by SM Reine
“So, this Pyramid,” I said. “Can you explain that? Revik, he...” I cleared my throat. “...Dehgoies. He told me some. He said you would tell me more.”
Vash seemed almost to have been waiting for the question.
“A pyramid,” he said at once. “Being a three-dimensional shape, can be only a symbol, of course. The actual network is of the Barrier and contains a form of shifting dimensionality that marries properties of both partial and non-dimensionality.”
My fingers clasped my hurt knee. “Ah,” I said. “Sure.”
Vash smiled in understanding. “The Rooks’ seers live in a construct, Alyson...all the time. Unlike the constructs you’ve seen my people use, theirs is not anchored in the physical world. It lives with a race of beings who aid them from the Barrier.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, understanding that part, at least.
He looked at me inquiringly.
“I met one,” I explained, setting down the coffee. “On the ship.” I held up my hands with hooked fingers, like a movie monster. “Booga-booga...you know. It tried to freak me out.”
“Indeed?” Vash chuckled. “Fascinating.”
He smiled as if I’d just told him I’d solved a Rubik’s cube on my first try.
“We call these beings the Dreng, Alyson,” he said. “They are, in truth, the real Rooks. It would be more accurate to call the seers down here slaves of the Rooks. Or, more generously, their followers. Of course, they call themselves ‘The Brotherhood,’ ‘The Organization,’ or ‘Org,’ for short. They title missions ‘Operation Blackout,’ ‘Operation Great Hope,’ and so on. The Dreng encourage these fantasies. They often frame their goals in terms of the greater good.”
I nodded, listening. “So...they’re brainwashed.”
“In a way, yes.” Vash took a sip of tea, nodding. “In return for the power they provide through the Pyramid construct, the Dreng collect light from the seers in their employ. Those seers in turn parasitize other seers and humans, to supply the Dreng with light. It is the Dreng’s primary motive and function down here, to steal the light of living beings, as they cannot generate their own. The Pyramid collects this light in large feeding pools for use by the construct...but their primary customer is still the Dreng themselves.”
I frowned, picking up images from the old seer as he spoke.
Vash added, “In short-term, everyday usage, the Pyramid provides individual seers with an almost limitless supply of light. Especially those at the top. The shape of the Pyramid symbolizes the hierarchical nature of the macro version of the living resonant construct. It is known by us that the alpha tier shifts at irregular intervals, but—”
“Okay, wait.” I held up a hand. “Time out. Could you at least try to translate that part?”
Vash smiled. “We are unable to see the workings of the structure from outside of it,” he said. “We know it is made up of beings...”
A Pyramid made of silvery-white light appeared in the space above where we sat, a kind of Barrier-generated mirage. Illuminating dots making up the Pyramid’s walls, floors and corners, Vash connected them with silk threads.
“...Represented by nodes. We know that the leadership changes, but not how. Or why. We can speculate on the latter. But we cannot be certain our theories are correct.”
I glanced around, saw all of the seers staring up at the Pyramid, too.
“Those dots are people?” I said to Vash. “Seers?”
“Yes.” Vash nodded. “Incidentally, your husband was quite obsessed with determining the identity of those seers at the top.” Vash highlighted the top spot, the one I’d circled for Revik in my untidy sketch on ship’s stationary.
“He thought he might know the leader of the Rooks on Earth,” Vash added. “But he could not remember. It was a function and condition of leaving the Pyramid that he lost much of his memory of the time he spent inside of it.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “He mentioned that. Convenient.”
“Yes,” Vash said seriously. “Very. He would never have survived otherwise. As it was, he was quite suicidal. He struggled with those feelings for years.”
“Suicidal?” I didn’t hide my surprise. “Revik?”
“Yes.” Vash took another sip of tea, his expression serene. “Quite a normal response, if you think about it. As you may have gathered from my description, living inside the Pyramid carries some very specific advantages. Servants of the Rooks are in a kind of trance. What they do in that trance makes perfect sense to them as long as they remain inside. But, break the spell, and suddenly they are able to see what they have done in quite a different light.”
