by Jak Koke
As Ryan set foot in front of her, that manner all but melted. She stood slightly taller, but her frame was insubstantial compared to his. She looked down at him with wet eyes. Then she smiled. Broad and genuine. He could see the desire in her expression, smell it on her. And he wasn't surprised when he felt a reciprocal desire for her. She was extremely attractive.
"You've changed," she said.
Ryan nodded. "Yes. I can't remember much about who I was."
"I'm so sorry, Ryan." And as she reached to put her arms around him, pulling him into a tight embrace he realized he'd been longing for, he felt a spark of familiarity. The details of the moment coalesced into a whole, the many tiny
individualities coming together to remind him of a time before.
They had known each other; they had embraced like this before. But it had been a parting embrace, and they had both been coldly resolved to accept it. The smell of her, so close to him now, brought the emotions cascading back, confusing and disconnected from memory.
An image came into his mind of the sun, peeking over the flat, cobalt blue surface of the ocean. The memory. The sky was a watercolor of yellow and pink from the dawn. The air was warm, the tiny cove empty as Ryan stood and stared out across the ocean.
She had come up behind him, putting her arms under his, wrapping them around his chest. Nuzzling him with her nose against the side of his neck. A shiver passed through him, an electric shock from her touch. But already he was clamping down on his emotions. Already he was forming the inner fortress that was necessary for his continued survival, his continued devotion to Dunkelzahn.
/ must be an island, he told himself.
He didn't look at her. "Black Angel called," he said. "I've got a mission." Her hands went slack. "I'm sorry," he sad. "I don't…"
Her voice was flat, almost a monotone whisper. "I thought we had two weeks," she said. "Yes, but-"
Her voice rising as she spoke. "They promised us two fragging weeks!" She let go, and he turned finally.
Her arms were crossed in front of her chest, over the loose cotton robe that was blowing in the morning breeze. Her hair, recently disheveled from sleep, flying about her. The heat of her anger flushing her white skin.
She is the most beautiful thing in the world, he thought. But I cannot let myself love her.
I will not!
She saw what he was thinking. They had talked about this; they had been worried that this might happen. He wanted to go to her now and hold her, more than anything he had ever wanted to do for himself. But he didn't work for himself. He
worked for Dunkelzahn, and love did not fit in with that work. It got in the way.
On an assignment, he couldn't be responsible for anyone besides himself. He didn't want anyone to care about him; he just wanted to complete his mission. That was all that mattered. That was everything.
"When do you leave?" she asked.
"Ten o'clock."
"Then you'd better get packed," she said. "Join me in the cafe if you have time for breakfast." Then she turned and walked away in silence.
Now on the airstrip, Ryan held her tightly. He didn't want to release her; he clutched her close, his only tie to a past that seemed to be his own. He put his head in the hollow of her neck, and was surprised to find himself shaking from the power of holding her.
Too soon, she released him. "We must hurry," she said. She took his arm and escorted him across the tarmac to a low concrete building. "We've got to get you into the lair's protective circle. I suspect they'll try to find you by ritual magic. The lair should hide you from them."
Ryan nodded, and allowed himself to be led. The circle of guards closed ranks around them as they approached, then entered the steel doors of the building, moving through blue-tiled hallways and taking an elevator down into the mountain. Nadja submitted to a retinal scan in order to allow the elevator access to the lowest level.
And when the elevator came to a stop, deep inside the mountain, when the double doors opened, a tall elven woman waited in the center of a hewn stone corridor. Her skin was dark brown in stark contrast to her white hair, which she had pulled back into a tight ponytail so that it followed the sharp line of her skull. She smiled broadly when she saw Ryan, obvious relief on her face.
"Quicksilver," she said. "Good to see you back in one piece."
Ryan couldn't help but smile. "It's good to be back," he said. "I think."
She puzzled over that for a second. Then she went on, "Dunkelzahn left some instructions for you," she said. "I've put them inside the chamber. Let me know if I can help."
