“Alyson! Allie…gods! Snap out of it! Snap out of it…I need you here!” His eyes met mine when I looked up and relief flooded my light once we’d locked gazes. I realized it was his. “Gaos…Bridge. Allie. You scared the living shit out of me…are you all right, sister?”
I barely heard him.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt violated like that. I could barely comprehend the emotions that came with it. I felt Dalejem’s hands on my arms again and looked up, seeing the pain and empathy in his eyes right before I looked away.
I let him help me up that time, though.
Still avoiding looking at him, I dragged myself slowly to my feet, slamming a shield over my light. I was shaking, though…shaken, I guess.
When I looked up, Dragon was staring between Dalejem and I.
I couldn’t see his mouth, but again, I would have sworn he was smiling.
…Ah, he is not only your soldier. You have a new pet, my beautiful sister? he sent.
I gritted my teeth, fighting the pain that still coursed through my light. I still gripped my stomach with my arm, I realized. I also held onto Dalejem. I didn’t let go.
Who are you? I demanded.
You know who I am.
You’re not Revik, I snarled.
Next to me, Dalejem jumped.
Dragon didn’t. The good humor in his light only increased.
…I have been expecting you, my most Exalted Bridge. His still-glowing eyes never left mine, nor did his face noticeably change. Even so, I felt his smile again. I’ve waited so very, very long, sister…so long…almost as long as Death…almost as long as him…
I tensed. Death was Revik.
So he was admitting he wasn’t Revik at least.
Suddenly, I wanted to see behind that mask, so badly I felt sick with longing for it. I needed to know it wouldn’t be Revik’s face I saw there. I needed to see the differences, even if they were only from his light and facial expression.
Dragon’s mental voice grew into a whisper.
You’re late, he told me, softer.
Revik told me that once, too.
Before I could recover enough to retort something back, his light cracked out.
He didn’t try to get inside me that time. He just threw me.
The blow lifted me off my feet, slamming me into the organic wall.
It knocked the air out of my lungs. I opened my mouth to gasp, pain exploding in my abdomen. Before I could take a breath I found myself crumpled at the base of that organic wall, my hands and arms splayed as I fought to drag myself back up. I moved purely in instinct at that point, fighting to get up, back to my feet before my vision cleared, using the wall. I didn’t take my eyes off Dragon, but unlike before, my confusion was gone.
My mind felt stripped. Strangely clear.
I also knew exactly what I had to do.
I had to take this fucker down.
Now.
His light ignited again before I’d completed the thought.
I slammed out with my own aleimi…using everything I had.
Unlike with Revik in Dubai, there was no hesitation.
And there sure as fuck was no holding back.
14
LIKE LIGHTNING IN HIGH CLOUDS
Next to me, Dalejem sucks in a breath.
That time, I feel it aimed at me…what he feels on my light.
I catch the sound in slow-motion, in that space of no-time as light pulls in around me. Light gathers inside me, in towards those higher structures of my aleimi. The folding sensation takes over my light. It yanks me up, up, up…I fly into a high, white space. It blanks my physical vision even as it envelopes me in the clearest Barrier space imaginable.
Clean. Limitless. At-one.
I can see.
I can see…everything.
For those brief flickers in no-time, I remember.
I remember who I am.
More importantly maybe, I remember who I am not.
I leave the elaborate light show. The endless doubts and fears and confusions. The layers upon layers of illusion and posturing, lying, tugging, coercing, scaring, draining, spinning, obfuscating, brainwashing, belittling. Just…bullshit. I leave all that bullshit behind.
Up here, there are no separations.
To manipulate, I can’t afford to separate from any of it, from any living being around me. And yeah…I know how that sounds. I especially know how it sounds down on Earth, outside of this space that I’m in…but that’s just more light show. More bullshit. More insidious worming into our brains, gaslighting us with increasingly cynical and disconnected realities.
Just another way to make us shut our mouths, pretend, lie, go along with the endlessly blind and bullying crowd.
Those voices whisper…
Sincerity is death.
Love…real love…is weakness.
The lie is so patently false as to be puzzling, but so many believe it.
So very, very many believe it.
I don’t care about any of that now.
The serenity that comes with that clarity is like a drug.
And yeah, unlike with Revik in Dubai…this time, I don’t have to hold back.
Dalejem sucked in a breath…
Everything happened too fast. Too goddamned fast.
He fought to recalibrate, realign where his mind was, flipping into combat mode perhaps faster than he ever had…but it still wasn’t fast enough. He could feel things happening above his head, like lightning in high clouds, but they were too far away for him to catch any of it.
That lightning struck…
And the Bridge got ripped from his fingers.
He turned as her back slammed inelegantly into the organic wall.
The wall shook with the impact, buckled, rippled out as it corrected, sending a shockwave through the material all the way down the opposite side of the heavy door. The Bridge was already climbing up, clawing her way back to her feet. Her jaw hardened, pushing out her cheek, her head went down, her eyes sliding into a predatory slant that didn’t look seer or human or like anything he’d seen before…
Then…i'thir li’dare…
Light just fucking tunneled down from the structures above her head.
