Shield (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #2): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  “You don’t.” He swallowed a mouthful of seltzer. “…Usually.”

  When I started to say something more, Jon cut me off.

  “Just leave it, Al. I don’t need a talking to, okay? I’m good.”

  “Okay, okay.” I held up my hands. “It’s typical projection, anyway. Since I’m not getting any, I figure I might as well meddle with your love life, right?”

  He shook his head, granting me a short laugh. “Sure.”

  Patting him on the shoulder, I slid off my barstool, just in time to find four seers barring my way. Startled, I came to a stop, then smiled, putting on the leader face.

  They were harmless.

  Besides, Vash gave me this whole talk about morale, about how my presence here gave them all hope. According to him, the arrival of the Bridge helped some of them make sense of all the atrocities they’d been forced to endure at the hands of humans.

  His logic made sense––sort of––but I still felt like I was acting in a play and didn’t know the script.

  I took a cautious step, still smiling, and they moved to let me pass, touching my clothing reverentially as I aimed my feet for the door. Only two of them spoke; the others seemed only to want to stand next to me. I felt their light whispering around mine, even as they made respectful gestures with their hands. Their heads remained bowed as they followed me to the door.

  Once I reached the exit, I stiffened, seeing the crowd waiting outside through the rectangular window in the plank door. So much for traveling incognito. It must have something to do with the holiday for Syrimne.

  Pasting the smile wider on my face, I braced myself, opening the door.

  Just then, someone grabbed my arms from behind.

  I let out a yell as my feet left the ground. Whoever it was didn’t hit me, though; they forced me to the floor. Before I could take a breath, he’d covered me with his body.

  I heard the shots a second later––just before the sound of breaking glass.

  Then the screaming began.

  Looking towards the bar, I saw my friends already off their stools and crouched by the long bar. Chandre, all business now, every trace of the alcohol gone from her expression, was gesturing to someone else in the room, holding Cass's wrist as she clicked her fingers sharply.

  Jon already had a gun in his good hand.

  I barely recognized him these days.

  More shots were fired.

  I heard more screaming from the streets below, but it was getting quieter, so the crowd must have scattered. Someone was shooting a rifle from the poolroom window only a half-dozen feet from where I lay, but it wasn’t at me; it was at someone outside.

  Two others ran past me, darting through the open door swinging on its hinges and clattering down the rickety wooden staircase on the other side.

  Seconds later, those same feet pounded on the street.

  The man lying on me was half-crushing me; all I could think was that I wanted him off.

  Instantly, the pressure on me lessened––which told me one thing at least. He was a seer. I could still feel his heart beating through my back.

  Glancing up, I met his gaze, startled by the nearness of his gray eyes.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Returning my appraisal, he smiled. “Of course, Esteemed Bridge.”

  A FEW HOURS later, I slid through an opening in the cloth drape hanging over the door, entering a wide room with a bamboo ceiling.

  A wall-sized painting of the blue sun and sword met me, along with a wooden altar covered in candles and brass depictions of various gods and goddesses making up the seer pantheon. A number of gold tapestries decorated with intricately embroidered blue, gold and white thread hung on either side. Beyond the altar, a window opened out on the Himalayas, which still looked like something from a painting to me.

  I saw Vash first, seated cross-legged beside the stone fireplace on the other side of the altar. He smiled when he saw me.

  His smooth-faced, monk-like students didn’t.

  Cass and Jon had beaten me there, as had Chandre. All three of them sat against the far wall next to a row of young-ish infiltrator types, many of whom I recognized as Maygar’s friends. Unlike Vash’s students, they wore street clothes and most of them were heavily tattooed.

  I saw the seer who had wrestled me to the floor of the poolroom, as well. He watched me cross the room. Curiosity shone in his gray eyes.

  I’d asked who he was, of course, before I got there.

  I’d been surprised at the answer, and not only because I’d actually heard of him. His name was Balidor, and I’d first heard his name from Revik, on the ship we took between Vancouver and Russia.

  Balidor was the senior infiltrator of the Adhipan––a mysterious and elite cadre of infiltrators loyal to the Seven. The Adhipan were legendary, a type of holy warrior monk that operated and trained in secret, and were extremely exclusive in membership. Most Adhipan seers were hand-chosen as children for recruitment, based on their potential sight rank, along with various traits of light and temperament known only to them.

  They normally operated in secret, out of a stronghold somewhere in the Pamir. Apparently for years they functioned more along the lines of myth, but lately, according to Yerin, they’d become more visibly active in the human and seer worlds.

  Revik talked them up quite a bit to me, during our training sessions. He mentioned this man in particular, making him out as a kind of seer superhero.

  His name was Balidor only. No clan name.

  Everyone in the Adhipan gave up their clan affiliation when they joined. Their clan became the Adhipan.

  According to Dorje and Yerin, Balidor had only just come to Seertown, but his people had been protecting me secretly for weeks. Now he crouched before Vash on one knee, a hand raised in mid-gesture.

  I had interrupted something.

  Not at all, Most Esteemed Bridge, Balidor sent politely, rising from his knee. He gestured for me to approach, his smile disarming. We were waiting for you. I simply wished to pay my respects.

