A Glint of Light

by J. C. Andrijeski

  Eyes flat, she rattled the chains holding her to the wall.

  “Gee, I don’t know why. That’s a good question. Could it be that I don’t have a lot of options for entertainment down here, brother Balidor?”

  “Bullshit,” he growled. “You are not so indifferent. You know I’m the only one here who would even take this job. I am the only person who visits you here. I am the only one on this entire fucking ship who bothers to speak to you at all… much less who tries to help you, to reach you in any way.”

  He saw her jaw tighten, and his voice grew more biting.

  “You must know what they think of me for even trying––”

  But that time, she cut him off.

  “Now who’s completely full of shit? Brother Balidor?”

  Her voice sounded angry for real that time.

  Angry enough that he fell silent, waiting to see if she would go on.

  Giving him a hard look, she rested her forearms on her knees, her lips curling back into that colder smile. Her voice lowered, but Balidor saw wisps of real anger still coloring her light, even coiling through her words.

  “No one on this ship even knows about these little sessions of ours,” she stated flatly. “Do you really think I’m that monumentally stupid? You sure as fuck haven’t told your precious Allie. I’d bet good money you haven’t told Revik, either. Or Jon. Or even Wreg. Maybe one or two of your lackeys out there know… but that’s it. And God knows what you’ve said to rationalize whatever the fuck you’re doing in here with me.”

  She nodded towards the portion of the wall that housed the surveillance capture.

  “You come only in the dead of night. You send away all the other guards. All but one, like I said, who you’ve no doubt sworn to secrecy. You turn off the cameras.”

  He felt his face warm, even as he clicked at her in irritation. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “I feel it,” she said, her voice a touch harder.

  He nodded, conceding her point with a seer’s hand gesture.

  “Still,” he said, his voice more subdued. “You know why I am here. There are other ways we could pass this time together. Apart from you trying to find weaknesses that will win you shallow points over me, just to prove you can.”

  She cracked a sideways smile.

  Balidor found himself watching her face more closely than usual.

  As always, he looked for some sign of her there, of the woman he had known before Shadow got a hold of her.

  He’d liked her back then.

  He’d liked her a lot, truthfully.

  Even apart from his somewhat embarrassing light and physical reactions to her, he’d found her to be someone he gravitated towards, for reasons he couldn’t fully express to himself. As odd as it was, as different as they were from one another, not to mention the gap in their upbringing and years, he felt a sameness there, a resonance he’d never managed to explain to himself, at least not in a satisfactory way.

  It was certainly not something he had tried to explain to anyone else.

  Whatever it was, it made him feel strangely comfortable with her.

  He could relax with her.

  He could step out of his usual role a bit and just exhale.

  It was funny, in that she’d always given him shit for being uptight, even when they were friends––despite the fact that he felt the least “uptight” when he was with her.

  Of course, Cass had a bit of an edge, even then.

  It never really fazed him, though.

  The vulnerability he felt beneath that edge softened what she threw at him on the surface. Moreover, much of the reason for her sharpness appealed to him. The honesty he sensed in her, the loyalty, her willingness to speak up, to insert herself if something felt wrong or off to her, no matter who she had to go up against.

  Some of her defensiveness came from people reacting to her honesty over the years.

  Some of it came from her getting hit for her honesty as a kid.

  Either way, that edge never bothered him much.

  Truthfully, he barely noticed it most of the time, even when it was aimed at him.

  He couldn’t help but be touched by her protectiveness of her friends.

  It might strike some as darkly funny now, considering what she’d later done, but one of the things that first struck Balidor about her was her wary, sweetly-protective stance when it came to Allie, Revik and Jon. He’d found it almost funny at the time, in a touching way––here was this tiny female human, standing in front of a male human with significant fighting skills, and two of the strongest seers in existence.

  Yet somehow it was her––Cass––who took it upon herself to protect them.

  That courage touched him.