“In other words,” I said, thinking aloud. “When he was a Rook, what he did seemed normal. Moral even. And when he left...”
“It seemed less so, yes.” Vash placed his palms on robed knees, nodding. “Further, upon leaving the Pyramid, one experiences a severe loss of power. The Pyramid culls skills and raw talent from all of its members, creating a sort of ‘library’ by which any of the beings inside can access the skills of all the others. Losing access to those shared pools of light and skill can be quite difficult...even painful. It is another reason seers don’t often leave. The Pyramid acts as a great amplifier...and also a distributor according to moment, status and need...of light and its structures, or aleimi, as we call it.”
“So,” I said, fighting to keep up. “Inside the Pyramid, you can access the ability of any seer inside it? Even if you never had it before?”
Vash nodded, taking another sip of tea.
“Wouldn’t that make them all, like...super-seers?”
“In a way...yes.” Vash set his cup on its china saucer, clearly amused by this idea. “There are limits, of course. One must know how to access particular skills in the first place...so knowledge is required, especially for more complex abilities. We strongly believe skill sets are further stratified by the hierarchy itself, with some being reserved for use only by those at the top.
“Your husband was a strong seer in his own right...but he was much, much more powerful when he had access to the light and abilities of tens of thousands of other seers.” Patting my knee once more, Vash smiled. “You can see now, also, why a telekinetic seer might appeal to them, Esteemed Sister...?”
I nodded. “So why did he leave?”
Vash sighed. “Do you really need to ask me that?”
“Well, yeah. If he was brainwashed, then—”
Vash waved a hand. “Suffice it to say, it is possible to experience moments of clarity no matter where you are.”
At my silence, he shrugged.
“...The Rooks have been quite shrewd in recruiting seers who fill out those skill sets they lack. Like any beings, we each have our own gifts and aptitudes, and they vary. Imagine if you could paint like DaVinci, have the mind of a Marie Curie or an Einstein, the oratory skills of a Martin Luther King. For seers, it is much the same. It is a tremendous loss to give this up.” He added, “It can also debilitate the minds of lesser seers to realize that what they had come to think of as their own was indeed never really theirs at all.”
I nodded. “Got it. So as Rooks, they’re über-strong. And if they leave—”
Vash laughed. “Alyson! You misunderstand. I was trying to tell you that this power of theirs is, in the main, illusory. It comes from the symbiotic nature of the Pyramid itself. It does not belong to the individual seers, who are themselves quite ordinary.” Vash gave a graceful shrug, his dark eyes studying mine. “I also wished you to understand something of your husband...and the kind of man he would need to be to leave them, after he had been living inside that structure for over thirty years.”
I felt anger from Maygar’s corner and ignored it.
Outside the open windows, rain pattered on bamboo and slate tile roofs. A golden-colored eagle wheeled past one window, dark against the sky. When I looked at Vash, he was watching me with compassion in his eyes.
I cleared my throat. “If he were reconnected with them.
To the Pyramid. Could he, well...be stuck?” My face warmed when the old man’s gaze didn’t waver. “...Even if he died?”
Vash looked up at the ceiling, eyes thoughtful. “It is a good question.” He leaned back in his seat, holding his knees. “What do you think?”
My throat closed. “I don’t know. It feels like he is.”
Vash studied my face. “I see. Well, it would not be ideal to leave him there, would it?”
I didn’t answer. After another beat, he laid a hand on my leg.
“Alyson,” he said. “I understand from Chandre you have found the Head of the Rooks’ network.” He paused, his silence questioning. “Is that true?”
I looked up. Glancing around, I was a little startled to see fear...even wonder...in the eyes of the seers sitting in a wider circle behind Vash. Even Maygar stared at my face, his expression showing a kind of dumbfounded shock. Only after I noticed the eerie glow of reflected light on the surface of my coffee did I realize how I had managed to scare all those seers so badly. My eyes glowed the same iridescent green I’d seen reflected in Revik’s more than once.
