Rook (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #1): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  I flinch at his words, but I don’t answer.

  This is all very interesting, Maygar adds. But what is it?

  Looking around, I fight embarrassment. Not so much for his sake, but that of all the older seers I can feel watching.

  Maybe I can’t do it with all of you along, I admit, still looking around.

  Patience, Vash breaths into me, soft. It is stronger with us here, not weaker. Do not leave yet, Bridge Alyson. You are doing quite well.

  Apparently Maygar does not hear him, only me.

  He looks around, a scowl on his light face, light-hands on his light-hips.

  Perhaps you miss your Nazi husband? he sends with mock politeness. You thought of him, and it brought you here?

  I feel a sharper pain in my chest. I look at him, trying to decide what to do next, when I stop, turning to stare through the trees.

  Three men stand there.

  They are not light-beings, like Maygar and me.

  They are really here, in this time.

  When I first see them, they are a few dozen yards away. Once I focus on them, however, I am closer. Within a few blinks, Maygar and I stand only a few yards from them, on the same muddy hill. I can see their faces now. I can see them as clear as if I am really there.

  One I recognize at once as Terian.

  The second, I know only because he has no face. Like when I saw him the first time, in that Nazi prison bloc, he is well-dressed, in a formal, dark suit, and tall.

  He is not as tall as the third man, however… who is Revik.

  I blink somewhere in my mind.

  He is still there when I return.

  I can’t take my eyes off him, even knowing Maygar is watching––even feeling his disgust once he notices my stare.

  Revik wears what likely passed for casual in the time period. Dark brown pants, a white shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, suspenders, boots. His clothes look well-made, and he is clean-shaven, still on the thin side but significantly healthier-looking than when I saw him last in this timeline, wasting away in a Berlin jail.

  The bruises have faded from his jaw and face, although I still see scars on his neck, one in the shape of a question mark, another on his forearm that I recognize. He wears the silver ring on his smallest finger, just like he did when I met him in San Francisco.

  My light hand moves reflexively to my light throat.

  I wonder again if the ring is from his wife, Elise.

  He combs fingers through his black hair, clearing his throat.

  “What are we doing here?” he says in German.

  The shock of seeing him alive paralyzes me.

  “…I thought we were done with this,” Revik prompts again. “Why are we here?”

  Terian laughs. He is pleased with his new friend. The pleasure sparks clearly in his light.

  “You see, sir?” he says. “He’s barely here a minute, and already we are wasting his time!”

  “Manners, Terian.” The faceless man claps Revik on the shoulder. “I would like to challenge you, Rolf, to think about this war differently. Until now, you have approached your role in this conflict as a slave does. I would like to persuade you to change that vantage point.”

  Revik folds his arms, shifting his weight in obvious irritation. “I adhere to the Seven’s doctrine of non-interference, if that’s what you mean by ‘slave.’ Humans as a species must be allowed to mature undisturbed. The rules are quite clear about—”

  “Spoken like a true believer,” Terian mutters.

  Revik turns, raising an eyebrow. “Are these schoolyard tactics meant to persuade me to abandon Code?” He glances at Galaith. “Because I find them a bit tired… sir.”

  “We do not mean to insult you, Revik. Far from it.” Galaith gives Terian a thin smile. “But I do wonder when is the last time you really thought about those words you just recited?”

  Revik frowns, looking between them.

  “I have had plenty of time to think about it,” he says, his real emotion coming out now. “This is not the first war of theirs I’ve fought. I understand well the argument for interference, but it does not make it any less wrong.”

  I see that his pride is pricked, especially at the silence after his words.

  “I curbed their excesses where I could…” he says.

  “You did nothing,” Galaith says calmly.

  Revik stiffens. “I disagree.”

  “You were a Nazi, ‘Rolf,’” Terian laughs. “They were gassing your people and you watched disapprovingly from a distance, at best… cleared the way for them with your panzers at worst!”

