Aware

by Andy Havens

  These are the things that occupy our thoughts when we are tired, frustrated and confused, he thought. Such as names of haircuts.

  As with many Reckoners, Wallace could not easily determine her actual age. He could cast a variety of Ways that would (probably) tell him. That would be quite rude, though, and she’d certainly know. He could have looked it up at any time – and probably would have – but her reputation for knowing everything had made him hesitant to engage in casual voyeurism about her past. He had no need-to-know, and so kept his Ways to himself.

  In the Mundane world, he thought, he would have guessed her age at around forty-five or fifty. A very fit fifty. Average height and weight, but with a compactness of movement and muscle that implied vigor. While many in Sight didn’t concern themselves overmuch with outward appearance, Mrs. McKey seemed, if dull, very put together and competent.

  That’s the word! Wallace realized. She’s an Avatar of Competence.

  Reaching the end of the administrative wing, Mrs. McKey opened the door to the main staff stairwell and descended two flights, heels now echoing in the narrow stone tower. She pushed through a large steel fire-door, holding it open for Wallace, who realized they were exiting into the parking garage, a place he’d never been. He hadn’t ever needed to, since he walked to work or, on occasion, took the Narrow Roads.

  The Library served Mundane patrons as well as Reckoners and so had a small fleet of vehicles relegated to various tasks. There was a van used for local interlibrary loans and package pickup and delivery. There were three official “Library Bugs;” VW Beetles with library marketing on the outsides, used for kids’ programs all over the city. There was the small bookmobile, which looked a bit like an ice-cream truck and was used as a portable, self-sufficient branch for trips to outlying areas. And there was the large bookmobile, a huge RV that had been converted to serve at all kinds of events.

  Mrs. McKey headed directly toward the Bugs, activating the lock for one of them remotely from a fob with an audible bleep.

  “I call shotgun,” said Wallace without thinking.

  Oh, crap. He thought. I have got to learn to stop doing that.

  McKey, however, seemed … slightly amused. “Indeed, Mr. Bradstreet. Shotgun for you it is.”

  The backseat of the VW was entirely converted for storage, but the front seats were clean, comfortable and impeccably maintained. While the exterior was cheery with colorful slogans, characters, the Library phone number and website address, the interior simply looked like a nice, efficient German vehicle.

  Settling in and engaging his seatbelt, Wallace saw that Mrs. McKey was taking off her blazer and folding it neatly within the backseat storage panel. As she did so she removed the spectacles from her front pocket and put them on. She then rolled the sleeves of her blouse up to her elbows and got in.

  The car started with a satisfying growl. They made their way up the ramp, waited a moment for the security gate, and headed out onto the nighttime streets.

  Mrs. McKey drove through the city exactly as he’d imagined she would; carefully and surely. No running through late-yellow lights. No passing unless in a passing lane. Firm, smooth acceleration and deceleration.

  As they passed through the suburbs and into the surrounding rural countryside, though, things began to change.

  Wallace felt as much as saw the car begin to shift. It became lower and wider and the sound of the engine changed. More cylinders, he reasoned. He was a little surprised that he hadn’t sensed the Seeming that had permeated the car before… but McKey was a lot more senior in the House and so had access to more powerful Ways.

  It smells a bit of Increase, he thought. And maybe even of… Chaos? Hmmm….

  He cast a brief Way of his own outside the car to get a look at the exterior. It had shed its colorful decals and was now a matte black with two stripes of glossy black down the hood. It had dual exhaust pipes, was slung low in the back and had what Wallace could only think of as a distinctively “American heavy metal” feel.

  As he watched the car from his external vantage, he asked Mrs. McKey, “What kind of car is this?” He could have done a quick search, of course, but it seemed more polite to be interested in her answer.

  “This, young Wallace, is a 1970 Chevy SS454 Chevelle. The greatest street racing car of all time.”

  He released his Way, turned to ask Mrs. McKey what gave it that distinction, and noticed she’d shifted, too. They’d begun to travel one of the Narrow Roads, the cars fading behind them in slow motion seeming to accentuate the changes.