“Yeah,” I said, without looking up. “Yeah, I did. More or less. I don’t know who he is outside, though. Outside the Barrier, I mean.”
“Could you show us?” Vash said.
I sighed, feeling incredibly tired suddenly. I looked at Maygar, and saw the skepticism that had returned to his eyes.
“Yes,” I said, watching him stare at me. “Sure I could. Why not?”
24
HUNT
Less than an hour later, I lay on a beat up recliner in the same building, staring up at a water-damaged ceiling. Beside me paced Maygar. Another seer attached electrodes to my face and arms. I winced as he pressed down on bruised parts of my skin.
“Tell me something,” I said. “This war...?”
“It is the most likely of outcomes,” Maygar said, giving a dismissive wave.
“So not inevitable?”
“No.” He gave me another look, that one slightly less hard. “I would have said differently before. I would have said it’s not about death, but rebirth. That the Bridge doesn’t cause war. That her being here merely signals it’s time for it to begin.”
He ran a thumb lightly over his bicep. I noticed a tattoo there, what looked like writing. His knuckles were bruised too, probably from connecting with my face.
He cleared his throat. I looked up.
He was focused on my mouth, not hiding the meaning behind his stare.
When I rolled my eyes, he only smiled.
“There’s even some who say Death comes,” he added in a light voice. “Syrimne d’ Gaos...‘Sword of the Gods.’ It’s where that other seer got his name, the one during World War I. It’s also the meaning of the sword and sun you see drawn on the temple door. And on me...” He lifted his shirt’s sleeve, showing me a tattoo of the bisected blue sun on his arm. “This is a terrorist’s mark, Bridge. A real one.” He grinned at my unimpressed look.
“The real Death,” he added. “The real Syrimne...he’s supposed to be a creature like you.” He gestured with one thick hand.
“...A brother, as it were.”
My hands tightened on the chair.
Maygar didn’t notice, but only shrugged again, his voice bored. “I’ve also read interpretations that perhaps he’s the one as causes the shift,” he added. “But Bridge, the end of every cycle is a mystery. There are too many variables...and even humans have free will.” He glanced to where James, the robed follower from reception, stood talking to Chandre by the door, smiling at her with obvious adoration in his eyes.
“...In theory, at least,” he muttered.
I frowned, glancing at James, too. “So what are you doing to fight the Rooks? Your people...the badass terrorists?”
Maygar snorted a laugh. “You wouldn’t understand, Bridge.”
“Try me.” When he raised an eyebrow, I said, “Unlike you, I don’t have some macho trip going, Maygar. And it’s not just revenge for me, either, despite what you seem to think. I want them gone. I want a break in the clouds. A real one.”
He just looked at me, then gave another grunting laugh.
“A break in the clouds...I like that, Bridge.” His face opened a bit more, until his expression turned almost friendly. “If you really want to know, right now, we are trying to crack their hierarchy...the one Vash described to you. We look for ‘the break in the clouds,’ too.” He smiled down at me. “There are rumors that an order exists behind the rotating top tiers. That the succession order is mapped...not random. Do you understand this?”
I shook my head. “No.”
Maygar’s eyes grew sharper when they met mine. I recognized that look from Revik; it was a hunter’s look. Moreover, it showed more perception than I’d given him credit for.
Realizing I had been holding back on him a little, I shrugged.
“Eliah might have mentioned it,” I said. “The succession order. When he found out I was screwing around with the Rooks’ network, he seemed convinced that’s what I was after.”
Seeing Maygar’s eyebrow go up, I rolled my eyes.
“I still don’t know what it is, Maygar,” I said flatly.
He gave me another half-smile, shrugging with one hand.
“It is exactly what it sounds like, Bridge,” he said. “It is a map of the succession order for the Rooks’ hierarchy. A map of the succession order would detail when and how each individual Rook ascends in that hierarchy to the spot above. Like when your American president dies...there is a list of who takes his place, right?”
