Caitlin forced herself to stand. “No. I have to go.”
Everything else be damned, Caitlin had to make sure he was okay, serve herself up if necessary.
“That’s not a good idea,” Flora said.
“This is not a discussion,” Caitlin said, literally pushing past her.
“You should not face this alone!” Flora said, grabbing her.
Caitlin wrested her arm free and pinned Flora with a glare. “Forgive me, but I believe that I am safer watching my own back. Please don’t try to stop me.”
Caitlin’s fury propelled her to the top of the basement stairs where she stopped in her tracks from sudden indecision.
Goddamn it, she thought.
She had an increasing, hideous sense that whatever she did next, someone would suffer. The lodestone of her life had always been helping and protecting the innocent, and obviously, right now she needed to get to Jacob. But she could not forget that last time dogs howling, the news reports of suffering animals, and similar events had heralded the crises of Maanik, Gaelle, Atash, and who knew how many other young people.
This is different, of course, Caitlin reminded herself. It’s worse.
If Yokane was correct, something was coming loose in the South Pole—something big and old and ferocious. And there was every reason to believe she was right, especially since Flora’s man Mikel had corroborated enough of her story.
Caitlin was increasingly convinced that something bigger was happening than what even Yokane had known, and that Azha and Dovit were trying to tell her what it was. This was part of what was impacting the stones and was not likely to stop of its own accord. Whether she wanted to or not, she had to intervene—or, at least, try to find out what was happening.
Caitlin turned to go down the stairs but Flora Davies was standing just behind her.
“I thought you might reconsider,” Flora said with a self-satisfied smile.
“You’ve got it wrong,” Caitlin said. “There’s something I have to do.”
“You promised to share.”
“There isn’t time.”
“Make time,” Flora said, blocking her way.
Without thought, Caitlin pointed the two forefingers of her right hand directly at Davies’s neck. The connection was immediate. She saw the woman’s irises widen and, again on instinct, Caitlin moved her hand to the right in the “shut down” gesture. The conduit closed and Flora staggered and slumped against the wall. Caitlin leaned close and checked that the woman was breathing normally; she was.
“Dr. Davies!” Caitlin said, and snapped her fingers. Flora’s eyes tracked over to them. Then she looked up at Caitlin. It was enough to satisfy Caitlin that she hadn’t harmed the woman. “That’s how connected I am to Galderkhaan,” Caitlin said. “From now on, you will not interfere with me.”
Caitlin resumed her descent and on reaching the hallway, turned toward the room at the far end. The younger woman was perched on a stool just outside its doorway. As Caitlin came closer the stone shot visions of the past through her brain. Adrienne rose to her feet as Caitlin approached with wobbling steps.
But Flora, still slumped at the bottom of the stairs, gestured to Adrienne to let the woman go. So Adrienne remained on her feet but did not prevent Caitlin from looking into the room at the glowing, levitating stone.
The power of the artifact hit Caitlin so hard she quickly repeated the “shut down” gesture. It didn’t cancel out the overwhelming presence of the stone, but it did take the edge off. The present shimmered like a mirage, showing the stone only vibrating, without the sequence of lights.
Caitlin speared Adrienne with a look. “What’s holding it up, magnets?”
“Acoustic waves.”
“Is it safe to go in?”
“That depends on what you’re going to do and how long you’ll be in there.”
Caitlin started to take a step into the room. Adrienne put a hand on her arm.
“I don’t recommend it,” she said. Her grip wasn’t a restraint but a gesture of concern.
Caitlin thanked her with a nod and stayed in the doorway. And suddenly, the past vision came to a rest. Before the stone was brought here the room apparently had been used for storage. Nothing was moving in it anymore.
Caitlin inhaled what felt like her first full breath since she’d entered the mansion. Then, before she could pay attention to her lingering fears, she did what she always did: put one proverbial foot in front of the other.
