Seeing the anger and frustration on the seer’s face, it occurred to Cass that maybe he wasn’t the bad guy in all of this, after all.
A jet slammed by the window, rattling the glass. The roar of its engines followed, deafening in the narrow corridor between houses. Looking across the street, Cass saw the tiny figures of men in black kevlar climbing the building across from theirs, and a kind of despair reached her.
There was no possible way they could get out of this, not anymore.
NEAR TO EARTH, the faint lines of the physical can be seen from the Barrier like a lit room through water. A swarm of beings hover over three ghosting human forms. The Rooks know a third seer exists there, too, but they cannot see him as long as he remains outside the Barrier.
It doesn’t matter. The hovering shadows are little more than sentries, left behind as the real work screams above.
I barely feel this...then it is gone.
I am the real work.
I streak through a star-filled night sky, running for my life. I try to make myself invisible but can’t, so I jerk and jump, reappear and am hit, slammed, run over...all lines leading to my body snarled and confused, broken and dead-ending. Prisons appear around me, mirages that look like hard walls, bright lights, even distant stars. They pull at me, tempt me with inviting vibrations, darting closer before I manage to twist away from their hard fire.
I am not sure how I came to be here.
I remember Revik. I remember us kissing, his hands pulling me tighter against his body, the feel of his light, him asking me...
But now everywhere I turn, silver eyes glow at me, chasing me through an endless-feeling night. They appear all around me as I try to move faster. They are looking for a way in, even as I look for a way out. I try desperately to get ahead of them, looking for any door or passage or tornado-like tunnel that might lead me out of this place. I try to feel Vash...Revik...even Maygar and Chandre...but the more I call to them, the more silver bodies converge around me.
I am too late. They are closing.
All around me rustle glimpses of presence and chiseled light.
Eyes and hands appear and disappear...they belong to more beings than I can count. Precise, lifeless, they slam into me, knocking me further off-balance. I turn, change course, change the vibration of my light, disappear...reappear. I look for resonance with something beautiful, something not-them, but more appear all the time, until I feel...
ALLIE!
Relief floods my light. He comes at me so quickly it shocks me. His light collides, then coils into mine, and briefly, we are alone.
Allie!
I feel him...all around me.
Shield! Disappear!
He hands me imprints, keys to lead me out through this winding tunnel or that one. I feel his intention...
No! I twine my light deeper into his. No! I’m not leaving you here!
They don’t know your light! You haven’t spent enough time with them...
They know yours!
Allie, I have ways to evade them on my own. You need to listen—
No! My anger flares. Don’t leave me like you left Elise!
Laughter echoes around us.
I hit a wall, one I did not see, and come to a painful stop. Before I can reverse, I lose him. He is pulled away from me so fast it is like mist evaporating from my fingers. Then I am inside a blank room with four walls. I can’t feel Revik, but I hear him, for one last—
Allie! Don’t wait for me!
I throw myself in the direction of his voice, but another wall separates us. I crash into that one, too, end up bathed in stinging threads. Red eyes surround me, shimmering hands and torsos. Dozens of them hook into my light, but Galaith’s is the only presence I feel.
Let us go! Please!
I know how futile my words sound, how meaningless. There is nothing else to say.
Please, please…let him go! Please!
Galaith’s face appears, alone. The silver bodies and red eyes recede.
I focus on him as the grayish space around me grows silent. Galaith’s features flicker like candlelight. His dark eyes meet mine, without precise color or form, yet I see hints of teeth, stretched lips and facial creases.
He is smiling.
Hello, Liego, he says.
30
GALAITH
GALAITH WAITS PATIENTLY as I stand there, studying his silver-white form.
I stall for time in a timeless space, looking for a way out of this featureless box. In the Barrier’s shifting dark, Galaith doesn’t look like a seer...but he looks even less alike to the blurred, sheep-like lights with which I now associate humans.