  And yes, maybe the hurt he felt in her touched him, too.

  He tried not to let himself dwell too much on that person he remembered.

  He knew she no longer existed now.

  He supposed some part of him stubbornly continued to mourn her partly because he’d often been in a position of having to act like he wasn’t affected by such things.

  Being a leader, that was part of the job.

  In here, he wasn’t really Adhipan Balidor, though.

  He wasn’t sure who he was in here.

  “Are you ready to begin?” he asked, politely that time.

  “Is he back?” she blurted, her voice holding an edge again. “Revik. The Sword. His… uh… wife. Are they back?”

  Balidor quirked an eyebrow.

  He couldn’t help giving her a faintly amused look.

  Even so, he found himself staring at her more closely, feeling as much as hearing the emotion that lived behind Cassandra’s avoidance of saying Alyson’s name.

  Interesting that she had no such compunction with Allie’s husband.

  After all, Revik had been the one to point a gun at her head most recently.

  “Are you asking if they are alive?” Balidor said drily.

  Cass shrugged.

  Again, he felt more behind her feigned indifference.

  Sighing a bit, he clicked at her, letting her see he wasn’t fooled.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, they are back. Both of them are back… and they are alive. Lily is alive. Dehgoies the Sword was injured in Dubai. He woke up a few days ago.”

  She looked up, biting her lip.

  It was the only sign to Balidor that he was making any progress with her at all. There was a time, not so long ago, where he would not have seen so much feeling in her expression. There was a time when she did nothing but make cynical wisecracks.

  Still, she was smart enough that this could be manipulation, too.

  “Did he hurt her?” There was a faint thread of gloating in the question.

  Balidor felt the posturing behind it, but her tone still made him grimace.

  His voice grew harder when he answered.

  “Yes,” he said. “Does this make you happy?”

  She smiled, quirking an eyebrow in an unspoken answer.

  Clicking softer than before, Balidor shook his head, refusing to rise to the bait.

  She stared at him for a moment longer.

  When he didn’t speak, she exhaled.

  “Where are they now?” she said, more in her normal voice.

  “They are here,” Balidor said. “On this ship.”

  Cass stiffened. “Here?”

  Balidor nodded. “Yes.” He frowned. “This surprises you?”

  “Is… Lily here?”

  “Lily is here, yes. She is with her parents. She and Alyson were with Dehgoies when he woke, and the three of them live together in two connected cabins.”

  Falling silent, he waited, feeling currents stutter around her light as she reacted to the news that her best friend from childhood was onboard the same aircraft carrier as her, along with her best friend’s mate and their child, who Cass had briefly thought of as her own child.

  Balidor wondered if her reactions were all personal at this
point, or if they were also impacted by who and what they all were.

  Granted, Revik had been her friend too, once upon a time.

  But Revik was also Syrimne d’Gaos, Second of the Four.

  With Terian, Guoreum, Third of the Four, in another holding cell, that put all four of the quasi-mythological beings in the same vessel, for the first time since Cass’s light had been fully awakened. Balidor wondered if that was affecting her, even inside her Barrier cage.

  He wondered if she could feel it somehow, even inside the tank, even with the sight-restraint collar around her neck.

  Balidor swore he sensed her trying to feel for Allie and Revik through the collar, even now. He swore he felt her trying to touch Lily’s aleimi through that collar, too.

  The real block didn’t come from the collar, though.

  It came from the organic cell itself, which cut her off from the rest of the Barrier, leaving her cut off from Allie and Revik, and cut off from Terian and Menlim, too. She might be able to get past the collar to a degree, but she would have no luck getting through the walls of the tank.

  Even Revik hadn’t been able to penetrate those walls––or Allie herself.

  After a few minutes, Balidor felt her give up in frustration.

  “Is she coming down here?” Cass said.

  She bit her lip, staring up at Balidor, her arms folded.

