Wreg's face darkened.
Before he could answer, Cass elbowed Feigran hard in the ribs, laughing, even as she clicked at him in mocking rebuke.
"Cad," she said. "...I can't take you anywhere."
"Come now, darling," he said to her, kissing her again, and making both Jon and Neela flinch a second time. "...You can't possibly be jealous! After all, he was your first crush too, was he not?"
"True," she conceded, once more staring at Jon.
Feigran's hand caressed her back, even as he kissed her again. "And you know how much I like fucking you, my dear...more than I can possibly say in front of all of these fine people..."
"Jesus," Revik muttered, looking between them.
When Jon glanced at him, Revik looked a little green. His eyes paused on Maygar then, longer than a normal glance, as if he were appraising his physical condition as much as Jon had been a few moments before. Jon noticed that Maygar seemed to be looking only at Allie, however, his dark brown eyes holding a kind of grief. When Jon glanced back at Feigran and Cass, he saw that the male seer had his hands all over her again. He couldn't make himself notice where those hands were roaming, but Cass didn't flinch, or seem in the least bit distressed. On the contrary, she leaned against the auburn-haired seer, her face smooth.
"True enough," she said again, as if Revik hadn't spoken.
Her eyes continued to bore into Jon's.
Jon could see nothing in them he recognized. He turned away when the two of them started kissing for real, Terian making a low sound as he pulled her against him. Jon couldn't quite stomach watching him shove his tongue down her throat. The last time he'd seen it, Cass had been screaming, fighting to get away...
But he shoved that from his mind, too.
When he glanced at Revik, he saw that the Elaerian had looked away, as well.
Allie stared at them as they kissed, the shock on her face palpable. She glanced at Jon and then Neela an instant later, but looked away just as quickly, as if burned. Next to him, Neela seemed to be staring at Chandre once more. Jon couldn't tell if Chandre was aware enough to notice, or to have seen much of what was going on with Cass and Feigran right then...but he couldn't help thinking he understood the dead look in her eyes now.
He wondered if anyone had eaten so much as a bite of their food.
Just then, another voice boomed over the room.
The second he heard it, Jon felt a warning flash, deep inside his light. He couldn't have voiced whatever it was, but something in it felt deeply wrong. The tenor of that deep, musical voice seemed to go right through Jon's skin.
"Hello, nephew..." it said.
The words drifted, still subtly melodious, though the high-ceilinged room.
Jon looked around, searching for its source. Everyone at the table did the same.
Once more, Jon found its owner standing next to the larger and nearer of the room's two massive fireplaces, but the blue-eyed seer they'd seen before no longer stood there. When Jon turned along with everyone else, he found a much older seer standing there...one Jon felt reasonably sure hadn't been standing there a few seconds ago. The first thing that struck him about the seer was his age. Maybe he wasn't as old as Vash had been, or Tarsi continued to be, but he certainly had more than a few years on every other seer in the room, including Varlan.
"Hello, nephew," the old seer said again, folding long hands in front of a dark robe. "I cannot tell you how good it is to see you here with me again, after all this time..."
Jon barely had time to realize the skull-faced seer was looking directly at Revik...
When suddenly, all hell broke loose.
27
HALL OF MIRRORS
EVERYTHING HAPPENED SO fast, Jon found himself hitting the deck, halfway under the massive oak table before he knew why. Neela had ahold of his arm, and he realized it had been her who jerked him to the floor, almost like she knew what was about to happen.
Revik gained his feet seemingly the instant the old seer spoke. Jon saw Wreg practically leap out of his chair to follow him, even as Allie let out a cry, grabbing hold of Revik's arm.
"Do not! Don't, husband! It is too soon!" she cried out.
Jon had time to think that odd. Then his light felt compressed, as if a flush of power crushed it from above.
Currents whipped through that feeling of power and tension somewhere above his head, dense enough that he flinched from where Revik stood, gripping Neela's hand where she held his. He saw Revik staring at the old man. He guessed suddenly...no knew somehow, without being able to articulate how he knew...that Revik intended to kill him.
