The Defector

by J. C. Andrijeski

  He had structure, this seer, but just how much, Revik had no idea.

  Generally, that meant he had a hell of a lot.

  “Who are you?” he said, blunt.

  The three seers looked at one another, as if suppressing smiles.

  Still, somehow, Revik got the sense that at least the two male seers were relieved at whatever they saw in him. Something in their faces and light hinted at that relief, as if they’d been bracing themselves to see something different when Revik walked through that door.

  The male seer who wasn’t the leader smiled at him.

  He looked younger than his commander, maybe by as much as a hundred years.

  His light green eyes––those irises ringed with pale violet and holding a luminescent glow––held an even warmer smile than his lips.

  Something in those eyes relaxed a deeper tension in Revik’s chest.

  The male seer was almost preternaturally handsome, which was disarming as well.

  Another voice jerked his eyes sideways, then.

  “You are Dehgoies Revik?” the female said.

  Her voice was clipped, educated.

  Revik realized only then that he’d been avoiding looking at her.

  She had long, dark hair she’d wound into a complicated braid, an infiltrator’s hairstyle if there ever was one. Almost outside of his control, he found himself glancing over her body under the armored vest and shirt, noticing she was tall even as he took in her high cheekbones, narrow waist, long legs.

  His gaze stopped longest on her almond-shaped eyes, which were a strange mixture of light brown and green, with flecks of yellow and what might have been silver in them.

  Those eyes were stunning, difficult to look away from.

  Feeling her notice his stare, maybe even feeling the reaction behind it, Revik swallowed, folding his arms tightly across his chest before he looked back at the middle-aged male sitting in the center of the three.

  He considered saying nothing.

  Then he realized he couldn’t.

  He couldn’t say nothing.

  “You might not be my type, brother,” he said flatly to the gray-eyed, strangely human-looking male. “Although frankly, right now, that’s debatable…”

  The green-eyed male let out a grunt of amusement, grinning at the gray-eyed one.

  Revik glanced between them, his jaw hardening. He gestured towards the female with one hand, not looking at her.

  “…She is definitely my type. Does she need to be here?”

  There was a silence.

  “I mean it,” Revik said. “I don’t want her here.”

  The female clicked softly, muttering under her breath in a language Revik didn’t know.

  When he looked at her directly, almost outside of his control, she was shaking her head, right before she clicked at him louder, frowning.

  “You’re hardly my type, youngster,” she muttered in Prexci.

  That she spoke the same language he had, meant she obviously wanted him to hear.

  “Then consider this a favor,” he retorted, his voice openly hostile.

  “Maybe I don’t want any ‘favors’ from you… Rook.”

  “Then this meeting is over,” Revik said. “Get the fuck out of my room. Now. All of you.”

  The gray-eyed seer raised a hand in a peace gesture.

  Revik turned his head.

  Once he had, he realized those light gray eyes had never left his face. He never saw those eyes lose focus––and yet, he distinctly got the impression he was being scanned, and that the probing came from the gray-eyed male.

  Revik couldn’t exactly feel that scan, much less pick up on any details of what the other might be looking for, but the perception didn’t dissipate.

  If this seer could hide a scan that well––if he could keep it from showing in his eyes while staring straight at his target––he really was good.

  A little too good.

  The thought unnerved Revik, even as he grew conscious of how little he’d had to defend himself from such things in here. Ever since he’d left the Rooks’ employ, most of his work had been in the opposite direction. They’d been trying to get him to open his light, to trust other seers, to relax his guard––things that went so far against Revik’s previous training and instincts it was almost laughable.

  Now he found himself wondering if maybe those monks made more progress with him than he’d realized.

  Finding himself faced with three, highly-ranked and better-trained infiltrators, Revik felt his paranoia ratchet up higher than it had gone in months.

  Years, possibly.

  His body continued to stiffen when the three seers in front of him didn’t move. Revik continued to look around at their faces, lingering the least long on the female’s, even now.

  Refolding his arms, Revik shifted his weight.

  “You’re not leaving my room,” he remarked, colder. “Was I in any way unclear?”

  The gray-eyed male lowered his hand to his knee without changing expression. When he next spoke, his voice bordered on gentle, but he didn’t aim it at Revik.

  “Mara. Wait outside, please,” he said politely.

  The female infiltrator, Mara presumably, gave him a disbelieving look.

  “Mara?” the gray-eyed seer said. “Please do as I ask.”

  Polite or no, Revik heard the order there.

  He reassessed the hierarchy in front of him, even as it grew visible to him. The pecking order was fixed, and not based solely on sight-rank.

  Military background? Some kind of special unit from the Seven?

  After a long-feeling pause, the female seer pulled herself to her feet with obvious annoyance. Revik sensed no true rebellion in her, at least not towards the gray-eyed seer.

  Her irritation appeared to be aimed at Revik himself.

  In any case, clearly, the gray-eyed seer’s authority was absolute.

  Aiming for the outside corridor with athletic strides, she gave Revik a hard stare as she walked past him, those shockingly bright eyes of hers flickering over his body along with her light. He winced from the contact, stepping back, then clenched his jaw before he returned her look with a harder stare of his own.

