“Lucy,” I said, wearily. “Please ’splain.”
“Glyphs are interactive locking devices.”
“Wha?”
“They’re interactive, meaning we have to do something to the glyph itself. And they’re locks.”
“Locks are good,” I said, thinking of the nursery rhyme. “We want locks.”
“Yep. Now we just have to figure out how to interact with it.”
“With magic?” I said, looking at it warily. All joking aside, I really did not want to end up a seal, or worse.
“Well, you’re actually half-right in this one. These will probably work with touch,” Blondie said.
“Like an ancient version of an iPad?” I asked.
“No, not like that at all. Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?”
“We gotta get in there and touch it,” she replied.
I gave her a Look, but moved up to face the glyph with her.
She gave me a look that read, “You touch it,” just as I gave her a similar one. We frowned at each other. Then we both reached forward at the same time. Before I could stop my hand from moving forward, my fingertips landed squarely on one of the tats on her forearm, one that appeared to be of a very ancient tribal nature…
Suddenly I was in a different cave, squatting next to a smoking fire. The cave smelled overpoweringly of human sweat and rotten meat, but the smell was familiar rather than off-putting. I was cutting up a kill with my sister—a young buck—and we were carefully hanging the meat to dry. With such successful hunts, our clan’s winter wouldn’t be so hard. She smiled at me, her mouth and chin smeared with blood from the delicate organs we’d snacked on as we worked, and I smiled back, content as I’d ever been…
“What the hell?” I shouted, as I found myself plummeted back into my body, Blondie looming above me. I’d somehow ended up flat on my back. “I was you!” I accused her. “In a cave! What the fuck just happened?” I demanded, sitting up as she sank down next to me.
“Didn’t I tell you about my tats?” she asked, running a hand up her arm and shivering, her eyes closing to slits for a second.
“Yeah, um, no,” I said, watching her touching her tattoos, feeling my face flush with heat.
“They’re not just ink,” she said. “They’re my memories.”
“What does that mean?”
“I imbued them with my memories. So that I wouldn’t forget things from my past, no matter how long I lived.”
I blinked at her. “Wow… why?”
She snorted a laugh, and then moved so we were sitting side-by-side, her muscular forearm close to mine. I resisted the urge to touch another tattoo.
“You’ve seen what happens to the really ancient. Eventually they stop living and just survive.”
“So, to combat that, you put all your best memories in your tats?”
“Not just my best. Some of my worst, too. And not just anything I enjoyed or hated. I tried to choose memories that made me who I am. The memories that really made me feel.”
I looked up into her clear blue eyes. “That’s amazing. Did it work?”
“You tell me. You’ve seen enough Alfar. Am I like them?”
I couldn’t help but smile, thinking of her energy—her life. “No. You’re not like them.”
“You can touch, if you want,” she said, her voice soft, inviting.
“But they’re your memories. Isn’t that… too much?”
“Not for you. I know you’re coming to our world late. I’ve seen what can happen to people like you who don’t know what they’re in for. I’ve no doubt you’ve noticed things that give you pause, because you’re someone who watches and thinks. But still. Near-immortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
I thought of the cold Alfar and their preternatural calm; the sadism of creatures like Graeme, bored over the millennia into monsters; hell, even the kindly selfishness of Ryu I saw as an extension of his long life. Although short by Alfar standards, he’d lived long enough to become set in his ways, while being entirely unaware that he’d become so.
So I reached my fingers toward Blondie, not knowing where to start. When I paused, she drew herself up to pull her shirt over her head. Then she guided my fingers to her naked abdomen, laying my hand over her muscular stomach. When my palm came into contact with the small skull and crossbones lurking right beside her navel, I was suddenly standing onboard a ship plunging through rough waters, foam and water all about me as a storm formed overhead.