  Her hair was now much longer, arranged in a series of complex braids. Still the same iron gray, but thicker and more lustrous. Her sensible white silk blouse was now a white, sleeveless t-shirt that showed off well-muscled shoulders and a pattern of softly glowing, blue tattoos that writhed and flowed as she turned the wheel. Wallace felt as if he could almost see animals and plants in the design… but then they would shift again.

  “You had a question, Wallace?” Mrs. McKey asked.

  “Uh, no. It’s a, uh… It’s a very… cool car, Mrs. McKey.”

  Her voice had changed, too. More of an accent. Something from the British Isles, he thought.

  And then she laughed.

  McKey? Laughing?

  Wallace knew at that moment he was in for a very different night than what he’d prepared for. Not only had he never heard Mrs. McKey laugh before, he’d never heard of her laughing.

  This though? It was the laugh of someone who has abandoned decorum and civility. The laugh of a wolf or a hawk or maybe an avalanche. He sensed the power in that laugh the same way he could feel the power in the car beneath him.

  “On these trips, Wallace, you don’t need to call me ‘Mrs.’”

  Wallace thought like mad to see if he could remember ever having heard or read her first name. He was sure he had in some old document.

  Something with “H,” he thought to himself. This is a test, I bet. The car and the hair and the tattoos. She’s seeing if I can hold up under stress. Maybe she does this for all new project leads.

  Hope, Holly, Heather? No, no, no. Hazel? Really no…

  He looked at her for a clue. Hearing her laugh again, he was very glad she was on his side. Her hair now flowed down her back, curling back-and-forth in the wind from the open window. The blue tattoos covered every part of her that he could see except her face, twisting like snakes around a statue. Her wool skirt had been replaced by blue jeans and he was pretty sure they were tucked into a pair of Doc Martens that would certainly qualify as “shit kickers.”

  They’d passed beyond the countryside and onto a Way he wasn’t familiar with, colors and sounds and a bright, cool breeze whipping around and inside the car. With a last chuckle, Mrs. McKey – Helen? Maybe – turned the car onto a back country road that ran up the side of a hill to a large farmhouse.

  We’re in France, his innate Sight told him.

  Pulling the car off to the side of the road, she gestured for him to get out. “Look in the back seat, Wallace. Under the blanket. That’s for you.”

  Wallace reached beneath a checkered, worn blanket and pulled out… a shotgun.

  She was around his side of the car already and seemed to have grown at least six inches during the trip. Though Wallace wasn’t sure if that was part of the Seeming or the boots. Either way, he could still see the efficient, capable woman he’d known for years beneath and inside this… new person… standing beside him in the dawn light.

  Her hair spilled all the way down her back to the wide, brown belt holding up her faded jeans. There was a pistol tucked into the belt and some kind of long, curved blade on a loop. Like a machete, but with more of a hook.

  “I don’t think you’ll need it, washi,” she said to him. “But it’s best to be prepared in these circumstances.”

  Washi?

  “And, uh… what circumstances are these? Uh. Helen.”

  She smiled. “Good show, Wallace. But while it’s Helen back at the L
ibrary, out here it’s Hieretha Mac Aodha. And we’re here on a little matter that might have some bearing on your current project.”

  “So… What kind of matter is that, Mrs… Uh… Hieretha?”

  Reaching back into the car for a denim jacket and another pistol, the (formerly) quiet, bland assistant director of the world’s oldest, largest library said simply, “We’re here to retrieve an overdue item.”

  Testing the slide on the pistol she added, “And maybe assess a fine.”

  With that, she spat into the dirt beside the car and began climbing the steep hill.

  Wallace had no choice but to follow.

  Chapter 2. Discussion

  Sekhemib Senbi had a headache.

  Which, in the first place, was not an honorable kind of pain, and so he kept quiet about it.

