I didn’t even notice as Paine pressed his hand against my arm, but I do recall the feeling of copper against my skin. In that moment of horrible clarity, Paine used my own SDR against me.
I crashed back down to the padded floor, muscles shivering uncontrollably. Only my hatred and rage kept me from passing out. “Such will,” Paine whispered. “You would have made a fine ally in freeing this world, little dog. A good pupil. But instead, as so many are when measured against my might, you are nothing but a tool, a means to an end, and you have something I want. The World-Breaker . . . for your sister.”
“No. Proof. Yet,” I managed to spit through the pain.
He reached into his satchel and removed a picture, flashing it in front of my face. Susan looked like Mom. Too much like Mom. So much like her that it hurt to see. Mom in hospital scrubs standing next to Isabel looking exactly the same as Susan did, both of them smiling at whoever held the camera.
Fuck me.
This can’t be happening.
I snarled like a wild animal from where I lay on the floor.
“Beautiful,” Paine said, “and powerful. An Ultra . . . a Bonegrinder, and . . . they missed her. I half hoped when Moira von Welf died that precious Susan would take the mantle instead of the Welf boy . . . but as we have been over plenty of times, you ruined that experiment, little dog. She was seeing ghosts when I found her. Even caused a dead bird to rise to its feet and fly away. She was going mad. She is mad, but only partially. Plenty of hours in the day for reunion, for . . . sanity. If . . . if you pay the price for her.”
I said nothing, only glared in hatred.
“See . . . I did not have to torture you. It is your chains that are your undoing. Never free, little dog, still one leash after another around your neck,” he taunted me.
“Fuck you.”
“Yap, yap.”
“Fuck you twice.”
“I have made . . . arrangements. With Guard Watson. I don’t expect someone of your limited skills to be able to escape on their own, even with her help. Instead . . . Watson will see you to the surface. From there, you will travel to wherever you have hidden the World-Breaker. On obtaining it . . . you will contact me. I will tell you where to meet soon after. If you have not contacted me with seventy-two hours of our parting tonight . . .”
“You’ll kill her,” I snarled.
He frowned like I spoke the wrong language. “No . . . I will stop taking anima from her. I will increase her decline. Then, a year or so from now, I will send her to you. And you will kill her. Or her. Or your dear Valentine. The Learning Council has ordered . . . all rabid dogs must be put down. For the Quota, always to keep under the Quota. Always to keep us slaves.”
“We both know you’ll kill me as soon as you have the World-Breaker,” I got out as I finally stopped the shaking in my muscles.
The frown on Paine’s face deepened. “Perhaps I will. We also both know you will bring allies with you. We both know . . . I will bring allies with me. As I said, I do not underestimate you, little dog, weak though you are in comparison to my genius. Exactly the reason why I searched your cell while you were in court . . . just to be sure. No World-Breaker, but this ring . . . some other toys. A dagger . . . most interesting. I will be keeping it. Consider it . . . down payment for your sister’s care these last few years. We also both know . . . you will do exactly what I just told you to do, will you not?”
I thought I was familiar with hatred.
I thought . . . me, of course I’m familiar with hatred. I hated so much. My own father, my own mother, Susan . . . JoJo, all of them for leaving me alone, for not being able to save themselves much less their younger brother. There were times I despised Welf . . . times I looked at Catherine Hayes and wanted to do horrible things to her. To make her pay for all the evil she’d done to the good and pure and innocent around her.
Hate them all so I hate myself a little less.
But it was nothing like this.
You read about people tearing their hair out or rending their garments or stabbing someone one-hundred times. Was fifty not enough? No, fifty ain’t fucking enough. For Obadiah Paine, fifty ain’t enough. A hundred ain’t enough. A thousand ain’t enough. As long as there was a piece of him left that was too much Obadiah Paine inhabiting the same universe as me.
And I had to do what he said.
But not exactly how he wanted me to do it.