  “Don’t be offended, Revik,” Galaith says, raising a hand to silence Terian. “It is not you that is the problem. The Seven certainly mean well, but they are judging my race as if it were their own. But humans are not seers, Revik. Humans––the ordinary mob of humanity––do not need more freedom. They do not even want it. What they want, more than anything, is for the world to make sense. They want to be a part of something greater than themselves.”

  The faceless man smiles wanly, looking out over the muddy exercise yard.

  “They want someone to provide that for them, Rolf,” he says, quieter. “They don’t want a committee of their peers. They don’t want the truth to shift with the sands of opinion, or time, or progress, or perspective. They want an absolute reality. One that makes sense to them year after year, no matter what occurs outside of them. Whether they control this or not is irrelevant to them. They wish the illusion of control––without any of the responsibility.”

  I glance at Revik’s face, watch him think about this.

  I can tell he doesn’t exactly disagree.

  Hell, I’m not even sure I do.

  Galaith watches Revik, too. After a pause, he smiles wanly.

  “Rolf, my dear, dear friend. Humans are, quite simply, made to be dominated. If not by seers, then by more powerful humans. In truth, they prefer it.” He gestures broadly over the whitewashed buildings, the rows of uniformed men.

  “This war is a case in point,” he adds. “Is it the honest leader to whom the masses flock? The one who gives them greater freedoms? More responsibility over their own lives?” He smiles, shaking his head. “No. It is the one who gives them purpose, Rolf. The one who gives them an enemy. A beautiful dream that tells them all of their problems can be solved. Do they care that this dream is borne of countless lies? No. They do not. No modern human leader has ever been loved as the Germans love Hitler, Rolf. Not Churchill, not Roosevelt. Not since the last of his kind was a leader so loved: Napoleon, Caesar, the Emperors of old Asia.”

  Revik stands there, blank-faced.

  Then he laughs.

  “You yourself are human!” he says.

  “Yes.” Galaith smiles. “I am. But I am also one who sees the truth. Moreover, I accept it. Would you condemn me for this? Call me a race traitor to choose reality?”

  Revik pauses, looking at him.

  “No,” he says.

  Revik is in pain. I feel it on him. I feel it through him, even though it makes no sense that I should. It will be decades before I am even alive in his world. I realize the pain is for Elise and something crushes the small bones in my chest, making it hard to breathe, hard to remain where I am. The craziness behind this feeling doesn’t escape me.

  I am jealous.

  I am beyond jealous, and of two dead people.

  I follow his eyes to the muddy tracks below. Men in gray-green uniforms roll a tank of gas onto a wagon tied to a wooden yoke laced to a mule. The soldiers cluck at the mule, pulling at its bridle until the mule, the wagon, and the tank stand in the middle of the mud ruts in a circular drive. Two more tanks are loaded, pulled by another mule and a horse. The animals halt where men line up in formation, in the center of the circular drive.

  Around them, I count over a hundred people.

  “Why are we here?” Revik says again, but this time I hear uneasiness in his voice.

  “I want to cure
you, Rolf. Of obedience. Of being a slave.”

  I feel my stomach roll over. I know suddenly, what I’m going to see.

  I don’t want to see it. I turn to Maygar.

  Let’s go. You were right. This is a dead end.

  But Maygar is focused on Galaith.

  He does not see what I see, or if he does, he does not care.

  The separation pain worsens, mixes with a grief too thick to think through. The resonance is too strong; I can’t change my vibration enough to pull myself out. I am locked here, tied with steel cords to this past Revik and his grief for his dead wife.

  That is him? Maygar says of Galaith. He is human, Bridge!

  A silver channel opens up above the three of them, feeding into the faceless man’s form. The light flows down like liquid metal, coming from a higher, silver-white cloud. It is the Rooks, I realize, although the structure is less here than in the world where I live.

  The Dreng, I think, remembering Vash’s explanation.

  Terian’s light body shines in resonance as Galaith’s begins to glow. Even here, Terian is already covered in wire-like threads, but many fewer than when I glimpsed that side of him in the diner in San Francisco.