Watching currents move through his hands, face, neck and legs, I don’t know if I feel fear, calm, anxiety, anger. Coloring it all, an odd feeling of familiarity lives in our stares back and forth. I know I am being influenced by the silver light in this...but it is different than when Ivy had me. Here the influence is easy instead of fascinating.
The normality of him, of being here, is almost cloying. Calm seeps in, the desire to entwine with the silver strands...or, rather, the lack of desire to fight them. The landscape looks different to me too, almost serene. I know I am being influenced, but I can’t seem to—
You worry yourself needlessly, he says to me.
He waves a fluid hand, breathing out that same soft indifference.
Every construct carries its own flavor, Liego.
I feel the part of me that slides down that path with him. I try to come at it logically and fail.
What do you want? I say finally.
His light body changes from pure aleimi to the semblance of matter. In a heartbeat he stands at perfect ease, a faceless, tailored blue suit, elegant on a muscular form—middle-aged, from the shape of his torso, and in very good shape. Dark hair grows on hands with manicured nails, interspersed with a few strands of gray. He wears a ring bearing an iron cross.
The cross disappears as I notice it.
What do you want? I say again. ...Haldren?
I feel his smile at my childish attempt to even the playing field. My pretense of knowing as much as he does is meaningless...I have no cards here. Inside his world, my mind is laid bare. He knows I don’t really remember.
I don’t believe the seers’ view of me. He knows that, too.
Ah, he says. But I do remember, Liego. I remember it all so well...
His voice pulls at me, the coax of mutual dialogue, but that familiarity just irritates me.
When I fold my arms, I am distracted.
My hands are now gloved in cream-colored satin at the end of bare upper arms. I wear an emerald ball gown with thin straps, similar to what Revik’s wife wore at a party in Berlin, only dyed green to match my eyes. A wedding ring adorns one gloved finger. It affects me to see it, which I’m sure is his intention...or maybe a Rook’s attempt at humor.
I look over only to see myself in a wall-length mirror. My hair is piled on top of my head in elaborate curls, studded with diamond pins and peacock feathers. The reflection shows a cavernous room behind me. High, carved ceilings arc over pillars that stretch off into the distance, diminishing into darkness.
Only the swastikas are absent.
Cute, I tell him. Did you bring me here to critique my wardrobe?
Galaith laughs. Strangely, it sounds genuine.
I have missed you, Liego, he says fondly.
I look down the cavernous hall. Paved now in black volcanic glass, the corridor is draped in thick curtains of purple and green vines. Water drips down from a cracking ceiling above a rectangular reflecting pool. Ancient, cypress-like trees grow through one of the walls. I see a bird alight on a massive root. It sings a song that stirs something in my memory. At the nudge of Galaith’s mind, I look up. A high, blue sky is visible through the crumbling stone.
He wants me to remember. But I don’t remember, not really.
I frown. What do you want? I say again.
He shrugs with a manicured ha
nd, seer-fashion. I want to relieve you of the burden of your so-called destiny. He smiles. I am trying to stop a war, Liego. A war you seem as determined as ever to bring.
My feeling of unreality worsens. You think I want war?
Galaith’s eyes remain serious through the shifting mosaic of his face.
I think you will bring it anyway, he says. I realize it likely would not be intentional, old friend. Believe me, I do. Probably more than anyone, I understand this. I know it tears you up, each and every time. I know you dread coming here.
His eyes flicker between the moving panes of his face.
I can help you, Liego. Do not doubt that I can. You can live life outside that singular role. You could be married...really married. Without having to worry that your mate or children will be tortured or killed simply because of who you are...
My light seizes around a vision of Revik, one I realize Galaith is providing me, but one that is so recent I flinch at how real it appears. I see his neck, the clothes hanging on his long frame, the slight limp in his walk as he crosses the study floor.
The image morphs.
I see my mother’s graying, staring eye, lost in a face covered in blood. I see the scar bisecting Cass’s beautiful face...Jon’s bandaged hand.
