The biting cold of the mountain peak clawed at Norris's skin, but the chill in his marrow had nothing to do with the winter wind. He looked at the boy beside him, at Lifeless, whose skin had turned a translucent, sickly shade of grey. The air around Lifeless hummed with a violent, unstable frequency. It was the sound of a body tearing itself apart from the inside out. Every step they took through the thick snow felt like a march toward a grave
"Are you feeling anything in your hands?" Norris asked. His voice remained low, steady only through a monumental effort of will. He watched the boy's fingers. They were curled like frozen talons, trembling with a rhythmic, electric twitch.
Lifeless looked down at his own limbs as if they belonged to a stranger. He tried to flex his grip, to make a fist, but the muscles refused to obey the command of his brain.
"No. It is like I lost all feeling in them. Everything is numb. It is just cold, then nothing."
Norris stopped in his tracks. The blood drained from his face, leaving him as pale as the drifts surrounding them. He grabbed the boy's wrist, pressing his thumb against the pulse point. The heat radiating from the skin was unnatural. It felt like touching a stove.
"Your nerves are burning," Norris whispered, his eyes wide with a sudden, sharp terror.
"The Current is surging through your pathways without a vent. If this continues, you will lose the ability to feel anything at all. You will lose all five of your senses. You will be a ghost trapped inside a meat shell."
The weight of the situation crashed down on them.
Lifeless looked up, his eyes glassy and unfocused. The green veins that had begun to sprout across his neck were now glowing with a faint, malevolent light. They looked like emerald vines choking the life out of a tree.
"We have to get home," Norris commanded. He did not wait for an answer. He grabbed the arm of the younger man and draped it over his own broad shoulders, heaving the weight upward.
They began the grueling trek back toward the sanctuary of the cabin. Each stride was a battle against the elements and the clock. Norris could hear the ragged, wet sound of the breath of Lifeless. The boy was fading.
Suddenly, a guttural roar shattered the silence of the woods.
From behind a cluster of frost-covered pines, a beast lunged. It was a mass of matted fur and jagged bone protrusions, a scavenger of the wastes driven mad by the scent of dying prey. It screamed, a sound that vibrated in the back of the throat, and prepared to spring.
Norris did not hesitate. He shifted the weight of Lifeless against a tree and pivoted in one fluid motion.
He blurred across the snow. Before the creature could even snap its jaws, the fist of Norris collided with its midsection. There was a sickening wet crunch as his hand punched entirely through the stomach of the monster. The beast gasped once, its eyes rolling back, and then it went limp.
Norris retracted his arm, shaking the gore from his knuckles. He did not look at the corpse. He did not care for the victory. He ran back to Lifeless, hauled him up again, and pushed through the final stretch of the trail until the wooden silhouette of their home appeared through the gloom.
The interior of the cabin was dark and smelled of dried herbs and old wood. Norris practically threw Lifeless onto the small cot in the corner. "Stay still," he barked, though the boy had no strength to move.
Norris turned and sprinted toward the storage room at the back of the house. He began to tear the place apart. He yanked open heavy wooden drawers, sending parchment and tools flying. He kicked aside iron chests, his breath coming in short, panicked bursts.
"Come on, come on. Where is it? It has to be here," he hissed to the empty room. His fingers caught on a latch at the very bottom of a hidden floor compartment. He hauled it open.
There it lay. A muzzle made of a strange, matte black material. It possessed the exact same light-absorbing texture as the sword Lifeless carried. It looked ancient, heavy, and deeply ominous.
Norris grabbed the artifact and sprinted back to the bedside. He hovered over Lifeless, his hands shaking as he held the black metal.
"Here, wear this. Now!"
Lifeless stared at the grim object. His eyes were wide with confusion and a growing sense of dread.
"What... what is this?"
His voice cracked on every syllable, the sound of a man whose vocal cords were being frayed by high voltage.
"WEAR IT!" Norris roared. It was not a request. It was a desperate command for survival.
He forced the muzzle over the jaw of the boy, snapping the heavy buckles into place behind his skull.
The moment the matte black material made contact with the skin of Lifeless, the world seemed to hold its breath.
