Prophet: Bridge & Sword

by JC Andrijeski

  And yeah, if it were me, I’d probably ease Gina into those details, too.

  Whatever his exact relationship to the region, Loki was extremely helpful in planning the op, including in educating all of us on the history, culture and layout of Dubai. From what Dalejem and Stanley said, Loki’s basic information on Dubai hadn’t changed all that much. Security was more intense, some of the neighborhoods had expanded, been cleaned up, or made more upscale, but the layout of the city remained more or less intact.

  The Waterfront had always been near the top of the food chain. Like a lot of things in Dubai, they created the whole neighborhood out of thin air.

  It was that floating aspect that made me stare.

  Even the buildings that seemed to rest directly on the water reached to the stars, the highest on The Waterfront being over fifty stories tall.

  In a perverse way, it made sense Terian would hide the List seers in such a place––in that it made no sense at all, so it was unlikely anyone would think to look for them here.

  I could feel Revik’s light gearing up next to mine as he held my hand. We sat crammed into the back of one of four limousines Terian sent to the nightclub to pick us up.

  Clearly, Terian knew Revik had more people outside that club than in it.

  Terian also made it clear all those people couldn’t go with us to look at List seers. Revik and I reluctantly agreed, then Revik sent two of those limousines away, filled to the brim with our infiltrators, presumably to an exit point at some other part of the city.

  That left a relatively small group of us accompanying Terian to The Waterfront.

  Me, Revik. Anale, Chinja, Tenzi, Jax, Holo, Poresh, Stanley, Surli and Dalejem. Two other Children of the Bridge seers joined us, as well. I didn’t know them, but I recognized both of their faces. I knew their names were Baleur and Mansk.

  I couldn’t help but be relieved when Kat elected to accompany the others out of the city, before Revik or I even asked––nor could I blame her.

  I’d already given Revik the short version, in terms of running into her. I didn’t make the connection around Terian buying her until Revik reminded me.

  “She’s on the List,” he murmured near my ear. “So was that male––the other seer Terry bought today. Loki verfied it.”

  Feeling a mix of reactions go through my light, I only nodded. I couldn’t say much; two of my exes were also on the List.

  Revik heard that, well enough to grunt.

  When I glanced at him, he only gave me a grim smile.

  Returning the smile, I let my eyes shift to Terian, meaning the one with the auburn hair, who sat across from us on the facing bench seat, just behind the driver.

  His amber eyes glowed strangely in the running lights. I saw him looking at Dalejem, who happened to be sitting next to him. I was still watching when his hand snaked out. He began massaging the leg of the male seer, exuding enough pain that I flinched.

  Dalejem jerked his leg away, shoving at Terian’s hand, but the other seer wouldn’t let go.

  “Can I have him, Revi’?” Terian looked at Revik, as Dalejem continued to try and pry Terian’s hand off his leg. “Please?”

  “No,” Revik said, his voice cold. “Leave him alone, Terry.”

  Terian released the green-eyed seer at once.

  I watched Dalejem glare at him, right before he turned that harder look on Revik. I knew it was beyond inappropriate, but when I looked at Terian right then, I almost wanted to laugh. The look of disappointment on his face was just so acute.

  I didn’t laugh, of course, but I still had to suppress a smile.

  “He’s hungry,” Terian complained. “He’s really hungry, Revi’.”

  “Leave him alone, Terry,” Revik repeated, his voice a warning. “That wasn’t a request.”

  Terian gestured an acquiescence, but I could feel his disappointment. At the same time, he clearly didn’t want to disobey Revik––presumably because he still wanted our help getting him out of here, badly enough to keep the peace.

  I watched him study Dalejem’s face and body through narrowed eyes, like he was drinking in whatever he felt coming off his light.

  Dalejem himself looked pissed off, which I could understand.

  He glared at me, which I understood a lot less, right before he glared at Revik.

  “Don’t do me any favors, brother,” he said, aiming that at Revik, too.

  Revik’s jaw hardened, but he only shrugged, his eyes returning to the window. His light exuded indifference, despite the irritation I felt from him. “You can fuck him all you want later, Jem. But I’d rather if you didn’t do it in here.”

  On Revik’s other side, Jax snickered a little.

  That time, the anger I felt off Dalejem was almost a tangible force.

  It was intense enough that I winced, shielding my light. Again, I looked up at Revik, wondering what the hell happened between the two of them while I was gone.

  Revik kissed my temple, murmuring, “I’ll tell you later. It’s nothing. Promise.”

  When I glanced over though, Dalejem looked even more furious.

  His eyes focused on Revik like he wanted to hit him. Or maybe I felt that in his light––or both, I’m not sure. I couldn’t use my own light to scan him like I might have normally, but I couldn’t help thinking that was probably for the best.

  I was still watching Dalejem warily, trying to figure out what his problem was, when Terian broke out in a happy chuckle, looking between the three of us like he was having the time of his life.

  He pointed at Dalejem, about to say something, but Revik cut him off.

