24

HUNT

 

LESS THAN AN hour later, I lay on a beat up recliner in the same building, staring up at a water-damaged ceiling. Beside me paced Maygar. Another seer attached electrodes to my face and arms. I winced as he pressed down on bruised parts of my skin.

“Tell me something,” I said. “This war...?”

“It is the most likely of outcomes,” Maygar said, giving a dismissive wave.

“So not inevitable?”

“No.” He gave me another look, that one slightly less hard. “I would have said differently before. I would have said it’s not about death, but rebirth. That the Bridge doesn’t cause war. That her being here merely signals it’s time for it to begin.”

He ran a thumb lightly over his bicep. I noticed a tattoo there, what looked like writing. His knuckles were bruised too, probably from connecting with my face.

He cleared his throat. I looked up.

He was focused on my mouth, not hiding the meaning behind his stare.

When I rolled my eyes, he only smiled.

“There’s even some who say Death comes,” he added in a light voice. “Syrimne d’ Gaos...‘Sword of the Gods.’ It’s where that other seer got his name, the one during World War I. It’s also the meaning of the sword and sun you see drawn on the temple door. And on me...” He lifted his shirt’s sleeve, showing me a tattoo of the bisected blue sun on his arm. “This is a terrorist’s mark, Bridge. A real one.” He grinned at my unimpressed look.

“The real Death,” he added. “The real Syrimne...he’s supposed to be a creature like you.” He gestured with one thick hand.

“...A brother, as it were.”

My hands tightened on the chair.

Maygar didn’t notice, but only shrugged again, his voice bored. “I’ve also read interpretations that perhaps he’s the one as causes the shift,” he added. “But Bridge, the end of every cycle is a mystery. There are too many variables...and even humans have free will.” He glanced to where James, the robed follower from reception, stood talking to Chandre by the door, smiling at her with obvious adoration in his eyes.

“...In theory, at least,” he muttered.

I frowned, glancing at James, too. “So what are you doing to fight the Rooks? Your people...the badass terrorists?”

Maygar snorted a laugh. “You wouldn’t understand, Bridge.”

“Try me.” When he raised an eyebrow, I said, “Unlike you, I don’t have some macho trip going, Maygar. And it’s not just revenge for me, either, despite what you seem to think. I want them gone. I want a break in the clouds. A real one.”

He just looked at me, then gave another grunting laugh.

“A break in the clouds...I like that, Bridge.” His face opened a bit more, until his expression turned almost friendly. “If you really want to know, right now, we are trying to crack their hierarchy...the one Vash described to you. We look for ‘the break in the clouds,’ too.” He smiled down at me. “There are rumors that an order exists behind the rotating top tiers. That the succession order is mapped...not random. Do you understand this?”

I shook my head. “No.”

Maygar’s eyes grew sharper when they met mine. I recognized that look from Revik; it was a hunter’s look. Moreover, it showed more perception than I’d given him credit for.

Realizing I had been holding back on him a little, I shrugged.

“Eliah might have mentioned it,” I said. “The succession order. When he found out I was screwing around with the Rooks’ network, he seemed convinced that’s what I was after.”

Seeing Maygar’s eyebrow go up, I rolled my eyes.

“I still don’t know what it is, Maygar,” I said flatly.

He gave me another half-smile, shrugging with one hand.

“It is exactly what it sounds like, Bridge,” he said. “It is a map of the succession order for the Rooks’ hierarchy. A map of the succession order would detail when and how each individual Rook ascends in that hierarchy to the spot above. Like when your American president dies...there is a list of who takes his place, right?”

“Sure,” I said, annoyed at his condescending tone. “Whatever.”

Maygar smiled wider, clicking at me softly. “This thing you seem so uninterested in, Esteemed Bridge...it is something every Rook in the network would pay all of their fortune to obtain. Hell, any in the Seven would.”

“Why?”

Maygar rolled his eyes. Unfolding his muscular arms, he used his light to draw an image of the Pyramid in my mind. Thrusting it forward invasively, he highlighted the node at its apex.

