by Dawn Cook
“I actually asked you to help me,” he said and shoved the table into her. Knocked off balance, she sat down in the chair as he had planned. Her heart pounded as she looked frantically for a way to escape.
Now in his room, Bailic seemed to slow, taking the time to rub the dirt from his knuckles with a cloth. Alissa’s eyes dropped to her hands. They were clenched in a white-knuckled fervor, and she forced them apart. “Useless, please hurry,” she begged. “He will kill Strell.”
There was no response, and Alissa began to think she was alone. Then, almost she could believe closer, was his thought, “Soon.”
“Don’t feel too bad, my dear,” Bailic said as he dropped his rag. “Your father couldn’t outfox me, either.” He leaned closer, his elegant features softening in a mock sadness. “He was a two-faced, back-stabbing, foothills devil, and I killed him, too.”
She swallowed hard. “I know,” she said with a quavering voice, stalling for time. “Talo-Toecan made me relive it, to try to scare me away.”
“What!” The word was sharp, and she jumped, hating herself for the small gasp that slipped from her. “Talo-Toecan allowed you to relive a memory? Of your father’s? I waited for years to be shown that skill. He never—”
Horrified, Alissa watched his eyes go black as his pupils grew large, and his hands, stiff at his sides, clutched spasmodically. He looked to the ceiling and tensed. She shrank back, trying to put more distance between them, even if it was only a finger’s width.
“No,” he groaned, closing his eyes. “It will wait,” and with a wracking shudder, he turned away. Now his manner shifted to the other extreme, and his shoulders drooped. Slowly he spun on a heel. A small sound slipped from Alissa at the smile he had taken. “Relax, my dear,” he all but sighed, moving to a shelf. “Let me find a little light reading for you. You do read, don’t you?” He chuckled. “If not, well, the piper has lived an exciting life, if not a long one.”
“Useless,” she whispered, feeling the beginning of the inevitable end grip her.
“Perhaps this will help you decide?” Bailic said as he brought forth her book and placed it softly before her. Alissa’s heart seemed to stop. Reeling from the shock of having it so close, she nearly passed out. A feeling of separation overtook her, and she stared hungrily at it, her breath coming fast and shallow.
“I have claimed you,” the book whispered in her thoughts alone. “You have claimed me.”
“Useless,” she moaned. Her fingers twitched and reached, and she felt her will to resist begin to slip gradually away.
Bailic grinned, sure of his victory. “Yes, it’s useless to resist, so why try? Open it.”
“Alissa, no!” Useless pleaded in her thoughts, almost unheard.
“We have waited long enough,” the book crooned into her thoughts alone.
“You’re mine,” she breathed, and she ran a finger over the latch. With a small sound, the metal clasp parted. A warm tingling began at her fingers. Her vision blurred. Her breathing became shallow.
“I am what will make you unbroken,” the book nearly sang through her mind.
Bailic bent low. “Open it,” he whispered urgently, his breath a warm touch on her cheek.
“Alissa!” Useless called frantically. “I won’t be able to bring you back!”
“Now,” the book commanded.
“Now,” Bailic breathed as her fingers ran below the heavy leather binding.
“Now,” she agreed, and uncaring of the consequences, she opened the First Truth.
28
Bailic reached for her book with a triumphant cry.
“Don’t,” she said sharply, and he stopped, frozen where he stood over her. She had used no ward; his surprise halted him. A silver glow had flickered into existence about the book, and as Alissa sent her fingers to brush over the fine tracings of print, the light played about her fingertips like ripples in a still pool. Dabbling them in the silky sensation, she identified the glow as a thought or memory given substance. The words on the page only served to contain the memory, much as a field gave a ward a place in which to act. She smiled with a quiet satisfaction as she realized she didn’t need to read the book. She could live it.
Bailic’s frustrated presence hovered over her shoulder, rightly afraid to touch what she had claimed. Her book wouldn’t stoop to speak to him. He had to be content with the printed word. Besides, she thought smugly, he couldn’t begin to understand.
