Heads and torsos bobbed in the mist-covered water of the pool, and I watched a woman in a bikini slide down a man-made waterfall, laughing like she was drunk before she splashed into the deep end of the pool on the other side.
It was pretty close to the same splashing sound I’d heard before.
“The rich really are different,” Revik said dryly, smiling faintly when I glanced up at him. He met my gaze then, and I saw another flicker of worry cross his face.
It was too quiet out here.
Something about the landscape seemed to strike both of us––or maybe just me––as being a little too artificial to trust, and not only for the obvious reasons. As if Revik followed my same train of thought, both of us faced forward once more, looking at Terian at almost the exact same instant. I would have given a lot to know if this was his illusion, or someone else’s.
We were halfway to the boathouse by then.
By then, I could feel it, too.
I couldn’t have put into words exactly what I felt, or its exact purpose or relevance to our mission here. Maybe Revik could have done that, or Wreg, or Tarsi... maybe they could have explained to me the exact name for whatever that odd fluctuation of energy was that lived at the end of the dock. All I knew was how I experienced it.
It was as if I felt myself walking towards a giant mirrored piece of liquid glass.
I could see the boathouse, right in front of us... and then I could see the boathouse behind the boathouse. It was as if I’d gotten close enough to a pool of still water to not only see my face reflected back at me, but also the fish living inside the water itself.
I saw the boathouse... and then I didn’t...
And then I saw it again.
I nearly stumbled in those half-second gaps between each, like those moments where you step off a curb in your dream and find nothing but an abyss below. I didn’t feel myself pass through anything... but I saw it. I saw the flicker of there to not-there to there again, even as it happened.
And once I was inside, I felt the difference between the image that stood before me and the one I’d left behind.
I knew it was a Barrier trick of some kind, but I couldn’t make up my mind as to what kind.
All I knew was, the real illuminated the fake.
It was like believing in a lie until you have the truth to compare to that lie... and in seeing that truth, you realize only then that you’d been fooled. I’d had that happen to me before in the Barrier. In fact, Wreg had been hammering me on different aspects of discernment for months, and while I still didn’t catch the fakes a lot of the time, once I saw the real thing through Wreg’s light, the falseness of the replica always became obvious.
Revik told me long ago that this was the oldest game of psychic warfare, to impersonate the resonances that a target loves and trusts, to fool them into lowering their guard, or even inviting them in. Both Wreg and Revik had taught me, however, that no matter how good the illusion, if one gets a good look at the real thing, the illusion always falls apart.
The trick was making sure one always had a line to the real.
Which was a lot easier to do than it sounded.
Even as I thought it, I found myself acutely aware that we might not have such a line to the real in here. Menlim’s constructs always had an illusion-stacked-on-illusion feel to them. I’d noticed the Dreng in general liked to pull people from the truth bit by bit, in a way that made it difficult to spot until you were too far away to notice.
Everything around us, everything I was feeling and seeing right now, might be another of those distorted mirror images, pretending to be things familiar to me only to get me to relax. I wouldn’t even have to consciously trust those things in order to relax. If my light “believed” them on some level, I’d unconsciously lower my guard... or even just make assumptions about whether or not they could hurt me.
Ever since we’d first breached the Dreng’s construct in Dubai, the construct itself had been slowly eroding my hold on the reality we’d left behind.
I’d known that, coming in here, but noticing such a thing, when it’s actually happening, is a whole other story. There’s nothing more frightening than not knowing if you can trust your own mind––especially when the changes are so incremental that you can’t feel them happening as they occur.
Looking at the boathouse in front of us, I was reminded of how far one could slide, from the real into delusion and lies. At the same time, I found myself thinking that this new version of the boathouse was more real than the image we’d just left behind.
I found myself believing it more, anyway.
Whatever this was––a Barrier construct within a Barrier construct within a Barrier construct––or a Barrier construct protecting us from an even denser Barrier construct––or some combination of those things––something about crossing that line made me believe––really believe, for the first time––that Terian was telling us the truth.
Meaning, he really did have people out here.
And he really was hiding them from Shadow.
Which meant, whatever other game Terian might be playing in all of this, and whether this was bait or a trick or whatever else, we might really have found them.
We might have finally found the missing seers and humans from the Lists.
32
TRIGGER
“I DON’T LIKE this,” Wreg muttered, holstering his sidearm with more force than necessary, even as he scowled at the Middle Eastern seer. He gave a bare glance to Jon before he looked back at Loki. “He told you to come back here? On this side of the line? Why?”
Loki remained characteristically expressionless.
The Middle Eastern seer shook his head once, slowly, as if thinking, his eyes focused on the sand dunes that rose past them, stretching off into the distance as far as the eyes could see. Loki seemed lost there almost, in that expanse of monotone white. The sand glowed softly even in the darkness of a moon-less sky, Jon noted.
After another pause, he looked back at the two of them.
“I cannot say for certain...” he began, his words measured.