Nadja pulled on Ryan's arm. "We've got to go," she said. "Their mages could get to you even here."
He followed Nadja down the corridor and into a huge vaulted chamber. A silver statue of a dragon stood at the very center. "We're going to seal you in here," she said. "The walls are layered with a fine weave of enchanted orichalcum and a layer of elemental earth. Plus who knows what protections Dunkelzahn had."
"Where is Dunkelzahn?"
Nadja stopped abruptly and faced him. "You don't know?" "Know what?"
She paused; whatever she was about to say was serious. "Dunkelzahn is dead."
"What?" Ryan was surprised. How could a great dragon be dead?
"He was killed."
Ryan knew the news should have done more than surprise him; it should have shocked him. It should have reached into the very core of his spirit and shattered it. Should have devastated him. He knew this by Nadja's delivery, by the myriad clues he'd picked up about his relationship to this creature- Dunkelzahn. He and the dragon had some sort of special connection, a bond that went beyond normal social interaction. He had loved Dunkelzahn.
But now, he felt nothing at the news of the dragon's demise. He did not feel remorse or anguish. He did not feel relief or joy or sadness.
He did not feel at all.
"An explosion in Washington…" Nadja trailed off. "Four days ago, just after the inauguration. I can give you the details later. Plus, I'd like to discuss the phone conversation you had with him just before he left the party."
"I don't remember it," Ryan said.
"There might be some things we can do to help you with that," she said. "But now I think we should seal up the chamber. You'll be safe in here."
"When will I be able to come out?"
"When our mages have detected a ritual sending. I have to return to Washington tomorrow for the reading of Dunkelzahn's Will. If your mission parameters allow it, maybe you'd like to come with me for a few days?"
"I think I'd like that," he said, and he wasn't at all surprised to find that he spoke the words in all sincerity.
She smiled. "Goodbye for now, then." She leaned to hug him, but he pulled her into a more intimate embrace, moving his face close to hers. She turned to look into his eyes, her lips brushing across his cheek. He kissed her, pressing his lips against hers. She fell into it willingly, parting her mouth slightly. Relishing the momentary intimacy.
The moment passed too quickly, and Nadja pulled away, trying to maintain her air of dignity and control with the guards looking on. Ryan got the feeling that this public display was uncharacteristic of his past self. Then she was gone, and the thick stone door swung closed, filling the large opening with a grinding crash. He was sealed inside.
Ryan concentrated to focus himself. He felt he was on the verge of remembering who he was, on the edge of beginning the long slide into himself. Maybe Dunkelzahn's last message to him would provide the final push. The dragon had obviously been important to him.
Ryan walked to the center of the chamber and stood next to the dragon sculpture. It was bright silver and looked almost liquid in the chamber's light. Nearly Ryan's size, it stood on its hind legs, head extended toward the ceiling, mouth open as if to breathe fire, tail arcing left behind it. At first Ryan thought it was a statue of Dunkelzahn, but up close, he realized that it couldn't be. Unlike Dunkelzahn, the dragon in the sculpture had no forelegs, only win
gs.
Ryan instinctively reached up to touch the statue. The metal felt surprisingly warm, and as his hand brushed the surface, a form flickered into existence, a spirit trapped inside the sculpture. The shining platinum surface rippled from the spirit's motions, almost seeming to move the statue.
"Ryanthusar," came the spirit's deep voice. It was a tone and tenor that Ryan found disturbing. Like a ghost's voice. "Listen carefully, my servant. This next mission is the most important I have ever entrusted to you…"
19
Lucero stood on the open air balcony, high up the side of the San Marcos teocalli. The stone under her feet radiated warmth from the day's heat. The night air hung still and hot even this late. Atop the hill directly across from her, Lucero caught the silhouette of the old amusement park tower, stabbing up into the sky like a stiletto dipped in black blood. Directly below it was the spring-fed lake; it glowed a blue-green from the submerged floodlights. In the center of the lights was a cut stone of obsidian black, and around that were crews in scuba gear with excavating machinery.