And with that sentiment, Alissa abandoned herself to the book’s memories, allowing them to freely enter her own. A wave of warmth rose to become her world, bringing a gentle lassitude. It was the first lesson, and she absorbed it as a dark rock absorbs the summer sun.
“It’s nonsense,” she heard Bailic’s distant whisper.
“No,” she sighed, unable to stop herself. “It’s heat.” And she sank deeper into the drowsy, alert state, the scent of broken rock thick in her senses. “It’s hot sand, butterfly wings over dry, summer grasses, sunbaked cliffs, clouds of moisture, and the rain that falls from them.”
“Alissa,” came Useless’s unwelcome voice echoing in her mind. “Stop. Be content with the first lesson.”
“A candle flame on a moonlit night,” she continued, ignoring him, “the wind over the water, and the spinning of the earth and stars.”
“It’s energy,” the book explained needlessly, “in its most humble of forms. No matter what state it takes, it’s the same. At rest. In motion. It’s always the same.”
“Yes,” she whispered, familiar with the concept. It had been a common thread binding her lessons at home. “I see what it is.”
“I don’t understand,” Bailic muttered, and at the sound of his voice, her heightened awareness dimmed until she remembered where she was. Opening her eyes, she ran her finger past the unseen but not unrealized pages, skipping to the next lesson. Alissa felt the memories her fingers touched turn gray, and the shimmering glow surrounding the book shifted to a pearly translucence. It did nothing to obscure the single word upon the page before her.
“Substance?” Bailic said. “What kind of wisdom is that?”
The last remembrance of heat slipped away, and Alissa shivered. It was replaced by a sensation of presence, not a person or even a thing, just a lack of nothing. “Substance,” she repeated as it enfolded her in its vast strength and her eyelids drooped of their own accord. “What a small word for so large a concept.”
“Explain it,” he demanded, his voice thick with irritation.
“I’m almost there, Alissa,” came Useless’s thought, grating upon her.
Uncaring of her imminent rescue, Alissa let the pearly gray thoughts slip freely through hers. “It’s the air,” she explained to Bailic, safe in the knowledge he would never grasp the significance. “It’s the earth. It’s you and me. It’s what makes up the trees that flower and bear fruit, but not the light that gives them life. We’re all made up of the same material, just put together differently, and it can be changed.” This, too, was an idea that had run through her earliest schooling, so fundamental and basic, it hardly seemed worth repeating, but the book made it so clear, she knew it would forever change the way she perceived even the simplest thing.
“Yes,” the book agreed. “Go. You’re almost there.”
Dazed, Alissa turned to the last page. It was blank. The book’s thoughts turned from gray to black. Her fingers resting on the page appeared to be lost in a night so dark as to be impossible.
“What does it mean?” Bailic demanded.
Bewildered, she stared at the obsidian page, smelling the cold of old snow. “I—I don’t know.”
“Thank the Master of us all,” came Useless’s intruding sigh.
“Come,” the book whispered seductively. “You know enough. I will show you the rest.”
Useless’s cry of anguish was almost unnoticed as Alissa met her book’s invitation with a resounding, “Yes!” As soon as her answer was uttered, she was overtaken by a feeling of perfect disco
nnection. There was nothing to see, or feel, or even comprehend. As if blowing out a candle, her world vanished. It was almost Death, but having seen the dark maiden once, Alissa knew it wasn’t. Even so, it was only Alissa’s will that kept her from crossing to join her. “What is it?” she asked her guide, unable to even speculate.
“This? This is time,” came its unshakable answer. “All that has been, all that might be, can be seen from the now. You simply have to know—how far back to look.
“All three are related,” the book asserted. “Can you see this, energy, mass, and time?”
“Yes,” she answered, knowing exactly how they were related. It was so simple once shown.
“And one is in essence the same as the other?” it continued.
“Yes.”
“Then I give you the first truth. You decide what it means. Energy,” it lectured, “can be transformed from state to state, but in the doing, nothing can be allowed to be lost or added. Mass is much the same in its own fashion, changing function, but not its most basic form. And time? Well, time is relative. It’s what you make of it. Control that, and you can shift between the two brothers of energy and mass.”