“The Head, understand?” When I nodded, he said, “This man at the top, he is the only one who connects directly to the Dreng. The only link between the Dreng and Earth.”

I nodded again, to show him I was following.

“He connects the rest to the Dreng,” Maygar added. “He also distributes the light, the skill sets, everything. To randomize the succession order, it is his protection, right? Without that, what’s to stop one of the other Rooks from stealing this top spot from him?”

I waited, figuring it was a rhetorical question.

Maygar smiled again, maybe because he heard me.

“The top of the Pyramid, it has a rotating hierarchy.” Using his light, Maygar highlighted the top tiers. They began a jerky dance.

I recognized that, too.

“You see how at any moment,” Maygar continued. “...A different seer falls into the position directly below the Head?”

I nodded again.

“This is to prevent assassination, Bridge. If you are big number two Rook, and you kill the Head but don’t take his place, you can bet whoever does is going to take you out. But...” He lit up the top tier once more. “...If you know the succession order, you can coup the big honcho right when you are about to take his place. Or make a deal with the one who does.”

He smiled, clicking again softly.

“But Bridge,” he said. “...We could do the same. There is a gap after the Head dies, when the Dreng are not connected to our world. The Pyramid is vulnerable then.”

“How long?” I said.

“Two...maybe three minutes to connect the new Head.”

At his meaningful stare, I sighed.

“Two minutes isn’t very long,” I pointed out.

Maygar laughed. “It was long enough for me to smack you down this morning!” When my face warmed, he smiled. “Of course, for any of that to be feasible, we would need to know who the current Head is. That is his other protection, Bridge. Anonymity. We think very few Rooks know the Head’s true identity in outside.” He pointed at me, his lips curling in a frown. “This is where you come in. Providing you can deliver what you say. Your Rook husband never could...despite all his bullshit.”

My jaw hardened. “I already said I don’t know who he is in outside.”

“Well, you should, if you found him in the Barrier.”

“Who the hell are you, to tell me what I should know?” I said. “From what I can tell, none of you jackasses could find him at all. And I’m untrained, worm-raised Bridge girl...so what does that make you?”

Maygar stared at me, his dark eyes holding disbelief.

Vash’s voice rose in my mind, clear as a loudspeaker.

We are ready, he said. You are on point, Maygar.

Maygar leaned closer to me. His voice grew soft.

“A little touchy about the husband, aren’t you, Bridge?” he whispered.

Alyson? Vash said. Are you ready?

Maygar straightened back to his full height, a grin tugging at his full lips. His eyes met mine, a dark eyebrow quirking in a silent question.

“Yeah,” I said, swallowing my anger. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

SLOWLY, THERE ARE stars.

Earth appears, a pale blue dot.

It zooms closer, until it dominates my view. But I barely look at the Earth on its own; instead, my mind finds the Pyramid, and the larger beings I feel behind it. Even now, above all else, it is their presence I feel...for they are why I have come. Metallic threads cross and intersect over land masses in thick, silver piles. The Pyramid moves like a mechanical toy, deceptively peaceful despite the pain and deprivation I feel within. I watch the dance as the pieces change hands, change places, until I hear a faint whisper of—

Well?

The voice startles me. I had forgotten I am not alone.

Maygar floats beside me. We are waiting, Bridge.

It happened differently before, I explain.

His tone turns acidic. Is this your first jump?

No, I say, unthinking.

Then you should know nothing happens the same way twice in the Barrier, Maygar says, his thoughts cold. For that to be, all other creatures would need to be static. You must do as we do. Follow the thread, Bridge. Hunt.

By the end, he is indulgent, condescending. It sparks a faint anger in me, in my light, until I realize it is because he is reminding me of Revik.

But I have done this without Revik.

I’ve done it without Chandre or Vash...or this asshole, Maygar, who wants sex with me and to beat on me only because he has some kind of monster grudge against Revik.

Maygar hears me, and his amusement returns.

Not only for that, Bridge, he says.

Pushing his mind aside, I remember Haldren, why I am here.