The change was instantaneous and violent. The glowing green veins on the neck and face began to recede, the light fading as the energy was forced back down into the core of the boy. The emerald lines vanished from his shoulders, then his arms, and finally his chest, retreating like a tide under the pull of a dark moon.
But the relief was short-lived. As the systemic burning stopped, the localized agony began. Lifeless arched his back, his muffled cries echoing through the metal grate of the muzzle.
"OW! OW! OW!" he screamed, his voice muffled but the pain clear. He clawed at his feet, desperately kicking off his heavy leather boots.
As the second boot fell to the floor, the source of the agony became clear. A jagged shard of enchanted ice was buried deep in the calf of his leg. It had been there since the fight on the mountain, numbed by the nerve damage, but now that the muzzle had restored his senses, the pain arrived with the force of a landslide.
"Oh no," Norris muttered, leaning over the limb. The wound was blue and frozen at the edges. "We might have to pull it. Brace yourself."
Norris gripped the shard with a firm hand. He looked Lifeless in the eye. "One, two, three!"
With a brutal yank, the ice came free. A spray of dark blood followed it. Norris moved with the efficiency of a combat medic. He grabbed a bottle of high-grade alcohol and poured it directly into the open gash.
Lifeless let out a final, piercing scream that shook the rafters. His eyes rolled back into his head and his body went limp as the nervous system finally opted for the mercy of unconsciousness.
The room fell silent, save for the heavy breathing of Norris. He worked through the night. He carefully stitched the wound shut with a bone needle and silk thread. He wrapped the leg in clean white bandages and then reached for a heavy glass syringe. He injected a potent dose of antibiotics into the forearm of the boy to ward off the mountain rot. Finally, he pulled a thick wool blanket over the chest of the sleeping youth.
Hours passed in a blur of shadow and candlelight.
When Lifeless finally opened his eyes, the room was dim. He felt a strange weight on his face, the cold pressure of the muzzle still fastened tight. He shifted his weight, and the old springs of his bed let out a sharp, metallic squeak.
In the cot next to him, a shadow stirred. Norris sat up, rubbing his face. The man looked like he had aged a decade in a single night.
"Are you awake?" Norris asked, his voice gravelly.
"Yes, I am," Lifeless replied. The muzzle made his voice sound metallic and distant. "Can you turn on the lights and tell me what happened?"
Norris stood up, his joints popping. He walked over to the wall and ignited the lanterns. The warm yellow light filled the cabin. He dragged a wooden chair over to the bedside and sat down, leaning forward with his hands clasped between his knees.
"You were burning from the inside," Norris explained."The Current was overloading your paths. You were going to lose every sense you have because the energy was incinerating your nerves. It only stopped when I put that muzzle on you. It stabilized your flow, which is why you finally felt the injury in your leg and passed out."
Lifeless reached up, his fingers brushing the cold, matte surface of the mask. "Wait. A muzzle. Is this not the mask used to keep dogs from biting? Why are you using it on me?"
A deep, hollow sadness settled into the features of Norris. He looked at the floor for a long moment before meeting the gaze of the boy.
"This one is not for animals," Norris said. "Holding onto this was a duty my trainer gave to me before he passed away. He was like a father to me. He told me it belonged to the Chosen One. He said the one who arrived with the black weapon would be sick, and that they would need this specific muzzle to survive. You are that person. You are the one he spoke of."
Lifeless remained silent, the gravity of the words sinking in.
"Do not ever take it off," Norris warned, his tone becoming razor-sharp."It is built with a stone that possesses the same gravitational force as a dimensional cube. It is the only thing heavy enough to hold the Current back from exploding out of your pores. Your power will be weaker while you wear it, but that is the price of your life. Do not ever remove it."
Lifeless looked at the scarred hands of his mentor. "Why would you make me wear this if you could just heal me with your own Current?"
Norris let out a bitter, exhausted laugh. He held up his hand, which was still stained with the phantom remnants of the green glow he had tried to fight.
"You think I did not try?" Norris asked, his voice trembling with a rare flash of helplessness. "I saw your hand turning green. I saw the rot spreading. I poured every bit of my own energy into you to try to heal the damage, but I could not. It would not go away. My power was like a cup of water trying to put out a forest fire. This muzzle is the only thing in this world that can keep you whole."