“You mean by using my tracings?” Alissa thought in disbelief.
“Yes,” the book responded, somehow sounding devious. “Use your tracings to manipulate the constraints of time, and you can turn your mass to energy and back again.”
“But what good is it?” she asked, seeing clearly the how, just not the why.
“Try it.” The book seemed to chuckle in her thoughts.
“Try it?” Alissa repeated, becoming even more confused.
“Try it . . .” came its taunting whisper.
“Try it,” she said aloud as her world slipped into existence in a rush of color and sound. She felt out of breath, and taking a gasp of air, Alissa snapped completely out of her dreamlike state. The book’s thoughts were lost, returned to the pages of her now quiescent book. Its work was done and it called no more, but she remembered.
The ebony glow surrounding her book faded to gray, then silver, then flickered out of existence. Staring at the book, she wondered why Useless was so concerned. This knowledge wasn’t enough to harm anyone. Most of it she had known already.
Bailic lunged across the table, pulling her book from her slack fingers. Clutching it to himself, he backed to his desk, his eyes wild. “What does it mean?” he shouted, all but incoherent.
Oddly unconcerned, Alissa gazed up at him, calm and centered for what she thought was the first time in her life. She didn’t need the book anymore. Its lessons had been engraved into her very essence. The heavy sense of peace it had instilled in her was difficult to shake off.
In the expectant hush, there was a small ping of something hitting the floor. What looked like a small, gray coin had fallen from the binding of her book. It bounced twice and rolled to her feet, circling in noisy, ever-narrowing rings until it fell onto its side with a clatter.
Alissa’s hand automatically went out to pick it up. Barely bigger than her thumbnail, it sat lightly in her palm. It glistened a soft gray that, even as she watched, turned a luminescent gold from her warmth. Examining it in the profound stillness, Alissa frowned. It looked familiar, teasing from her the memory of the scent of birch seeds and mud—and her papa.
“What is it?” Bailic said, huddled in the corner with her open book pressed against him.
Squinting, Alissa held it up between her finger and thumb. The sun glowed brilliantly through it, and she smiled at the pretty little thing. Then she remembered. Her papa had tucked it there, just before he left to return the book to the Hold. He hadn’t known what it was, either.
“Take it,” her book taunted, “in an impervious field as you did your source. Bind it to your being. Quickly! Before you lose your chance!”
“Alissa. No!” Useless shouted in her thoughts, and from outside she heard the passage of his wings.
Like a child caught with her hand in the cookie tin, Alissa grabbed her treasure and made it hers, loath to, as her book had said, lose her chance. Her impervious field cracked into existence around it, and she stiffened and gasped. “No!” she shrieked as her entire network awoke. Every channel hummed with the energy explosively released from her source. She hadn’t done it. It was out of her control, and it burned like ice but didn’t destroy. Destruction would have been a blessing compared to this.
“It hurts! Please, make it stop!” she silently screamed, and then collapsed. Her last sight was of Bailic, clutching her open book to himself, his face a mask of utter astonishment.
29
Bailic froze as the slight frame of Alissa stiffened. Her eyes grew wide as if in shock, and her mouth opened in a silent scream. Then, with a soft sigh, she collapsed onto the table. He hesitated, not trusting this at all. Drumming his fingers upon the back of the book, he moved a cautious step closer, wondering what, by the Wolves at the Navigator’s heel, had just happened.
Her explanation of the book’s contents had confounded him. Though the pages were full of the raku’s script, she had lingered on only the first ornately written word of each section, skipping the pages between. He hadn’t even seen the final page, obscured as it was in the eerie blackness that enveloped both the book and her fingers resting upon it. It was as if his eyes refused to acknowledge anything was there, sliding away with a greasy feel. And then she turned to him with that contented, self-assured look he recognized from his younger days as a student. Her attitude was reminiscent of a Master of the Hold, and it had shaken him.
