Allie's War Season Two

by JC Andrijeski

  When he first knew her, it had confused him that Allie wanted him.

  Even after she’d witnessed enough about his past for any normal seer to have serious misgivings, she’d accepted him on some level...maybe not let it go, not entirely...but she accepted those things as a part of his past, a part of who he was.

  Of course, he didn’t know at the time who they were to one another.

  Even so, it had touched him.

  It still touched him, that acceptance of hers. She’d wanted him, even after the other seers must have told her the same thing Wreg just said to him...that she could have any seer she wanted. That she could marry any one of them, even the head of the Adhipan himself, and they would be nothing but honored by her choice.

  Instead, she’d waited for a social outcast to get over his attachment fears. She’d been faithful to him...well past the point where anyone could have reasonably expected her to be. She’d told him she loved him, even before she knew if he felt the same.

  She hadn’t slept with a single seer before him. Not one...and he knew she’d received offers. Likely many offers, the whole time Terian had him.

  Revik’s jaw hardened.

  After a moment where he only stared blankly at the floor of the cabin, he paused the sequence on the virtual recorder, and rose to his feet in a single motion. Wreg watched him in some surprise, moving out of his way to clear his path to the aisle. It crossed Revik’s mind that the Sark probably thought he’d reconsidered his words...but Revik walked right past the female seers, not even giving them a glance as he made his way to the front of the plane.

  He opened the door to the cockpit without knocking.

  The pilot looked up at him. Her sharp eyes were a near violet in color, setting off an otherwise bland-featured face with dark skin.

  “Sir?” she said.

  “I’d like to send a message,” he said. “Through VR. Will it interfere with your instruments?”

  “No, sir,” she said, gesturing a negative with her fingers. “Send it through the secure network, and it should be fine...”

  “Even if it’s going to a public queue?”

  The female blinked at him. “Yes. It should be fine, sir.”

  He bowed his head stiffly. “Thank you.”

  She smiled. “Anytime, sir.”

  But he was already retreating, letting the cockpit door slide shut as it left his fingers. Walking back to his seat, he motioned for Wreg to get up, that he wanted privacy. After barely a pause, Wreg gestured in acknowledgment, rising to his feet hastily to vacate the aisle where Revik had spread out his things.

  Revik could tell the seer was genuinely worried about him, so he tried not to take offense. Still, his jaw hardened a little under the Sark’s stare.

  Letting his weight fall back into the chair once his lieutenant had gone, he set aside the virtual controls, touching a button on the side of the armrest. Keying in a code from memory, he requested a writing board and a stylus.

  He could have called up a keyboard just as easily, of course...or even dictated the words nonverbally. But he didn’t want to.

  When it was something he needed to feel his way through, he still had a tendency to fall back on writing by hand. Maybe it was because he’d done it for so much of his life under Galaith, due to the Shield’s strange ideas around security.

  Maybe it was because writing had been how he’d expressed himself for all of those years as a child, in the Pamir...even under Menlim.

  In any case, it felt more personal.

  He picked up the stylus and began to write.

  He finished earlier than he thought he would. He found that what he wanted to say was simpler than he’d expected...maybe clearer, too.

  He only reread it once. Then, saving it into the organic pad, he pulled up a directory on the network and, after some searching, keyed in a number, sliding a headset over his ear. He used an avatar, but knew, on some level, that it wouldn’t really matter.

  “Hello?” a voice said in Hindi.

  “Namaste,” Revik answered in the same. “Is this a public network?”

  “Yes, sir. Dharamasala.”

  “I see. Do you ever run messages up to Seertown?”

  There was a silence.

  “We did, sir,” the voice said then. “You know what happened there, do you not?” Revik glimpsed the man’s sad smile through the Barrier. “No more messages, sir. The town is destroyed...there is no one to receive messages anymore, sir...”

  “Can you still reach it, by car?”

  “The roads are open, sir, yes.”

  Revik sent the note he had written to the man’s address. In the same sequence, he keyed in an amount, transferring it from his personal funds.

  “I’d like you to deliver a message for me, to a particular building in Seertown. I can send very precise directions as to which building, and which door by which your messenger should enter...”

  He waited while he felt the man stare at the amount he’d sent.

  “Can you do that for me?” he said. “A decent paper for the printing of the note would be appreciated.”

  The man’s voice changed entirely, nearly bursting out of him.

  “Most certainly, sir!” he said. “Yes, sir...we can do that! Is there anything else you would like us to deliver there, sir? To that address? We can bring food...clothing...blankets. If there is anyone staying up there, perhaps they would like a radio? Something to pass the time?”

  Revik smiled. “I think they are likely to be quite occupied as they are.” He paused. “Be careful though. They won’t be expecting this message...” He hesitated. “No weapons. And you should probably send a human. Not a seer. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” the man said. “Right away, sir. Is there anything else, sir?”

  Revik was about to say no, when he hesitated.

  Staring out the window, he glimpsed white clouds in the distance, a curl of blue water further below. At the sun reflecting diamonds on the surface of the ocean, a faint smile came to his lips.