He gasped again, fighting to breathe, watching her eyes ignite with a brighter light, until they appeared almost to shoot flames like solar flares.
He found himself staring up and then back at her face, the clenched jaw and arms and hands…watching as the massive, blue-white cloud slammed down into her. It happened faster than his mind could grasp…faster than she managed to yank herself upright after that crazy monster of a seer threw her into the wall.
It was like she twisted a valve above her head…a Barrier spigot that brought a gushing waterfall of light down on top of her.
Until now, it never once occurred to him that Alyson might have been holding back in Dubai. After Menlim triggered Revik, he’d seen only fear in her eyes. He’d felt the delay in her light, her pain when she realized Revik was gone…really gone…that whatever remained fully intended to kill her.
Dalejem had just assumed, knowing that, she wouldn’t have held back.
In that handful of seconds before he got knocked out, he’d also been certain that Revik would kill her.
Afterwards, he assumed the only reason Revik hadn’t killed her was that crazy fuck, Feigran. From what Dalejem had been told by Balidor, most of the other seers witnessing the fight had assumed the same thing.
Which yeah, didn’t surprise Dalejem at all.
Revik fought a damned war as a telekinetic. He’d been trained in the worst way imaginable…but he’d been trained well, and for decades. He was seasoned in the field, older, a more experienced infiltrator and better than just about anyone Dalejem had ever seen in physical and sight-skill combat. He would know how to leverage the telekinesis at all of those levels, in addition to new ones from having fought a war as a telekinetic in the past.
He simply knew
more…regardless of who Alyson was.
Looking at her now, Dalejem realized he didn’t know who she was at all.
A pain hit his light when he realized that Revik probably did.
Pale green fire danced from the rings of her irises as all of that ran through his mind. He sucked in a breath…then there was a whump sound, like the ignition of a flame-accelerant from a single match. The force behind it knocked him back, forcing him into the door. Every particle of light in the room rushed into her form.
He found himself reminded of a demo he’d seen once, of a high-grade sonic charge.
There was that same sense of silence…
Then light fucking exploded out of her.
It happened so hard and fast it whited out his vision.
He gasped for real that time, flattening himself against the wall. Pressure crushed his chest, again forcing air from his lungs. He could feel somewhere in the distance that he still held the rifle clutched in both hands, that his feet remained planted on the floor, that his light remained more or less intact, but he couldn’t move any of it.
Feigran crouched next to him now, hiding behind him. As Dalejem stood there, the smaller seer reached out, gripping his arm tightly with both hands.
Dalejem didn’t try to shove him off.
Instead he fought to see past that onslaught of light.
It had already crossed the room.
Again, his mind and eyes couldn’t keep up.
He didn’t see the impact. He heard a clattering sound like instruments falling to the ground, maybe a kick, air cracking like thunder as it got displaced too fast…
Then, after the barest pause, a heavy thud. Again, impact ripples coursed along the wall, this time from the opposite side of the room.
When he could see again, Dalejem found himself staring up.
That massive fucking seer, the one with Revik’s eyes and basic build and cock, who’d carved a sister’s heart out of her chest on the organic slab like some kind of psychotic butcher, had been thrown all the way across the room.
Not just thrown…suspended.
Alyson held him off the floor even now, slamming him up against the upper part of that green organic wall. His head cracked into the metal again as Dalejem watched, just inches from the high ceiling. The naked seer struggled, still gripping that glass-bladed knife. His expression contorted, but no sound emanated from behind the muzzle he wore. When his light grew brighter in the Barrier space, Alyson slammed his back against the wall again, harder that time.
Those lit eyes rolled up in his head…and extinguished.
When he looked down, the monster’s eyes had gone clear once more.
Dalejem honestly wasn’t sure which thing was more unnerving.
Even so, his infiltrator cloak clicked back in, as if out of nowhere.
He quickly scanned the room. The dead female seer now lay on the floor, crumpled like a broken doll. More dead bodies lined those transparent cages below the platform. One cage had cracked down the front from something being thrown into it with force, probably some kind of shrapnel from what Alyson had just done.
It would’ve had to be a lot of fucking force, given how thick those walls looked.
The clear irises of the muzzled seer still held the light green glowing ones of the Bridge.
She seemed to have overpowered him now, temporarily at least. He felt her wrapping strange ropes or cords around his light, strangling parts of him, even as another part of her methodically broke structures along the lower part of his light. Dalejem winced at some of those, even though he approved wholeheartedly with what she was doing.
Turning, he stared at the door they’d come in through.
After a few seconds, he realized it was locked again.
Or maybe it just didn’t have an “open” option from this side. He’d have to crack the panel to trigger the mechanism manually. Feeling over the wall, he looked for something that might be concealing controls but he couldn’t find anything.
When he felt further down the wall, the sentient in the organic shocked him.
He stepped back, panting.
“Fuck,” he muttered. He glanced back at Allie.
He might need her to get the door open, too.
In that higher place, he still felt their lights clashing back and forth, but quieter now. Her irises remained bright, looking more and more like living fire as the tendrils snaked back and forth inside the tiny lines that made up their coloring.