  “Shut up, Terry.” He gave him a warning look. “Don’t.”

  Terry grinned wider, but didn’t argue.

  Instead, he leaned back on the leather seat, bouncing a little as he grinned and stared out the window. Watching him, I couldn’t help thinking he looked like a ten-year-old human.

  Rolling his eyes, Revik grunted, giving me what looked like a real smile, maybe for the first time. In the same set of seconds, however, as we met eyes, I found myself reminded of where we were, and the depth of the risk we were taking with this.

  Not only with our own lives––with Lily’s.

  Revik must have felt some of that, because his smile faded.

  He leaned closer, kissing me on the mouth.

  “Lily needs to be free, too, wife,” he reminded me softly, putting his mouth by my ear after he ended the kiss. “We all do. You do, too.”

  I nodded, my throat tightening at his words.

  She did need to be free. We all did––but Lily, especially.

  Which meant we needed Feigran.

  The limousine began to slow.

  A harder shield fell down over my light, more of a game face than what I’d worn on the ride over. I reminded myself we were deep inside a Dreng construct––even as it struck me that I kept needing to remind myself of that fact.

  More than anything else, that subtlety of the construct’s threads made it dangerous in my eyes. My light normalized it quickly––unnervingly quickly, especially when I related that fact to Revik and some of the others who’d spent years, even decades, in that light.

  I felt a wash of gratitude Wreg wasn’t here, or Raddi, Neela, or Jorag.

  Terian’s people opened the back doors to the limousine, politely offering us hands, which all of us ignored with the exception of Terian himself. He caught hold of one of those white gloves and bounded out gleefully ahead of us.

  I knew we couldn’t trust Terian, no matter what we felt on his light.

  I’d felt real sincerity there. Revik had, too. But Terry was such an enigma, he might think he was helping us by handing us over to Menlim to be reprogrammed. There was no way to assume his goals for this “alliance” would end well for any of us.

  Moreover, Terian was hooked so deeply into Shadow’s light, he might not even know if he were being manipulated. If he’d been anyone else living inside this construct, we would h
ave assumed he was compromised––even if he believed with all his heart he was helping us escape. But the unique properties of Terian’s aleimi made everything with him a lot more uncertain.

  In both directions, really.

  Revik squeezed my hand, walking tight by my side as we made our way down a floating walkway. Lined with bronze Art Nouveau lamps, the walkway looked otherworldly in the dark, even beyond the glass sculptures placed at strategic points, lit from within so they looked like glowing magical people, stones, sometimes animals or fairy-like creatures.

  “Stop worrying, wife,” Revik chided me softly. “I felt it, too. Crazy or not, we need the bastard. And we can’t leave all the Listers he’s collected here. We can’t.”

  “Which is exactly what Shadow would want us to think,” I muttered. “Moreover, he knows that’s exactly the kind of bait and ambiguity that would likely pull you and I in. Lily. Listers. Terian and his weird light. He’s got you and I pegged.”

  Revik didn’t answer.

  I saw Dalejem turn his head, though, staring at me.

  Chinja gave me a glance, too, and a grim nod, enough that I knew she’d not only heard me, but agreed with me. I saw her touch her side in the area of her ribcage, and remembered that even though I was unarmed apart from the telekinesis, not all of them were.

  Revik would have a weapon, too.

  The thought didn’t reassure me as much as it normally would.

  We continued to make our way down the deserted walkway, stopping only a few times to go through security checkpoints. Each of those more or less waved us through when they saw Terian with us, although I saw a few harder stares at the obvious infiltrators in our group, including Revik himself, and in spite of his measured, civilian-style gait.

  Whoever these seers were, they weren’t low-level goons, like I’d seen at the club and the slave markets. I’d bet each of them had sight ranks in actual over a six.

  I didn’t get close enough to confirm my impression, but I noted the multiple weapons strapped to their persons, including grenades and what looked like high-voltage stunners. Seeing one muscular, male seer with multiple tattoos and a semi-automatic weapon strapped to his back, along with handguns at both hips and another sticking out of a shoulder holster, I found myself reminded of Wreg, and by extension, Jon.

  As we walked away from that set of guards, I wrapped my fingers tighter into Revik’s, drawing closer to him as I walked.

  “Where’re the newlyweds?” I said, my voice a murmur.

  “Not far.”

  “Not inside the line?” I pressed.

  Revik checked the old-fashioned watch he wore. I didn’t take my eyes off his face as he did it, but didn’t see any change in his expression as we continued to walk.

  “Not yet.” He glanced at me, tugging me closer by the hand.

  “Do we have a line out, still?”

  He nodded, slowly. “No easy access right now, love.”

  I grimaced, but knew what he meant.

  If we tried contacting Balidor through the shield, chances were, the signal would be picked up and traced. I could tell Revik thought that possibility was even stronger down here, meaning at The Waterfront itself, given the added security. I got a fleeting glimpse through my proximity to his light of geometries in the air, like floating equations under the curved protective dome.

