I thought about pursuing that, as well. But at his warning look, I left off.
Sometimes our minds were way too entwined.
Now we stood in a cluster of virtual stars, and he’d promised to take me somewhere.
In Revik-world, this was probably the closest to a date I’d get.
“Where first?” I said in Prexci.
“Balixe,” he said. “It is a seer city.”
Balixe means water in the seer tongue... my mind recited.
“Yes.” Surprise wafted off him. You know of it?
“Only by name,” I joked. At his flat look, I sighed, thinking loudly that I’d watched a history program on ancient seer culture in one of the vids he’d given me. In that particular program, it said Balixe housed the ruins of the last Elaerian city.
Revik nodded. “That is correct.”
“I know,” I said. I tugged on his shirt. “Can we go?”
He caught hold of my wrist. I barely had time to take a breath when...
...I’M NOT BREATHING.
A horizon forms as I watch, framed by distant mountains, and I see currents, streams of swift-moving lights of all colors pertaining to dark. The currents flow like water or liquid starlight, level after level, hundreds of miles above and below where I am, and once again, I am forced to fight feelings of insignificance, of being swallowed in the vastness of how little everything about me truly matters.
Beauty overcomes those feelings of smallness, however. Dark clouds hang heavy in the distance, shot through with even more subtle frequencies of light, making me long for a sunrise, for stronger beams of illumination in the churning aliveness of the night.
Then I am looking at him, and I forget all the rest.
Geometrical patterns flow around Revik’s hyper-detailed form, sparking out in small, colorful arcs of current and light. I reach out, touching one of the shapes, and from his reaction, it isn’t dissimilar to poking him in the eye.
Cut it out, he says. Look for the track, Allie.
At my blank reaction, he sighs, sending up more plumes of light and feeling.
You know the theory, he says, patient now, if barely. If you don’t know the thing you want to resonate with, find another way in...
When my confusion doesn’t lessen, he prods me again.
There are three ways seers track, Allie. The first is imprinting...it is what I am doing now, using an imprint given to me by Vash.
He flashes a multi-dimensional image, too quick for me to take in.
...I could also use a personal object, audio or visual recording, blood, fingerprints, urine, hair, even a smell...all of these are imprints. Imprinting is the most common track, as imprints are everywhere. Imprinting is the reason for the image ban, Allie...and the ban on trade in biological artifacts...
...The second way is location track, he continues evenly. This is based on the principles of spatial intersection. In simple terms, if you know the location of something in the physical realm, you can track it in the Barrier. To do so, however, your knowledge must be very precise. It also does not work so well for time jumps, or Barrier echoes...
I have no idea what these are.
The third way, he says, ignoring my implicit question. Is a line track. It denotes having a personal connection with, or “direct line” to the thing you are tracking. Or in this case, something that is resonating with the thing you are tracking...which is me.
He waits for me to follow this train of thought.
Use the opportunity to feel me under a track, Allie.
I am following his logic now. If I resonate with him, and he resonates with the target, I will resonate with the target, too. Simple.
I focus on a current of light I don’t recognize in one of his hands. The vibration immediately changes my own.
...Resonance does not have a spatial or interconnectivity limit, he adds as I play with his light. If you resonate with something that resonates with something that resonates with something...you can track any part of the chain. Distance can muddle the imprint, but it doesn’t have to. The military, of necessity, depends mainly on secondary or tertiary links...sometimes those of much greater distances from the target. Most of the work of infiltration is this. Uncovering lines or “taps,” which can be complex...even tedious. Infiltrating the target’s life, hunting them to get close to their light...
I am fascinated, picking up images from him.
You still do this? Professionally?
Yes, he sends.
For who?
His light sparks in irritation. Try to match my light...or go back and wait for me in the room, Allie.
Touchy, touchy, I send softly.
But I am trying to do what he says, so his thoughts grow slightly less grumpy.
When you track, it is better if the target does not feel you, he advises. He waits for me to adjust, based on his words. When I don’t, he sighs again. This is not subtle, Allie. If I were a target, I would know I was being tapped.
I heard you. Just let me get the hang of it, okay?
He gives in, letting me openly examine his light.
He is cranky today, though. I have no idea if it has anything to do with me, but I decide to do as he says...until I am distracted again by the mechanics of our lights’ interaction. My aleimi really wants to resonate with his. It is less a matter of trying, more a matter of letting it. So I relax, unfurling a fist that I hadn’t known I clenched. My vibration changes.
I feel Revik’s approval.
Good, he sends.
He is closer to me now, and suddenly I am fighting the other thing. The pulling-nausea-pain feeling I get around him is stronger without my body, carries more of an imperative. It occurs to me that pain is likely how my body translates that imperative, like converting electrical signals...then it occurs to me that I’m embarrassed, trying to make it scientific.
Revik politely withdraws his light.
Are you ready? he sends.
I consider, for the hundredth or so time, asking him about that pull, then decide to leave it for when he’s in a better mood.
I let him feel that I am. Ready, that is.