She had to challenge, expand, and master the new abilities she possessed. She had to obtain a bigger, clearer picture of everything that was happening.
Caitlin saw nothing in the room to hook into visually so she took a different approach: she used sense memory, the sound of Jacob’s fingers drumming on the wall that separated their rooms at home. First she remembered just the small sound—then she remembered the awful, pounding amplification of it that she’d heard in that terrible opaque nowhere space—
And then, she was there, pinioned in the massive whiteness as before, with just a faint blur of turquoise behind the ice. Caitlin tried to scream to relieve the terror but her face felt partly paralyzed.
With extraordinary effort, Caitlin spoke to Adrienne, not knowing whether she was communicating out loud or only mentally. Her lips misshaped the words: “Did . . . anything . . . happen . . . when I approached the room?”
“The stone just went dark,” Adrienne said with what sounded like awe.
Inwardly Caitlin smiled. Had she made that happen? If so, how?
Thinking back, she realized what it had to be. Until now, Caitlin had been regarding this stone as a problem, a danger. She had been giving it the wary, scheming respect due a menacing stranger. But this stone—or at least a stone, perhaps Yokane’s piece, maybe the two of them together, some damn segment of the Source in some combination—was not a stranger to her. Standing in the United Nations conference room, floating in the sky above dying Galderkhaan, Caitlin had reached into the energy generated by an artifact like this and flung it at the ancient city.
She looked at the semidormant stone before her.
You can connect to it, she told herself. You can work with it. The vibrations, the energy, something about it synced with you.
She had quieted it somewhat. But she still didn’t know how, still didn’t understand the mechanism. Of more immediate concern: she didn’t know how long the truce would last. Would the stone somehow reach back to the rest of the Source in the present day, get more power, and come back more vigorous than before?
“Dr. O’Hara?” Adrienne asked. “Can you give me data—?”
“Quiet, please.”
Caitlin had to learn more. This was a standoff. She had made a fist without realizing it and flexed her fingers. And then she was jolted by an unexpected connection.
The superlatives, she thought with a burst of emotion. The hand gestures. Weeping inside, she suddenly grasped the profound intent of the physical arm, hand, and finger movements used in the Galderkhaani language. They weren’t merely accents. They were a subliminal, subsonic, energy-based form of expression that added untold depth to the words.
Come back, she admonished herself. Concentrate on the ice from the vision with Ben . . . something neutral—
It came back to her, instantly and easily. Reaching to and through the whiteness, she found only tiny sparks of energy. It quieted the stone entirely.
I am the conduit that connected the stone with its home, she realized. The energy of the Source was not restricted by place or time. Her own energy was a link between then and now, just as it had been at the United Nations when she linked between the ancient cazh and the victimized kids in her own time.
That’s why the acoustic levitation worked to contain the stone, she realized. Sound was energy too. The stone was stilled by a powerful cushion of it, its vibrations calmed.
Now she had to work on amping the stone up or down, to see the degree to which she could bond with it and control it. As
Yokane had done to her, as Caitlin had just done to Flora Davies, so she must do to the stone. If there was another assault like the one that impacted the animals, she might be able to contain it. If ancient souls were using the tiles to reach children, including Jacob, she might be able to break that connection as well.
But which way? She considered pointing up at first, which was what the Technologists had intended. But some instinct made her slowly, barely, point down instead, reaching through her fingertips and far beyond them, searching for the way to connect.
There.
Her hand seemed to come alive—with an internal humming, a buzzing, a vibration that she automatically compared to the trembling of the stone in its acoustic aerie. The buzzing intensified until she felt the pounding in her palm. She directed her fingertips toward the stone.
Suddenly, the pounding in her hand was drawn powerfully toward and then onto the stone. Fearful, Caitlin almost pulled her hand away to cut the energetic bond.