I was shouting commands, my Spanish perfect, as my crew hustled around me, preparing for the storm… but not just for the storm. For we knew the English merchant ship was only a few miles off our starboard bow, and that she’d be floundering in such seas even worse than we…
“You were a pirate?” I gasped, coming to myself as Blondie withdrew my hand.
“Among many other trades,” she replied, smirking. I wanted to ask her more, but soon enough she’d moved my hand to where a woman’s head, her hair bobbed like a flapper, stared out from over Blondie’s left hipbone.
Her stomach pressed against mine as we kissed, our tongues entwined. Her breast moved beneath my questing fingers and she moaned sharply when they found her nipple roughly. My own body grew wetter at the sound of her pleasure. I loved her, even knowing she didn’t feel the same for me. I’d learned it didn’t matter. For, love or no love, they all died and left me alone…
Tears pricked my own eyes as I met Blondie’s blue ones, but she was already moving my hand to her left shoulder. My fingertips grazed over what looked suspiciously like a…
I stood, unable to contain my awe at the marvel before me. Shining wood and gleaming white porcelain combined in such a way that I would have thought it art had I not already had its function explained to me. Unable to believe it really did what my hosts said, I reached out a hand toward the wooden handle hanging from its chain and I pulled… and to my delight the water did, indeed, swirl away…
“You tattooed the invention of toilets?” I asked, only to see Blondie shrug.
“It changed everything. It really did. I’ve got the invention of toothpaste on my right calf,” she said, but instead she moved my hand to her right shoulder and a large, tattered flag.
Her first real battle; her first real war. No longer mere skirmishes between the upstarts calling themselves Alfar and her people. We weren’t different races, the idiots, and yet they were so intent on subjugating everything different from them to their will that they can’t see what’s obvious…
“The Alfar,” I said and gasped. “Not a different species?” And this time my hand moved on its own, seeking across Blondie’s flesh for answers.
I saw the end of the battle of the Black Flag. The Alfar had brought with them something old; something foul. They’d raised it from its sleep, and it had laid waste to everything in its path. It went after those Alfar that had awoken it, first, then had moved on to the rest of the Alfar on the field of battle. But we did not rejoice at the fall of our enemies, for we knew the creature wouldn’t stop there. We also knew if we attacked, we would suffer terrible losses.
And we knew that the Alfar generals—sitting miles away on a distant hilltop—had planned this all along.
My people charged, and when it was over, nearly everyone who’d fought that day was dead, our side, and their’s. But those who fought on my side didn’t keep ourselves back on mountains and let others do our fighting. Indeed, I was one of the only warriors of my kind to leave that place alive; but the Alfar had hundreds held back on that mountain. I knew, then, they would harry us to extinction…
My hand moved down Blondie’s arm, wanting more.
Images of women, children, things… a sea of emotion flooded over me… fighting, loving, quiet moments with friends, the deaths and births of so many loved ones…
Blondie moved my hands to her back, all new sensations and images pouring through me as she lifted my shirt, gently, letting my skin press against hers.
An assault of images, sensations, a jumble being processed slowly—too slowly—by this brain… so much experienced, so much learned… so many terrible fashions endured… Weeping, I called out for those who were gone as, laughing, I relived that first time we drank together, or joked together, only to have that person fade in time and space, my only constants were my loneliness, my mission, and my tattoos…
So hungry for her kisses, the pretty thing, so sad and so alone for so long… but now I’ve got you, don’t I, pretty… hands searching, hers finding, yes, sweet thing, yes, harder, yes, lips so small, yes, her taste, yesyesyesyes…
Only then did I realize that I had my hand on a tattoo of a splay-legged woman, her thighs spread across Blondie’s pubic bone. My mouth was on the Original’s, and I didn’t know whose pleasure I was experiencing—mine or hers, with the woman who inspired the tat. I’m also pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be making out with the woman underneath me.
Anyan’s a dog for one night and you’ve already got your hands down someone else’s pants, my virtue clucked.