Lucero felt the power of the magic coming from the lake. It beat around her like a living drum. Whatever Senor Oscuro was doing there must be creating some powerful juju. Lucero hadn't lost all of her magic, but enough of it was gone that she rarely assensed things without great difficulty.
The spring site emanated power, it touched her and beckoned to her. It brought her hope that she might wield the mana again. That she might be as she once was, a manipulator of life energy. A mage.
If only I had another chance, she thought. / would not accept the taint. The addiction to blood magic. The desperate need that stains my soul.
Two temple servants came to her side, and bade her follow them. Her presence was required for another exposure. She followed them into the sanctuary, paying her silent respects to Quetzalcoatl as she passed the sculpture of him. A small group of young adepts and trainees stood in sacrificial robes, entranced by Oscuro, who waited for Lucero at the altar. They did not know that they were to be sacrificed. Or perhaps they did know and were eager to give up their life energy for the god they loved so dearly.
A thin, tight smile graced Senor Oscuro's face, barely discernible beneath his black mustache and beard. He was hopeful; his eyes showed intense eagerness to proceed with the ritual. He held out a strong white hand for her, and as she approached, she focused on that hand, on the individual black hairs that protruded from the back of his fingers. Like tiny snakes; she imagined them writhing over his skin, all of his hair transformed into living flagella.
The image passed, and Lucero climbed up onto the altar, the chill of the stone passing through the thin cotton cloth beneath her. She lay completely still as Senor Oscuro opened her robe, spreading the sides of it so that the front of her body was naked. She did not look down at her own flesh, the hideousness of the scarred skin. She focused her gaze on Quetzalcoatl, on the god's brightly colored feathers shimmering in the yellow light. He seemed almost indifferent to her inside the statue.
Oscuro started his spell, summoning the first adept. Holding the girl's head at the proper angle to give the knife easy access to her throat. Lucero saw the cut, the ceremonial obsidian blade opening the girl's neck, the welling of her blood. It pooled on Lucero's stomach, filling the room with the iron tang, before Oscuro dropped the dead girl and spread her blood over Lucero. Over the scarred flesh of her breasts, stomach, and thighs.
The liquid was warm and sticky for a second. Then Lucero lost consciousness and was flying through the astral. Crossing over the threshold to the metaplanes, past the guardian blood spirit. On her way to the place of light and song.
She came to a stop in the place. She knew that she stood on the hard stone of an unfinished bridge, but she could not see her feet. The light was so bright and white that she could see nothing else. And the music, the song of the woman whose name she did not know, was beautiful, clear, and crystalline in its pitch, exact in timbre. Lucero loved that voice.
The dark stain of her blood tie was the only blackness there. And as Lucero stood, basking in the ocean of light and sound, the stain began to spread again. Like last time, it
welled forth from Lucero's heart, a black ooze that darkened the space immediately around her. It grew until a ragged shell had formed, a tattered swatch of bloody cloth on white linen.
Suddenly, Lucero felt a surge of power so immeasurable that she could not fathom it. Oscuro had formed the connection to the submerged obsidian stone. The Locus, they called it. The extra power was helping her darkness grow, making her thirst for the blood magic again. Lucero did not care, as long as she could stay and listen to the voice. But the voice was growing more and more distant as the power grew, the connection to the Locus.
As the darkness around her gained strength, Lucero became aware of the precipice, of the huge crevasse between the narrow outcropping where she stood and the other side, a wall of stone in the distance. And she felt the presence of creatures, of nightmare entities with frightening power, held barely in check by the strength of the song. They wanted to come across, she knew. They wanted it more than anything, and they would stop at nothing to accomplish that. Her presence made them happy.
Then, as suddenly as the first time, the dark stain was washed away in a flood of light. Her power could not hold out against the sheer impenetrable beauty of that voice, of the song that resonated deep inside Lucero. Touching a chord, a harmonic thrum through the core of her spirit.
