Revik

by J. C. Andrijeski

  The Rooks claimed to be a pro-seer and anti-slavery front for all of their brethren––the last bastion of resistance against the human plague that dominated their shared world––but Kali knew the truth lived in gray and black shades that were far more complex.

  In fact, the Rooks’ version of events and their supposed role in them struck Kali as far more lie than truth, although she knew their followers strongly believed otherwise.

  Dehgoies Revik was famously known to be one of those “true believers.”

  As an ideologue, a real one, he’d always been far more dangerous than a regular foot soldier.

  Kali glanced at him again.

  That time, he didn’t look away.

  After the barest pause, he began walking towards her.

  Kali found herself tensing as he approached, more so when she felt his light sliding around hers in yet another, more invasive series of cautious darts and probes.

  Again, she could tell the behavior of his light was only partly conscious, that it constituted more compulsion than direction, but the pure insistence of it, which had worsened noticeably in the intervening days since she’d last spoken to him, made her nervous.

  He looked physically unwell to her, too, she realized.

  Once she noticed, she frowned, assessing his body and face for real.

  After another pause, she decided most of what she saw appeared to be exhaustion.

  He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His overall demeanor appeared exhausted yet agitated, as if he was running on adrenaline and caffeine––or maybe something quite a bit stronger than caffeine. His body looked worn out as a result, his light erratic, and less tightly attached to his physical form.

  But she’d already known he was a drug addict.

  Uye warned her about that, too.

  He’d also warned her how much more intensely addicted and obsessive young seers could get with human-made narcotics, even compared to young humans.

  Again, Kali tried not to connect that too closely to her unborn daughter’s fate.

  He was young yet. It was likely just a phase, one he would grow out of. Anyway, drugs were hardly unusual in this part of the world right now, for seers or humans.

  Her awareness of his probable mental state still intensified her caution when she saw the dilation of his pupils inside those clear, colorless irises, especially when she got a look at them up close.

  If he had been out walking, he must have brought some of his drugs with him.

  He stopped within a few feet of her. Standing there, he rearranged his weight on his feet a few times, as if unsure why he’d approached her at all.

  Something in the vulnerability wafting off him opened her heart to him again.

  It also alarmed her slightly, given how different he felt from the first time they had met. Now that he was in front of her, the changes were even more dramatic than what she’d felt on him from a distance. She still couldn’t be sure if those changes boded well or not, for either of them, really, especially since he seemed incapable of hiding them from her.

  “You should not be here,” he said, blunt.

  She smiled at him, making a polite gesture. “Where should I be, brother?”

  “Not here,” he said.

  He glanced up at the Hotel Majestic, and she felt that tension vibrating his light worsen.

  “My girlfriend…” He hesitated, and Kali saw something in his face tighten. “…One of my companions. She is looking for you, sister.”

  “Is she?” Kali inquired politely. “Should that worry me?”

  She asked more to see what he’d say, since she already knew the answer.

  “Yes,” he said, unblinking. “It should.”

  Another silence fell between them.

  That time, Kali decided not to break it.

  Eventually, he did.

  “Why are you still in Saigon?” He frowned at her, exhaling as he folded his arms. “You delivered your message to me. Why haven’t you left? Is there more?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No. I told you what I wanted to tell you, brother.”

  “So why are you still here?”

  When she didn’t answer him at first, he scowled, shifting his weight on his feet.

  Kali paused at the anger she felt on him, watching those dilated pupils warily.

  “I thought perhaps you would wish to discuss it further,” she said to him after another breath. “Was I wrong in this, brother? Because it seems to me, your presence here more or less confirms that, at least––”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said again, his voice a growl.

  She felt the pain on him that time, along with an uncertainty as he met her gaze. That pain worsened as his eyes lingered over different parts of her, seemingly without him having decided to look at her in that way, or for so long.

  “Brother,” she said, making her voice gentle, like she had by the pool. “I can see you are confused. At the risk of confusing you more, please listen to me. What you think you are feeling… it is not what it appears. It does not stem from what you believe it stems from.”

  He stared at her, those clear eyes suddenly glass.

  For a long moment, he only looked at her.

  Then he gave a short, barking laugh.

  Kali didn’t hear any humor in it.

  Whatever had gone through his mind, Dehgoies the Rook was back.

  The Rook in him stared at her as if she was the enemy, as if she’d just pulled a weapon on him, or had threatened him openly. His light closed, tangibly enough that it made her wince. The suddenness and the drama of the change took her aback, and made her feel as if she suddenly stood there alone.

  Still, the strongest emotion she felt that time was pity.

  How could they stand to live this way, these Rooks?

  Smiling at him reassuringly, she indicated a strong negative with her hands, clicking at him softly as she repeated the gesture.

  “Brother, you misunderstand me once again,” she told him.

  He shook his head––a hard negative, human-style.

  “I don’t think I do,” he said. “You told me you were mated. I understand.” His voice grew harder, but also more uncertain. “I… respect that. I respect it more than I can say. It is part of why I don’t understand why you haven’t left. I’ve made my interest in you more than clear.”