To Dalejem, it felt almost like a chasm had opened between the two of them, some space where the Barrier and the material world coexisted together…visible in both places.
Dalejem saw Allie frown then.
It hit him suddenly that the two of them were speaking to one another.
Arguing probably…if Alyson’s expression was any indication.
Hesitating only a heartbeat, Dalejem opened his light, realizing only then that he’d slammed it shut while the two of them hammered on one another.
…you are lying, she sent. Her inner voice was harsh, bordering on savage. You are grasping at straws, my brother…and it is cold to do so in such a way. Not worthy of an intermediary. She paused, then her thoughts grew even more threatening. And it isn’t particularly wise right now either, my brother…considering I could crack your spine in half and never again give you a second’s thought…
Dalejem flinched. He also heard laughter.
Faraway…like a whisper on wind.
It still sounded way too much like Revik’s.
It also occurred to him what the faintness of that sound meant. The muzzle the other telekinetic wore had to be a Barrier collar of some kind, in addition to silencing him verbally. Whatever it was, and despite the fact that the other intermediary could clearly operate his telekinesis with it on, it somehow restrained his light.
Allie obviously could hear him, but Dalejem could barely make out the flavor of his thoughts. It sounded like the laughter came through several feet of ocean water.
Even as he thought it, Feigran gripped his arm tighter…
And suddenly Dalejem could hear.
You still don’t understand, Dragon thought at her.
The words came through loud that time, as if Feigran’s touch had cranked up the volume on some invisible radio. It now sounded as if the being stood right in front of him, an eerie echo of Revik’s mental voice.
The recognition was so clear that time it caused Dalejem to flinch.
…I thought you would know of me by now…that you would know who I was. Who we are to one another. I am so very, very disappointed, sister. I am also hurt. Truly hurt––
I know who you are, she sent, dismissive. You’re Dragon. So what?
But Dalejem felt the Earth tilt under his feet.
His heart clenched in his chest, even as the meaning of her words sank in.
Dragon. The Myths. Gaos, the myth of Dragon.
Dalejem suddenly found himself understanding the meaning of the muzzle over his mouth.
This was the being Feigran told her about?
Alyson had brought him with her to face fucking Dragon? Alone?
Holy gods in the most vengeful of heavens…
“Allie!” He shouted her name, although he stood only a few feet away.
She didn’t turn, but stared up at the intermediary hung on the wall.
He fought with whether to grab her, then didn’t.
“Allie!” he snapped. “Listen to me! If he’s not lying…if he really is Dragon, then he could be absorbing your abilities right now…while he speaks to you. According to the myths he can draw on them…he might even be able to steal them altogether…”
He shook his head, fighting to remember the details of what he’d learned all those years ago in the Pamir.
“Dragon is said to be a shape-shifter,” he said. “…not just a light manipulator but a matter manipulator. He can borrow your abilities, Allie…possibly even take them from you, like I said. I don’t know what he c
an do…in all honesty I didn’t think he fucking incarnated down here, Alyson. According to the Myth, he can use whatever he touches. He can take them and use them as his own…do you understand?”
He fought for the words from the relevant commentaries.
“Allie, it says…he is the dark, the ocean…the night,” Dalejem recited. “That chaos springing from the profusion of all. He is the matter re-arranger…do you understand? He can take any matter…any matter, Allie…and make it his own.”
He paused, staring at her face.
When she didn’t look over, his temper snapped.
“Goddamn it, Allie! Are you listening to me? We’re going to fucking die if we stay here…and we can’t let him out! We’ll lock him in here and gas him or something…”
Laughter echoed in the Barrier behind his light.
You are too late, brother, Dragon whispered. Too, too late…
Dalejem stared up at the being suspended there, at the muzzle on his mouth.
Could it really be Dragon? Or was this just another trick? Another headfuck from Menlim and the rest of those Dreng assholes? He clenched his hands together around the gun and realized he’d broken out in a cold sweat.
“I didn’t even know he could incarnate down here,” he muttered again. “I thought he was one of those things that was more like an impulse…an energy. Not a real thing. Like an actual myth, Allie. It is said he created the universe itself, out of the dark. Out of nothing…”
The being up there was staring at Dalejem now.
His clear irises glowed softly once more, like smoky glass lamps.
“He uses his voice…” Dalejem looked back at Alyson. “He can speak matter into existence, Allie…that might be why they have him muzzled. We have to go, do you hear me? We can’t risk it. If Feigran’s right about this…”
He trailed, unsure how to even finish that sentence.
He tried to decide again if he should just grab her, drag her backwards towards the door. Remembering the warnings he’d gotten about telekinetic seers, the semi-trances they went into when they manipulated, he hesitated, one hand outstretched.
Pulling his arm back after another beat, he swallowed.
“Allie,” he said, forcing his voice softer. “Allie…if it’s him, if it’s really Dragon, you have to try to kill him. Now, before he regains his power for real. I don’t know what he can do if he can speak…but trust me, you don’t want to find out. Not if he’s been corrupted by the Dreng…or worse, driven insane from being locked down here for however-many years…”
Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine Page 29