Disarming Wreg took a lot longer.
Rather than wait, Jon walked past the line of servants and into the dimmer entryway beyond. Stepping deep into the right half of the room, he shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around as casually as he could.
Inside, the ceilings stretched even higher than the door, and Jon found himself looking up at the enormous wrought-iron chandelier that hung from the ceiling. It took him a second of blinking in that dimmer space before he realized they'd lit the chandelier with candles instead of lightbulbs. The effect added to the gloom, needless to say, but also sent warm light on a few floor-length tapestries that hung from the longest wall beside the elegantly carved, waterfall staircase that dominated Jon's view into the square entrance hall. Elk heads hung from the opposite side, along with massive oil paintings, antique chairs and tables that looked more South American than European, an enormous, gilded mirror and a row of antique bird cages. Inside the cages themselves, parrots squawked and fluttered, alongside a number of brightly plumed tropical birds that Jon didn't recognize well enough to be able to name.
As more in their party filtered into the room, Jon let himself be moved deeper into the pocket of shadow outside the arc of the open door's splash of light. Noticing Wreg's eyes darting around the same space, probably scouting entrances, exits, the construct and whatever else, Jon glanced up, following the walls with his eyes instead, and trying to get a feel for their owner.
Clearly, the guy dressed to impress, including his house.
The ceiling stretched up to the top of the next floor, which also seemed to house twenty-foot ceilings at least, if not higher. Everything appeared to have been designed to create a sense of awe, if not downright intimidation. The balcony above the waterfall staircase had been carved from polished, dark wood that made Jon think of rain forests, but the floors were all granite tiles and the staircase itself appeared to be of white marble.
Plant fronds covered in purple and white flowers cascaded down between the wooden pillars, the latter being separated by octagonal holes that allowed them access to the open air. Jon saw stone planters stuck at symmetrical intervals along the second floor, as well as the glimpse of balconies overlooking the view behind the house. Paintings rimmed the walls of that upper floor, too, most of them of people Jon didn't recognize, but a few depicting more mythic scenes, and one that seemed to illustrate some battle scene in one of the World Wars.
The ceiling took the cake, though, in Jon's view.
At the furthest height of the room, someone hand-painted a DaVinci-like mural of the pantheon of intermediary beings. The way they'd been depicted, however, struck Jon as pretty dark...and well, lame. The Bridge wielded bolts of blue-white lightning from on top of a mass of blood-red clouds that stormed down on Earth. The Sword wasn't depicted in the young boy version Jon remembered from most of the old texts. Instead, he looked a lot like Revik did now, only his eyes glowed green and he stood on top of the world, as if he owned it.
Other beings writhed in a pale, silver-blue background, including a turtle under the earth, holding it up as if its shell were about to crack...and an elephant stomping over the oceans, along with a rabbit...what looked like a king on a throne and a queen-like figure by his side...
Jon found himself frowning, looking back up at the depiction of Allie, then of Revik.
Whoever painted this, they didn't seem to like the intermediaries all that much.
Or maybe it was humanity they weren't too fond of.
Someone nudged him from the other side.
Jon glanced up and was surprised to see Neela there, standing next to Jorag and looking wound, as if every muscle in her body readied for a fight. She'd lost the big gun; presumably one of those white-gloved servants took it from her with the same smile they'd directed at Jon when disarming him.
Giving the female seer a nod and a thin smile back, Jon began walking after the others, keeping Wreg in his peripheral vision as he followed Holo and Tenzi through the echoing hallway. He could see another of those white-gloved servants up ahead, and watched as the man disappeared through a doorway just past the staircase, with Revik and Allie not far behind.
He didn't mind staying somewhat behind and within the mass of others. Revik pretty much told Jon to keep a low profile once they entered the house, anyway; Jon knew they were all worried that this Shadow guy was a zealot who wanted all the humans dead. Whether Shadow's people had a copy of the Displacement list or not, Allie warned him they wouldn't be oblivious to the fact that Jon held a high place in the inner circle.
They might take him out just on general principle.
