Shadow (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #4): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  I hadn’t caged him, I told myself. I hadn’t done this.

  But I had. I had done it, and a lot worse.

  “I knew that already,” I said. “Unless you were lying to me before?”

  “We are still conducting tests, Esteemed Bridge,” he said politely. Despite the formality of his tone, I felt my remark cut him. “It generally takes some time to discern the limits of a seer’s light. Especially under untried restraints.”

  Studying his face, I tried to decide if I should apologize.

  His eyes flickered to mine. “There is no need, Esteemed Bridge.”

  Refolding my arms, I hesitated only a few seconds, then nodded. “What else do you have to tell me? About Revik."

  “That is all for now. The restraint mechanisms seem to be holding.” He paused, giving me a level look. “It is no small thing, Esteemed Bridge. We have never attempted to cage a telekinetic seer before. Not without heavy sedation––”

  “Are you absolutely sure, ‘Dori?” I broke in. “He wasn’t faking? It’s important that we know for sure. Before we proceed with the rest.” I felt my throat close, even as my fingers gripped the edges of the long, kurta-style shirt I wore. “Vash said the room alone might not be enough to keep the Dreng out. The collar has to work. It has to.”

  Balidor’s eyes slid back to mine.

  He looked tired, I noticed. Exhausted really, as if he carried a weight somewhere just out of view. As I looked at him, a thin smile formed on his lips.

  “He wasn’t faking,” he said.

  I felt my skepticism worsen at the flat certainty in his voice. “How do you know?”

  Balidor shook his head, clicking at me, seer fashion.

  “I have done this before, Alyson,” he reminded me. “I have, in fact, done it to this being before. I know him a little, you see.”

  My jaw hardened.

  When I refocused on Balidor’s face, I saw sadness in his expression, gone before he startled me again, reaching up to caress the hair off my cheek and neck with one hand. I stiffened, but he removed his hand just as simply. The gesture startled me more in the tenderness I felt behind it than the fact he’d done it.

  His voice softened.

  “Trust me on this, Esteemed Bridge. If he could get free, we would not be having this conversation right now.”

  I met his gaze. That time, I saw something more in his eyes. More than anger, I mean.

  It might even have been regret.

  “What do you say to him, ‘Dori?” I said, my voice thick. “When you go in there? What do you talk to him about?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes. It does. To me it does.”

  Balidor’s expression grew blank once more, indecipherable.

  “Then you’ll have to ask him yourself, Esteemed Bridge,” he said.

  I saw that more complex emotion there again, briefly, but he had already turned away.

  “…but not now,” he added. His voice grew businesslike. “You are not to go in there alone, Allie. Not for any reason. I would prefer if you did not go in at all, truthfully, so please do not try to coerce someone into accompanying you until we have completed all of our tests.”

  I watched his expression harden as he stared at the far wall.

  Still looking at nothing, he folded his hands, seer-fashion, at the base of his spine.

  “Despite what I’ve said, I don’t want you taking any chances,” he said, giving me another glance. “We’ll give it a few more days with this collar configuration. Test it a few more times to be sure I’m right, along with the construct boundaries of the tank itself. We will ensure it meets Vash’s specifications before we do anything more, yes?”

  He looked at me again.

  Despite the politeness of his tone, I saw a threat in his eyes.

  “Until then, stay away from him, Bridge Alyson. Even with the gas as back up, we’d be foolish to risk putting you in there with him. We have absolutely no idea how he’ll react.”

  For the barest instant, I considered arguing.

  Seeing the anger on his face, I didn’t. I nodded to his words instead, my arms curled around my torso.

  When he saw I wasn’t going to fight him on it, the tiredness began to leak back over his expression and light. Still silent, I kept my face blank as I studied his.

  He didn’t remain long enough for me to draw any real conclusions.

  Turning from my gaze, he made his way stiffly down the corridor. I watched him make a right at the fork, following the larger of the two passageways leading to the next set of underground tunnels.

  I wondered when he’d last slept, then pushed that from my mind, too.

