The Gem Lords

The Conference - Part 6

     The tissue for the clone was donated by one of the female human apprentices, who knew nothing of why they wanted the two pints of her blood. She only knew that she would be excused some of her more unpleasant duties for a couple of weeks, which she thought more than ample compensation for the dizziness and weakness she suffered for the next day or two.

     The blood was rushed to a laboratory in the research buildings, where it was placed in a large silver bowl to which handfuls of fine, white powdered clay were added and stirred in. The process was continued until they had enough clay, now stained a faint pink by the blood and dampened by the addition of purified water, to mould into a vaguely girl shape on a steel table, and then Pondar Walton began casting spells on it.

     Gradually the clay changed, softening and changing colour until it began to assume the consistency of human flesh. Details appeared. Facial features, hair, fingernails, until it exactly resembled the young woman from whom the blood had been taken. Inside, it was still clay, though, and when Tassley touched its hand, it was as cold and clammy as a corpse. This skin deep only form of duplication was perfect for some applications, but Pondar Walton needed more, and so he cast more spells to add another layer of sophistication.

     The clone's humanity began to seep inwards, creating tissues and organs, blood vessels and a skeleton, until it could have passed as a human corpse even under the most detailed examination. Wizards sometimes created second level clones to fake their own deaths, leaving them in their beds to be discovered by their staff as Malefactos had done just before undergoing rak transformation.

     To become a host body for Lapis Lazuli's soul, though, Pondar needed to take the clone to the limit of sophistication, to the third level. Life itself. He cast another spell on it, therefore, pressed his hands to the clone's chest and willed some of his life's energy to flow into it. His assistants watched in concern as his face grew pale and his arms began to tremble, but then the clone gave a shudder and its mouth opened with a convulsive gasp for air. Pondar Walton stepped away, and Edward Parsley pulled up a chair for him to collapse into while Tassley Kimber felt the clone for a pulse.

     "It's alive," she said, her finger pressed to its neck. "Seems okay."

     "Check it for flaws," ordered the senior wizard, his breath coming in shallow gasps. I am not growing old! he told himself firmly. I can still do this! He brought the words of a fourth spell to the forefront of his mind, ready to correct any imperfections that might have appeared on the clone, but as his assistants worked their way over the motionless female form from head to foot, turning it over when they'd finished the front to check the back, they found nothing. It was a true copy. Indistinguishable from the young woman from whom the blood had been taken.

     Pondar was careful not to let them see his relief as he let the words of the spell slip away again to the back of his mind. There'd been a time, not that long ago, when he could have created a dozen clones, all on the same day, without pausing for breath, but now all he wanted was to go and lie down for an hour or two. He stood, though, and stepped casually over to the clone he'd just created, eyeing it critically.

     "One of her breasts is larger than the other," he observed."

     "It's not beyond the normal range of human variation," replied Edward. "The real girl's probably just the same.

     "And one of her finger's crooked." He pointed.

     Tassley picked up the hand to examine it more closely. "I've got a cousin with a hand like that," she said. "Do you want to correct it?"

     Once, Pondar would have cast the spell without a second thought, but now he shook his head. "It's not worth the effort," he said. "The copy's good enough for the purpose. Dress it and take it to the waiting room."

     Edward nodded and reached for the small pile of clothing draped over the back of another chair. An incontinence pad, cotton undergarments and a simple white gown. "If we could transfer our souls into cloned bodies," he said, "we'd have the secret of immortality."

     "In which case cloning would be outlawed, and all the spells used for that purpose would be expunged from the spellbooks," said Pondar flatly. "Do not fall into the trap of thinking that immortality is a desirable condition."

     Edward nodded soberly, and Pondar gave him a stern glare before striding out of the room.

     The clone's eyes were open, but other than that she resembled a woman in a deep coma. She was aware, though, in the same rudimentary sense as a newborn baby, and if she were left to herself she would gradually, over months and years, develop a mind and personality of her own. For now, though, she had to be fed and washed and cleaned like a baby.

     The clone was beginning to come alive a little now, staring blankly at the wizards and waving her arms about as if unsure how the muscles worked, and when she was into her gown Tassley sat her on a chair and took the bowl of paste from Karem. "Haven't done this since my smallest sister was born," she muttered as she spooned it into the clone's mouth, "and I was only twelve then."

     "It comes so naturally to you," said Edward with a grin. "You're a natural mother. You must be eager for a baby of your own."

     "The Gods know she tries hard enough," muttered Karem under his breath.

     Tassley glared at him as she scraped paste from the clone's chin and tried to ease it back into her mouth. "Laugh while you can," she said. "You're changing her later on."

     "Do you ever have doubts about this?" asked Karem, ignoring the comment. "I mean, this clone, if allowed to grow and develop, if given the same education as any other newborn, will eventually become a person in her own right, with her own ideas about what she wants to do with her own life. What right do we have to take that away from her?"

     "We don't know that we will," pointed out Edward. "We don't know what they want this clone for."

     "Oh come on, how many clones are allowed to develop a mind of their own? She's going to be harvested, her blood and organs taken for magic spells. What else does anyone ever create a living clone for?"

     His words caused the others to look uncomfortable, and they averted their gazes from each other. It was a carefully guarded secret, to be kept from the mundanes at all cost, that some spells and potions required human tissue. Once, it had been taken from corpses stolen from graveyards or, in the case of the more evil wizards, from murder victims, but the discovery of how to clone living human beings from a quantity of donated blood had largely put an end to such practices.

     "We're not taking her life away from her," said Edward eventually. "We're just not letting her have one in the first place."

     "But she does already have one! There's already a consciousness in there, of a sort. What right do we have to take it away from her?"

     Edward and Tassley made no answer. The debate had been going on for centuries, even since the art of cloning had first been perfected, and neither of the other two wizards could think of anything that hadn’t been said hundreds of times before, by hundreds of other wizards.

     "We gave her life," was all Edward could say. "Without us, she'd still be just blood and clay. If she could, I'm sure she'd be thanking us for the gift of life, no matter how brief it might be, which she would not otherwise have known at all."

     Karem looked at him, obviously unhappy, and left the room.