My silk-clad arms fold tighter, cutting off air I don’t even need in this place.
There is a moment where I hear only the distant trickling of water on volcanic stone.
Galaith refrains from smiling out of politeness.
Do not worry about your mate, he says. He will not judge you for taking this road. He has seen too many wars to welcome another.
...and I am in a dim room.
A single hanging lamp sways above dirt floors. The room lives underground, smelling of mold and blood. White-washed walls like pale skin bleed dark rivulets of mud leaking from badly patched cracks. It is hot, and insects flicker over sweated flesh near a metal table.
The dead body of a young Asian man slumps in a chair.
I don’t see him at first, but I am not surprised when he is there. Revik’s arms lay folded across a broader, more muscular chest. His black hair hangs longer, and he wears a Rolling Stones T-shirt and jeans with motorcycle boots.
Terian, the same Terian I know from Golden Gate Park, is there too, hunched over the body of the dead Asian boy, trying to saw off one of his ears. Cursing, he tosses aside the knife, which is rusted where not covered in blood.
“Damn it, Revi’...hand me that razor, will you?”
The taller seer takes his weight off the wall.
Picking up a sling blade from a nearby table, he flips it open and hands it to Terian wordlessly. Revik doesn’t move away but continues to watch Terian work, tugging a hand-rolled hiri out of his pocket and lighting it after a few tries with a silver lighter. Exhaling sweet-smelling smoke, his expression doesn’t change as Terian saws determinedly through skin and cartilage to remove the dead man’s ear.
Terian grumbles at him as he works.
“...You could have let him live long enough to give me a turn,” he says. “What, did he remind you of someone?”
Revik shrugs. “The maggot wanted to die.”
Terian glances up, chuckles. “So this was a humanitarian gesture, then?” He turns his concentration back to the ear. “I hate to tell you, my friend...but most humans who meet you grow to feel that way in time.”
Terian straightens an instant later, a triumphant look on his face. He shows Revik the mutilated ear. Already the blood coagulates, barely a trickle from the stopped heart.
Revik’s voice holds a thread of disgust.
“Why do you keep those?”
“Are you kidding? The press eats this shit up. ‘Vietnam’s own Jack the Ripper’...or hadn’t you heard?” Reaching into a coat pocket, Terian pulls out a playing card, the Jack of Spades. Flipping it over in his fingers, he sticks it in the dead man’s mouth.
“That’s you?” Revik shakes his head. “Jesus, Terry.”
At the grin on Terian’s face, Revik snorts a half-laugh.
“We need to get you a pet.”
“Yeah, speaking of that.” Terian cocks an eyebrow at him. “Remember that jaguar you picked up for me in Brazil?”
Revik grunts another laugh. “I don’t want to know.”
“Anyway,” Terian says, as he raises the ear to the light. “It’s not only me...Galaith wants me to plant this stuff.”
“Why?” Revik says.
I hear only curiosity in his voice. His eyes rest empty, flat...I barely recognize him. Yet, oddly, he carries a kind of easy male confidence that makes him look almost handsome, despite his angular features.
I tell myself I knew what he was.
He’d been a Nazi before this.
But even working for the Germans, feeling lived in his eyes, something with which I could relate, even sympathize. I’d been told by the rest of them––Maygar, Vash, Chandre, even the seers training me back in India––that what Revik had done under the Rooks was exponentially worse than anything he did as a Nazi. Even so, it unnerves me beyond what my mind can articulate, seeing him this way.
It also occurs to me that I cannot unsee it.
Terian shrugs as he answers him.
“Why?” he says. “How should I know why? Why does Galaith want us to do anything? Recruitment? Fear? Shits and giggles?” Wrapping the ear in a clean, white handkerchief, Terian shoves the whole thing in a pocket and claps Revik on the shoulder. “Let's get a drink. I need a fuck before we do the next bunch, and I know you do...”
The dark, blood-smelling room fades.
I find myself back in Revik’s London study once it has.