  “Have you?” Kali said, quirking an eyebrow. “Are you so sure of that, brother?”

  Staring up at his angular face, she clicked at her own words, seeing the further closing in the young seer’s expression.

  “…All I mean is, brother Revik, I can feel what and who you are reacting to, and I know without a doubt it is not me. I know you think it is, but it is not. Not really.”

  “It’s not?” he said.

  His voice came out bitter, harder than before.

  “No,” she said, without flinching that time. “It is not.”

  “Then what am I reacting to exactly, sister?”

  Kali looked up at him, wrapping her arms back around the cool fabric of the silk dress she wore, conscious of his eyes on her, conscious of his light where it flickered tentatively around her body, again almost without him seeming to intend to do it.

  She felt that want on him again––an overt longing mixed with a loneliness that wanted to cut her breath, if only because she knew she tasted only the barest edges of what truly lived behind that mask. Studying those clear eyes with their wide pupils, watching those pupils remain open even as his lenses reflected light from the sun rising higher in the sky, Kali contemplated different answers she could give him.

  The more she looked at him, though, the more sure she was that her initial impressions were correct. Once she realized she knew the answer to his question, she found she couldn’t stop herself from telling him the truth.

  She owed him that much.

  “You are not reacting to me,” she said simply. “You reacting to her, my brother. I mean my unborn
daughter. The being who will be the Bridge. You feel her in my light. I did not realize how much until just this moment.”

  Seeing the frustration rise to his eyes, she let out a low sigh, gazing back out over the water. After another pause, she clicked under her breath, fingering her long hair out of her face.

  “I should have realized this could happen,” she confessed. “When I made contact with you, I should have realized it was a risk, that it could be a side effect of our lights being in contact with one another. I share a connection with her, too… just as you do. Your being with me has reminded you of your own ties to her… it has even strengthened them, perhaps. Perhaps it has even reconnected the two of you in some way.”

  There was a silence.

  In it, Kali heard the distant honk of car horns and the back and forth of voices as other parts of the city began to wake.

  She smelled frying oil and coffee from the nearby restaurants and European-style hotels, as well as the denser taste of smoke wafting from the nearest chimneys. The smell of gutted fish had already started to grow prominent by the river itself, now that the sun began to heat up the water and the surrounding shore, increasing the glare from the yellowing sky.

  Dehgoies Revik stared at her, silent, as if taking her measurements with his eyes.

  His narrow mouth curled into a frown.

  Kali saw the skepticism there.

  Perhaps it was resistance as much as skepticism, but some deeper emotion lived behind both of those things. Whatever it was, it was enough to open his light, at least marginally, so that she could get impressions from him again.

  She knew he had opened it to get impressions from her, but such connections always went two ways.

  She felt his confusion, and her guilt worsened.

  “Brother,” she said gently. “I am sorry I have distressed you. I do not know how to make this easier for you. If I did, I would do it. Gladly.”

  He gave another of those harsh laughs.

  Her words were the thing to break his spell, however, and flicker his eyes away from her body and face. Staring out over the river and clicking under his breath, he fished in the breast pocket of the outer shirt he wore, what looked like part of a uniform, even though he wore it casually open over a thinner, cotton shirt underneath.

  When he extracted the packet of hiri, he offered one to her, but she declined with a wave of her fingers.

  She watched him put one of the dark, wrapped sticks to his lips, then light it with a silver lighter, one of the human ones that clicked open and shut with a hinge.

  Exhaling smoke, he clicked the lighter shut, shoving it into a pants pocket.

  He didn’t return her gaze, not even when he spoke.

  “I don’t know anything about your daughter,” he said, his voice stripped of emotion.

  Shaking his head, he took another drag of the hiri, clicking under his breath. His eyes looked cold, even in the pale gold of the morning light.

  “…I’ll be honest. I don’t much care about her, either. I won’t tell Galaith what you said to me. I won’t tell any of them, if you don’t want me to. But I need something from you in return.”

  Those glass-like eyes met hers, looking now like ice.

  “You need to leave Saigon, sister. Today.”

  Kali frowned, studying the mask that had fallen over his angular features.

  “Why, brother?” she said.

  His eyes turned even colder in that pause.

  His booted feet rearranged themselves on the dusty walkway by the lawn, right before he gazed out at the river once more, looking up when a horn sounded from one of the passing barges.

  “Because you’re not safe here,” he said simply, answering her question without looking away from the water. “That friend of mine. She is looking for you, sister… even now, she is looking for you everywhere. She is angry. She thinks there is something wrong with me. She thinks you are the cause. She thinks it started when you and I first spoke by the pool––”

  “Is she right?” Kali asked quietly.

  He winced from her tone, staring at her.

  “She’s not wrong,” he said, his eyes still boring into her face.

  He took another drag of the hiri, and that time, the pain on him intensified, making Kali flinch before she could stop herself. His light exuded an open want, mixed with a near-desperation as it conflicted and merged with those other emotions of grief and sadness, that aloneness that shocked her light with its intensity, along with other feelings too subtle for her to pick out from the rest.