  None would dare question him if he sought remedy. Yet he did not ask one of the Shamas of Song Tribe to lay healing hands on him. Because while he knew that ridding him of his pain would be trivial for one of their number, it would also be seen as honor boon to Song and, thus, to the Song Clan Chiefs in attendance as well as Feyyia Na’an, Talismae of Song and Kin Mistress to all Song Tribes and Clans. Which would mean gossip, redrawing lines of petty allegiance and drama between Song and Bone – who bickered constantly about which Tribe had the greatest healers—and maybe even Song and Fire Tribes, since there was a general sense that he, the Bloodlord, favored Song too heavily.

  He did not. In truth, he just disliked Fire Tribe, Song’s traditional rivals, more.

  So the Bloodlord made a nod of dismissal to the several people who attended him directly and ducked out a side door, down a short hallway and into his royal bath.

  That tub is like something from a bad porn movie set in ancient Rome, he thought as he stalked past it and the throne-like bidet and the waterfall-shower wall and the steam room and pool-sized hot tub. The whole place reeks of a desperate, sad attempt to reclaim some kind of lost, primitive, carnal tone.

  Senbi had no problem with actual carnality. He enjoyed it in many of its variations. The need for costumes, stages and props left him baffled, though. His architects, Iron Tribe Cravtel all of them, didn’t respect subtlety or restraint. They didn’t understand that the greatest pleasures—sexual, artistic, musical, social—often came from the contrast between the emotional drive—the heart of a thing—and the environment.

  They take lovely, simple paintings and surround them with gilt, golden frames twice the size of the picture itself, he thought, finally getting to the modest, almost hidden door of his most private, personal lavatory. The lock was one crafted by Release to respond only to the presence of his personal blood and it opened with a series of satisfying clicks and sighs that Senbi suspected had been added for effect. He didn’t mind. The sounds themselves were a comfort to him.

  Just because I know it’s a placebo doesn’t mean it won’t work, he thought, chuckling to himself. It had amused the hell out of him to read about Mundane doctors finally working out that placebos had actual healing benefits. Idiots! Of course belief has power! He remembered thinking when reading a summary of peer reviewed studies in the New England Journal of Medicine.

  Placebos weren’t the only remedy, though, and not enough, tonight, to calm his nerves and relieve the throbbing in his head.

  Inside, it was just a simple, modern bathroom. A standing shower, a commode, a sink and a linen closet. Only his personal servant, Cole, was allowed in here to change the towels and cloths, clean and make sure he was well stocked with the soap he liked; the kind with no added scents. No shaving cream, no shampoo. Just one brand of chemical-free bar soap with a touch of moisturizer.

  Cole had a ring with a drop of Senbi’s blood in it which allowed him passage through every door in the palace.

  Of all the Reckoners and chronics in all the great wide world, Cole was the only one whom Senbi truly trusted. He had been brought into the Bloodlord’s presence as a Mundane sacrifice nearly two hundred years before. A thief and con artist, he’d tried to scam a Snake Tribe Father out of a piece of land. Not a good idea. Snake was very… particular… about defending Tribal property.

  Never one to waste a good killing, though, the Father had brought Cole to the palace for one of the Great Fires. Ten or so criminals had gone into the flames before the young man was forced to kneel before the throne. All of the other Mundanes had cried in fear and begged at first. Then, as the majesty and power of the Bloodlord had surrounded and infused them, they’d wept in gratitude.

  Your paltry, short, silly life will feed the Great Fire, his aura seemed to say. There is no higher honor for one such as you. Sensing this—knowing it—they had stood, saluted him with various chronic displays of respect, turned and walked, singing and shrieking, to their deaths in the enormous pyre around which the People danced and played.

  All but Cole. Even as he knelt before the throne, he had been obstinate. No crying, either in fear or worship. He looked like a contemptuous child. The kind of cynical youth who has just begun to learn of the adult world and, therefore, thinks he knows everything. Because some of the “truths” he had been fed as a child were wrong, and because he had discovered this for himself, now he felt that all truth and all power deserved his disdain.