The pressure built abruptly to a crescendo, shifting so fast that the Barrier space flooded with light. Jon barely had time to see the sharp glow rise to Revik's irises. A bolt coiled upwards then left his light, stronger than anything Jon ever felt off him before. It made the hairs rise on his arms and the back of his neck, made his ears ring and his head vibrate under that skull-crushing pressure. It made every seer in the room, even the servants standing behind the chairs of the captives, stagger. They gripped the backs of those chairs to keep their feet, as if they'd been dealt some kind of blow.
The energy wound upwards like a cyclone, then exploded overhead.
Everything slowed...grew slower still...deathly silent...
Even so, Jon knew that less than a second passed before it ended.
The crack of energy shook the room.
And then it was gone.
Revik let out a cry. Loud, filled with a broken kind of anguish, it echoed in the high-ceilinged room. He crumpled in the same instant, as if his legs had been kicked out from under him. Jon watched in shock as he landed hard on the tile floor.
Neela gripped Jon so tightly that Jon sucked in a breath.
Instantly, Allie leapt over to Revik's prone form, kneeling on the tile floor by his head, holding his hair in her hands. She didn't shake him, but seemed to grip him instead in her hands, as if trying to impute her own light. The ring of his she wore on a chain around her neck fell out of her shirt, swinging over where he lay.
"Revik?" she said. Her voice sounded strange, alien out of her mouth. "Revik! Answer me! Answer me! Please, baby! Revik!"
The other seers, most of whom had risen from their chairs when Revik did the same, stepped back, giving them space, seemingly in reflex.
Neela continued to hold Jon down by the floor, halfway under the table. She gripped his arm so hard that he gasped a little, fighting to get free of her fingers. She barely seemed to notice his struggles, and didn't loosen her hold. Her eyes never left Revik.
None of the captives had moved from their chairs, but Jon barely noticed. His eyes returned to Revik, then seemed to be locked there against his will.
He was breathing. Jon could see him breathing, so he knew he wasn't dead. His eyes stood open, too, but Jon couldn't tell if he could see. His irises emitted a pale light, a ghost of that brighter glow, but Jon could see even from a few yards away that something was wrong with him. He was breathing too hard; he lay too still. His eyes stared up, not seeming to focus on anything above as he continued to fight for breath. He didn't even seem to notice Allie where she hung over him. She touched his face, as if trying to get him to see her, looking for a flicker of recognition. When his expression didn't change, she laid a hand on his chest, shaking his body lightly with her fingers.
Jon watched her, confused by how she was acting, but his mind couldn't dwell there, either.
She must be in shock.
He didn't look away from either of them until it occurred to him to look for the old seer who'd just been standing there, who'd caused the whole commotion in the first place.
Whoever he was, he'd disappeared.
Instead, Jon saw that the first seer had returned, the one with the blue eyes and the dark robe and the diamond-studded hair clip. His face utterly serene, he approached where Revik sprawled on the floor. The robed seer walked slowly, his motions deliberate, his hands up in
a gesture of peace. His face held a concentrated expression when he came to a stop, one that bordered on concern...but Jon found he only wanted to punch the seer in the mouth, as hard as he could.
The others flinched back noticeably from the seer's approach, even Wreg. Still, Wreg didn't back away from Revik, any more than Allie herself did. He hovered over him like an angry dog instead, glaring at the seer with a fury barely restrained.
"What did you do to him?" he spat, his voice an open threat.
"We defended ourselves, brother," the seer replied, his voice holding a thread of disbelief, seemingly at Wreg's wrath. "You can hardly fault us for that..."
Wreg barely seemed to acknowledge his words. "Where is the other? The one who just stood here?"
"Who, brother Wreg?"
"Menlim, you fuck!" Wreg spat. "I fucking saw him...as plain as I see you! That was no Barrier trick! He was here. It didn't feel like VR..."