I concentrate on his face, on the clear, confident voice that rises above the crowd, the darkly burning eyes, his laugh. I remember other things, too. The things that no one else sees. Shuddering sobs in the middle of the night in the orphanage when no one comes, his crush on Kardek’s lab assistant, Massani, his fear of the other children, his need to control them, to make himself feel safe. I remember the details, the way he snorts when he laughs, cracks his knuckles when he’s nervous, recites equations under his breath to not be afraid...

Slowly, the Earth begins to rotate beneath my feet.

I do not notice at first, but it is rotating backwards, in the wrong direction.

The sun and planets revolve backwards as well, moving with oiled precision, west to east, instead of the reverse. I half-expect to hear beautiful music, like when my father and I viewed a miniature version of Earth’s constellations sliding in rich ovals on smooth brass rails. In my mind’s eye, my father laughs there still, delighted by the beauty of the kinetic sculpture.

“Music of the spheres, Allie!” he says, patting my back with his large hand. “Music of the spheres! Isn’t it wonderful!”

I hear his voice, and as time unwinds again, I smile.

A lightness coincides with the wires of the Pyramid growing less around that little blue and white world. The dark threads unwind even faster, like a ball of yarn teased by a cat, and I can breathe again, in a way I never can in that other place...

Abruptly, the motion stops.

Earth begins revolving forward once more, with effort at first, like gears grinding back into their natural motion. It is slow, like I say...yet fast, too. Regular time, which passes changing everything, so that we lose ourselves, so that we don’t recognize one another.

So that we must find one another, again and again.

Instead of the Pyramid, a gray cloud masses over Europe.

There, I say to Maygar, pointing with my mind.

I feel him acknowledge me.

...Then he and I stand in that other version of our world. This time, I do not know the exact place; I have never been here before, either in the Barrier or the flesh. We perch on a grassy, leaf-strewn hill dotted with aspens shedding white bark.

Below us, a circle of black mud runs before a row of whitewashed buildings. The mud is thick, grooved with wheel ruts. In the distance I see more of those same buildings, what look like barracks, and below that, men in gray-green uniforms and cloth caps march in formation through the same dark mud and horse manure, carrying guns.

I recognize the uniforms in a vague kind of way, not well enough to—

SS, Maygar sends my way. Contempt drips from his light. Didn’t your husband teach you? They are Schutzstaffel, Frau Dehgoies.

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

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

I feel my light spark as I lose patience with his arrogance. You’re the one who said this isn’t an exact science. So why don’t you tell me where we are, big infiltrator man?

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

I am about to answer back when I stop, staring through trees to three men standing on the same muddy hill. One I recognize at once as Terian. The second I know only because he has no face. Like when I saw him before, he is well-dressed in a formal, dark suit, and tall.

...Though not as tall as the third man, 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 when 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—but 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 hand that I recognize. He wears the silver ring on his smallest finger, just like he did when I met him in San Francisco, and 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 that time. “...Believe me, I have. This is not the first war of theirs I’ve fought. I understand well the argument for interference, but it doesn’t make it any less wrong.”

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

“I curbed their excesses where I could...” he said.

“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 their lives to have some greater purpose...a meaning.”

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 want this in part because they do not trust themselves...much less their fellow man. Which means, more than anything, they want to be led by someone greater than themselves. 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 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 thinking 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 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 says. “Is it the honest leader to whom the masses flock? The one who gives them greater freedoms? More responsibility for their lives?” He smiles, shaking his head. “No. It is the one who gives them purpose, Rolf. 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...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 this truth...and accepts 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 directly into the cloud of the Rooks...the Dreng, I think, remembering Vash’s explanation. Terian’s light body shines with wire-like threads, but many fewer than existed when I glimpsed that side of him in San Francisco. The widest channel of all opens between the Dreng and the faceless man.

That same channel then 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, seems 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 just for the barest instant, more predatory. I see the covetousness in him, even back then, but 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. 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 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. 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 says. ...Esteemed Bridge.

I turn on him in fury.

He reformed, okay? Just let it go!

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 even. 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.