  I nodded. “I understand. I can wait until you’re finished.”

  “There is no need,” he said, stepping back.

  Hearing him speak English, I realized that was the language I had used. Most seers in Asia didn’t know English. Stumped, I only nodded again.

  Balidor resembled a human in young middle-age, which told me he likely topped the four hundred year mark. Still, there was no way to know for certain. Chandre looked like she was in her early twenties to me, and I found out from Maygar she was over two hundred years old, nearly twice Revik’s age, although he looked closer to thirty.

  According to Maygar, though, Chandre looked young for her age. I’d been thinking all this as I approached them, and was surprised when Balidor smiled.

  That she does, he sent.

  He smiled a nod towards Chandre, who gave me a “thanks a lot” sideways eye roll.

  Still, I could tell it didn’t bother her. She wasn’t really into guys anyway.

  Chandre snorted. I saw a faint smile touch Balidor’s lips, just before his eyes followed Chandre’s to Cass.

  He didn’t miss much, this Balidor.

  “So,” I said, clearing my throat. I used Prexci, the seer language. Like I mentioned, most seers didn’t know English. My Prexci was still pretty bad, though––my accent, according to Maygar, “comical.” Still, I could understand most of what was said, especially with Vash’s help in the background.

  “Can we begin?” I said.

  Balidor bowed his head, sitting back, so that he joined the ring of cross-legged seers.

  They all looked up at me expectantly.

  I nodded to Balidor, and their eyes swiveled to him. He bowed to me in thanks. I had to fight not to give him the “just get on on with it” hand gesture.

  Seers were big on formality.

  Smiling faintly, he turned to the rest of the group.

  “We caught one of the shooters.” He glanced at me. “Fe
male. She wasn’t local. From preliminary scans, it is clear she once ran with the Rooks––she had the Barrier signature of having being detached from the Pyramid. We have not yet determined where her loyalties lie now, but we got the sense of some organization there, perhaps a splinter group, something that formed after Galaith’ death. The other, a male, is still being tracked. They tell me we should have him by nightfall. Wellington…”

  He glanced at me, then elaborated for the others.

  “…The Terian-being who is impersonating the human President of the United States, Ethan Wellington… has a significant number of seers protecting him, seemingly more every day. We have identified twenty-six in his direct employ so far, not including those seers working for the Secret Service, or any of the other branches of law enforcement tasked with his protection. None of that includes the humans in his personal employ, either. He moves between several constructs in the White House, and in private residences and governmental buildings. Several of these have been fortified from constructs that existed when Daniel Caine… the being we now know as Galaith… held the Presidential seat.”

  He flashed images as he spoke.

  Having been American most of my life, I recognized a lot of the locations. Those I didn’t know were likely either specific to Wellington, or close enough to military or security concerns that un-doctored images didn’t make it to the news feeds.

  “Since the dispersion of the Rooks’ main network…” Balidor continued.

  He paused while a brief flash showing the Pyramid crumbling, breaking apart on its moorings, touched the collective group. I felt all of the seers in the room pause to acknowledge me silently, almost like a recitation after the mention of a dead person’s name.

  Again, I inwardly sighed.

  “…He seems to have made it a priority to gain control of key pieces of the human infrastructure,” Balidor said, giving me another faint smile. “Namely the military and corporate leadership, but also communications.”

  He looked at me, his mouth suddenly grim.

  “…Including all news feeds deemed legitimate by the human public. So your interest in outing him as a seer is likely not feasible at this juncture, esteemed Bridge. Such a strategy also carries with it certain dangers.”

  I blinked at him, then looked at Vash.

  Clearly, my ideas were traveling a lot further than I had realized.

  “For one,” Balidor added. “We now have reason to believe the Wellington body is biologically 100% human. So a disclosure of that kind could backfire. It could also make him seem like a terrorist target, which would give them license to activate even more draconian civil rights curtailments domestically. At the very least, it would likely damage your credibility further with the humans.”

  “What else?” I said, motioning him on.

  “He is clearly attempting to isolate the United States as a geographic and political entity within a particular Barrier construct. He wants them cut off from the rest of the world.”

  Balidor flashed the image of a bubble of light solidifying over the land mass of the United States.

  “He is fanning racial tensions internally, and not only between Sarks and humans. He is inciting ethnic prejudices as well, particularly against those humans whose ancestors come from Asia. He does this mainly through subtle phrases in his speeches.”

  “To what effect?” one of the monks spoke up. “What purpose does this serve?”

  I noticed the rest of the monks leaning forward as well, long fingers clasped on knees or folded together in laps as they awaited Balidor’s response. Traditional seers were extremely curious about human to human interactions and conflicts. Things that had obvious meaning to someone raised human were unfathomable to the majority of seers.

  Balidor, however, could not possibly belong to that camp of seer.

  He’d been in at least two major human wars. Dorje also told me Balidor had been the leader of the Adhipan when they helped bring down Syrimne. He’d shown me a picture they had framed in one of the prayer cabins of the final hunting party.