  That same channel opens to Revik.

  Sharp, silver light ignites through his aleimi like molten sparks. The sickness I feel worsens as I watch his light change. The silver overtakes the softer gold-white, seeming to strengthen it, but I see it as a covering over, a slow eclipse of something I realize I still love, that I can’t seem to stop loving, no matter how hard I try.

  Seconds later, the auras around Terian and Revik gleam bright with metallic, silver light, emitting lightning-like flashes. An even brighter aura pulses off Galaith.

  I hear Maygar mutter beside me.

  Impossible…

  Terian winks at Revik. “You see, my cantankerous, Heer friend,” he says with a smirk. “Galaith, here, he is like a great, big mirror. Anything that lives in the network, lives also in him. Which means, if any of us has a present for the network, he is the first to unwrap it.”

  Terian’s eyes turn slightly colder and, for the barest instant, more predatory. I see the covetousness in him, even back then.

  He turns it into a smile.

  “…We only get tastes. Right, Mr. G.?” he jokes. “Scraps and bites?”

  Galaith doesn’t respond. He watches Revik carefully. “Are you all right?”

  I feel Maygar’s shock expanding, pulling on me.

  What? I send, irritated at his pulling. I cannot take my eyes off Revik.

  Did you not hear me? Maygar hisses. That man… he is a human being! He is not seer at all. It is impossible that he can do these things!

  Galaith’s outline keeps getting brighter.

  Revik steps back warily as the human’s light body flashes out in a hard arc. Galaith raises a hand towards the field, and I see a Nazi soldier’s eyes flash silver, just before he bends to light a torch on one of the loaded wagons.

  Galaith turns to Revik. “This war can be over in months,” he says. “Already, two million have died in the camps. Should we wait until it is four million? Ten million?”

  Revik hesitates, staring out over the field.

  “Hitler needs to die,” Terian adds. “If the humans want a leader, we’ll give them one. We’ll give them all the dreams and laws and bullshit racial policies they desire. But why should seers die for the madness of humanity? Why? When we can bring peace so easily?”

  Revik stares down the hill.

  I remember Russia, the frozen bodies, the smell of burning flesh, and realize Revik is remembering, too.

  The first gas tank detonates. An inexplicable grief expands in my light as fire blows back the line of soldiers. They are murderers, too, I think. But my thoughts and fears and rationalizations are all caught up in Revik’s, the wanting to believe he can be a part of something, that he can make it better. That he can be more than simply a bystander, helpless as history unfolds.

  Terian ducks as the fireball expands.

  Then, he starts to laugh.

  Screams fill the clearing, along with smoke and fast-moving shrapnel. Seconds later, meat comes crashing down. I realize it is from the mule that pulled the cart and feel another surge of nausea as legs and arms rain down, too, some of the feet still wearing boots.

  “Revik?” Galaith watches him, waiting. “Are you ready?”

  Revik hesitates. He almost looks afraid.

  “How many seers did they kill?” Galaith asks. “How many burned in the gas chambers as you watched from the Barrier, cousin?”

  Revik holds up his hand. Seeing his fingers shake slightly, I will him to lower it. I know this is past, that it’s already happened. I know I cannot change any of it now, that it’s too late. I even hear the logic in Galaith’s words. I want the same revenge Revik wants for all those who died, but I will him to hear me anyway, to not do this.

  A blank-eyed soldier lowers a second torch.

  When it explodes, I flinch along with Revik.

  Shock rips holes in the turf, throwing wood and iron as shrapnel into standing lines of men. The SS don’t move out of the way, even when burning metal embeds in their flesh, or catches their hair or clothes on fire, or splatters hot oil across their skin.

  I see Revik’s jaw harden. Without being asked by Galaith, he focuses down the hill again. The third soldier lowers his torch.

  There is another hollow boom.

  Terian is laughing again, jumping up and down as black smoke plumes outward in a mushroom-shaped cloud. Revik stares down the torn-up field in angry shock as Terian hits him playfully on the chest, then starts down the hill to view the carnage up close.