So he kept his head down, and Wreg to his right and slightly ahead. Neela remained on his left and slightly behind, with Jorag at her side like a walking monolith. All in all, Jon felt about as safe as he could have, under the circumstances. Even gun-less, and despite her relatively small size, Neela always struck Jon as a bit frightening. Something about the way she moved reminded him of a cat, nearly soundless and soft on her feet, yet he doubted she had an ounce of real fat on her entire body. He'd seen her move in fight situations, too, so fast he'd barely been able to track her from one place to the next.
Wreg told him of all of his people, he would trust Neela to have his back when it came down to the line, and Jon believed him. Wreg had worked with her for years, in the latest rebellion and even the one before that, which put her at Revik's age at least, if not a bit older. Seeing the way she paced him now, Jon couldn't help wondering if she'd been given additional duties on this trip as well...besides protecting Allie and Revik, that is.
He forgot all that a few seconds later, though.
He followed the other seers through double doors made of ancient-looking oak and into a room that looked like something out of an old gothic romance novel, or maybe one of the Frankenstein movies. A long table of the same old-growth oak took up most of the middle of the cavernous space. The ceiling would have looked astronomically high, if not for the foyer they'd just left behind; as it was, Jon found himself trying to take in the height of the floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows on the far wall, as well as the carved wooden sconces, more ancient paintings and tapestries, and the requisite dead-animal heads.
His eyes paused on the massive stone fireplace dominating the left end of the room, which appeared to be burning an entire tree inside its walk-in contours. At the other end of the room a smaller fireplace lived, with what looked like a medieval tea kettle hanging over it on a hook. His eyes drifted over the table, which had been laden to breaking point with food in every-sized dish and plate imaginable. Clearly, their host intended to impress them on more than one front, given the selection of dead animal meat alone, much less what looked to be home-baked bread, wild rice, vegetables of all kinds, fish, and a delicately layered desert beside every plate.
Then Jon noticed they weren't the only people in the room.
A row of faces sharpened into focus from the other side of the table, some so familiar they brought Jon up short. Shadow's prisoners sat in a line, all together, each with a seer standing in an identical pose behind their high-backed chairs, like some kind of zoo keeper with its prize pet.
Jon paused on faces, unable to help himself.
Cass, Feigran, Maygar and Chandre all sat in a row. Next to them sat an older seer who had to be Varlan, simply because of his age. Long, gray-and-black-streaked hair hung past his shoulders, most of it held off his face in one of those traditional seer clips. Dark violet eyes shone out of a weather-worn face, above one of those diagonal scars that a lot of the seers seemed to wear, including Garensche and Jorag.
Next to Varlan sat a dark-skinned seer with short black hair and a narrow face. His skin wasn't some shade of light or dark brown, like most African-Americans Jon knew, but instead nearly true black, the color of coal...or close enough to blend into the color of his organic armor uniform. His brown eyes stood out like searchlights against that dark skin, and appeared to have a ring of some lighter c
olor around them, maybe blue, or dark green. He watched their party enter with an overt wariness, but no hostility, Jon noticed. The dark-skinned seer looked thin, like the others, but as Jon had never seen him before, he had no idea if that said anything about his treatment under Shadow's care.
Next to him sat another monster of a seer, almost as large as Jorag, with brown hair, brown eyes, an unremarkable face and normal, Eurasian-type features, common to many infiltrators who worked in the West.
Realizing he'd avoided looking at the person he'd most come here to find, Jon returned his gaze to Cass.
She wasn't looking at him. She didn't seem to have noticed him at all.
Instead, she stared around at their party without any real recognition or comprehension on her face. She didn't look beat up, or even noticeably underfed, but something in that blank expression sent a cold feeling down Jon's spine. Her light brown eyes held a dull sheen, but appeared flat, as if she looked at all of them through the wrong end of a telescope...or maybe through a window with a broken pane.
She didn't even seem to recognize Revik, who stood closest to her out of the group.
Jon glanced at Allie, and saw her staring at Feigran, frowning.