“What a Keeper you would have made,” he said, edging to where she sat crumpled as if she had fallen asleep at her studies. Placing the open book on the table, he leaned over it. “It’s a shame you didn’t take me up on my offer.” He tilted her head, looking for any likeness to her mother, finding it in the shape of her cheekbone and the length of her lashes. “But I can’t suffer you to live now. Someday your experience will give you the upper hand.” Gently, regretfully even, he turned her face to the table again.
So intent was he on his thoughts, he almost missed the sudden absence of sunlight spilling over the floor. The shadow was accompanied by the smallest sound of scraping stone from the broken balcony. But it was only when Talo-Toecan shifted that Bailic fully realized he wasn’t alone. He snatched the open book to him and scrambled back until he slammed into the wall. “It’s mine!” he shouted, unable to keep his voice from cracking in fear.
“Drop it, and you’re ash,” Talo-Toecan said tersely. All but ignoring him, The Master strode to the girl. A fleeting look of distress passed over him, appearing out of place on the stoic, sedate bearing Bailic’s old instructor always showed the world.
Bailic hesitated. This wasn’t what he had expected. To be dismissed as if he was no threat was infuriating but also disconcerting. His confusion was multiplied threefold as a smartly attired man in Keeper garb appeared in the doorway to his room. There was the scent of mirth wood, and Bailic ground his teeth. He was rapidly losing control of the situation.
“It’s time then?” the stranger said, giving Bailic a secret, sideways grin.
The Master looked up. “She was completely unprepared. I’ve served her badly.”
“Ah,” the man replied cheerfully. “It may yet work out.”
“Who,” Bailic snapped, “are you?”
Talo-Toecan stooped and picked up the girl, cradling her easily with her head slumped upon his chest. “We must get her from behind these walls,” he said, ignoring Bailic.
“Stop!” Bailic shouted. “You broke your word, Talo-Toecan. No one,” he threatened, “is going anywhere.”
The man whistled in surprise and spun round on his heel. There was something akin to astonishment in his eyes. Talo-Toecan looked up as if aware of Bailic for the first time. “The book is open,” he intoned. “The agreement is ended.”
Ended! Bailic thought wildly, struggling to push his fear aside. He had forgotten, but he still had the book. T
alo-Toecan would have killed him already if he felt confidentthere was nothing to lose by doing so. The game wasn’t over yet, and Bailic tightened his grip on the ancient tome, knowing it was the only thing that kept him breathing. “If you kill me, I take your precious book and the piper with me.”
“Don’t count yourself safe, Bailic,” Talo-Toecan said coldly. “I simply don’t have the time to rip your throat out at present. I’m here for the child. You have never been of any consequence.” Talo-Toecan dismissed him with a contemptuous look and stepped to the door.
It had to be a ruse! Bailic thought frantically. He was alive and untouched. The beast had to be bluffing. “Stop!” he demanded. “She’s mine.”
Talo-Toecan whipped about. Hatred glinted behind his eyes, and recognizing it, Bailic blanched, feeling a sweat come over him. “Lodesh,” the Master said, his eyes never shifting from Bailic’s. “Take Alissa out.”
The elegant figure received Alissa’s limp form with an almost imperceptible bow. There was a last grin at Bailic, and the man stepped over the doorframe. The whispered sound of his feet faded. Outside, the courting birds broke into glorious song. It went all but unnoticed as Talo-Toecan, now empty-handed, focused his entire being on Bailic.
“The ward on my sill,” Bailic stammered, “it’s broken?”
“Aye, not merely dismantled as when you found it.” The Master’s eyes flicked to the book in Bailic’s grip. “I’ll deal with you later. I’m busy now, but know Alissa is not yours.”
“She is!”
The Master’s eyes narrowed. “You misunderstand. I’m not bargaining with you. I’m telling you. She—isn’t— yours. Nor the piper,” he continued, “nor even her bird, whom I have secured lest she sully her nails trying to tear your eyes out. I’m through with you—student. Go scrape the front steps free of moss as penance for your transgressions.” Talo-Toecan turned his back upon him, gazing past the shattered balcony into the spring morning.