  Only when he was well and truly gone did my eyes return to the heavy green door.

  6

  FOREVER AND EVER

  JON FOUND HIMSELF in the segment of tunnel leading to the giant, organic, fishbowl of a cage where they were keeping Revik, almost without knowing how he got there.

  Even with its touches of the past, like that Old West bank vault type door, the tank still managed to look retro-futuristic, like something from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

  Like the seers, he’d begun to think of the enclosure as “The Tank.”

  Jon walked there almost unconsciously.

  Meaning, he’d been thinking about going for days, but hadn’t quite mustered up the courage to make it into an actual decision. He’d tried to justify both his wanting to go and his reluctance to see Revik as he was now, chained inside that organic enclosure.

  He knew Allie felt responsible, but the truth was, they’d all done it to him.

  Jon hadn’t exactly given Revik a call to give him a head’s up on what she’d been planning. While he hadn’t known she intended to kidnap him, exactly, they’d all been more or less on board when she explained her reasons.

  Well, all of them except Balidor, maybe.

  Jon reached the first security checkpoint before he’d fully admitted to himself where he going.

  Even after he had, he told himself he was only going to visit the seer assigned to watch over the surveillance feeds for the room. Because the seer on the console that night happened to be Dorje, the lie was almost a convincing one.

  But he knew the real reason he was going.

  He also couldn’t help thinking the visit was overdue, given who Revik was to him, and the fact that Revik had been there for him in the absolute worst period of Jon’s life. In that bunker under the Caucasus Mountains where Terian held them captive and tortured them for months on end, Revik had been a lifeline for both him and Cass. He was the only reason either of them made it out remotely sane––much less alive.

  So Jon had his own reasons for wanting to talk to Syrimne, the scourge of humanity.

  That being said, he supported Allie, in terms of what she was trying to do.

  He couldn’t say he fully understood all of what she was trying to do, especially in terms of the op to pull Revik out, but he definitely supported the concept behind it. He’d met his brother-in-law in the flesh one too many times as Syrimne d’Gaos. He knew Revik lost his soul somewhere in the change back to that older, more mythic identity.

  Of course, Jon also knew his motives were partly selfish. Like Allie, he wanted the “real” Revik, back––meaning, the seer he’d originally known in that body. Hell, Revik had been one of his best friends before Syrimne took his place.

  More than that, he’d been family. Above and beyond his marriage to Allie.

  Jon missed him.

  He missed the reticent seer with the dry sense of humor who’d managed to make him laugh even when they were being tortured by Terian. The person who taught him the seer language, Prexci, who taught him about the Barrier and the Third Myth, mainly to distract him and Cass from being Terian’s captives… the person who later taught him how to clean, load and shoot a gun, how to make seer ingrat, a kind of muddy-tasting spiced dish… who patiently taught him mulei and seer sign language… who saved his life.
>
  That seer, despite his eccentricities, insecurities and prejudices, had been a good guy, with a good heart, and without a good percentage of the completely fucking terrifying parts of him that made up Syrimne.

  Syrimne, on the other hand, contained all of them.

  But Jon agreed with Allie’s assertion that there was something off about the whole idea of trying to split him again.

  Cutting up a person you supposedly cared about to get at the “good bits” just wasn’t right.

  Further, she loved the dangerous psychopath. Jon suspected she loved him as Syrimne, too. He also suspected she felt partly responsible for what happened to him. More than that, she wanted to help all of him––not leave parts of him behind to rot.

  Vash agreed with her.

  So did Dorje and a fair few of the others.

  Balidor even seemed to agree, although Jon suspected it was for different reasons.

  Balidor wanted Revik dead, or at the very least, completely neutralized. He thought cutting him up into multiple-personality Revik was a potential security risk, one that would likely fail a second time, given enough years, even if Balidor himself didn’t live to see it.

  He’d confided to Jon that he had no intention of leaving that burden on future generations of his people, or on future generations of humans.

  From Balidor’s perspective, Revik was still relatively young.