But that would mean starting over. This had to be done. She calmed her knee-jerk reaction. The goal was engagement. She had to learn to use the mental-physical throttle. She began to twist the energy, turning it like a spoon in coffee, and slowly she began to sense something responding from the stone. The stone was expressing something inside her. The feeling was pure joy—similar to what she and Ben had experienced, drifting up and out into the cosmos, themselves, and each other. The core of this artifact was no core at all, but an opening. She hovered there, uncertain—
A new image flashed onto her visual field. There was no longer ice, just eyes—hazel eyes, eyes that crinkled in recognition and then in triumph, eyes in an old face with a white beard. Caitlin didn’t wait around to see what the triumph was for. Her instinct told her to get out before this other presence could take control. With one movement she spiraled the pounding energy into the stone and pulled herself out of the sound stream.
The eyes were jerked away from her, leaving only the room with the levitating stone. She put her hands on her knees, dropped her head, and just breathed for a few moments. When she looked up again, she saw that the stone was still not lit, was not even buzzing. She wondered whether Yokane’s stone had stopped buzzing too.
Peripherally, she saw that Flora had joined Adrienne. Both were staring at her.
“Please,” Flora said. “Talk to me.”
“Not now.”
“But what should we do?” Flora said, pressing her.
“Be quiet.” Then she added, “Please.” To Adrienne she said, “Don’t touch me and definitely do not touch it.” She indicated the stone.
Caitlin sensed Flora’s struggle, Adrienne’s compliance, but then quickly forgot them both as she stood upright and ground her left heel into the floor for a strong sense of balance. With the stone in repose, she could attempt to take care of her other priority, although the Source and its dead inhabitant could not be underestimated.
Her main concern was how Jacob was affected by her connection with the stone, with ascended souls, with the past. Without leaving this place, without surrendering these connections, she had to know what was happening at home.
Caitlin reached out as she had when seeking Yokane from the roof. With the ensuing wave of energy she reached toward her home and found it almost immediately, not by sight but by feel. The visual feed wasn’t there but she could sense that no one was in the living room and heard water running in the kitchen. She extended herself like fingers, searching for something she had a good chance of sensing—and yes, Ben had left his phone on the living room table. It had the same aura of life as hers, his clinging presence, an emotional hook that she could grab on to.
Once more she had the sensation of swinging herself toward the destination—grabbing for it across space, but hopefully not across time. Then the visual came in, as clearly as if she were standing in the room. The sound of water turned off and to her surprise Caitlin’s friend Anita Carter walked out of the kitchen into the dining room.
“Anita?”
The psychiatrist turned, looked around. “Caitlin?”
“Yes.”
Anita went to the front door, looked out the peephole. No one was there. She looked around for a phone.
“What are you doing there?” Caitlin asked.
“Me? What are you—where is that coming from? Laptop? You Skyping?”
“That’s not important now. Why are you there?”
“I called, couldn’t reach you, came over. Ben said you were gone. I figured I’d stay.”
“Why?”
“Ben was with Jacob,” Anita said. “He was talking in his sleep. Doves, ashes, flying—”
“Dovit? Azha?”
“I’m not sure,” Anita said. She was still looking around as if suddenly Caitlin would reveal her hiding place. “Caitlin, seriously—what is this? Where are you calling from?”
“I’ll tell you later, I promise,” Caitlin said. “Is he all right, Jacob?”
“Yes, he’s fast asleep and snoring.”
“Can you stay, Anita?”
“Of course, but . . .”
“Tell Ben, Global Explorers’ Club, Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street, now—no, never mind. I’ll tell him.”
“All right, fine. Caitlin—”
That was all Caitlin heard. She sought and found Jacob asleep and snoring in his room. He seemed calm. She felt only one other presence near him and it was Ben. A surge of mortal need rolled through her. More than anything else she wanted to hear Ben’s voice, hug him, but she couldn’t indulge right now. Still, she wanted him with her for support. He was the only one she trusted.
And then, like a dying fireplace, the apartment vanished, lost all its warmth.
Caitlin dropped her hands. She took a moment to feel her gratitude to Anita for going with a hunch that something was wrong and being clairaudient and fearless enough to hear her. Then, as Caitlin fully returned to her body, she pulled out her cell phone. While speaking to Flora she simultaneously texted Ben the address followed by the same information she was announcing.
“A man’s coming,” Caitlin said. “The man who translated what I know of the Galderkhaani language. He’s going to watch over the stone while I’m otherwise occupied.”
“I do not allow—” Flora started.
“In return,” Caitlin continued, “he will share what he knows about the language. It’s a fair bargain. Some trust, some distrust, in the end win-win.”
She hit “send” and stowed the cell phone.
Flora approached. Caitlin pinned her in place with a look.
“Doctor,” Flora began very carefully, “you must tell me how you—”
“When I’m ready. I’m not even close to being done here.”
Flora braced herself defiantly, then shrank as quickly.
Suddenly Caitlin was vaulted from the room. It was similar to what she’d experienced in Haiti, when an unseen force had whipped her around like a dog on a leash.
For a moment she was simply in darkness. Then a face appeared. Not Yokane. Not hazel eyes. A woman with flaming red hair.
I am Azha, she said without moving her lips.
The woman was speaking Galderkhaani but Caitlin understood more words than Ben had already translated. “I am—” Caitlin began to respond.
I know, the woman said with quiet authority.
Fear cascaded through Caitlin’s entire being, but before she could grapple with it, she was jerked away again.
Then she was somewhere—a place that was blue upon blue upon blue, and moving. She opened her mouth to speak and tasted salt. She was in the ocean, beneath it, but she was still breathing. Or perhaps she was beyond the need for breath.
She was suddenly afraid of something new—not of drowning but being stranded here and unable to get back to Jacob.
Azha? she called.
Not far away, the red-haired woman floated facedown in the sea. It was just a small section of water, an opening that had apparently been punched through the ice by
whatever wreckage was around her and by the flames that still licked at it.
Caitlin felt sympathy and horror all at once. Whatever tragedy had befallen this woman, she had to prevent Jacob from experiencing her agony . . . her death.
You’re the soul who’s been haunting my child, Caitlin said to the woman. What do you need from me?
We must stop my sister, Enzo, she replied. She seeks to help her mentor.
Who is her mentor?
A Priest named Rensat, Azha informed her. But Rensat cannot communicate with Enzo. They are not bonded through cazh.
So they’re trying to contact her—to do what?
Rensat is ascended, with a Priest named Pao. With the help of Enzo, Rensat seeks to undo the destruction of Galderkhaan.
How is that even possible, winding back time? Caitlin asked. Even as she said it, she knew the answer. She had changed the past before, when she’d gone back to Galderkhaan to protect Maanik. They will compel me to go back.
Yes. To stop a Galderkhaani named Vol from activating the Source. Just before my airship crashed, I revealed the treachery of Vol to Enzo, Azha said. I told her of his plan to activate the Source prematurely. When she died, Enzo was trying to cazh by fire, to possess someone living in Galderkhaan, to pass this information to others. She failed.
I have seen others try to do that, Caitlin said.
Enzo is trying, still, to communicate that information.
Enzo was attempting to do what the dying of Galderkhaan had done with Maanik, Gaelle, and Atash: to enter their bodies and bond with their souls. After millennia of trying, Caitlin couldn’t begin to imagine how mad this Enzo must have been.
What am I supposed to do?
You must stop them. Pao seeks your intervention to restore Galderkhaan, but Rensat wishes to do that . . . and then destroy it.
Destroy it again? After they save it?
Yes. I have watched her when she is alone, seen her collecting ancient names, assembling an army. I believe she wishes to build the Priest class to unprecedented numbers and then in one stroke she and Enzo and their myriad followers will cause mass death—as many souls as it takes to reach the cosmic plane. There, they will become Candescent. But at a price.
A Dream of Ice Page 23