“You cannot say for certain?” Wreg said, his voice holding disbelief. “What the fuck is that supposed to––”
Jon held up a hand though, silencing Wreg as he stared at Loki’s face.
“You can’t say for certain,” Jon repeated. “But what do you think, Loki? What is it you felt on him, when he gave the order?”
Loki exhaled somewhat forcefully, as close to an expression of frustration as Jon had ever heard on him. The seer frowned again as his dark eyes went back to scanning the dunes.
“I do not know, brothers,” Loki said then. “Truly. It is an impression only. On the surface he appeared to be complying with the Rook’s demands. Perhaps that is all it was, in which case, we are here because Terian demanded it.”
“What impression?” Wreg said, glancing at Jon. “What did you feel?”
Jon could tell that Wreg had now picked up on whatever Jon had noticed, and was now following his lead.
“Can you show us, brother?” Wreg said. “The thing that struck you in this way?”
Exhaling again, Loki nodded.
They stood outside the city’s walls, but Jon, along with Wreg and the others, had been instructed to enter through the back gates in less than an hour, if they didn’t get any kind of signal telling them otherwise.
Then Loki had appeared, and told them to postpone that entry, pretty much the instant he returned through those same gates.
More than that, though, Loki himself being back here at all ran counter to pretty much every scenario they had run back on the carrier.
Loki told them Revik wanted them to wait until he contacted them personally before they entered the city now, regardless of what they heard from Balidor or anyone else. He’d given no reasons for the change, apart from the fact that he’d lost Allie somehow, somewhere between the docks where they’d landed safely, several hours earlier. He’d stil
l been without her when he reached the rendezvous point with Loki’s team near the center of old town, Dubai.
But now he had her back again, according to Loki, but the detour had taken them on a strange path in the time since, one that now involved Terian, as well as the List seers... and possibly Feigran.
“This is only an impression,” Loki cautioned. “It is subjective, brothers.”
Wreg made an acknowledging gesture with his hand, then motioned him forward. “Show us. We can discuss that end of things after.”
Loki sighed, nodding again.
Jon saw the flash in Loki’s aleimi in the same instant.
The image hit Jon’s light, a sharp, nearly crystalline image related to the imprint Loki had referenced. With it, Jon saw the specific look on Revik’s face, the flavor in his light that Loki had noticed, the fleeting impressions of his thoughts, even as he suppressed them, likely in part to keep them out of view inside the construct.
Jon was still turning over what he’d seen and felt, frowning as he tried to think through the implications drawn by Loki in those few seconds, wondering if he’d interpreted it the way Loki meant him to... when Wreg swore from where he stood next to him.
He swore in Mandarin that time, which he usually only did when he forgot where he was.
Jon looked at him, frowning. Then, realizing he’d been fighting not to see the truth, he returned his gaze to Loki.
“Revik thinks they’re walking into a trap?” Jon’s tension was now audible in his voice. “Why the fuck would he do it, if he thought that?”
Loki shrugged, his face expressionless.
Even so, his words were matter-of-fact, almost as if he were pointing out something with the obviousness of the weather.
“They had his wife,” he said simply.
Jon’s frown deepened, right before he looked at his own mate.
Wreg looked angry. More than that, he looked powerless, too, as if he’d seen more in that brief flash of Revik’s light than even Loki had... and moreover, that he didn’t want to share what he’d seen, not even with Jon.
“What, Wreg?” Jon said, hearing his own edge.
Wreg looked at him, scowling.
“What, Wreg?” Jon repeated, sharper.
“He doesn’t just think they’re walking into a trap,” Wreg said, his voice darker. “That fucker thinks he can use it. He thinks he can turn that trap back on him... after he uses Terian and his wife to draw him out in the open.”
Jon squinted at him, feeling another annoyed frown pull at his mouth. Placing his hands on his hips, he fought to think, even as he shuffled his booted feet in the sand.
“What does that mean?” he said finally.
Wreg gave him a flat look, his black eyes dense. “What do you think it means, brother? He wants to go after Menlim. He’s going to try and kill that fucker before he can kill his wife... or take his daughter again.”
Thinking about Wreg’s words, Jon felt understanding leak through his own light, even as he realized the Chinese seer was probably right.
If Revik had any chance to kill Menlim, he would take it.
He would take it, even if it looked like it might get him killed.
He might even do it without telling Allie.
THE FAIRY LIGHTS lining the stone path stopped about a dozen yards from the doors leading into the old boathouse.
That same building stretched before us now, too tall to see past its face, although I’d seen as we approached that the thing reached out further past the manicured lawns and gardens than I’d initially realized. Whatever its true dimensions, it was definitely warehouse-sized, both in length and via the height of the tall double-doors.
In fact, more than a boathouse, it now reminded me of blimp hangars I’d seen as a kid, back when our human father used to take me and Jon to airshows.
The walls and roof glowed faintly through my light, even without me reaching out.