Galaith sits before me on the worn leather couch, drumming his fingers on a creased arm. The picture of my parents still sits on the marble mantlepiece. One of my sketches stands next to it, a charcoal I did of Revik while he was still following me in San Francisco. More of my drawings spill out of an open drawer in the nearby desk, spread out on the floor in a fan position.
I see more images of Revik, of my brother, of the Pyramid.
I recognize all of them.
I was kind, Galaith says. You must know I could have shown you far worse.
Yeah, I say dryly. ...Very kind. If you’d shown me anything too over the top, I could have dismissed it as pure insanity. Instead you show me a rational version, knowing I’ll never forget it.
Galaith chuckles in genuine pleasure, slapping the end of the couch.
Very good, Alyson! Perhaps you have some intelligence in this life, after all.
My light clenches, knowing this is a jab, too.
He knows I am aware of the gap between me and the other seers...and especially between me and Revik. I know how slow I seem to all of them, how stupid because I can do so little with my light. I remember playing chess with Revik in Seattle, him showing me how to drive, how to shoot, how to talk to machines...how to see anything at all with my light.
As I think about him, his presence grows stronger.
I also feel what Galaith’s show and tell has done to my light’s ability to find his.
Reluctance hovers there, doubt. I focus back on Galaith, find him watching me carefully. I fold my arms tighter around my light body.
I thought Terian was the one who liked these stupid games, I say angrily.
Galaith makes a dismissive gesture with one hand.
These are not games, Liego, he says. And you are wrong...I do not judge you for your newness. Nor do I confuse this for lack of intelligence. Nor does your mate.
I don’t argue with him, but I don’t believe him, either.
So where is Terian? I say. Out torturing more people in your name?
Galaith’s countenance darkened, meaning the tenor of the shifting planes of his face. He looks at me, and I feel the warning in his light.
Terian is dead, he says. An unfortunate necessity...but he was out of control. There will be others like him, Liego. They will do the same and worse to
get to you...and I won’t be able to reach them all in time.
Drumming his fingers, he lets out a long breath, as if to calm himself.
Do you honestly believe you owe allegiance to the Seven? he says, his voice accusing. Or to that seven-hundred-year-old seer, Vash? Their myths and superstitions mean nothing to you...do not lie to me or to him by pretending otherwise.
His voice sharpens. I feel the pull strengthen behind his words.
If you think Vash will keep you and yours safe, Liego, you should speak to your husband. He could tell you a few things about the Seven’s willingness to sacrifice the loved ones of others for their precious Code and its ‘higher’ goals.
The eyes inside that endlessly moving face stare up at me.
Don’t you ever wonder how he was able to work for the Nazis and also be a member of their nonviolent club? he asks. Hasn’t this ever struck you as a bit hypocritical, Liego?
It has.
Yes, I say, unnecessarily.
Galaith smiles, but I feel no humor there. Well, perhaps this will give you more reason to forgive your mate for what I showed you before...
An image appears out of the dark.
I see Vash and Revik sitting on a sandy floor, inside what looks like a high-ceilinged cave. They are talking seriously, hunched together over food and drink, with papers strewn about them on the sand. I cannot hear their words, but Revik wears a German infantry uniform, a swastika band around his arm. A third seer is with them, a middle-aged male with sharp, gray eyes, chestnut hair and chiseled features. He is handsome, almost startlingly so. Handsome enough to be a movie star, if one a few years past his prime.
It was all planned, you see, Galaith says. Vash and the Adhipan deliberately planted Dehgoies in Germany. He encouraged him to work for the Nazis...to fight for them, even if it meant watching his own people be put to death.
He smiles, and the mirage disappears, to be replaced by the image of a gothic church.
I feel my light tense as Revik appears in the doorway of that church. He is wearing a tuxedo, smiling, holding the hand of Elise, who wears a wedding dress so stunning she looks like a living doll. Her hair is sleek and filled with what look like tiny diamonds.
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