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Simon stared around in desperate disorientation. Lady Alys was sitting opposite him. He was sure she hadn't been there a moment ago; the last thing he recalled was arguing with one of his guards. It didn't matter. The world was no longer a logical place, and it was pointless to expect sense when his mind was dissolving.
But making sense of apparently senseless events had been his vocation for too long. He gazed at Alys. The lines around her eyes and mouth that she usually concealed with careful makeup were deeply etched, her normally impeccable dress was creased. A reason for her presence sprang to mind, and he cursed it for the hope it gave him when he had resigned himself to death.
'What are you doing here? How did you get in?' he asked quietly, as if she might be a hallucination and would vanish if he disturbed her.
'Simon, your memory chip is malfunctioning,' she began in a gentle, tired voice. He suspected she had said this many times before, today. Whenever 'today' was.
'I know,' he said painfully. 'I-I'm losing my mind.' He remembered, with difficulty, what he had been asking the guard. 'Alys, I need Miles. Please, if you've ever… if you've ever been my friend, send for him.'
'He's here. He's resting right now. He's going to get this fixed for you, and you'll be all right.'
'He's here? But he hasn't done it. He must.'
'Done what?'
Simon looked at Alys, then away. 'Finished it,' he said at last. 'I can't live like this.'
Her face turned white, and he felt a fierce pressure on his hand. He looked down, and his resolve to die wavered. Alys' fine graceful hand was holding his own, and her eyes were wet with tears. Live or die, there was something he wanted to do in this last moment of lucidity. He leaned towards her, reaching out his other hand to cup her cheek, his lips parting.
His vision blurred, the room tilted, and a last scream of loss faded into the chaos of his mind.
'What's going on? What are you doing here?'