Something about that glow suggested not only organic metal, but possibly even something sentient. I wondered if the building itself was responsible for projecting the illusion I’d seen as we approached the beginning of that last set of tree-like, Art Nouveau lights.
I stood there with Revik, silent, along with the rest of our small group.
We just stood there and watched as Terian’s guards pushed open the giant, metal sliding doors. Those same doors had been padlocked together with a winding series of cables when we first arrived. I’d watched, transfixed, as those same cables uncoiled themselves like snakes, right after Terian used retinal scanners and Barrier codes to disconnect the joining ends.
I winced at the screech of the doors on their metal tracks, shifting my weight on the high-heeled shoes. Those twin doors seemed to open excruciatingly slow, even under the combined weight and strength of Terian’s guards. The screech told me at least some portion of the mechanism had been constructed of dead metal in addition to the organic.
Organics, as a general rule––even semi-organics and other high-grade composites––didn’t rust.
Revik clasped my hand tighter where it coiled around his arm. We exchanged another look after Terian motioned us inside the darkened opening.
Then Revik lowered his mouth to my ear.
“I love you,” he murmured, kissing me. “It’ll be all right, Allie.”
I nodded, but something about the way he said it made my throat close.
Then all of us were doing as Terian indicated, walking almost in formation, although no words were exchanged between us and our small contingent of infiltrators.
I found myself wondering where the rest of Loki’s team was, including Loki himself. I wondered where Revik had sent them when he’d pulled those other seers aside––
––but Revik blew the question from my mind with his light.
He did it softly, but perceptibly enough that I killed the thought on my own before it could go anywhere more specific.
Our footsteps echoed through the high-ceilinged space.
It was dark inside. Not quite pitch dark––the upper-story windows reflected some light onto the warehouse floor, presumably from the ambient light of the city as well as the stars and nearby houses and the path lights. I’d noticed only a small sliver of moon in the sky as we drove out here, and it had only just been rising.
That other feeling grew even stronger as we walked. Meaning the one about people being out here... living lights. We definitely weren’t alone in this building.
As I thought it, Revik squeezed my hand tighter.
He felt it, too.
Terian didn’t lead us in a straight line through the building, primarily because he couldn’t. The further we walked, the more I found it difficult to see much with my physical eyes. Storage crates broke our pathway in multiple lines, some of them stacked almost to the ceiling despite its height. The deeper we descended into those rows, the harder it was to see, since they often cut off even the small amount of light from the windows.
It created an odd, off-kilter progression through what felt more and more like a maze. I used my light to track every twist and turn, in the event we needed to backtrack the same way out without a guide, but I still found it disorienting.
Terian seemed to know where he was going, however.
Around the time when I could feel we’d made our way about halfway through the expanse of the warehouse, I could hear them.
Shuffling at first, like animals in cages.
I heard them through the echoes, thinking at first it must be rats. Then I recognized what felt and sounded more the movement of bare feet on a dusty floor.
Feeling my heart start to beat faster in my chest, I had to fight not to walk faster, even as I kept at least half of my attention on Terian again, and on what I could feel of him walking through the dark in front of us. He continued to wind his way through the high stacks of crates, occasionally disappearing through curtain-like cloths hanging down over more crates, only to reveal narrow, twisting passageways directly
behind them.
Clearly, he hadn’t wanted people stumbling on his “guests” by accident.
We’d all dropped the civilian gaits by then, even me in the high heels.
I couldn’t hear Revik at all anymore as he fell back into his normal fight-walk. Even under normal conditions, when he wasn’t trying all that hard, his regular means of walking could be catlike in its soundlessness.
Now, he moved like a ghost.
His light had stilled into silence, too, making him an absence more than a presence even though he walked right beside me. Apart from his hand, which still held me tightly in his fingers, he might not have been there at all.
In front of us, Chinja, Anale, Poresh, Baleur and Dalejem had gone more or less silent, as well. Even Jax and Holo no longer made a sound as they walked between us and the others.
Stanley, who I’d nearly forgotten was with us, as well as Surli, took up the rear with Mansk and Delek. I couldn’t help noticing that they moved just as quietly as those in front of us, most of whom were Adhipan-trained.
Terian’s guards continued to walk normally, however, as did Terian himself, who scarcely seemed to notice the difference in the rest of us at all.
As we reached about two-thirds of the length of the warehouse, the space opened up.
I found myself reminded of the building’s height, as soon as it had.
Even as I thought it, a light ignited against the far wall, right at its base. Little more than a bluish-green glow at first, it rose as we got closer, then began to spread like liquid flame around the corners of the far end of the warehouse and down its length.
I wondered why Terian would wait until we were more than halfway across the floor of the structure before he turned on the lights... then the thought left my mind as I saw a row of cages to either side of the building in front of us, hidden at first behind another few rows of crates stacked almost to the height of the ceiling. Those crates stood ominously on either side of the wide aisle where we now walked.
Allie's War Season Four Page 130