Jon felt the blood drain from his face. When he glanced at Neela, he saw that she'd paled, too. Her eyes never left Revik, however.
The robed seer with the dark blue eyes shrugged.
"It was never our intention to hurt him...to hurt any of you," he said, softly enough that he could be speaking to himself. Looking up, he repeated his words, his voice harder, more strident as he addressed the whole group. "...It was never our intention to hurt him, brothers and sisters. Truthfully, we thought if any attacked us, it would be his mate...given how protective she became of him in Beijing, even when they were supposedly estranged..." His voice sounded troubled, carrying a whisper of regret. "We expected the shock of seeing our true form to be great. If there had been some way we could have warned him without alarming him, we would have. In fact, that was our attempt to ease him into the idea. But, as always, brothers and sisters, time is short...and we make mistakes..."
That last bit seemed to be directed mainly at Wreg.
Jon remained on the floor next to Neela, trying to wrap his head around what he'd just heard, what he was seeing now. He'd caught the reference to Gerwix, the Wvercian Allie killed in Beijing, who tortured Revik as a kid. Had they set Allie up to try and kill Menlim, too? Was it supposed to be Allie writhing in pain on the floor, and not Revik?
That certainly sounded like what the seer had said.
Even as Jon thought it, the robed seer sighed, clicking to himself.
"Ah, well," he said more gently. "I suppose it is immaterial now. Our father confessed to me that he had given up any real hope of bringing his beloved nephew around to see our point of view once again, at least in the immediate future. He has been corrupted, I'm afraid...apparently beyond hope, at least in the short term..." The blue eyes settled on Allie, as hard as glass. "Our father had hoped that there would be more room for compromise, however. That we would not have to involve you all in such drastic measures..."
"What are you talking about?" Wreg snapped. "Gods fucking in the clouds! You showed him the living image of his dead guardian, including his aleimi...a man who's been dead for almost a century, who half-killed him, who screwed with his head for years. You've done nothing but attack and toy with us since we first entered these lands...and then you pop out with Menlim like some demented jack-in-the-box and wonder why he tries to kill it...?"
The seer raised his eyes, staring directly at Wreg.
"You accuse us of harboring ill intentions?" he said, his voice openly derisive. "You come here with a military force, brother Wreg...an obvious war party...and then complain that your greeting has not been hospitable enough?"
"You kidnapped our people!" Wreg snapped.
"We borrowed them, yes."
"Borrowed them?"
Undaunted, the seer motioned towards the line of seers and Cass, his voice indifferent. "They are free to go. They are collared, yes...but you see no shackles. They are invited to stay with us or to leave, as is their innermost desire..."
"Their innermost desire?" Allie said, her voice openly disbelieving. "Why not release them before we arrived?"
The seer gave her a dismissive look. Even so, Jon saw the brief flicker of hatred that lived there, a colder light than any he'd shown the rest of them.
His eyes returned to Wreg.
"You used to be loyal, brother," the seer said, his voice holding more than a faint rebuke. "You used to be a faithful servant of your race...one who would lay his body down for the greater good. When did that change so dramatically? When did the cause of your people suddenly become a question of means over ends...?"
Wreg stared at him. "Who the hell are you to me, to ask me that?"
Those blue eyes darkened more as they stared from Wreg to Jorag to Deklan to Raddi. It occurred to Jon in the same instant that all four of those seers had fought not only in the latest rebellion, under Salinse and Revik, but in the first one, as well, under Menlim.
The next time the seer spoke, his voice grew colder, less compromising. He looked around the room, once more focusing longest on those seers who fought in the first rebellion.
"Why have you come here, threatening us?" he said. "Why not send a messenger first, to ask us of our intentions? We invited you here, peacefully enough. We sent an emissary..."
"Who?" Wreg said, his voice equally cold.
