The seer stared down at the bundle in his arms, smiling as he snuggled it to his chest.
“Hello, darling,” he murmured to her quietly, blowing warm puffs of light.
Then, seeing me, he smiled at me, and my sickness worsened.
“I love you,” the seer told me, his voice a caress. “I really love you, Revi’... both of you. So much. Help me, brother. Help me set them free...”
I felt myself choking.
I wanted to kill him.
I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands, to beat him until he couldn’t walk.
More than that, I wanted to kill the child.
I’d never wanted to kill another being so badly.
... but I couldn’t fucking move.
I JERKED AWAKE.
I lay on a bunk, tangled in sheets. Sweating. Nearly panting.
Still in the damned Caucasus.
Snowed in, just like I’d thought we would be.
My stomach hurt from cheap vodka and that fucking meat stew. Probably rabbit. Maybe horse... or dog. I hadn’t wanted to know then, and I still didn’t want to know. Like they did in a lot of parts of Asia, they called it “beef,” but I knew better. Whatever it had been, it turned on me now, sliding through the separation pain until I wanted to scream, pounding the walls.
I wanted to yell up into the dark of my room, but I had no words.
I had nothing to say, not even to the gods.
Eventually, that feeling passed, too.
For a long time, I only lay there, feeling my heart pound against my ribs, feeling the pain coil and reconfigure through my light.
When I got my breathing under control again, my jaw hardened. Enough to hurt.
I touched my headset, pinging Cat.
It was late. I could feel how late it was with my light, but the tone only pulsed twice before she picked up.
I didn’t bother with a greeting.
“Do you want to fuck?” I asked her.
There was a silence.
“Where are you?” she said then.
“Room six,” I told her.
She didn’t bother to answer.
The line went dead, and I just lay there, fighting the thoughts sifting through my head, fighting to control my light before she reached my door.
THE PAIN WOULDN’T go away.
I felt my whole body fighting it... fighting the pain, or maybe fighting its source. Fighting her. My light fought her light, too, both trying to get deeper within it, and recoiling from it, too, sometimes at the same time.
I felt desire and revulsion, too... sometimes at the same time.
I had to fight not to hurt her.
Luckily, she didn’t seem to mind.
If anything, the feeling I got from her was impatience, a wanting...
“...Just fucking do it, then,” she snapped. “Stop thinking about it. Gods. I’m not human, brother... are you so softened from you attentions to worms?”
My jaw hardened further. I didn’t know if she could see that in the dark, either. Then again, she was seer. She had combat training. She could likely see as well in the dark as I could. Better, perhaps, since she was female.
In any case, I had to fight not to punch her after she said it.
The thought must have been loud, though, because after it passed through my light, she punched me.
Hard.
In the face.
Something in that released that pressure that banded my chest.
I let out a gasp, what might have been a sob.
Catching hold of her wrists even as she swung at me again, I let out a cry, pulling out of her only to force her over to her stomach. I entered her again, fully extended that time, but I didn’t give a damn about that, either.
My pain worsened as I started thrusting into her, hard that time, pinning her wrists to my narrow, mold-smelling bunk mattress, feeling my chest loosen when she started groaning under me, that time from deep inside her chest. I gripped her hair angrily in one hand when I felt her wanting more, clenching my fingers until she gasped, and then I held her throat from behind, too.
I fought not to squeeze those fingers harder.
I didn’t want to kill her.
I told myself that, believed it, even. My anger worsened along with my pain as I arched into her, though, making it difficult to see straight. Worse still, she egged me on with her light, half-taunting me in the space.
You’re holding back, brother... she sent softly, her words a faint rebuke. What are you afraid of? You think I might fight back... is that it?
Letting out another gasp, I released her throat long enough to slap her, hard on the ass.
When she only laughed, I did it again, using my full palm... and kept on doing it until she was moaning instead of laughing, her light growing soft under mine when I didn’t let up. I could feel the repetition causing her more pain... but I could tell she wanted more, and wished I had more to give, that I’d thought to bring something more with me.
I wished it loudly, still angry... still nearly furious with her... and she laughed again.
When I yanked harder on her hair, slamming into her deeper, she grew quiet again, even as her light opened, growing softer under mine.
Within minutes she was moaning, pulling on me, begging me...
She came and the pain in my light worsened.
I fucked her again, harder... until she came again, and then something in me finally let go, at least long enough for me to release.
I still hung over her, panting, my body spasming, when she let out another low laugh.
Fighting an urge to yell at her, I pulled out of her instead, mostly because I could feel she didn’t want me to. I was still kneeling there, gasping, when she flipped over on her back, watching me with narrow, cat-like eyes.
“You are mourning someone, brother?” she asked me softly.
I looked up at her, feeling that pain in my light worsen.
“Fuck you.”
“You are mourning someone.” It wasn’t a question that time. Her eyes and light sparked with curiosity instead, her mouth pursed from where she leaned the weight of her upper body on her elbows. “Who, brother? Who did you lose?”