  The construct was different down here.

  I didn’t fully understand the differences, but clearly, Revik did.

  I began to hear sounds other than those made by our small group.

  Distant still, those sounds made me think of cocktail parties. I heard gentle laughter, faint music, clinking glasses and plates––what might have been splashing, as if someone or several someones had just jumped into a swimming pool.

  My eyes searched past the glowing objects and Art Nouveau lamps of the path we were on, looking for their source.

  A four-story house stood emerged from behind a grove of trees to our left.

  In the dark it looked like an old plantation building, like one might find in the deep South in the United States––or perhaps a pre-war, colonial-style mansion unearthed from an old British neighborhood somewhere in India. It was a house that evoked servants, and wealth that had a lot of free time. To add to the air of unreality, the five-story building, as well as its sprawling grounds, looked as if they rested directly on the water.

  I watched the surrounding gardens and lawns undulate gently with the waves.

  It would have been strange for a much smaller house and grounds, but these gardens were huge, filled with palm trees, flower-covered bushes and lush lawns. To the left of the walkway, the grounds stretched off into the distance, so that I couldn’t see their end.

  My eyes returned to the stretch of dark in front of us, where there were no lights at all.

  I already knew we’d be going there.

  My intuition was confirmed when Terian motioned us to leave the walkway to follow a smaller path heading towards that dark. Once we’d crossed a segment of that man-made field, he led us onto a second walkway I saw only after he ignited the lamps. The path appeared out of the dark, leading into the distance. I frowned when it occurred to me how conspicuous this made us, surrounded by nothing but trees and lawns on either side.

  Revik must have been thinking the same thing.

  “Kill the lights, Terry,” he said.

  “No, this is better,” Terian said, grinning over his shoulder at him. “They know we’re here. We come in the dark, they think we are hiding. Best not to hide.”

  He motioned us forward, walking briskly along the lit path.

  The lights only turned on one segment at a time. The first was lined by incongruous and very non-desert trees whose branches grew together overhead, forming a lush green arch. A few minutes later, we passed through a second garden, lit all over by more of those fairy-like statues and glowing rocks. Past the garden, the path transformed into a winding white line covered in sparkling stone tiles. I listened to the click of my heels on the stone as we followed, our group otherwise silent as we passed to the right of a second plantation-style house.

  Clutching Revik’s arm with both of my hands, I peered past him at a lit pool that stood behind that colonial-style house, steaming in the night air. The pool was decorated with multi-colored spotlights and surrounded by tall palm trees and stone fountains. I glimpsed shadowy figures out there, sitting at outdoor tables with umbrellas, drinking drinks as piped-in music played on the stone patio.

  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, when I glanced up at him.

  He met my gaze, and I saw a flicker of worry cross his face.

  I felt it, too. I just had no idea what it meant.

  Something hummed up ahead, both too quiet and deafening in the relative silence of the water and surrounding fields. The darkness was too dense compared to the horizon on either side, and I saw only trees and water behind it, and no stars.

  We were halfway across the field by then.

  I was about to ask Revik if he could hear that humming too, when––

  I walked through something.

  It didn’t feel like an ordinary construct breach. It didn’t feel like anything I’d ever experienced before. Something about it was almost physical.

  It was as if I’d walked through a giant mirror of liquid glass.

  I could see the edge of the water, right in front of us, the darkness of the sky, the shadow of the field and a few scattered trees––

  And then I could see a massive boathouse standing by the water, next to a synthetic dock.

  I nearly stumbled in those half-second gaps between each flicker of reality, like those moments where
you step off a curb in your dream and find nothing but an abyss.

  Revik and I briefly came to a stop. So did the rest of our party.

  We stared up at that warehouse-sized boathouse as a group, taking it in.

  That kind of thing had happened to me in the Barrier before, of course. Wreg had been hammering me on different aspects of discernment for months, on how to spot Barrier illusions and delusions projected by individuals and constructs. While I still didn’t catch the fakes a lot of the time, once I saw the real through Wreg’s light, the falseness of the replica always became obvious. The trick was to always keep a line to the real––which isn’t as easy as it sounds.

  I’d never seen anything at this scale before, though.

  The quasi-physical quality made me wonder if a virtual component was involved.

  “Maybe,” Revik muttered next to me, frowning. “I don’t feel anything physical, though.”

  Still holding my hand, he looked behind us, at where we’d just passed through, and then back at the boathouse. I could tell he was wondering what I was wondering––namely, had we just walked into the real? Or the illusion?

  Everything around us, everything we could feel and see, might be another trick.

  Whatever this was––a Barrier construct within a Barrier construct within a Barrier construct––or a Barrier construct protecting us from the wider Barrier construct managed by Menlim––or some combination––something about crossing that line made me believe, really believe, for the first time, that Terian was telling the truth.

  He really did have people out here.

  And he really had been hiding them from Shadow.

  Which meant, whatever other game Terian might be playing in all this, we might really have found them.

  We might have finally found the missing seers and humans from the Lists.