  Giving a short laugh, he shook his head, mostly at himself.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, my good cousin. There is one more thing...”

  11

  LETTER

  I SAT CROSS-LEGGED on the stone floor, watching the ancient seer as he stretched out his legs, propping his back against the wall.

  Despite his thin legs and arms, the posture made him look like a big kid, even in the sand-colored monk’s robe, a variation of which he’d worn since I’d met him.

  I had brought us tea. Well, more accurately, I had brought him tea, but I intended to drink some too, if only to be polite. I poured him a cup while he continued to stretch out his joints, glancing around the cell-like room he’d claimed as sleeping quarters. From the look in his eyes, I suspected he’d just woken up.

  “And how are your discussions with Feigran progressing?” Vash said, smiling somewhat. “Anything interesting, Alyson?”

  I looked up at the old seer, and smiled back in spite of myself.

  He was one of those seers who seemed endlessly to be smiling. Unlike a lot of the New Age jokers I’d met in San Francisco as a human, with Vash it felt utterly real, and simple somehow...despite the fact that I knew he held most of the tribal knowledge and history in his brain like some kind of walking encyclopedia.

  In fact, I almost forgot sometimes, that Vash was one of the last, true adepts left in the seer world. He and Tarsi, between them, constituted the most highly skilled seers left alive...at least that I knew of. I supposed there could be others in China, somewhere, but if so, they weren’t poking up their heads where I could see them.

  Vash represented the monk side of that. He’d been a religious leader most of his life, whereas I now knew that Tarsi had once led the Adhipan, as Balidor did now. The two of them represented the history of seer culture, at least of the last seven hundred years or so...and whatever they carried with them from generations before.

  Looking at him, it occ
urred to me again that it would be a great loss to the entire seer community if anything were to happen to him.

  His smile at me widened.

  “Thank you, Alyson.”

  “There you go with the happy, again,” I said, smiling back. “Even when I’m thinking about your death...”

  “Everything dies,” he said agreeably.

  I shook my head, laughing a little.

  And yet, despite my teasing, I happened to know he wasn’t cartoonishly happy. His son, Yerin, died six months earlier, in the bombing of Seertown, and I knew it still weighed on the old seer. I also highly suspected he was missing Tarsi about now, who may or may not have been his girlfriend...if a nine hundred year old ex-Adhipan leader could ever be called something that trivial, no matter what the context.

  Vash chuckled a little.

  I found myself laughing with him that time.

  Even collared, which meant I couldn’t reap the full benefit of sitting in his presence, I found something in my chest starting to loosen as I got comfortable on the floor next to him.

  “He’s crazy as a shit-house rat,” I said. “...Feigran.”

  Pausing to contemplate that expression once it occurred to me the seer had likely never heard it, I smiled again.

  “That was one of my human father’s expressions,” I clarified, adding, “...I guess you might say, crazy as a Terian, but that would be sort of redundant in this case.”

  Vash nodded, his expression serious. “I see. Well, what will you do with him in that case, Alyson?”

  “He says he’s one of the four,” I said. “Is he?”

  Vash looked at me for a long moment, his face smooth. Finally, he shrugged with one hand, seer-fashion.

  “I honestly have no idea, Alyson. It is possible. His mind is very fractured, and you and Dehgoies are the only half of the four I have ever had the pleasure to meet formally...”

  I felt myself tense.

  After another beat, I nodded, swallowing.

  “So this four thing...it’s real?”

  “As real as any story can be, Bridge Alyson.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that there is a story that matches your energetic imprints...which means that there is some relationship between it and you.”

  I nodded, though I only partly got this. That was pretty normal with Vash, too.

  “Revik wants him,” I remarked.

  “Well, yes.” Vash gestured in affirmation, folding his hands between his knees as he leaned his back against the wall. “I imagine he does.”

  “What for, do you think?” I said.

  Vash took the tea cup I offered him, clicking softly with his tongue. “I have absolutely no idea, Alyson.”

  I laughed again at this, in spite of myself.

  He was still smiling at me when I found myself blurting it out, the real reason I’d come to find him.

  “Can you do it, Vash?” I said. “You and I...we haven’t even talked about it yet, and everyone acts like it’s a done deal.” Hesitating, I wrapped my own arms around my knees, weaving my fingers together between them. “...Before we talk about the whys and the shoulds...can it even be done?”

  I didn’t have to tell him what I meant.

  The seer grew very silent, and I could see from his eyes that he was seeking the answer to my question in the Barrier. I waited, taking another sip of tea while I watched him. A few seconds later, his eyes clicked back into focus, and turned to meet mine.

  His expression did not change.

  “I do not know,” he said. “...It is a highly unusual request, Bridge Alyson.” He paused. “I cannot recall ever having been asked to perform a severance on a mated pair before, not one that had gone through the bonding ritual.” He looked at me, his dark eyes shining. “...That is interesting, isn’t it? I am quite old. You’d think at least one pair would have—”

  “But in theory—”

  “In theory, all things are possible, yes,” Vash said.

  If he’d been anyone else, I might have thought he was messing with me, but since it was Vash, I just waited for him to elaborate.