  He leaves Galaith and Revik to stand there alone.

  “What are you?” Revik says, looking at him.

  I feel Maygar beside me, tensing for the answer.

  Galaith smiles. “Perhaps you should ask yourself that question, Rolf.” He smiles, squeezing Revik’s shoulder. “I’m very, very proud of you, my son.”

  Revik stares down at the field below the hill. His eyes still show a dim shock, but I recognize the predatory curiosity there as well. The intent focus accompanies a fire that powers a hotter engine beneath his controlled veneer.

  Interesting choice for a mate, Maygar sends.

  I turn on him, fighting the pain that throbs hotter at each heart beat.

  Let it go, all right? I snap. Let it go! He reformed. He left them after this. You heard Vash. And you don’t know anything about his life, why he would have chosen this…

  I watch as Maygar grunts, looking at Revik with utter loathing.

  His self-righteousness infuriates me.

  Whatever your trip is with him, it’s infantile, I tell him. He’s dead!

  Real anger flashes in Maygar’s light.

  Infantile? He catches my light arm in his hand. I saw it, Esteemed Bridge. I fucking saw it! I looked at all of the records from when Dehgoies Revik ‘reformed.’ I saw what happened when they brought him in. Half-dead, beaten to a pulp by his own and then our men. You should have heard the litany of garbage he spewed, as the Adhipan worked to detach him from that Pyramid filth! It took them days to get it off. Weeks. And all the while, the whole construct was treated to the lovely things your husband did while in the Rooks’ employ…

  Maygar’s eyes flash colder as he looks down the hill.

  The things I saw as they unwound those structures made me physically ill, Bridge. I did not sleep. I could not want anything but his death for days. So do not tell me I am infantile. Do not tell me anything about that man. Not until you’ve seen what he is for yourself!

  I stare at Maygar through the Barrier, but my mind is blank.

  Do not kid yourself, he says. They recruited him for one reason. At his core, he was an evil fucking bastard. That’s all he ever was, Esteemed Bridge.

  I look at Revik.

  Revik from the past, but still the light I know.

  He is looking at
me, too, I realize.

  I am still standing there, watching his face, when roughly, Maygar uses his aleimi to change our frequency. As soon as he does, the past around me unravels.

  The last thought I have as I lose him yet again is that I’m thirsty.

  More thirsty than I’ve ever been in my life.

  39

  SACRIFICE

  HE FEELS HER. He feels her skin, the ends of her fingers as she caresses him. She touches his face, his arms, his chest, his cock. He thinks of all the times he wanted her to touch him, that he fantasized about her touching him. He thinks about what he could have done differently, what he should have done differently––in Seattle, on the ship, even in the dirt that night in Vancouver.

  They are kissing again. His tongue thickens, pain rising in his belly.

  She reaches for him, and he opens at once.

  But that something rears up again.

  It fucks with him, twists his light, forcing him back.

  His wanting turns to aggression, frustration, a bleak hopelessness when she returns. She opens to him. She tries to let him in, to let him feel her… but it’s never enough.

  It’s never enough.

  Gods… she’s fucking with him. She’s teasing him, trying to make him insane. She knows he’s in pain, that he can’t go to her.

  But something darker lingers there.

  Someone else is with her.

  She isn’t alone.

  HE GROANED, UNWILLINGLY awake. Lying on a wet tile floor, he couldn’t move. The pain sharpened as he lay there, worsening as the ache in his arms and neck returned. He was shivering, naked, freezing cold, so fucking thirsty he couldn’t think about much else once he noticed. The pain on his neck and back felt like fire.

  It occurred to him then. Water still ran over his bare skin.

  He hadn’t been asleep. He’d passed out.

  The other seer dropped the water spigot. Crouching down, he stared into Revik’s face.

  “Feeling better, Revi’?”

  Revik threw out his light in reflex and the collar around his neck tripped, bringing another blinding jolt. His head snapped back, then fell back to the tile. He groaned, unable to stop it.