  He seemed to be letting her feel these things now. He seemed almost to be showing himself to her deliberately as he stood there, avoiding her eyes.

  He exhaled the sweet-smelling smoke, his expression darkening as he looked back at her, avoiding her face that time to focus on her body.

  “…If you stay here much longer, you won’t be safe from me, either,” he added, blunt.

  “Brother Revik––” she began, but he cut her off, looking up.

  “Am I making myself clear, sister?” His glass-like eyes focused on hers as his voice grew colder, turning into an overt warning. “I’ve made a request of you. An even trade. I’m asking you… formally… to honor it. I am making a formal request of you, sister.”

  “And if I don’t?” she said, quieter. “Honor it?”

  His jaw hardened visibly, pushing out a muscle in his cheek.

  With scarcely a pause, he took a step towards her, abrupt, his whole posture openly threatening.

  Kali felt the deliberateness of the motion and didn’t flinch from him that time, either. It was obvious he wanted her to feel the aggression in his light.

  “…Perhaps you don’t realize,” he said, colder. “I’d rather if I wasn’t clear. I’d rather if you didn’t understand. And I won’t try very hard to convince you to do as I’m asking. In fact, this is likely to be the only time I try at all.”

  His voice lowered, but that colder note, if anything, grew more prominent.

  “I’d rather if you fucking stayed. I’d rather if you didn’t leave Saigon. You must know that, too.”

  His throat moved in a thin swallow, even as that pain on him briefly worsened, right before his eyes flickered down to her feet in the Vietnamese-style clogs.

  “You’re not all that safe with me right now, sister, if you want the truth.”

  Kali gestured her understanding, but forced herself to hold her ground, and his gaze when he looked back up at her face. Something in her expression seemed to reach him that time, enough that she saw actual shame cross his countenance, passing over his eyes and face so quickly that she questioned whether she’d seen it at all.

  She knew she had seen it, though. She could feel that, too.

  She also saw his skin darken as the emotions sank in for him.

  He was blushing.

  If he could blush, he was not as closed off from her as she feared.

  “Brother…” she began carefully.

  She trailed, seeing the pain worsen in his expression.

  He raised a hand to his face, maybe to hide it from her altogether.

  “Gods,” he said. “What are you doing to me?”

  The question didn’t seem to require a response.

  Kali watched him cautiously, still trying to decide whether she should attempt to reach him again, or if it would only confuse him more. He’d just more or less threatened to rape her, but the fact that he’d taken the time to threaten it first told Kali he didn’t really want to do it. The conflict on him gave her hope, apart from the immediate danger of her situation… more so when she remembered the scenes she and Uye had witnessed of his more recent past.

  Even so, she took his warning seriously.

  She could leave now, like he was telling her to do.

  She could simply leave and hope her words would have the effect she intended, given enough time. It was risky, given how unstable he was, but maybe that was all she’d been meant to do. Maybe she was called h
ere simply to connect with his light, to be the catalyst… to reconnect him with his intended… to wake him from his dream under the Rooks.

  Maybe there was nothing more for her to do.

  The thought made her nervous, though, given what it risked.

  Considering what was at stake, could she really afford to leave him in this state? Confused and aggressive and cut off, with no one but other Rooks and his masters to talk to? With no one to help him but Terian and that crazy female with the blue eyes?

  He would retreat into drugs, she suspected, like he was now.

  He would retreat into drugs and prostitutes and whatever else the Rooks did to deal with their being cut off from the light and others of their kind.

  It wasn’t only the danger to her mission that bothered her.

  It felt cruel to her, too, to leave him like this.

  No matter who or what he was––it felt cruel. She didn’t want to abandon him with this thing, not if there was any way she could possibly help him through it.

  He must have felt some of her thoughts and misgivings that time, because the conflict in his eyes worsened. He took another drag of the hiri, glancing back at the Majestic, his jaw hard as his eyes scanned the dusty street.

  Kali followed his gaze, watching as a lone Vietnamese man on a bicycle rode by, the chain squeaking as he stepped down hard on each pedal, propelling himself down the sidewalk rimming the edge of the riverside park. The human stared at the two of them, Dehgoies Revik in his half-put together Western clothes, which made him look more American than anything else, and Kali in her jade green, traditional, Vietnamese dress.

  “Brother,” she said, exhaling into his silence. “Is there anything I can do for you? Anything more you want from me before I go?”

  He gave a low laugh, seemingly in spite of himself.

  “Do you really want me to answer that question?” he said.

  Kali quirked an eyebrow at him, hearing the attempt at humor in his voice.

  “No,” she sighed, clicking softly and smiling back. “I guess not.”

  Impulsively, she took a step towards him.

  Without thought, she lay a hand on his bare arm below the rolled-up sleeve, the same arm attached to the hand that held the smoldering hiri. She tightened her fingers on his skin, gripping him harder when he wouldn’t look at her.