  “...But also many possible things are made impossible by theories,” he added. “...as well as the reverse. So it is quite difficult to be precise based on that alone.” Glancing at me, he took a sip of the tea, adding, “What do you think, Bridge Alyson? Does it feel possible to you, to live without him?”

  For a moment, I paused on his wording.

  Then, exhaling a little shortly, I threw my hands up, letting my knees drop back to the ground.

  “No idea,” I said. “Revik said he wouldn’t let me. I don’t know if that means anything to you, or if it is just more words...”

  Vash shook his head, seer fashion, his eyes puzzled.

  “I cannot tell from your memory of his remark,” he said frankly. “He was very upset, Alyson...”

  “Yeah.” I sighed. “Yeah, I know...look, Vash. You’ve got to see it’s necessary though, right? It’s at least necessary that we try. I can’t let him yank my chain around when he’s like this. I can’t stay collared forever, either. I can’t be in the middle of his war...and I can’t fight him or second-guess him when he knows where I am every second...”

  Vash sighed, clicking softly.

  “Yes,” he said. “All of these things are good reasons.” He looked at me then, his eyes serious once more. “But Alyson...severing you from your mate could kill you. It could kill you just as easily as if one of you had died. You are aware of this? Balidor mentioned it, surely?”

  I blinked. Then I focused on my tea cup, watching my fingers clench around it slowly.

  “No,” I said. “He didn’t.”

  “Severing is severing, my friend...whether in death or through some expedited means. It is extremely dangerous to you. To both of you.” He took another precise sip of tea. “...It would be ideal if we could test it somehow.”

  “Test it?” I stared at him again. “How?”

  Vash just looked at me for a moment, his dark eyes thoughtful.

  “He has a very different understanding of the situation, does he not?” the old seer said then. “Between you, I mean...what he thinks is occurring.”

  “Revik?” I said.

  When the seer gestured in affirmative, I shrugged.

  “Well...yeah.” Thinking about this, I gave a low snort. “Talk about crazy...he thinks we’re having political differences, Vash. He thinks I’m angry about the op in D.C....”

  “Are you?”

  “Of course! But that’s hardly the point now, is it?” Biting my lip as I realized I’d just snapped at the old seer, I fought my voice lower, until it came out almost as a mutter. “Jesus, Vash...you’re the one who said ‘no compromises,’ right? Weren’t those your exact words, that I couldn’t compromise on this? That it was ‘dangerous’ what I was doing, hoping I might be able to bring him back?”

  “I did say those things, yes,” he agreed.

  “You also said I would have to kill him,” I said, feeling my jaw harden. “How can I do that, if I’m still so confused by our bond that I can’t tell if what he’s doing makes sense to me half the time...?”

  For a long moment, Vash didn’t speak.

  Then he sighed in a kind of purr, setting down his cup before looking back at my face.

  “It is dangerous what you have done, Alyson,” he said. “That is very true. And yet,” he said, pausing again. “...It is your confusion, interestingly enough, that I find so intriguing. And in some ways, perhaps a little hopeful.”

  “My confusion is hopeful?”

  “Yes,” he said seriously. “I believe it actually is reflecting a confusion in both of you...which means that reconnecting with you has at least somewhat diluted his connection to the Dreng.” Pausing, he tapped his lip with a long forefinger.

  After another pause, he gestured easily with one hand, as if still thinking.

  “...It is possible,” he added, “...again in theory, mind yo
u...that he might be influenced by you after all, Alyson. One side will need to be dominant...at least until the integration is complete. It is possible that with your help, he will be able to tip the scales in a less volatile direction. Which means, consequently...he may also be able to reintegrate the other personalities in a way that will prove less...well...dangerous for the world.”

  I stared at him.

  “...In theory,” he added, smiling at me. “We all know how reliable those are. We established that as our baseline, yes?”

  For a long moment, I couldn’t quite make his words real to me.

  I wasn’t ready to hope yet...not full-fledged, honest-to-gods hope...but I also couldn’t not start building ladders from this with my mind. I found myself staring at the stone floor a few seconds later, almost forgetting the older seer.

  “How long before we’ll know?” I said finally.

  Vash purred again, clicking softly. “That, I do not know, Alyson.”

  “Will there be signs, though?” I said. “Some indication if it’s working?”

  “I do not know that either,” he said seriously. “However, the collar will not aid this, Alyson. In fact, the more time spent with him, the more likely you can influence his light. More time together at this point might actually increase your likelihood of success. Not hinder it.”

  I stared at him.

  “You want me to go spend time with Revik?” I said. “You’re telling me I should go spend time with Syrimne...who is trying to kill off most of humanity? So...what? I can be a good influence on him?”

  Vash thought about this for another minute.

  “In essence,” he said. “...Yes. That is exactly what I am suggesting, Alyson.”

  My face must have looked pretty blown, because he added,

  “There is no guarantee it will work,” he said. “And some chance he could corrupt you, of course. If you wish, I can try to sever things with the two of you as well...”

  I sat there, trying to think through that mess, too.

  I didn’t get very far though.

  “Something is happening,” Vash said quietly, touching my arm.