  But then, Balidor couldn’t exactly maintain objectivity when it came to Revik. He’d fought Syrimne twice now, and nearly died both times. He’d seen him kill indiscriminately, turn seer against seer, human against human. He’d seen him cause death and mayhem wherever he went. He wouldn’t let it happen again, he told Jon.

  As far as objectivity and Revik went, Balidor had another problem.

  Jon strongly suspected Balidor was more than a little in love with his sister.

  Pushing thoughts of that mess out of his mind, Jon sighed when he reached the row of bolted-down swivel chairs below the main window of the tank. He rested a hand on Dorje’s shoulder where the seer slumped in a leather-backed chair.

  Dorje, who’d had his feet propped on the security console in front of him, jumped violently, ripping off the headset Jon failed to notice under the seer’s straight, black hair.

  “Criminy, Jonathan!”

  Jon stifled a laugh, holding up his hand in apology. “Sorry. Didn’t see you were in virtual.”

  Watching Dorje recover, cursing as he tossed down the organic component, fingering his longish hair behind his ears, Jon couldn’t help but smile wider.

  “Criminy, Dorj?”

  “I lived in England for awhile.”

  “Really? When, exactly, did they stop saying ‘criminy’ in England? Because I don’t remember anyone saying that the last few times I was there.”

  “A while ago.” Dorje glared up at him.

  Jon’s smile turned into a grin. “A while ago? That’s… vague.”

  “Yes. It is.” Dorje grunted up at Jon’s grin. “Stuff it, cousin Jon.”

  Jon laughed for real, slumping into the padded seat next to him. He smiled affectionately at the Tibetan-looking seer, kissing him on the cheek. After a bare pause, Jon turned his head, looking through the one-way pane of organic into the greenish bubble of the tank.

  He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved when he didn’t see anything but curved, blank walls at first.

  Then his eyes found Revik.

  Even that didn’t dispel the feeling of unreality.

  Revik looked smaller than usual, almost childlike with his forearms propped on his knees. More accurately, the tank was a lot larger inside than Jon realized from hearing the seers talk. Nothing like a cell at all, it stretched out large enough to be a common room, or maybe a workout room for weights and mulei.

  An irregular black shape of body and crossed arms over planted feet, Revik barely seemed to take up any space at all against the organic tiles. He leaned against the curved wall without moving, his dark head pillowed in his arms, possibly in sleep. Unable to see his face, Jon found himself left with the same inability to react to his imprisonment.

  It felt almost like watching him on the feeds.

  Jon couldn’t even see the collar, given the way he sat, and the fact that the floor of the tank started a good six feet above the security console. He wondered how Allie felt, seeing him in there, chained to the wall of that giant, fishbowl-like space.

  As he thought it, something in his mind clicked.

  No wonder they called it “The Tank.” It really did look like an aquarium pen for dolphins, or some other large sea mammal.

  “Any more news on what happened in Hong Kong?” Jon said. “Those gas canisters? Did anyone claim responsibility?”

  Dorje gestured a seer’s no with one hand, without looking up. “Balidor said he’s got someone working on it. I’m sure he’ll let us know when they find something.”

  Jon watched Dorje fiddling with one of the instruments on the panel.

  “Anything else exciting?” he said casually, glancing back at Revik’s leaning form.

  “No, Jon,” Dorje said.

  “He hasn’t said anything?”

  “I said no, Jon.”

  Jon gave him a wan smile. “No need to get testy about it.”

  “You know exactly what I mean. I mean no. You can’t go in.”

  Jon raised an eyebrow at him, frowning. “I thought we talked about this?”

  “About you befriending murderous psychopaths in your spare time?” Dorje looked up from the panel. “We have. I believe I said… don’t.”

  “No,” Jon said, feeling his irritation spike a little. “About you reading me for things without asking. About you knowing things I should be telling you instead.”

  “I don’t have to read you, Jon. Not when you sit right next to me and think like a loud American in my ear,” Dorje said grumpily, pointing at his own ear, the one facing Jon. “Not reading. It’s listening. An inability to shut out a loud sound that is right in my ear.”