That was my only hope.
“I’ll do it,” I told him, already planning.
“Tomorrow night, little dog. I will already have departed. Do think twice about who you involve in this endeavor. Especially think twice about who you bring with you to collect Susan. You will fail in whatever fool’s hope you plan and I may kill all of them in retribution. Also . . . if you hope to involve her . . . I do not know what I will do . . . but I imagine it will happen very slowly. So she can know the full weight of the pain she brought me these last decades.”
I just managed to get to my hands and knees when the second blast from the SDR finally knocked me completely unconscious.
Well . . . at least I’m getting some sleep tonight.
.
.
.
At the moment, nightmares are better than reality.
Session 70
Memory
Whole point of mentimancers, ain’t it?
Most of the time you don’t think about how powerful that is. Third Tier mancer, right? Down there with corpusmancers, floromancers, and faunamancers. Don’t mean they can’t be powerful, just not on average and it’ll never be as breathtaking as even those douchebag showoffs with the shadow knives or the killer icicles.
Memory.
Nothing but memory.
Maybe a stray thought if they tried particularly hard and had themselves a connection with the intended target, but never a command. Mindmaster can’t control a mundane like a Bonegrinder can a Construct, not at all. If they could . . . well, if they could, maybe regulation wasn’t enough. If they could . . . maybe the Mancy made a mistake with its ratios and mentimancers deserved to be First Tier.
Can’t command you.
Just memory.
Simple memory.
Athir hadn’t used even a single drop of anima on that note, but it commanded me all the same.
Commanded me to find him.
Commanded me to share some truth.
I hoped.
How I hoped.
Every bit of rage and trouble and rumination that Plutarch had so expertly stamped down with his slap across my head, Athir’s note sent it all boiling again. Not no steady boil neither. Rapid boil. Water jumping out that saucepan. Mind flying, going a million places at all three-hundred and sixty degrees. Trying to imagine what was about to happen. Trying to imagine what Athir knew that I had missed. Not just me, but all of us. What was special about Athir? Boy no one liked. Not quite the height of oddness, not like Plutarch had been talking about, but close to it.
The What If of it all was like a drug.
Made my whole trip from the Dorms, past Admin, and southward into the Park nothing but a blur.
Made me think of Ceinwyn.
Think of how she saw this world. As a detached observer, watching all the bad choices them mortals make.
No wonder she’s always smiling . . . this feels fucking awesome!
Felt like the last few days might mean something.
Felt like I had some control again.
The brief moment of possibility, same as when I decided I wouldn’t let Catherine get away with it, that I would start my own investigation even if it pissed off Root. Pissed him off alright. Two investigations into two different suspects and both of us ended up holding our dicks. Not the best analogy . . . really don’t want to think about how little Root’s cock probably is. Oh, who am I to judge? Maybe Root’s packing some serious heat. Got himself a twelve-inch horse cock he uses to bang all those Construct asses.
Navigated my way through the Park to w
here I’d crossed paths with Athir before. Deep in the Park. Not on one of the main arteries. Not even hidden, but beyond hidden. Part of the Park only Forestplanters who tend to it usually see. Only happened across it the other day because I was cutting through a back-way more towards Ceinwyn’s place, around the main path to the Anima Class building.
Park’s pretty big.
Seemed big now.
Too big for my liking.
Wanted to be there. With Athir. Polite dumbass, leaving a note and setting up a meeting to talk instead of just finding me and telling me what he knows. Manners. Always manners. Bad stuff, kiddies. Gets in the way of actual results. Gets in the way of truth.
Whatever the truth is.
Not easy to betray one of your own, that’s what Athir wrote. Another mentimancer? A mentimancer did do it and then killed Scott Hardy to cover it up maybe? Makes less sense than Hardy being responsible, don’t it? And how does another mentimancer being involved link back to whatever Catherine has up her sleeve and whatever Teresa is worried about?