He releases whatever he uses to keep us in place and we shoot across the night sky. There are no vortices this time, and the movement from one place to the next happens fast, almost instantaneously, without a breath between states.
A city bursts out of the dark.
Its many windows reflect the morning rays of a bloated sun peeking over the horizon. I recognize the skyline from my dreams. I see the jagged steel and glass squares sticking out of the ground, the older city beside them, the dense layer of smog over the honking cars and bicycles and auto-rickshaws on the street. People walk down the sidewalk in ragged patterns and stand by coffee shops and older-looking buildings with red and gold facades. I see flickers of the city from all sides...from the ground to a vantage point somewhere in the clouds.
I am afraid, focusing on the enormous metal and glass squares looming out of the dust of a predawn sky, the watery structure squatting closer to the ground.
I see more cars and bicycles and the light brightens, when...
...I am hovering over a different square, filled with people.
The sky in this new place is the opposite of the one over modern-day Beijing.
The curve of the atmosphere looms so high and clear I think it must belong to a different planet. The sun shines hotter here, too, but gentler somehow; it hangs in the sky, a near gold-white, so small and bright I can’t look at it for long, even from inside the Barrier.
The city’s buildings have rounded corners instead of square ones. They crouch around one another, yet have a kind of regal elegance, covered in greenery that makes them appear almost alive under the dense shadows of dark stone. Cut windows without glass overlook the center of town behind balconies covered in moss and dripping sprays of purple flowers. A fountain marks the center of the square itself, and watery creatures decorate the basin, foaming more of that crystal
blue water from mouths and fingers.
Black volcanic tiles pave the center of the square, too. The streets radiating outward from that same square are of large cobblestones, but those stones look new, or as if someone polishes them daily. Statues mark the passage into arterial roads that spiral out from the center like spokes in a wheel. Flags ripple in a light breeze like silken snakes.
A portly man who looks to be in his mid-sixties stands at a balcony, giving a speech to a packed crowd standing below. The older man wears dark red pajamas and a long, embroidered tunic that looks Asian yet is not.
The crowd listens raptly as he speaks. I look over the crowd, fascinated by the beauty in so many of the faces I see, regardless of age. Men and women both wear their hair long, I notice. The men’s is wound in wooden clips studded with brightly colored stones, and the women’s hangs loose down their backs, woven through with thin metals and threads with small, embedded stones. More jewelry adorns men’s hands and ankles, compared to the women who wear stones at their throats and hanging from around their ears.
I listen to the crowd murmur, although the language is new to me, and to Revik too, it seems...so different that even my mind’s translations inside the Barrier aren’t quite right. Above the speaker’s head, a three-dimensional Barrier image shows two curved lines with parallel staves, like a crude drawing of one of those impossibly tall Japanese bridges.
Everyone in the square sees it, I realize. The image is painted inside the Barrier, but they all see it over him, and stare at it in some curiosity.
The man’s words grow more distinct, however briefly.
“I do not present this...concept from...ego, for self-aggrandizement,” I hear him say. Words go missing in his speech, words for which my mind cannot find context. “I merely wish for sight...the urgency behind...my plea. It can be peaceful,” he adds, holding up a finger. “There is no wanting to...war. Or...living miseries.”
The man continues to speak.
I hear only some of the words.
He speaks of working through differences, of wars that have come before. He exudes confidence, yet is unsure if they hear him, if they really understand what he is trying to tell them. I feel a lot about his mind, I realize.
My spine prickles as I wonder if it is too much.
This is Balixe, Revik says.
I startle, having forgotten him.
Even so, I look around me as his words sink in, in a kind of wonder. This is more than prehistory. This is history most humans don’t acknowledge having existed at all. This is history before humans.
If Revik is affected by this, I cannot tell. He continues to teach, even here.
This is our history, Allie...not prehistory from a seer perspective, but early history, certainly. The Merensithly Address, prior to the first Displacement...
The First Displacement? I say wonderingly. So these are Elaerian? They are the first race?
I feel Revik acknowledge this, right before his thoughts grow audible once more. Most cannot even see events of this kind. Vash is very generous to share it with us.
Revik gestures towards the podium.
This man...he is famous to seers. History describes him as the final war’s architect...its greatest proponent. It is unknown whether he was a Rook, as we think of Rooks today. But he was definitely some kind of precursor to those that exist now...
His words cut me somehow.
Focusing back on the podium, I shake my head.
No, I tell him. That’s not right.
I feel Revik’s puzzlement, riding the edges of his bad mood. He looks between me and the man.
It is right. He makes an effort to be conciliatory. Do not be naïve about his words, Allie. He was a politician, a rich man who only claimed to be a humble scientist. He used his studies to further his social and political agendas...
It is not his words, I say, pointing. It is his light. Look at it!
Revik barely glances at the man, before frowning back at me.
Light can be disguised in many ways, Revik warns me. Do not be naïve about that, either. It is the oldest game in the Barrier, to impersonate light frequencies of one kind or another...I have done it, as an infiltrator. To pretend to resonate with someone or something safe or familiar to your target is often the easiest way to get them to lower their guard. As a Rook, I did this all the time, Allie. I would adopt the light connections of relatives or loved ones, simply to get the person to open to me...
