let it go, leaving that knowledge to fade with the man that held it. Taking an unwholesome glee in every mental scream, allowing Tezzeret a full awareness of what he was doing, Jace reached out and crushed the artificer's mind.

Jace felt a great weight lift from his soul-not his only burden, nor even his heaviest, but a palpable respite all the same. He sighed in relief, drawing a puzzled glower from the shaman.

Jace ignored it. He turned and strode into the trees, leaving the beady-eyed ratmen and the drooling, babbling artificer behind him.

***

Agents of Artifice, Chapter 32