  In the center stood the human who claimed the killing shot, a defector from the Bavarian army with the unlikely name of Hraban Novotny, thereafter known only as “Galaith”… as in, you guessed it, Galaith.

  Looking at the photo though, I understood why no one made the connection.

  The photograph was grainy, and Galaith disappeared soon after, rumored to have been killed by angry seers. When he emerged forty years later as Daniel Caine, another human, who would have connected the dots, especially since he hadn’t aged?

  In that same photograph, right behind Galaith, stood Balidor.

  He’d been looking away from the camera, out over a burnt field, holding a German infantry rifle in the crook of his arm and frowning slightly. He’d looked very much the same as he did now, only a lot dirtier.

  I asked Dorje how Balidor failed to recognize Daniel Caine when he stepped up as president later. After an awkward silence, Dorje confessed to me, somewhat apologetically, that most seers barely noticed the differences between humans.

  From the Barrier, they all looked the same.

  According to Dorje, Balidor probably just figured Daniel Caine looked a bit like Hraban Novotny, and never gave it another thought. Most seers never really believed Galaith made the killing shot anyway. The fact that Caine always tested human further removed any reason to look at him more closely.

  Humans, after all, aged visibly in fifty years.

  Now, in Vash’s chambers, Balidor just shrugged at the monk’s question. He glanced at me before turning to face the peaceful, nonviolent seers sitting around him in a half-circle.

  “To heighten paranoia and aggression,” he explained. “To help other humans, civilians, feel a willingness to make war against humans who have done them no personal wrong. To make those same humans feel afraid of those they would be fighting.”

  I saw the monks whisper to one another, looking dismayed.

  I didn’t want to be insensitive, but we couldn’t treat this as an anthropological experiment either.

  “Okay.” I cleared my throat. “Balidor? What are your thoughts? Can we influence from the Chinese side?”

  Balidor clicked softly as he shook his head.

  “We now suspect Terian has at least one operative high up in the Chinese government,” he said. “We are having difficulty identifying who. It is a serious impediment, in terms of finding means of effective influence. The Chinese government is also suffering from a number of factional issues at this time. We suspect Terian is fanning those difficulties, and persuading them that war is the easiest solution to reunite the populace.

  “The Chinese are less naïve about seers, however,” Balidor added. “Therefore, it is not only Terian who is blocking our attempts to gain access. We must negotiate with factions who are attempting to discern from inside China what outside influences may be contributing to the unrest. They have a few thousand of their own highly-trained infiltrators, many of whom are genuinely loyal to the Chinese government. We have attempted to speak with a few of them, to persuade them that we mean their masters no harm, but they are highly suspicious of us.

  “The most elite of these were raised in the Forbidden City since birth. Some of the older ones grew up and played alongside the royal family. It is a different kind of seer soldier the Chinese have cultivated. They are honored as sages, treated as family, and they have been incorporated into many aspects of Chinese religious and traditional beliefs, as well as Communist ideals around ‘brotherhood.’ These higher-echelon seers, known as Lao Hu, ‘Tiger People,’ are not likely to trust us, simply because of who we are.”

  I sat down, plopping cross-legged on the floor even though I knew it would upset the monks. With my current rank as “oldest soul,” I was supposed to be above their eye level at all times.

  Right now, that meant stacking up a bunch of cushions in the chair-less room, and I couldn’t be bothered.

  I saw a few of the se
ers tense, their faces conflicted as they tried to decide how they might adjust their seats so I remained above their eye level.

  Vash waved to them that it was all right, smiling at me.

  “…Terian’s tactic in inciting war in the United States seems pretty straightforward,” Balidor continued. “Wellington has accused the Chinese of harboring seer terrorists, and of using money from illegal trade of seers to bolster its military and fund terrorism to undermine the United States. He claims the traitor, Caine, was aiding them.”

  I sighed internally. “So what next? How do we get them to talk to us?”

  “I’ve told you the difficulties, Bridge Alyson.”

  “Okay, but those are temporary problems, right?” Glancing around at their blank faces, I sighed in exasperation. “We’re never going to stop this without the Chinese on board. You get that, right? We need them. We need the seers up there, especially. How do we convince them to play ball? Do we have anyone who has contacts there?”

  The monks were staring at me curiously.

  “Stop this, Esteemed Bridge?” Balidor said politely. “Stop what?”

  “The war. You know… I’m looking for solutions here.”

  The monks openly gaped at me. Then they all looked to Vash. The ancient seer studied my eyes. He smiled kindly, letting out a kind of clicking sigh.

  “You cannot stop the Displacement, Alyson,” he said, his voice gentle. “Our hope is to soften the worst of its effects, to slow it down… if possible, to influence the war’s direction as well as to reach those humans who might be aided in making the transition. I do not imply that any of this is futile. The longer we hold off hostilities, the more hope we have of preparing the ground, of finding ways to reach the humans before it is too late.”

  He sighed again, and it felt sincere.

  “…but you cannot stop the Displacement, Alyson,” he said. “Eventually, the humans must be put in severe discomfort. Otherwise, they will not change.”

  I stared back at him, then around at the circle of seers. Besides Vash, only Balidor’s face held something other than blank puzzlement.