He found himself taking another step towards the table, roughly in Cass' direction. He did it without thinking through his intentions, really...but as soon as he moved, Neela stood by his side again, appearing there silently. Before he could take a second step, she held his arm.
When Jon glanced down at her, she shook her head, once, a warning in her eyes.
Jon nodded, but felt his jaw harden.
"Please, my friends," a voice said in polite tones, seemingly from all around them.
Jon looked around, startled. He finally found the owner of the voice standing by the fireplace, his expression serene.
"Please, sit..." a tall, blue-eyed seer said, smiling from where he stood in a dark, floor-length robe next to the enormous grate. The stone opening of the fireplace stood nearly as tall as he did, Jon noticed. The male seer folded his hands in front of the robe, his shoulder-length, brown hair in a far more elaborate clip than what Varlan wore, studded with what might have been diamonds.
"You must be very hungry, from your long trip," the seer said, gesturing hospitably towards the long table. "Please...sit. I promise you, the food it exquisite." His smile thinned, holding a bit more of that wry humor as he raised an eyebrow. "...It is also quite safe."
When Jon glanced at Neela, she gave him a nod, still holding his arm.
She walked with him to the nearer side of the table, so that they were sitting across from the row of seers and Cass. Neela waited for the rest of them to find seats before she brought Jon to the one directly across from Varlan, seating herself opposite Stanley, with Jorag on her other side, across from the seer Jon figured must be Rex.
Neela stared at Chandre though, more than the other three.
Jon saw the two of them looking at one another without speaking or changing expression, as if some silent communication passed between them.
Chandre herself looked exhausted, and the most emotionally beaten-up Jon had ever seen her. Her eyes had a leaden cast, as if she hadn't slept for days...maybe even weeks. She'd lost weight, and even her hair looked limp. She was clean though, and her clothes looked new, if not exactly her usual style. She wore a dark blue dress that flowed over her reddish-brown skin, with spaghetti straps over her muscular shoulders. Her hands rested on the table as if they'd fallen there, but no fight lived in her eyes.
The seer standing behind her didn't change expression when Jon glanced up. He stood there like a sentinel, his presence an obvious message, but Jon had no idea what it was meant to convey.
Before Jon could puzzle out what the exchanged looks between Chandre and Neela had meant, servants appeared behind him. Jon still hadn't managed to make eye contact with any of the seers or humans sitting on the other side of the table when that new set of servants began placing meat and vegetables on his plate with silver tongs and other serving utensils. When Jon glanced back, he saw one servant had arrived for each of them. They all dressed identical and all looked human. They probably came from the nearby village, but Jon couldn't help feeling something off in how they moved mechanically around the table. They chose particular cuts of meat, precise spoonfuls from this or that dish, careful ladles-ful of sauce...all with an oddly choreographed precision as they moved around each heaping platter and bowl.
Jon also noticed that in building his plate, they avoided foods he himself didn't eat. In fact, they chose all of the items he most likely would have chosen for himself. Once he noticed that, he glanced around at the other plates and servants and saw that each combination of foods being loaded onto plates appeared to be different...and aligned with the owner's tastes. On Revik's plate, Jon saw that seer chutney, iresmic, and curry with nan and lallaf, another seer dish. He saw what looked like a Mexican burrito on Allie's, along with a dark red salmon steak cooked to medium rare and steamed asparagus.
That seer dish, kalresch, dominated Wreg's plate, which consisted of seared wild rabbit stuffed with greens and a bunch of spices from Asia that smelled particularly pungent. Jon happened to know that kalresch had a strong taste, gamey as hell; he'd tried it once in the fancier of the four or five restaurants in the House on the Hill hotel. In fact, Wreg made him try it, telling him it was one of his favorite dishes, but hard to get right. Apparently the chefs at the House on the Hill got it right. Jon suspected this Shadow guy's cooks would have, too.
Within minutes of the servants beginning their work, they finished.
Weirder, they all seemed to finish at precisely the same time.
Close enough, anyway, to once more feel choreographed, as if their every movement had been scripted in advance.