“Sure,” I said, annoyed at his condescending tone. “Whatever.”
Maygar smiled wider, clicking at me softly. “This thing you seem so uninterested in, Esteemed Bridge...it is something every Rook in the network would pay all of their fortune to obtain. Hell, any in the Seven would.”
“Why?”
Maygar rolled his eyes. Unfolding his muscular arms, he used his light to draw an image of the Pyramid in my mind. Thrusting it forward invasively, he highlighted the node at its apex.
“The Head, understand?” When I nodded, he said, “This man at the top, he is the only one who connects directly to the Dreng. The only link between the Dreng and Earth.”
I nodded again, to show him I was following.
“He connects the rest to the Dreng,” Maygar added. “He also distributes the light, the skill sets, everything. To randomize the succession order, it is his protection, right? Without that, what’s to stop one of the other Rooks from stealing this top spot from him?”
I waited, figuring it was a rhetorical question.
Maygar smiled again, maybe because he heard me.
“The top of the Pyramid, it has a rotating hierarchy.” Using his light, Maygar highlighted the top tiers. They began a jerky dance.
I recognized that, too.
“You see how at any moment,” Maygar continued. “...A different seer falls into the position directly below the Head?”
I nodded again.
“This is to prevent assassination, Bridge. If you are big number two Rook, and you kill the Head but don’t take his place, you can bet whoever does is going to take you out. But...” He lit up the top tier once more. “...If you know the succession order, you can coup the big honcho right when you are about to take his place. Or make a deal with the one who does.”
He smiled, clicking again softly.
“But Bridge,” he said. “...We could do the same. There is a gap after the Head dies, when the Dreng are not connected to our world. The Pyramid is vulnerable then.”
“How long?” I said.
“Two...maybe three minutes to connect the new Head.”
At his meaningful stare, I sighed.
“Two minutes isn’t very long,” I pointed out.
Maygar laughed. “It was long enough for me to smack you down this morning!” When my face warmed, he smiled. “Of course, for any of that to be feasible, we would
need to know who the current Head is. That is his other protection, Bridge. Anonymity. We think very few Rooks know the Head’s true identity in outside.” He pointed at me, his lips curling in a frown. “This is where you come in. Providing you can deliver what you say. Your Rook husband never could...despite all his bullshit.”
My jaw hardened. “I already said I don’t know who he is in outside.”
“Well, you should, if you found him in the Barrier.”
“Who the hell are you, to tell me what I should know?” I said. “From what I can tell, none of you jackasses could find him at all. And I’m untrained, worm-raised Bridge girl...so what does that make you?”
Maygar stared at me, his dark eyes holding disbelief.
Vash’s voice rose in my mind, clear as a loudspeaker.
We are ready, he said. You are on point, Maygar.
Maygar leaned closer to me. His voice grew soft.
“A little touchy about the husband, aren’t you, Bridge?” he whispered.
Alyson? Vash said. Are you ready?
Maygar straightened back to his full height, a grin tugging at his full lips. His eyes met mine, a dark eyebrow quirking in a silent question.
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing my anger. “Fine. Let’s do this.”
Slowly, there are stars.
Earth appears, a pale blue dot.
It zooms closer, until it dominates my view. But I barely look at the Earth on its own; instead, my mind finds the Pyramid, and the larger beings I feel behind it. Even now, above all else, it is their presence I feel...for they are why I have come. Metallic threads cross and intersect over land masses in thick, silver piles. The Pyramid moves like a mechanical toy, deceptively peaceful despite the pain and deprivation I feel within. I watch the dance as the pieces change hands, change places, until I hear a faint whisper of—
Well?
The voice startles me. I had forgotten I am not alone.
Maygar floats beside me. We are waiting, Bridge.
It happened differently before, I explain.
His tone turns acidic. Is this your first jump?
No, I say, unthinking.