My libido took a bow.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Overwhelmed by sensations, I pulled away from Blondie, sitting up. I discovered I was straddling her, my shirt rucked up nearly to my neck from where I’d been pressing myself against her. She had her hands on my ass, and didn’t look too upset about the contact.
“I’m sorry,” I said, throwing my leg over her so that I was sitting on the ground instead of on top of her. “That was intense.”
“I’ve lived a long time,” was her only reply, her lips twitching in a little smirk as she sat up and then reached for her shirt and pulled it back on.
“Still, I shouldn’t have… Did we make out?”
“Well… sort of,” she said, winking at me. “But don’t worry, I won’t tell. Unless you want me to. And it was just because of the tats… People sometimes have strong reactions.”
“They’re…” I began, reaching out my fingers to stroke over a little bit of tattoo tracing out of Blondie’s sleeve. But I stopped myself. “Amazing,” I finished.
“And chicks dig ’em,” she quipped.
“No, seriously,” I insisted, trying to worm past her defenses. I’d been immersed in her, nearly literally, and I knew she wasn’t merely the lovable rogue she pretended to be. All thoughts of mistrusting Blondie fled. “They’re amazing. And you’re amazing. The life you’ve lived… and then to do what you did, with the tattoos. To include those particular memories. So clever.” I wasn’t quite up to full brain power, all my blood and attention having been spread out to other areas.
“You’re pretty incredible yourself,” she said, sitting forward and kissing me boldly on the lips. For a second, I responded, still wrapped up in her memories and the feel of her against me.
But then I drew back. Anyan was still inside that damned dog, hopefully. And now was not the time.
“I can’t,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I realized I meant it as I said it.
“Not feeling the ‘another woman’ thing?” she asked.
“Um, no. That’s definitely not it,” I admitted. “But there’s Anyan. And there’s…” I motioned toward the glyph in my best Vanna White impression.
“Mmm, yes. There is that. As for Anyan… maybe he likes to share.” With that, Blondie turned back to our mirrored mystery.
Sharing is caring! chimed my libido. I stored that thought away to ponder later. And by ponder, I meant fantasize. But for right now…
“ ’Kay, we still have to touch this thing,” Blondie said.
“Agreed,” I said, going along with her change of subject. “Who wants to do it?”
Blondie pursed her lips and scratched at her tattooed neck. For a second, I itched to touch those tats one more time…
Instead, I sighed. “I’ll do it.”
It made sense. She was stronger than me, and she was the only one who could beat Phaedra to become the champion. If anyone was expendable, it was me.
My fingers trembling, I reached toward the sigil. Blondie watched me, a small smile on her lips as if she’d won something.
“If it does turn me into a seal,” I warned her smug expression, “I’m coming after you. Slowly, and ponderously, but I am coming after you.”
She grinned in reply, and I reached forward. Then we both jumped away as the glyph flared with my finger’s brief contact. For a second, it glowed as if lit by the sun. My heart was pounding in my chest and I knew I was grinning maniacally in sheer panic… only to watch as nothing happened and the glyph went cold and dead before us. So I reached forward again, to touch the sigil once more… And again it flared, power flooding the cavern. This time I was ready for it, however, and I kept my hand where it was.
Only the sigil still faded, despite my holding my fingers in place. It did the same thing when I touched it again, and again—flaring to life, but then dying.
“Okay,” Blondie said. “It liked the touch. But then it must want you to do something.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. But it’s as though it gets bored when you stand there.”
I started pressing random places on the sigil, but everywhere I touched just made it do the exact same thing—flare, and then go out. Meanwhile, it never stopped changing shape, each sinuous form flowing into the next, led by that line’s serpentlike head…
Led by the head… my brain echoed as a chill ran down my spine. Concentrating on the sigil I watched as it morphed, trying to get a bead on what I wanted…
Darting my hand forward, I touched exactly what I’d wanted to touch—the head of the snake. My body jolted as I made contact and the sigil flared again, but this time a thrill of power arced through my body.