Throwing her back into the physical world.
Lucero woke on the altar, her naked body slick with blood from the sacrificed adolescents, the adepts and trainees who had given their life energy so that she could stay in the place longer.
Oscuro's face hung above her, hair and beard as black as soot, eyes like chips of coal in his head. But he smiled down at her, flashing white teeth. "Well done again," he said. "The Locus helped, but it is still too weak. Next time we will assemble the Gestalt."
Lucero nodded her understanding, and sat up. Oscuro wrapped a clean white sheet around her. She had never felt better. Energy pulsed through her body, making her ecstatic. Like fire in her veins.
Power. Close to what she had felt when she'd been part
of the Gestalt. It was enough to make her forget that she hated her addiction. That she abhorred the stain on her soul. She climbed down from the altar, and made her way out of the sanctuary and to her chamber so that she could wash herself. The rush inside her would fade, she knew, and so she enjoyed the sweet ecstasy of it, the pure pleasure of invincibility.
But through the burning ambrosia of her high, she felt a twinge of yearning. A desire that was growing stronger and stronger. It was the desire to return to the place of light and song. To simply listen to the beautiful music. She would do anything to stay there forever.
Anything.
20
Roxborough slept, dreams of walking through the clinic's hallways fluttering in his mind. He was physical in the dream. Inside a real body, alive in the world of atoms and molecules. Of flesh and steel.
Sometimes, when he dreamed, his mind moved through the clinic's computer system, like sleepwalking. Murmurs and fragments of sentences would come from the speakers throughout the clinic. His face would fade into the trideo and telecom screens like an electronic ghost, spooking the patients and workers alike. Some said the clinic was haunted. On rare occasions, even his simulacrum would come to life in the boardroom when he slept.
Roxborough didn't care really. The more his workers feared him, the better. And his Matrix technicians said that nothing could be done, short of disconnecting him from the virtual reality when he slept. And for Roxborough, that was not acceptable. He had a phobia of being permanently cut off. The fear that came in the moment of absolute absence of sensory input before the computer recognized he was awake.
The black void of silence, of nothingness, was like a womb of suffocation. And that moment stretched on. And on until Roxborough panicked, thinking
he was permanently disconnected from the world. Thinking he would have to spend all of eternity in that void, unable even to kill himself. Going slowly, inexorably, insane.
So he left himself connected to the host while he slept.
Now, something woke him. A gentle beeping that indicated a telecom call. Roxborough saw that it was Meyer. His elven face showed fatigue and satisfaction. He'd been hard at work on the ritual magic for six hours.
"Yes," Roxborough said.
Meyer took a breath. "We're finished," he said, "We didn't find him. Mercury is either dead or so well protected that it's beyond our power to locate him."
Roxborough nodded. "Well done," he said.
Meyer smiled. "Thank you."
"What are the chances that he's alive, but protected?"
"Slim to none. The only places we can't see are inside very powerful magical wards, well beyond the capability of the runners who took him. Unless he's in space; we can't detect anyone outside the manasphere."
"Thank you, Meyer," Roxborough said. "Get some rest. You deserve it."
Meyer nodded and disconnected.
Roxborough was pleased. Meyer was the most powerful mage he had known, a man who took pride in his work. If Ryan was alive, Meyer would have located him. The likelihood that Mercury had found his way into space or inside a ward was extremely improbable. Statistically insignificant, in Roxborough's opinion, and could be ruled out. Roxborough had made a fortune by using statistics and odds. Numbers never lied in the long run.
It was with those satisfying thoughts settling in his head that Roxborough prepared to fall asleep again. But just before he entered the dream state, his Matrix interface indicated another incoming telecom call. This time it was Darke. Not someone he could ignore.
"Darke, my friend," Roxborough said. "What can I do for you?"
"Cut the drek, Roxborough. Where's Mercury?" "Dead."
Darke narrowed his eyes. "Are you certain? My sources tell me he escaped."