I heard the compassion in her voice that time, but it only made me pull my light away. When I did, a stab of separation pain nearly blinded me, causing her to flinch.
I could feel my pain turning her on, too.
“What does it matter?” I said.
Even I could hear the emotion in my voice that time. It made me wince.
She sat up though, wrapping her arms around my neck, kissing my throat, my chest, my shoulders, massaging my back... feeding me light. I felt some part of myself wanting that, too, wanting all of it, and I had to fight the emotions that tried to take over my light, that wanted to overwhelm me again.
What the hell was the matter with me? What had happened to me?
“It’s all right, brother,” she soothed. “It’s all right...”
Those words ended up being the last thing I remembered clearly...
... At least from that night.
TIME JUMPED.
Staggered.
Left me.
I opened my eyes to blinding, bright lights. Green and blue. Tinged with yellow.
Another dream. This had to be––
“It’s not a dream, brother Quay,” a voice said.
My head jerked sideways.
I tried to move my body, too, but resistance wrenched my neck with I tried, and my arms and legs. I immediately struggled harder, writhing instinctively, fighting to move. I could feel it now, though... bands on my wrists, ankles, thighs, biceps, waist, throat...
“Gods!” I cried out. I stared up at the female seer who had spoken, but I didn’t know her. I’d never seen her face. She was old, her features strangely reptilian despite the wire-frame glasses she wore... glasses so old-fashioned-looking and human in design that I doubted what I was looking at initially. “Let me go!” I cried out.
>
I yanked on an arm, but it barely moved. Organic restraints, coupled with dead-metal.
She was a seer. I looked up at her, and I could feel it.
I tried to use my light, to take over hers...
... But her light was like smoke. It slid over and into mine, pulling apart the strands of my aleimi like a strong wind shredding smoke in the sky. I’d never felt anyone who did such things to my light. It made me gasp in shock..it nearly awed me...
... It terrified me.
“Let me go!” I begged. “Sister, whatever wrong I’ve done you...”
“You’ve done no wrong, brother.” She smiled at me, but something in the smile only made that cold pit in my belly deepen, grow into a yawning maw.
“...Do not blame the female, either,” the old woman said easily. “She understands the higher good. She works to serve, just as you do, brother Quay. And we contacted her right before you did, so she really had no choice but to follow our wishes.” Those thin, lizard-like lips lifted in a smile. “We tried to give you some enjoyment on your last night, brother...”
I fought to breathe, to even think.
His last night.
“But why am I––”
“Shhh,” the old seer soothed. “Relax brother... it is all over now.”
I felt a prick on my arm, felt a sudden, certain understanding that it really was over. In the same set of seconds, I realized that, from her perspective, I shouldn’t have woken at all, that my awakening had been unscheduled.
They were keeping me alive. Keeping me alive... gods...
“Not for much longer, brother,” she said, her words meant to soothe, rather than threaten. Hesitating on those words, she seemed to rethink them then. Tilting her head, the old woman gestured vaguely with one hand, smiling that odd smile, part grandmother and part alligator.
“...Well, not in the sense that you mean,” she amended. “Your soul will go back to the Barrier, my beautiful brother Quay... freeing it up for yet another incarnation where you might serve those who serve you best. But we have need of your physical vessel, I’m afraid. As well as most of your aleimi...”
She squinted down at some readings on a machine that I could not see, although I could feel pieces of it with my light.
“...It is very beautiful aleimi, brother. I must compliment you. Our servant will make good use of it, I assure you...”
Muttering under her breath, she added,
“...Assuming he doesn’t kill this one off as fast as he did the last one.”
But I couldn’t tell if I’d even been meant to hear that part.
My mind was graying already, going back into that endless void.
I fought it. I fought as hard as I could, screaming out... although I couldn’t tell if my screams happened in the darkness of my mind, in the Barrier, or in my last gasping breaths. I saw images flicker behind my lids when they grew too heavy for me to keep open.
A silver pyramid, rotating in the dark...
Pulsing, green-glowing eyes...
A crying baby...
The fox-faced Terian, clutching a bundle protectively in his arms...
I love you, Revi’... the voice whispered. I love you...
And then, silence.
Silence.
...Right before there was nothing at all.
Beginnings
DARKNESS AND LIGHT
HE SAT ON the edge of the cot, yawning.
He couldn’t remember being so tired...
... But then again, that wasn’t true, either.
He was always tired when he rebirthed back into the world.
He looked around the stark room of the lab, smiling a little at the utter familiarity of it to his mind and memories, now that they had once more coalesced into a reasonable facsimile of a complete being... and despite the somewhat ghoulish décor.
Embryos floated in glass tanks in a row on one stainless-steel table. He recognized some of them; he had been involved in studies of genetics for as long as he could remember in this life.
But then, he’d made certain that he didn’t remember absolutely everything.