  Jon laughed, unable to help it. He swatted his arm. “An American, huh? Sure that’s not code for worm?”

  “Not all worms are so loud.”

  Jon swatted him again, smiling. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  Dorje looked him square in the eye. “No, Jon. Absolutely not.”

  Jon deliberately thought about sex, about the night before, when––

  “Stop it.” Dorje glared at him. “I mean it, Jon. It won’t work.”

  Jon grinned. “You sure about that?”

  “Yes, I am sure!” Dorje’s eyes grew serious, almost pained. “Look, cousin… my love. This isn’t about your annoying friendship with that waste of space, Feigran.”

  “Come on!” Jon said, exasperated. “Feigran is getting better. Even you said so. And anyway, this is totally different!”

  “I know it is different!” Dorje snapped. “That is exactly what I am saying to you!”

  “And Feigran was pure pity on my part. Revik is my friend.”

  Dorje shook his head, clicking in irritation.

  When he looked over next, his dark eyes held a denser emotion.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “I know he was your friend. But he is a fucking killer, Jon. Not like Feigran… not even like Terian. You have no idea what you’re dealing with in him.”

  “He saved my life, Dorj.”

  “That was a different man.”

  “Not completely.”

  “Yes, completely!” Dorje said, his voice rising in exasperation. “Listen to me. He is different even than what you met as the Sword, Jon. Different from the man you met in Delhi… or in China. He is not any of those things anymore.”

  “So what is he, then?” Jon said, not hiding his skepticism.

  “He is completely lost in what they made of him!” Dorje said. “Nothing is cushioned, Jon. Nothing is left to keep any of his feelings in check. He cuts from one thing to the other without warning, without rea
son… all of it is broken, disconnected. The trauma and hate, what they did to him, it comes to the surface and there is nothing he cares about. Nothing, Jon! These parts of him have no regret, no conscience. I watched him, when Balidor was in there with him. He is like an animal, Jon.”

  Jon held up his hands, letting them fall to his thighs.

  “Okay, look,” he said. “I get it. He’s mondo scary. But he’s still a chained animal, right?”

  “Chains break, Jon.”

  “Yeah… and I heard from Balidor that the collar is holding just fine. He said he’s tested it. A bunch of times now.”

  “Yes,” Dorje nodded, interrupting him with a sharp gesture in seer sign language. “So far, yes. So far, it is working. Balidor still wants to run more tests.”

  “Yeah. Okay. But if Revik was going to break the chains, do you really think he would waste it to get at me? Lowly, loud-brained, brother-in-law? Don’t you think he’d try to get at the bigger fish? Like Balidor?” He swallowed, shrugging with one hand.

  “…or Allie?”

  Dorje didn’t smile, or even look over. He only clicked to himself, staring into the tank.

  “He won’t hurt me, Dorje,” Jon said, quieter.

  “Bullshit.” Dorje’s eyes grew angry as he turned. “What the hell kind of shit are you trying to sell me, Jon? Not only are you human, but you are her brother. Why wouldn’t he see you as an extension of her… even of Balidor? If nothing else as a human bug. Worthy of extinction for that reason alone, especially with your loud mind.”

  Jon hid a smile. “And that would be different from you… how?”

  “You are my bug,” Dorje snapped, refusing to soften. “Let it go, Jon! The answer is no!”

  Jon smiled a little wider, in spite of himself.

  Dorje didn’t return it. He only shook his head, folding his arms tighter over the Radiohead T-shirt he wore. It had been Jon’s favorite shirt once, but they both decided, by mutual agreement, that it looked better on Dorje.

  Jon glanced at the seer’s jeans, and realized those had been his, too.

  “No fucking way,” Dorje burst out angrily in his heavily-accented English. “No, Jon. And if you ask me again, I’ll have Balidor come down and have you removed from here. Permanently.” He glared at him again for emphasis. “I mean it, Jon. I’m not letting you in there.”