Athir was our only Mindmaster, so that meant it would be someone from Class ’08 or another Blackjack. Didn’t seem to make much sense. One of your own. He didn’t mean . . . Class ’09, did he? But . . . who? Not gonna believe it actually is Welf after all I’ve gone through proving it ain’t him. Plus, he was in the Holding Room when Hardy died. Unless . . . unless Mama Welf had it all set up to prove her baby boy was innocent . . . shit, was that the ‘is it?’ Catherine meant?
Catherine kills Leo.
Mama Welf kills Scott.
Buries it all, six feet under.
Began with a splat.
Ended with a yank.
How does Athir fit in it all?
Don’t know.
But I was really curious about what he had to say.
Now more than ever.
[CLICK]
Memory.
Whole point of this tape.
Pull it out of the brain pan, turn it into binary. Machines gonna outlast us all, especially me.
Never been a liar. Ceinwyn Dale said so, must be true. Do like to trick people; even tricked you on occasion, haven’t I, kiddies? Mostly though, I am what I fucking am. Foul Mouth. Why hide from it? So I tell you the truth. As I remember it, at least. See . . . I’m still one of those faulty mortals with the jury-rigged divine spark. Maybe not mundane, maybe a mancer with a something-special, but still fallible as any other homo sapiens puts their pants on one leg at a time.
Ain’t so for mentimancers. They say mentimancers have perfect memories. Not like photographic all the time, but when they tap into anima they can recall moments and connect with the senses in ways most just forget, gone to the fog of time. Relive it even. Sights, smells, even how something felt across your skin. I don’t have that. I fight through whole buckets of fog to bring these memories back to life for you kiddies. Last few months with all these tape recorder sessions I’ve thought about how it might be nice to have some kind of menti-anima artifact does the job for me. Rip one out of my head and let me share the thing with whoever clicks a button. Harry Potter got that shit, but I don’t. And what he doing going after a ginger when he got Hermione rocking that hot librarian look all the time? Fucking moron. Heh.
Not even the Guild’s figured out a stable memory artifact, magic being a whole lot more complicated when it has to contend with math. Be a life’s work to get it working. So . . . guess I don’t get to try. Got another life’s work already lined up after all.
Means you get some fog curling about whatever I share with you.
Most of the time that’s how it is.
Lot of my time at the Asylum even, all foggier than a January night in Fresno, nothing but inescapable gray.
Takes a lot of emotion, not any particular kind, but at least one of them, to bring it all into focus. Even the big moments, even the Camping Test or Quilt’s Wedding or . . . even first time I was with Val night of the Winter Ball. Some shadows there, some fog. Can remember the first song we danced to, but not the second. Don’t remember what color her shoes were. Can see Welf dancing with Hope, but not Pocket dancing with Sabine.
Even when Leo died, traumatic as it was for so many of us . . . there’s whole minutes, maybe even hours, of that day that I can’t accurately recall. Might be pretty sure what happened, but I wouldn’t stake a life on it. Wouldn’t send someone to the Pit over it.
Perfect memory . . . that’s the realm of the mentimancer.
One of the few ways they’re luckier than the rest of us.
Less second guessing.
Less self doubt.
Lot of second guessing and self doubt from me in that week.
Guess you know, me harping on tragedy and the million little mistakes.
I’ve had whole heaps of it while talking to this recorder. Good thing you can’t hear my grimace, kiddies, cuz I gave a few of ‘em. Can’t hear the What If inside of my head. What if I just let Root do his job, not wasting all his time by pointing the finger at Catherine like I did? Maybe . . . maybe something else. What if I kept my mouth shut, would Scott Hardy be dead? Maybe not. Lot happened that week still might have repercussions for me. Telling the Learning Council about Catherine . . . shit might come back to haunt me one day. Plus . . . other things, other things I can’t muse over without spoiling the ending of this here tale.
Tragedy such that it is.