  He continued to watch until the door shut behind her.

  Then he turned, once more facing the gray-eyed male.

  “Was that absolutely necessary?” he said.

  The gray-eyed seer shrugged with one hand. “I confess, I felt it was. I wished to see what you would do.”

  “What I would do?” Revik felt his jaw harden more. “Meaning… what?”

  “Meaning whether you would confess to an issue there or not,” the other explained patiently, gesturing towards Revik’s body. “…An issue we can all plainly see, my brother, if you’ll pardon my saying it. I wondered if you would admit to it, warn us about it, or if you would deny it, and try to find some way to sate those urges later. Perhaps by some attempt to get Mara alone.”

  He said it lightly, with such obvious honesty, it took Revik a moment to comprehend his words.

  “You thought I might rape her?” he said, his anger hardening.

  The other gestured vaguely, his expression noncommittal.

  “Not necessarily. But I wished to gauge your response. And your honesty about your current condition, from being in here for so long.” His eyes continued to gauge Revik’s, the gray irises calm. “I am quite satisfied with how you handled it, brother.”

  Revik’s eyes narrowed.

  “This was a test?” he said. “You brought her in here to test me?”

  “Yes,” the other said simply.

  Revik felt his body tighten, but for a moment, he didn’t know how to react, or how to push against the other, given what he’d said, and how he’d said it. The other male’s words and light offered so little resistance, they left Revik at somewhat of a loss.

  Whatever this seer’s true intentions, he at least wanted to appear to be honest and straightforward. Whether he was or not,
Revik couldn’t make up his mind.

  “Why?” he said finally. “Who the fuck are you?”

  The gray-eyed seer didn’t flinch.

  Rather, he rose smoothly to his feet, moving with a deceptive grace.

  He rose faster than Revik’s eyes could track, and Revik found himself stepping back in alarm, but only after the other had already straightened. Although Revik had moved in reflex and the other via intent, Revik still managed to be slower.

  Once he realized that much, he just stood there, watching the other male warily.

  It occurred to him he might be outmatched physically, too.

  That hadn’t happened in a long time.

  “I am Balidor, of the Adhipan,” the other seer said.

  Revik flinched. Amazement filtered over his light.

  Adhipan Balidor didn’t wait for him to react.

  “…I just signed your release papers, Dehgoies Revik,” the gray-eyed seer added, giving him a wry smile. “Thus making you, temporarily, at least, the direct responsibility of the Adhipan, and therefore of me. I will not take you without your permission, of course, but I will try very hard to persuade you to come with us willingly.”

  Revik stared at him.

  He spoke before he knew he intended to.

  “No,” he said, blunt.

  Once he’d said it, the answer strengthened in his light, rather than softening.

  “No,” he said again, shaking his head. “No fucking way. Meaning no disrespect to you, of course, sir, but no matter who you are… no.”

  “You have not yet heard my proposition.”

  “I don’t need to,” Revik said. “It’s not about you. It’s about me.”

  “Meaning what?”

  Revik stared at him, fighting incredulity. “Meaning what? Clearly, I’m not ready.”

  “To leave this place?”

  “Yes.”

  “What makes you say that?” Balidor asked.

  There was a silence.

  Revik let out a disbelieving laugh.

  “I just asked one of your people to leave the room because I don’t trust myself with her,” Revik said. “You felt the need to test me, to determine if I was a rapist… possibly a murderer of females, if I am reading your intent correctly. Do you really need me to answer that question?”

  “You did ask her to leave,” Balidor reminded him. “You did not hide your difficulties. You were honest about them.”

  “I may not be tomorrow,” Revik retorted. “…or the day after that. I may not ask next time, brother Adhipan.”

  The gray-eyed seer smiled. Those eyes turned shrewd once more, appraising.

  Revik found himself thinking he was being scanned again, too.

  “I believe you will,” Balidor said, ending the pause. “Ask. Or tell us, if your difficulties become unmanageable. Is that not enough?”

  “No.” Revik stepped back unconsciously, physically and with his light. “No, it’s not enough. Again, no disrespect to you, brother.”

  He glanced at the other male in the room, who he’d almost forgotten, the stunningly handsome one with those strange, violet-ringed, green eyes.

  That second male watched him intently too, a faint frown on his face, but more like he was concentrating, looking at something in Revik himself, something that either interested him, puzzled him, or possibly both. Feeling himself flush at the scrutiny there, Revik looked back at the human-like countenance of Balidor.

  “Even if you are who you say you are,” Revik said. “…I don’t know you, brother. I’m not in the habit of trusting seers I don’t know. And I don’t know why you’d trust me.”

  “Would you like to see my credentials, brother Dehgoies?”

  Revik felt his anger sharpen. “No.”

  The handsome, green-eyed seer sitting cross-legged on the floor let out a soft laugh.

  “Then what do you need from me?” Balidor said.

  Ignoring the other male, he kept his eyes on Revik’s face. He held out his palms to either side, almost a position of prayer, but clearly one of submission.

  “Will you not ask me, at least, what errand brings me here?” Balidor added. “Or why I would want you with me specifically, brother?”

