Prisoner of Glass
Page 11
“Oh, Elspeth … you did so well! So impressive. You are indeed a sort of a Isis. Quite literally. And the fire — that walk through lava purified your resemblance to Isis even more. You know how often the number 1515 pops up in your life. Don’t you realize that spells ISIS with numbers? You chose 1515 as your ATM pin, as your mobile unlock code. That was no coincidence. That was your subconscious, stating the obvious, trying desperately to tell you the truth. You’ve known this your whole life.”
“So you’re saying … what, that I actually am Isis? The actual Egyptian goddess?” Elspeth shook her head. That made no sense. She was already certain she wasn’t. It even felt ridiculous, just saying it aloud.
“No,” Titus said. Elspeth was actually palpably relieved to hear this. “It’s more like, you’re an instance of Isis, appearing in profane, historical time — instead of eternal, archetypal time. You’re Isis, playing out as a real person in real life. That’s never happened before. See, the real Isis exists only as an idea. Or eternally. ‘Only’ is a bad word, forget I said it. I suggests smallness where I want to suggest bigness. The idea of Isis is very big — it’s an archetype, as a matter of fact. And archetypes are about as big as you can get.”
“Still not getting this,” Elspeth said. “Try again.”
“Your name is Elspeth LUNE. As in lunar, as in the moon, the symbol of Isis. You husband was snatched from you, just like Isis. He —”
“Oscar?” she broke in. “What does Oscar have to do with this?”
“Oscar Cyrus. O. Cyrus. Come on, how much more obvious can I get?”
“You mean as in … Osiris.” Elspeth’s heart sank. Was everything about her life rigged to resemble that of Isis? Even she knew the legend — Isis had her husband stolen from her as well … and she had to find him and bring him back to life.
“Not everything,” Titus said, seeming to read her mind. “Actually, we had nothing to do with arranging your life. You can forget about that. We just found you and realized how similar your lives were.”
“And who are you, that you can just find people and abduct them? Where do you get the goddamn gall?”
Titus was silent a moment. Then he said, “We’re travelers. On The Road.”
“Like the Vizier. What is this ‘Road’ everyone’s so excited about? Because believe you me, I’m not all that enthusiastic about it.”
“Oh, Elspeth,” Titus said. “You have no idea how many have spent their lives to get where you are right now. Most die along the way. For most, it is legend only: for you, even unwillingly, it has become reality. So many would give so much to trade places with you.”
“So let them. I don’t give a good goddamn. I just want to go home!” She wept softly, clenching her fists.
“But they’re not you. They’re not the Star of Sirius, the Isis. You are Sirius, just as the Vizier said. He wasn’t asking if you were ‘serious’ — no! It was Sirius he was after. He knew only a true Sirius could free himself. You were his best hope. In fact, you’re the best hope we all have. We can’t let you go home, we just can’t. For better or for worse, you are on The Road now yourself.”
“You took him. You took Oscar. So I would better resemble Isis. Didn’t you?”
“No, that was not us,” Titus said. “That was the Vizier. The Vizier took him — or had him taken, I should say.”
She looked down at the sleeping Vizier, violent thoughts flooding her cerebellum. “The Vizier? Why?”
“Because he needed us to take you. He could not leave the Glass Prison on his own. It would be inauspicious. He needed an Isis to break him out. You could say he needed the stars to line up just so. So, he arranged for Oscar to be abducted, knowing that would cause us to take you.”
“You people are all sick. Sick in the head! I should just kill you, you know. I should just rip your eyeballs from your skull, for what you’ve done to me.”
“I know. But you can’t, because I’m not really here.”
Not …?
Titus’s form wavered. He had been a projection of some sort all along. Elspeth cursed him vigorously. His ghostly image frayed and faded and was gone.
His voice called out after his vanished image: “You will find your way Elspeth. I know you better than you know yourself. That’s why we chose you.”
James Card roused from a deep sleep. “Elspeth,” he called out in the darkness. “Are you alright? Who are you talking to?”
“Nobody,” she sagged. Nobody important. “Go back to sleep.”
And still. She had now seen that she had been someone’s pawn all along. A pawn, just like in Pantheon Chess.
Well.
She would be a pawn no more.
THE END
About the Author:
http://markjeffrey.net Twitter: @markjeffrey
Mark Jeffrey is a serial technology entrepreneur and author. He has co-founded five internet companies and written seven books. His other novels include MAX QUICK: THE POCKET AND THE PENDANT (Harper Collins, 2011), MAX QUICK: THE TWO TRAVELERS (2012), MAX QUICK: THE BANE OF THE BONDSMAN (2013), AGE OF AETHER (2012) and ARMAND PTOLEMY AND THE GOLDEN ALEPH (2011). His first non-fiction book is BITCOIN EXPLAINED SIMPLY (2014).
Most recently, Mark co-founded web television network ThisWeekIn.com with Jason Calacanis and comedian / actor Kevin Pollak. Investors included Sky Dayton, Matt Coffin and Jarl Mohn (founder of E! and Liberty Digital). Mark served as CEO from its inception in Jan 2010 until May 2011.
From 2007 to 2010, Mark was the founding CTO of Mahalo.com, Inc., a human-powered search and learning site backed by Sequoia Capital, CBS, News Corp, Elon Musk and others. Prior to this, Jeffrey co-founded a business social networking company ZeroDegrees, Inc. in 2002 and sold it to IAC/InteractiveCorp in 2004 with more than one million registered users.
His first company, The Palace, Inc., was backed by Time Warner, Intel and Softbank and sold to Communities.com in 1998. The Palace was a popular avatar virtual world environment which had 10 million users at its peak. He was also the co-founder and CEO of SuperSig, Inc. in 1999, which focused on app-like functionality embedded in email.
His first novel, MAX QUICK: THE POCKET AND THE PENDANT, was published in hardcover and ebook by HarperCollins in May, 2011. The book was initially podcast as a series of episodic mp3's and received over 2.5 million downloads.
Mark Jeffrey holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire.