Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  “There are but three that know that Torres and Djinni are the same, two are dead, and one is myself. I shall not speak the name again.” A pause. “Does that please you?”

  “It’s a start,” he answered, and stopped. Red opened his eyes, and started counting on his fingers. He waggled two fingers speculatively, but looked confused at the third.

  “It is not permitted for you to know,” she told him. “Not yet.”

  “The hell with that, lady!” He would have continued but she interrupted him.

  “Enough. You have a choice before you,” she said. “There are those who matter to the futures, and there are those who do not. I do not See you in the present, Red Djinni. And I do not See you on the path you intend to pursue. But there are other paths, and they branch from this moment. I do not order, I do not advise, I only give information. And in this, I am permitted to only tell you so much. Unless you choose to be UnSeen, and matter not, not even so much as a cipher on the pages of the futures, she is not for you.”

  Red found it hard to look right at her. He had never believed in God. Of course, there was a time he hadn’t believed in magic either. He had since accepted that much of this world, this reality, was a mystery for a reason. The blatant transparency of having a bonafide angel telling him what to do, or rather what not to do, sort of flew in the face of that. And in typical Red fashion, he stiffened in anger when he should have fallen to his face in abject terror of being held in judgment by a higher power.

  “Lady, despite what you’ve heard, I’m really not all that egotistical. Not enough to care about being Seen. If you haven’t noticed, I’m more about not being seen.”

  “You are deliberately misunderstanding. Or feigning that you are.” There might have been a tiny shading of irritation there. “I know you, Red Djinni. I can read you. When I say that you are not Seen it means that you are not important to the lives, not only of those you have connected with, but those so far outside that web that you have only taken brief thoughts for them. And that they still will not know your name, nor who you are, when this chapter ends, but you will have mattered to them. You will be part of the reason they still live. That the world still lives. Even if no one ever knows it was you. That is what it means to be Seen. And that is your choice. Do you matter? Or do you not?” Again, she lost even the slightest shading of expression, and went utterly and completely still. Even when his eyes were closed, he read nothing but waiting.

  “Man, and I thought Vix was long-winded,” he said finally. “You’re telling me it’s about choice, that I have through a simple matter of choice to become someone important, someone who can change or even save the world.”

  “Yes,” she said, simply.

  “Who do you think I am, Jesus?”

  “No,” she replied. “For one thing, Jesus had more hair.” Her eyes blinked slowly, as if startled by her own joke. Red watched her intently. She was so alien, so unreadable, and yet there it was, finally, something to catalog for future reference. A touch of…humanity? She wasn’t completely indecipherable after all.

  “It is always about choice,” she continued. “Free Will and Choice are the ruling Laws of the universe.” A very long pause. “To save the world, Red Djinni, you first must save yourself.”

  “Lady, I don’t want to save the world! You think I asked for any of this? I’m just trying to get by here!” The words sounded anything but convincing, especially to him. It was clear he wasn’t fooling her either, as if he could.

  “Like so many, you seek redemption. You fear you will not find it, that you may not even deserve it. I am here to tell you, Red Djinni, that redemption is within the grasp of all who seek it, of all who would sacrifice what is needed to earn it. Forgiveness is always possible.” Those strange eyes felt like lasers, burning away every bit of bullshit he had buried himself in. “Always. The question is if you yourself are ready to pay for forgiveness. Forgiveness itself is there, waiting for you to accept it.”

  Those that had witnessed her arrival during the invasion would have said her power lay in her fire, in her sword, and the merciless way she cut down her enemies. They were wrong. Her power lay in her words, in revealing simple truths that stripped away all manner of concealment. Red had shielded himself behind not only his signature scarf and any number of disguises, but with lies and half-truths that he had persistently piled upon himself over the years. He had been relentless, unable to deal with even simple insecurities with anything even remotely resembling reality, that in time he had accepted his own illusions as fact. The Seraphym, with her burning clarity, had neatly cut a swath through them all, and he felt his innermost demons laid bare for her to discover. At his core, he was an opportunist. That might have been bad enough, but there was always that voice in his head, Amethist’s voice, as a constant reminder that he could be more. Every once in a while her voice won, and he would try to make amends, usually with disastrous consequences. It didn’t matter what he did, he would always hurt people, especially those he loved. He was nothing, no, worse than nothing. He was a curse to all around him—

  “Stop.”

  Visions flooded in on him. The most recent, just charging in to help that kid, Pike. Hours spent coaxing Vix out of her apartment, over the obstacles, real and in her mind. The gut wrenching moment when he just convinced himself to accept her and her magic as inseparable, even though he loathed the thought of it. And farther back. Moments when he had done exactly the right thing, even when it cost him. The visions engulfed him like a tidal wave, but thank god they stopped just short of his life with Amethist.

  “Enough. Use the past to change the future.” Another set of rapid blinks. “You must cease beating that dead horse.”

  He could barely look at her, she was so radiant. He felt the tears in his eyes and wondered how she had broken him so quickly, so completely.

  “So tell me what to do,” he said, surrendering.

  One single, perfect tear formed at the corner of her left eye and traced a path down her cheek. “I cannot. It is not permitted. I can only tell you there is a choice, and not dictate what that choice may be.”

  “Please,” he begged. “I’m so lost.”

  “It is before you. I cannot tell you what to do. It is not—” Abruptly her head came up, like a hound scenting danger. “I must go.”

  “What?”

  “There is a need. It is imperative. I must go.” She started to fade.

  And with that, Red felt all sense of awe and vulnerability fall away, leaving only his anger.

  “Hey! You can’t just leave me with this crap! We’re not done here, I’m coming too!”

  She solidified again, looking at him with astonishment. “You cannot follow where I must go.”

  “Like hell I can’t!” In desperation, he leapt for her and grabbed her arm, pulling her back.

  “It is not—” Abruptly, her words cut off, and a look of utter astonishment came over her face, as if he had somehow managed to shock God Himself. Something had changed, profoundly.

  “It is permitted,” the Seraphym said, and the world went blank.

  In the beginning, there was darkness.

  * * *

  The Seraphym had suggested to Bulwark that he should begin by reconstructing his little “waiting space” after having so efficiently destroyed it—rather in the manner of, “You broke your toys. Here are glue and wire and tools. If you want something to play with, you will have to fix them yourself.” Given his will, energy, and creativity, she expected to find something “liveable” when she returned.

  Instead, she found one, shadowed, claustrophobic cube, with Bulwark in it. This…was not good. Finding his image sitting cross-legged and hunched over on the “floor” of the cube was even worse.

  “Gairdner Ward,” she said, in mingled alarm and admonition. “Why are you…what are you doing?”

  “Waiting,” he replied, dully. “For you.”

  “You are doing rather less than waiting,” she replied. Because wit
h every moment that passed, he was fading a little, as were his surroundings. In human parlance…”circling the drain,” she believed it was called. “What is wrong?” She stepped into his space and flung her wings wide, blowing open the walls, and with a thought, re-establishing some of the ambience that had been here before he destroyed it. Light, grass, flowers. Mostly light. He appeared not to notice.

  “Wrong?” he looked confused. “Nothing is wrong. I’m not sure that anything is approaching right, either. Is it time to go back now?”

  She could fix this. She could fill him with hope. She could show him things he would not remember when he awoke but which would awaken his desire to join the world again—

  It is not permitted. He is not ready.

  She shook her head. “You were tasked with restoring this place,” she said. “Why have you not done so?”

  Bulwark stood up, came to attention, and looked around. He gave her a slight shrug. “What would be the point?”

  He was, as ever, a soldier. He stood at ease, though some spark, something vital, was missing. She saw his willingness to return, to carry on, though it stemmed from a sense of obligation and responsibility. There was nothing but a stubborn code of duty that fueled him, and that would not do, not at all. No one ever returned from these crossroads with anything less than a strong will to fight, driven by something that simply could not let them pass onward. While he was prepared to face life again, he was not willing to embrace it. In fact, he would dutifully perform until something killed him, a mere animated shell.

  She could fix this.…

  It is not permitted. He is not ready.

  This was not the Gairdner Ward that mattered. A robot would do better. Red Djinni would do better…though not by much, nor in the needed direction. Briefly, she considered allowing him to fade anyway—but nothing in the futures gave her the clue of how to make Red Djinni into what was needed.

  “You know,” a familiar voice said, “I can kind of hear snippets of your thoughts here.” She turned and saw the Djinni grimacing. “And thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “If you deserved confidence, I would have it in you,” she said sharply, perhaps more sharply than was warranted. She felt…rattled. Unworthy of being trusted as an Instrument. She should be able to see more solutions, instead, her paths just became more muddled.

  “The point would be to be willing to live, and not just exist, Gairdner Ward,” she said, equally sharply, ignoring Red’s snort at hearing Bull’s real name. Bulwark didn’t seem to hear Red, or even realize he was there. “The world does not need another ‘short timer,’ going through the motions. The world needs those who are fully engaged in it, who have a stake in seeing it survive.”

  “Call me Bull,” Bulwark said.

  “Appropriate, since that is what you are feeding me.” Again, she heard the Djinni snort. “Be willing to tell me the truth. What is holding you back?”

  “Nothing,” Bull answered. “I am prepared to go back. You have my promise that I will do everything in my power, use everything in my arsenal, to fight whatever is thrown at me.”

  Desperately, she began to sort through futures, narrowing her focus to Bulwark, trying to find a thread, any thread, where she could re-engage his will for life. Dimly she became aware of someone peering over her shoulder, as it were. The Djinni. The Infinite was allowing him to see what she could, even as it had allowed her to bring him here. She didn’t know why…but she was a seraphim, one of the Siblings, and the seraphim trusted the Infinite at all times, and in all things. The Infinite wished for this, and so it would be.

  Perhaps there was something there that it wished him to know, something it would take too long for her to tell him, or to convince him of. Sometimes seeing was believing.

  So she sorted and allowed him to watch.

  * * *

  Red felt as if his mind were expanding. It had to, to accommodate the near infinite stream of realities that seemed to run through it. It was the perspective that made it both manageable and utterly chaotic at the same time. From a single point in time, the possibilities streamed out as countless rays, each leading to countless more, a forever tree with crystalline branch points, beautiful and horrible to behold.

  “Yes,” said the voice, dryly. “This is what I do. Perhaps now you understand why those who are Seen are important.”

  Red didn’t answer, he was locked in place, unable to tear his eyes away from it. He couldn’t make out much in the way of specifics, but he was able to ascertain various patterns and general outcomes. There were some branches that ended abruptly with something…he understood it to mean “This is not Permitted.” Those branches were ones that began with an action on her part. There were a lot of those, and more sprang up as she frantically sped through her task. “Frantic” was the correct word. He was somehow able to sense more stress, more anxiety with every moment. And he understood, though he could not have said how, that such emotions—emotions in general—were utterly foreign to her. Oddly enough, love (a sort of generic, all-encompassing, “brotherly” love), compassion, grief…those she knew. Fear though—that was new. And she was afraid.

  …those who are Seen are important…

  He understood, and slowly he found his perspective hurtling into the infinite futures, to pick out key moments, key players, and the impact they made on this universe. Bella seemed to be pivotal in many of them, and she was either alone, taking strength and support from her closest friends, or with either Bull, or in a very, very few, Yankee Pride. Mostly she was alone or beside Bull, the very embodiment of his call-sign, a true Bulwark. The Seraphym concentrated on those, and whether he liked it or not, Red was along for the ride.

  Bull wasn’t perfect, neither was Bella, but at the most key moments, he did the right thing. Protecting when she was at her weakest. Standing at her back when she needed support. Waiting when she was strong. Never holding her back even though he wanted to for her own sake, but mostly never urging the selfish over the selfless. Together they meant something, and although Red was not allowed to see the ends of those branches, it seemed that they were making a difference in—well—“saving the world” all out of proportion to what two people could reasonably be expected to do. But—it wasn’t perfect. They fought. Some of those branches ended with Bella alone again. Some, a lot fewer, ended with her with Pride. Some…just ended. It was the ones with Bull that the Seraphym just kept coming back to. Red felt his stubbornness hardening, like cement setting.

  Big deal, I could have that! I can do that!