"Elan Raven," the seer replied without hesitation. He looked at Maygar. "We sent a message to the boy's father. We asked him to come, to speak with us so that these conflicts between us would not continue to escalate..." He looked at Chandre and Varlan then, his voice once more holding contempt. "...Instead you send us these scavengers. One who breaks contracts with us and another meant to spy on us for those race traitors, the Adhipan. And you wonder that we felt the need to build a few more safeguards against you...?"
"Raven came after we'd sent Chandre," Allie said, her voice openly angry now. "Before then, all we knew about you was that you seemed to be behind both the creation and the destruction of a virus to kill most of the humans on the planet..." She looked at Cass, swallowing. "We didn't even know you had Cass then...much less Maygar. We only wanted the antidote we assumed you must have stolen..."
Once again, the seer honored her only with a contemptuous glance.
His eyes shifted back to Wreg.
"We will not continue this conversation until the Bridge is collared," the male seer said coldly. "You must at least grant us that. You would demand the same, under the circumstances..."
Wreg gave a disbelieving laugh. "You must be joking...brother."
"I most certainly am not. If you wish more information from me..." He gestured around at the castle. "...From any of us, that is our condition."
There was a silence. Jon saw Wreg look at Allie.
After a longish pause, she nodded, frowning.
"We will supply our own collar, brother," Wreg said.
He said it readily enough that Jon realized they must have expected this.
The blue-eyed seer made a gracious gesture. "As long as we are permitted to reassure ourselves of its authenticity, I have no quarrel with that approach."
Wreg nodded, reaching into his jacket to pull out one of the modern, light-weight, sight restraint collars. Regaining his feet, he brought it to the blue-eyed seer, handing it to him without words or preamble.
The seer turned it over in his hands for a long handful of seconds. After glancing at the seer who stood guard behind Cass, he nodded, as if to himself.
"It is acceptable," he said, motioning for Wreg to put it on Allie.
Wreg knelt behind Allie, who still hovered over Revik, her eyes on his face. She didn't look up until he had the collar around her neck and activated the retinal scanner. Jon saw her flinch noticeably as the collar's tendrils dug into the skin at the back of her neck. Once the collar had been activated, she winced again, her face taut as she looked up at the blue-eyed seer.
"Happy?" she said, her voice a retort.
The seer didn't bother to answer her.
"So?" Wreg said, gesturing with a hand. "Talk."
"
What would you like to know, brother?" the blue-eyed seer smiled.
"Who are you?"
The seer made a vague gesture with one hand. "You may call me Yosef."
"Is that your name?"
The seer made another vague gesture, not answering.
"You work for this Shadow person? Or are you Shadow yourself?"
"I work for him."
"Who is he? Who is Shadow?"
"He is my father."
"Literally?" Wreg said.
The seer made an affirmative gesture, but in such a way that Jon couldn't be sure of what he meant by the answer.
"Who is he apart from that?" Wreg growled.
The seer sighed, clicking a little. "We have very little time, brother Wreg," he cautioned him softly. "Perhaps you should make your questions more relevant, yes? And less about finding ways to hunt us down after this...?" He smiled thinly. "Trust me, finding us will likely be the least of your worries after today..."
"Meaning what?"
Again, the seer gave only a noncommittal gesture in reply.
"Did you create this virus?" Wreg said, fast enough that Jon wondered again if they really had planned this, down to the list of questions they wanted answered.
"Yes," the blue-eyed seer said promptly, gesturing indifferently with one hand. "...In the sense you mean, at least. We commissioned to have it built, starting as a request through the offices of Ethan Wellington, the previous President of the United States."
"Do you have the antidote?"
The seer smiled, but it didn't touch his eyes. "What makes you think there is an antidote, brother Wreg?" At Wreg's frown, he sighed. "No, we do not."
"But you have a sample of this disease?"
"Of course."
"You planted it in San Francisco?"
The seer made another affirmative gesture, so indifferently that Jon felt his jaw harden to granite. Remembering the bodies littering either side of the paths in Golden Gate Park, he felt his stomach turn, half in sickness and half in fury.
Allie's War Season Three Page 74