I try to take this all in, shielding myself slightly from Revik’s emotions. But I cannot just go along, letting his words stand, when they feel so wrong to me.
No, I say finally. You’re wrong about him. You’ve been misinformed.
I feel Revik’s stare, even before I focus on him.
Allie, he says, and I feel him fighting the bad mood once more, the anger I feel under it. These scenes have been studied extensively by the clan elders. I’m not defending my own sight, but that of the greatest seers in the clans. He adds, sharper, I do not say this to cause offense, but you are a beginner, Allie...
Before I can think how to answer, the scene around us shifts.
It is difficult at first to tell where we are.
A dark organic platform has been erected in the middle of a ripped up town square. Looking at the broken pieces of estuary and volcanic glass, the piles of burning bodies and the mountains looming up above the remnants of the ancient city, feeling fills me without warning...it shocks me with its intensity.
Revik grabs my light arm.
Calm, he murmurs. Yes, it is the same square.
It affects him too. I feel his grief, but mostly I feel anger in him, unconnected to this place.
Before us stands the same man on the platform, but he is older now, and thinner. His eyes look haunted, hollowed-out. Someone has tied him to a pole at the center of the platform. Bruised and cut, his face hangs over a dark-colored robe spotted with blood. His feet are bare and look like they’ve been beaten with sticks; blood drops down on them from one leg.
A man on the young side of middle age with a dark beard stands next to him.
Feeling explodes in me...unfocused, irrational.
Love, regret, grief...they tangle my light. I can’t tell if they are my feelings, my memories, or some imprint I carry with me, something handed to me from somewhere else. It is all too strong to sort out, too intense to do anything but try to absorb, or at least let pass through me.
The younger man raises his hands to silence the crowd. They look up at him, and I recognize that look, at least. They love him. They positively adore him.
Haldren, I murmur.
I feel Revik’s light focus on mine.
Just then, the bearded man’s voice rises, whipping in the wind.
“Kardek will die!” He speaks with passion, raising his hands as he shouts. “Yes! He will die...but his death will not save us. It is too late...the sickness will take many more. We will starve. We are almost out of water. Our enemies will kill us!”
Moans rise from the crowd, cries of pain.
I flinch away from them, feeling a part of me crushed into pieces like the volcanic rock, unable to feel without feeling too much. I know myself as connected in some way to what happened here. Not responsible, exactly, but more sad than I’ve ever felt in my life, even after my dad died. Even after my mother got murdered by the Rooks.
“...And for those of us left behind, there is no justice! Not for your families! Not for friends and neighbors! He cannot cure you! He can never bring back your joy!”
Haldren’s dark eyes fill with emotion.
“...But I can promise you this! He will harm you no more!”
Shouts rise from the crowd, screams. Fists raise into the air.
I make myself look at them, at their faces, and at the city that had once been so beautiful. Flowers no longer bloom from balconies, though. The stones are broken like jagged teeth, strewn instead with fingers of dried sticks from dead plants and mud and other filth. Instead
of ornate tapestries and curtains, rags are crammed in cracks to keep out the icy wind. Blankets covered in ash and blood flap in smoke-filled wind, warning passersby away from the disease hidden inside the walls of those dwellings.
Blackened holes also scar buildings from some kind of fight. Volcanic glass cobblestones are broken and torn from their moorings; most of what remains lay in chunks and powder. The crowd wavers on its feet: sick, thin, dirty, clothed in rags. Many have volcanic shard knives and spears strapped to their backs, along with branch-like devices that also feel like weapons.
The stone skeleton of the city is all that remains.
“This man,” the bearded man shouts. He points at Kardek. “...He, who has called himself the Bridge! He stands before you, a traitor to our people! A heretic, and a liar!”
I feel Revik’s shock ripple through my light.
His whole attention is on me now. I cannot look at him, though. I cannot even care about his reaction. I am being slowly crushed under the weight of this city’s pain. Like the rest of them, I focus on Haldren to keep from collapsing, the bearded man with the intense eyes and the angry voice. Haldren. He will redeem the old man, cleanse him through fire.
It feels just. Right, even.
Haldren is a friend. The way he speaks is familiar, the way the crowd hangs on his every word, as if in a trance. Moans rise with his voice, emotion-laden screams. People throw things at the old man, hitting him with pieces of ripped up cobblestones. I wince as the lines cross, but feel nothing, in my body or my mind.
The man with the dark beard finally holds up a hand. He speaks quietly, for the old man alone. “You should have listened to me, Liego.” His voice breaks. “How could you do it? You will die the greatest mass murderer the world will ever know...”
With these words, it hits me.
More than that. It annihilates me.
I scream into that blue sky. NO NO NO! Get me out of here! NOW! NOW!
Allie! It’s okay! Revik is beside me, alarmed. No, afraid. It’s all right...
No. I shake my head, my terror crushed by grief once more. No, it’s not all right. Please, get me out of here. Now. Please, Revik...please...
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