  Revik hadn’t wanted to ask that.

  He hadn’t wanted to ask because he feared some part of him might find that answer persuasive.

  “I don’t really want to know,” he said truthfully.

  Balidor smiled at that, glancing at the green-eyed male, who chuckled again softly from his cushion on the floor.

  Balidor returned his gaze to Revik’s face.

  His steel-gray eyes held a denser understanding, as if he wanted Revik to know that he had known that already. Revik didn’t think that knowledge of his mind was put on.

  In fact, he strongly suspected both males had already followed the main threads of his thoughts in more directions than Revik himself wanted to think about.

  “Fuck.” Looking between the two of them, Revik exhaled, unfolding his arms. “Fine. Tell me.”

  That time, Balidor let out a chuckle.

  So did the male seer sitting on the floor.

  Even so, Balidor’s voice bordered on grim when he answered Revik’s words.

  “You have been requested, my brother. By name. By one with more pull than me.”

  “Requested?” Revik felt his shoulders stiffen. “By who? Vash?”

  “By sister Kali.” Balidor’s eyes watched Revik’s carefully as he said the name. “Since it is the only message she sent to us before she disappeared, we thought it wise to follow what she prescribed, before they––”

  “Disappeared?” Revik cut in. “Kali disappeared? What the fuck does that mean?”

  He stared at the other male, feeling his light charge up around his physical form.

  He felt the other notice, just before those gray eyes turned shrewd.

  “Yes, brother.” Balidor held his gaze, without so much as a twitch in the muscles of his face. “I am sorry to inform you, but she was taken from her home in the middle of the night.”

  Revik’s pulse sped up.

  “What about her mate?” he said. “Where is he?”

  “He is with her, of course. He tried to fight them off, and failed. They took him, too.”

  “Why would you want me?” Revik said. “Why would she want me?”

  His voice came out harsher than he intended.

  Balidor just stood there, unflinching in the face of Revik’s hostility.

  Revik subdued his words anyway.

  “What am I supposed to do about it?” he said.

  “Help us.” Balidor’s gray eyes remained fixed on Revik’s. “She asked for you, brother. She was quite insistent about it, from what Vash tells me.”

  Revik just looked at him for a moment.

  Then he exhaled.

  Shaking his head, he clicked his tongue sharply against the roof of his mouth, a seer’s expression of regret, disagreement, disgust, disapproval, sometimes of annoyance or anger.

  In Revik’s case, it felt like all of those things.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “Why not, brother?”

  Revik stared at him. “I can’t. I can’t leave here.” He gestured around the cell-like cave, pausing on the male seer who watched the two of them from his cross-legged position on the floor. “I can’t leave.”

  Staring briefly into the other male’s pale green eyes, Revik felt his jaw harden, but he said it anyway, even as he broke the stare, swiveling his gaze back to Balidor.

  “I’m not ready for this,” he said. “Clearly, I’m not. Ask anyone here, if you don’t––”

  “I did ask,” Balidor said. “As you can likely imagine, I was somewhat thorough.”

  Revik’s jaw hardened more.

  “Clearly you didn’t speak to the right people, then, brother Adhipan. Do you think I’m making this up? If you don’t believe me, then––”

  “––I disagree,” Balidor interject
ed gently, holding up a hand. “Although I do believe you, brother. You understand that these are not equivalent?”

  Revik stared at him.

  He felt his embarrassment slide abruptly into anger.

  “Well, you’re wrong––” he began.

  “––So does father Vash,” Balidor cut in, interrupting him a third time, again holding up a hand. “…Disagree with you, that is. And the monks here seem to disagree, too, brother, since they have already acceded to my request. Kali clearly disagrees. Dalejem here disagrees.” He motioned towards the green-eyed seer, still watching Revik’s face. “So perhaps we do not see your condition as being quite the same as you do?”

  Revik frowned down at the green-eyed seer, who smiled at him.

  His gaze shifted back to Balidor.

  Balidor smiled when their eyes met, still studying Revik’s face.

  “Vash left the final decision up to your teachers here,” Balidor added. “And ultimately, to you, of course. But he wished me to convey that he has full confidence in you.”

  The words stumped Revik.

  They also silenced him briefly.

  Dropping his gaze to the stone floor, he refolded his arms, tighter, as if trying to squeeze the air out of his chest. He could feel the green-eyed seer on the floor watching him. Somehow, the weight of that gaze caused his skin to flush more, without him really thinking about why.

  He fought with the idea of going because Kali asked for him.

  But could he really refuse her, given what she’d risked to help him?

  He thought about what his life had been like, those last few months in Vietnam. He remembered the years before that, how those had felt, even though he could no longer recall all the details. It all felt so long ago now.

  It wasn’t really that long ago, though.

  When images tried to accompany the thoughts, he winced, pushing them away.

  A flicker of disgust wound through his light, but he pushed that way, too.

  “Her husband won’t like it,” Revik grunted, speaking aloud without meaning to.

  From the floor, the green-eyed seer laughed.

  When Revik looked over, annoyed, he saw the seer smiling at him again, warmth in his eyes and light, enough to startle Revik. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the way the other seer seemed to be looking at him.