  Senbi’s hand had paused in midair above the boy, about to work the Way which would force him into the fire. Then the Bloodlord looked closely and saw Cole’s scorn as a mirror of his own ennui.

  I have learned too many things, he’d thought. I have achieved my life’s ambition, only to find that it is more burden than joy.

  He spared the child, as was his right, of course. He’d given Snake Tribe some kind of boon as recompense. Some paltry showing of favor. A step closer to the throne during an invocation or a spot nearer the center of a Dance. Maybe a daughter invited to court. He honestly couldn’t remember.

  What he did remember, as he rifled through his medicine cabinet, was Cole’s laughter as Senbi had shown him that, yes… the world is, in fact, as boring and mediocre as you’ve come to believe. That even in the halls of greatest influence, the whorls of power swirl around trivia more than bravery, kindness or cruelty. That while there is relief to be found in a variety of escapes… in the end? Only sickness, madness, ruin, despair and death.

  Senbi had other retainers, of course. All manner of staff. To say nothing of the Talismae who owed him direct fealty. But it all required so much detail work and attention to relationships and petty honors and centuries-old debts and counter-debts and co-debts.

  Ugh…

  He remembered when he’d first heard the Mundane term red tape. How he and Cole had laughed. So perfect for the Domain of Blood! Red tape! Everything bound in crimson streamers of interconnected family, tribe, clan and totem. No act could be accomplished without ripples and meanings and unintentional slights.

  There it is, he thought. Tylenol Plus. Like most Reckoners, Mundane medicine had a limited effect on him. But eight or ten of the acetaminophen tablets laced with codeine would knock back his headache for the evening. Give him enough peace to handle the duties and fripperies of the Bloodcourt.

  Cole was a good servant. A Lord of the Seven couldn’t truly be a friend of a Mundane, but they could certainly be… comrades. Fellow sufferers under the great burden of life’s endless tedium.

  He sat down on the closed toilet seat and waited, drinking sips of water from a paper cup. It’s important to stay hydrated, was a refrain he’d picked up somewhere. Drinking a lot of water helped keep his headaches at bay. As did avoiding all the various intoxicants of court.

  Also avoiding my nephews and cousins and in-laws, he thought. I wonder if it’s possible to be allergic to kin?

  After a time, his head did feel better, the pain almost entirely gone. The tension there had eased back into a mild, workable knot in his neck that a massage would fix later.

  Later, he thought. After I bind the Weyyrd of Bone, Bear and Iron to my course.

  Decades in the planning,
decades more in the making. The great project he’d undertaken was slowly coming to maturity. The cure—or at least the treatment—for my boredom. These were the last three groups of Way Casters he needed. They all thought of it as a grand lark or a peculiarity of their ruler. Something the jaded Bloodlord needed to distract his mind from the great burdens of his long, storied reign.

  Unknown to them, he had already tasted success. He had felt the first drizzle of power—a new kind of power—that would eventually become a flow and then a flood. He could sense the change coming. If only he could maintain his will and sanity a bit longer.

  Madness was not an uncommon end for the previous hundreds who’d held his title. Then again, neither were violence, accident, drunkenness, passion or carelessness. Unlike some Houses, the lives of Blood were often measured in centuries rather than millennia. And the more power and influence one held in the House of Blood? The more likely to live a shorter life.

  Yes, he thought. With great power comes greater risk. The flame that burns hotter burns faster. All those homilies my father prattled on about.

  Except that in Senbi’s case, he hadn’t succumbed to accident or illness or the most common form of mortality for the monarch of his House—succession. The process by which any Bloodlord or Bloodlady ascended to the throne was simple; challenge and kill the current holder.

  One of his predecessors, Madylyn Emerjca, had lasted 132 years. That had been the record. Only five others had lasted longer than 100 years. Most ruled for around 50 years. That seemed to be the point at which the Lord’s distraction and carelessness fatally conflicted with others’ envy and ambition.