Different kind of What If than the one Ceinwyn lives her life by. The What If of prescience is a stimulant, but the What If of yesterday is a depressant.
Feeling depressed, kiddies?
Feeling tragic?
Coin flips up into the air and the second it lands and the clock gives a tick, all the world is changed.
Go from one spot to the next.
Go from the peak to the valley.
Go from excitement to guilt.
Go from a vista of possibility to a single unmovable reality that even mentimancers can’t change.
No matter how much fog you surround it with, no matter how hard you try to forget it, it will always be there.
Not that I can forget it.
Not that there’s a single bit of fog surrounding this memory.
Ain’t crystal.
Almost an out of body experience.
Or an inside your mind experience if you will.
No fog. Opposite. Like looking at your memory through a prism.
Athir made sure of that.
I don’t blame him.
It’s one of the scars I bear, just can’t see it like the one on my cheek or the one over my brow. No lightning bolt to mark a hero, but a scar a hero gave to me. That’s what he was. None of us knew it and it wasn’t the flashy kind of heroics, but it was an act of pure sacrifice. Or stupidity. Definitely stupidity leading up to it . . . writing that note, whatever else he did to put himself in that situation. Fucking stupid. Stupider than even me and my foul mouth.
Manners.
Manners got Athir killed.
Splat.
Yank.
Crush.
Victim Number Crush.
Victim the third and I still couldn’t connect them.
Wasn’t thinking about connection when I turned the corner and saw him lying there. Looked worse than Leo did and Leo tried to tackle the ground. Athir lay like a broken mannequin. Strings cut, limbs flailing. How I imagined a person would look if some giant stomped on them. How I imagined a person would look if God struck them down with an actual hammer of wrath.
Crush.
Unlike with Leo, I had no delusion that I could save Athir.
Not just over me being the wrong type of mancer once again. I’m not even sure the Lady could’ve done anything if she’d magically teleported beside me.
Not that anyone was near.
No reason for anyone to be over that way, even on the main Park thoroughfares, until class started again tomorrow morning. Was the east side of the Asylum got activity at night, with the Hall and the Gym and all the fu
n places to be. Only teachers going home for dinner out this way. Barely anyone on this side of the Park . . . just me and Athir.
What was left of him.
“Unholy fuckballs,” I whispered to myself, surprised my voice worked. Outside of Athir’s form it was such a beautiful little alcove. Could hear the wind on the bushes and see the shadows of the trees above you. Was bubbling water nearby and birds overhead. The sun even had a few God rays poking through the canopy. Picturesque. If you discounted a broken body crumbled beside the bench.
His favorite bench.
His head was turned to the side, blood seeping out his ears. Looked mashed. Like a cracked nut.
Run.
Tell someone.
Something is horribly wrong at this school.
Welf. Catherine. Scott Hardy.
None of the suspects fit.
There’s something horribly wrong.
None of you are right.
Not you, not Root, not the Lady or Ceinwyn.
It’s all wrong.
It’s all fucked up.
Was the bubbles that kept me standing there. Bubbles of blood and air mixing around Athir’s nose as he still somehow managed to breathe. Not a person that gets easily shocked, go so far to say it’s one of my few good qualities even, but my legs refused to bend. Fog, not of memory, no, I remembered it all. Just remember how hard it was to move. How my body trembled. How I stumbled like a one-year-old on brand-new legs, untested against gravity.
Leo didn’t hit me.
Scott Hardy didn’t hit me.
This hit me.
Hit me like a freight train.
Hit me so hard even my pugnacious personality couldn’t work up anger and rage and all those feelings kept me roaring and gnashing at the world.
Felt cold as I staggered towards Athir.
Felt shivers rise through my arms and legs as I fell to my knees beside him.
Athir.
Not one of the High Five.
Not one of my friends.
Not some girl I slept with.
No . . . none of those.
But still one of the thirty kids made up Class ’09.
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 50