Too much of what happened in those years before he’d found the Org... or, more accurately, before Galaith found him... had been too unpleasant for him to want to spend much time dwelling on any of it. Memory constituted one of the most profound advantages and disadvantages of being a seer, he had found. He could remember absolutely fucking everything, which could be incredibly useful in so many endeavors, as well as the ability to map causalities, create matrices of associations and relation... to understand wider trends in history, psychology, even in terms of pulling together dimensional and semi-dimensional models, another hobby of his, although one he’d indulged in considerably less, with Dehgoies gone.
Dehgoies.
The pulse lingered there, twisting inside his light...
... But where was he? Ah, memory. He could remember everything, which was fantastic.
On the other hand, he smiled ruefully, clicking to himself...
... He could remember fucking everything.
Everything he didn’t consciously erase, that is... an ability that almost made up for the fact that he had to remember so much in the first place.
Some memories, though.
Some memories he kept... even the painful ones.
He kept them, so that he would never forget.
He kept them, because they still lived in him somewhere.
Galaith had tried again this time to get him to erase some of those memories... particularly around Dehgoies. Galaith worried he’d snapped of course. That he’d lost perspective. That he could no longer respond rationally to inducements, negative or positive.
He knew that wasn’t true though...
He felt her light in the barest instant before she spoke to him, which made him smile, too.
“Ahh,” the old seer said, smiling at him in a motherly way. She entered the lab from the corridor to the right side of the wide room, at least from where he sat. “Awake, are we?” she said. Grunting, she added, placing her gnarled hands on either side of the padded bench where he sat. “And are we contemplating clothes then, my shiny new friend?”
He looked down at himself, realizing only then that he was naked.
Laughing a little, he met her gaze, grinning at her.
“Does my nakedness offend, dear lady?” he asked her with a wink.
“Not at all, Terry,” she smiled.
“You’re sure? Don’t let me corrupt your blushing innocence, Xarethe, my dear...”
Leaning back, she smacked him smartly on the thigh. “...Considering I made the damned thing for you, Terry, I don’t know why you think I’d be offended,” she grunted.
“Not entirely true,” he murmured. “Mustn’t get too cocky about your skills, my dear.”
She clicked at him softly, melodiously, but she’d gone back to leaning over the computer, checking over his vitals, since he was still hooked up to most of the electrodes she’d attached to his body while he slept, completing the transfer.
“You are feeling okay, my friend?” she asked him, without looking up from the screen. “No nausea? Not too much fatigue?”
The barest tinge of a German accent lived in her words.
He smiled at her fondly. “No, mother,” he teased. “All better.”
“That is good.” She gave him another sharp look. “Don’t break this one, Terry.”
“I won’t.”
“It’s got a good aleimic structure,” she added, as if not hearing him. “At least a nine in potential... I have his last rating at 7.86 in actual, but you can probably boost that, by using some of the structures he never learned how to access...”
Terian nodded, glancing once more down at his body. “This one’s tall,” he remarked.
She nodded. “Only about an inch and a half taller than the last one, but yes.”
Terian stretched out his arms, frowning at them.
“It looks familiar
,” he said. “Did I pick this one out?”
She snorted at him, rolling her eyes. “I can’t keep track of your infatuations, little brother. If you can’t recognize them afterwards, you have no one to blame but yourself...”
Terian nodded to that, too, but a frown continued to pull vaguely at his lips.
He hopped off the table then, still naked, and dragging the electrodes with him.
“Hey!” the old woman scolded. “Stop that!”
He ignored her, walking away from the bed so that he stood directly across from a long segment of organic, green-tiled wall, so he could see his reflection. Squinting at the face he could see there, and then the body, he tilted his head.
“It’s definitely familiar, Xarethe.”
From her position leaned over the machine, she only grunted.
He stepped closer to the mirror, still dragging electrodes.
“It looked a bit like Dehgoies,” she said then, her voice low as she motioned with her stylus vaguely towards his body. “...We changed the hair, though, to make it how you like it. Changed a bit of the facial structure, too... so no one recognizes it.” She glanced up then. “He was one of ours.”
Terian tugged at the longish auburn strands, nodding to her words without really hearing them. Something lingered in the back of his mind, some familiarity that her words didn’t entirely explain, but he found he couldn’t untangle it well enough to see it clearly.
It hovered there, like a taste at his lips, briefly maddening.
Then only annoying.
... And then, sort of irrelevant.
“I’m hungry,” he announced, turning to look at her.
Beaming a smile in her direction, he cocked an eyebrow, his amber-colored eyes glowing under the organic lights that shimmered in the lab’s ceiling.
“...What’s for dinner, gorgeous?” he said.
The old woman only grunted again, but Terian saw the smile creeping at the edges of her lips, almost as if she couldn’t help herself.
Chuckling a little at the humor he saw there, he stretched his arms out again, swinging them around a few times to limber them up, and also to get the hang of their muscle tone and length... right before he began plucking electrodes off his newly acquired skin.
Allie's War Early Years Page 46