  He pursued the branches where he was the one that had Bella. Where Bull came back and with dull and lifeless fortitude pursued duty until duty killed him, or where he didn’t come back at all. And he and Bella were fine together, more than fine! They were happy. Of course they were, he knew how to make her happy, and she was looking for someone she could make happy, someone who could surprise her, someone she could surprise—

  But something was wrong. Something was terribly, horribly wrong. They might have been happy, but no matter what he did, no matter how good they were for each other—

  Well, the branches that the Seraphym was chasing all dove into this huge, blank area. And on the other side of that blank, a blank he understood instinctively—partly from her frustration—that the Seraphym could not see through either, the world had gone to hell. All parties were losing, no matter what they did. Whether they all fought separately, or somehow united and fought together, it all went down into flaming hell.

  “This is what Matthew March saw. This is what Alex Tesla called ‘The Ides of March.’ This is why Matthew begged me for death.”

  And no wonder. You die, he dies, she dies, everybody dies. He and Bella were just fine right up until they died horribly along with everyone else. And whether they died early in the massacre or late, what happened after that was the world going under the grinding boot-heel of the Thulians, and…

  …and then the Thulians turned their attention outward. And he kn
ew it wasn’t going to stop with the Earth.

  He felt the Seraphym’s frustration, anxiety, even terror. She wanted to intervene, but every single branch where she did was slammed with that big fat “no entry” sign. She had to intervene. But she couldn’t. And she couldn’t make out what it was that would turn them all away from those paths into hell.

  Shit, woman, just make something up!

  But it seemed that she couldn’t.

  So, frustrated, he felt her turn her attention away from the futures and into the past. And now the past, one, solid, unbroken braid made up of a multitude of threads stretched out before them both. He sensed she hoped to find an answer there, as she began tracing back the path of Gairdner Ward’s life, working from this moment backwards.

  Which meant they were both looking right into the man’s past thoughts, at the moment when he destroyed everything in his “holding pen” in his surge of grief, pain, and rage. Rage at…

  Being told his wife was dead, and the Seraphym refusing to divulge the information of how, when, and why. His wife.

  Victoria Summers.

  Amethist.

  * * *

  The Seraphym found herself somehow abruptly shoved aside. It made no sense; a mortal was not supposed to have that sort of power over a Sibling, but she felt the reins of this particular horse seized from her hands, and the Djinni took over. He didn’t have control of more than a fraction of her abilities, of course—he couldn’t. The sheer strength of the torrent of information would have made him go madder than Matthew March had, instantaneously. But he used what little that he could control to sift ruthlessly through Bulwark’s past.

  Mostly the reason he had been able to take over was because he had taken her utterly by surprise. Mortals could do that. Mortals were unpredictable, and even she could be surprised by them. Mortals had the most precious Gifts of the Infinite, Free Will and Creativity. But he could not keep control for long, and she moved to take it back.

  No, Sibling. This is permitted.

  Astonished for a second time in as many nanoseconds, she held her hand and her power, and watched over him, ready to move in at any time if her powers endangered his mind. The Infinite had spoken. He was now…potentially…Important, and had earned that much protection. So she leant him stability, trickled power to him, and subtly guided his hand when she knew what he wanted, so that he became a laser-scalpel, rather than a case of dynamite. She struggled as he floundered, overpowered by so much disbelief and rage that it was all she could do to keep him contained. This was the past, and he could not change it, no matter how much he might want to. And…it was not memory, which could be mistaken. It was what had happened, unvarnished, and unshaded. Amethist and Bulwark. Victoria and Gairdner Ward. He witnessed all of it, from their first meeting, their first mission, their growing attraction to each other and when it had finally blossomed into love. Their wedding, long conversations concerning children, their future, their loved ones. It seemed as if Amethist had indeed moved on. The Seraphym felt the Djinni’s pain, his denial, and finally, his anguish, as Amethist never once mentioned him to Bulwark, had never seemed anything but complete and fulfilled with this man. She watched as Red brought up Bulwark and Amethist’s first date, and with longing reached up to cup Amethist’s blushing face in his hand, finding nothing to grasp but a faded image from the Heart of All Time. And then, with his other trembling hand, he brought up an image of Bella, the first time she had spoken to Bulwark, just seconds after she had driven the Djinni to his knees with a well-placed punch. She was blushing, and the Seraphym was struck by the similarities shared between these two women. Djinni saw it too. Both strong. Both determined to do what was right, regardless of what it cost them. Both beautiful, both unconcerned with their own beauty. Both not just ready, but eager, to give everything to help another.