“That’s it,” I said. “It’s the sigil… it wants us to…”
“What?” Blondie said, as if urging me on. I flicked my eyes at the tone of her voice. “Wants us to what?”
Frankly, I wasn’t sure, so I reached out my fingers to try to touch that snaking serpent’s head again. The sigil flared; I felt the same shock. But this time I tried to keep pace with it. As long as I did so, the sigil continued to flare, and power continued to surge up my arm. There was just one problem…
“Shit! It’s too fast!” I kicked the wall in frustration. “Motherfucker!”
“Here, let me,” Blondie said, taking my forearm in a firm grip.
Then she started to move my arm. Her own movements were quick and sure and confident. In fact, they were very confident.
A little too confident, I thought.
Her grip strong on my arm, Blondie piloted my hand like she was Helen Keller reading Braille. There was nothing hesitant about her movements, and my heart sank.
I trusted her, I thought, fearing once again that my trust had been for naught. But what about everything I saw in her tattoos? I questioned. I felt like I’d seen into her soul, and it was a good one.
She does know more than she’s telling us, I thought. But that doesn’t mean she’s evil. With that, I squashed down my doubts and just went with her movements. I had to ride this bronco to the end and see where it took me.
Meanwhile, my Blondie-guided fingers flew across the sigil as the light grew brighter and brighter. But I was touching only the right side of the mirror, totally avoiding the left. Finally, it settled into half of an ornate shape that would have looked a bit like a stylized Celtic version of a Christmas wreath, had the other side been filled in. Meanwhile, the glow increased, and for a very uncomfortable moment I was reminded of the light right before the crystal cave’s glyph exploded. Just as my heart really started to pound in fear, Blondie completed exactly half, and the sigil went supernova as the Original’s free hand shot forward to grab mine.
“Where the hell are we?” I asked, coughing on the wet air surrounding us. Thick mist walled us in, seemingly as solid as the cavern in which we’d just been standing.
“Beats me,” Blondie said, her eyes squinting as she tried to peer t
hrough the murk.
But before I could ask any more stupid questions, or some of the very not-stupid questions I needed to ask Blondie, the mist before us parted like the curtains of a stage, revealing four translucent figures.
They looked like ghosts, or like fake holograms in movies. There was no attempt to make them seem “real,” and yet I had no doubt that the four people had once existed.
“Melichor,” Blondie spat, pointing at the tall, imperiously bearded man standing on the far left. “An Alfar king famous for his power and his lack of emotion.” Despite being pointed at and discussed like a villain in a movie, Melichor gave no indication he could hear us.
“Tatiana, his consort,” Blondie said, pointing at the woman of medium height and build standing next to the cruel king. “Equally powerful, but her cruelty took the form of expedience. She’d do anything to win.”
I couldn’t help but think of Orin and Morrigan. Some things never change.
“Beside them are their respective second-in-commands: Glynda, a woman whom you never wanted to cross. She hid her passion for cruelty behind a mask of steel. And Straif. Not too bright, but insanely strong, he’d do his mistress’s bidding no matter what she asked of him.”
“And these are all Alfar?” I whispered, waiting for the illusions to move, or blast us into oblivion, or something. But nothing happened.
“Ancient Alfar. From just after the Schism.”
“You mean just after the different factions were created?”
“Yes.”
“And what I saw in your tattoo… Before that they were like you?”
“Yes. Before that, there were only us. Hence the title ‘Original.’ ”
“But how did they change? What was the Schism, exactly?” I asked, feeling like I’d learned more substantive information about my new world in this past day than I had in the past six months.
She looked down at me, her face curiously blank. “You’ll touch that tattoo soon enough, babydoll,” she said, as her fingers found what looked like a large bull’s horn right below her left ear. “But for now, let’s figure out what the hell is going on.”
Eye of the Tempest (Jane True) Page 15