Jon watched them vanish through the double doors behind them. He continued to stare after them incredulously, watching them file out one by one, each wearing the same starched white suit and gloves and black, leather shoes. He found himself wondering if they'd been trained to behave that way. If he didn't know better, he'd think they'd all been pushed, or perhaps the simple fact of living inside the construct guided their every movement.
"The latter, cousin," a voice said quietly to his left.
When Jon turned, he saw Chinja sitting there, her face and mouth grim.
"...I think so, anyway," she added. She looked around at the room, her eyes narrow, as if she were trying to scan, but not having much luck. "This whole place is a hall of mirrors. I wonder how much of it is even real..."
"Do you really think it's fake?" Jon said, startled.
"Not fake...exactly. But we are not seeing the whole story here either, cousin."
When Jon glanced at Neela, he saw her nodding, her eyes flickering to Chinja's in agreement.
Jon found himself looking at Varlan and Stanley then, to see if they had an opinion on Chinja's words, but neither seer had changed expression. Jon saw Varlan staring at him though, almost as if the seer wanted to say something to him, but couldn't. Jon looked back at Stanley, maybe to see if that same urgency lived in his eyes, but Stanley's face appeared calmer. Even so, a flicker of tension lived behind his eyes, too...only with Stanley, it seemed to be coming from further away. That distance muted the urgency, but also made Jon wonder if Stanley was having a harder time staying in the room.
Feeling his mouth firm, Jon stared down the row, looking directly at Cass.
"Cass!" he said, without thinking. "Cass! Can you talk? Are you okay?"
Her eyes swiveled to his.
Everyone on that end of the table fell silent as she stared at Jon.
It wasn't until then that Jon realized that Revik sat directly across from her, and Allie across from Feigran. Wreg sat on Allie's other side, across from Maygar, who, Jon realized suddenly, didn't look very good, even compared to the others. He looked thinner than Jon had ever seen him, and his eyes looked drawn, unseeing. He sat without looking at the plate of food in front o
f him, leaning heavily against the high-backed chair, as if his head were too much weight for his neck. Or perhaps it was the collar he wore that exhausted him.
"Cass!" Jon said again, feeling his jaw harden as his eyes once more met her stare. "Cass...are you all right? Have they hurt you at all?"
"I'm fine, Jon," she said, smiling.
When she spoke, Allie visibly jumped.
Revik froze too, staring at her.
"...Thanks for asking," she added, her eyes still so cold that Jon didn't recognize her at all in them. Cass didn't so much as glance at Allie or Revik, but Jon could feel her awareness of them. "How are you, Jon?" she said. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"
But Jon could only gape at her.
"You're fine?" he said. "Really? Because you look like hell, Cass. What have they been doing to you?"
She smiled wider, glancing at Feigran. Jon followed her stare, looking at the deranged seer for the first time, at least in any detail. Feigran looked a lot healthier than Maygar, but then, Jon supposed that made sense, given that he'd only been here a few weeks. The crazy seer only looked at Jon for a moment before he smiled back at Cass. Jon watched in disbelief as he lifted a hand, caressing the hair out of Cass' face tenderly. Jon flinched when Feigran touched her, and felt Neela do the same at his side.
But that didn't freak him out as much as when Feigran leaned over to Cass directly.
Jon watched, his mouth slightly open, as Feigran kissed her lingeringly on the cheek, and then by her ear, using his tongue.
Cass didn't take her eyes off Jon, or change expression.
"We're fine, cousin Jon," Feigran said, his fingers lazily caressing Cass's neck and shoulder. "...Or is it brother Jon, now, Jon?" he said brightly, his yellow eyes friendly when they swiveled back to his. Those same eyes shifted to Wreg then, and he smiled at him, right before he gave him a wink. "I see you've wasted no time, brother Wreg. Not that I blame you. Not that I blame you at all. I wanted to fuck Jon more than once myself..." At Wreg's hard look, Feigran only smiled. "So tell me, brother...is he as good as I suspected? I can't tell you how much that question burned at me some nights..."
Allie's War Season Three Page 73