  He couldn’t help but stare back at her, seeing the faint glow of green-tinted amber light brightening her irises’ rings.

  He’d be lying if he said that glow didn’t make him nervous.

  “Queen Allie,” Cass blurted, clenching her jaw. “Is she going to deign to come down here at all, even just to gloat? Or have she and Revik decided I’m no longer worth their time?”

  Balidor shook his head.

  Feeling her react to something she must have seen on his face or light, he shrugged with one hand, seer-fashion, softening his answer.

  “It is likely they will not have time.” Thinking about this, remembering his conversation with Alyson earlier that day, he let out an involuntary snort. “You might find one reason for this somewhat amusing, Cassandra…”

  She flinched when he said her name, then rolled her eyes to cover it.

  “And what reason is that?” she grunted.

  “They are helping Jon set up a Christmas party.”

  Cass stared at him in disbelief.

  She shook her head, her eyes briefly confused, as if she couldn’t decide how to react.

  Once more, Balidor saw the woman he remembered in there.

  The one he’d almost known.

  “Are you ready to begin, Cassandra?” he asked again.

  That time, when she looked at him, he saw a thread of vulnerability in her expression.

  It caught him off guard.

  Then pain rose in his own light––a line of fire that snaked through the middle of his chest. The corresponding pain he saw in her shocked him, blanking his mind even as his light reached for hers.

  He felt loneliness in her pain, a desire for contact.

  More than just loneliness.

  He felt grief. So much fucking grief.

  He’d known, of course, that not all of her light-pain pertained to sex.

  With seers, it was rarely about only one thing.

  He pulled back a second later, but not before he questioned––again––what the hell he was doing in here with her.

  Looking at her, Balidor wondered also why he hadn’t told Allie or Revik.

  As Cass accused, he’d told neither of them about these visits of his.

  And yes, he’d shut the camera feeds off to aid in his deception, cutting the live feed off from the Combat Information Center, or CIC, and retaining all recordings from these sessions in an encrypted file off the main servers.

  Apart from, and with the aid of, Balidor’s one ally––who Cass had also clearly surmised existed, and who currently sat outside at that console––Balidor had arranged for gaps in the security teams watching over her cell, to further ensure they would not be observed.

  He would have to tell them, of course.

  Eventually, he knew, he would have to.

  But he would need to show it was working first.

  He would need to show he was having a positive effect on her light.

  He needed to be able to point to a real, verifiable difference in her, something the Council would back him on, at least enough to allow him to continue his work with her––and hopefully enough to save her life, or to give him more time to try and save it, at least.

  Right now, he didn’t have enough.

  He didn’t have near enough to go to them, to any of them.

  Even at the thought, he frowned, once more looking at that dark structure in the middle of her chest, where her energetic heart should be.

  Staring at her through the Barrier, he knew the need for “proof” wasn’t the only reason he’d kept these sessions secret.

  Even with some kind of proof that Cassandra was potentially “fixable,” he knew it might not be enough for some people on the ship. He could feel the reluctance in his light at the thought of telling anyone for that reason alone. He knew full well what it might ignite, if anyone important were to find out what he’d been up to.

  Remembering Revik standing over her, a gun pointed at her head as he threatened to end her life, that reluctance intensified.

  Then again, he understood his own feelings on the subject far better than he pretended.

  Really, he understood a lot of things far better than he wished he did.

  Three

  What Should Have Been

  Maybe it is from what he told her before they went under.

  Maybe it is because Allie was on Cass’s mind already––even more than usual, or more intensely perhaps, or with more genuine emotion, or simply in a way that lived closer to the surface. After all, it is Cass’s mind that dictates the direction of their jumps.

  Balidor can guide, probe, look for openings. He can push her along tracks that look promising, things Shadow might have used, ways in which he may have wormed past her defenses in his quest to break her mind––

  But these are her memories.

  It is her life.

  It is her living light.

  Ultimately, he cannot go anywhere she does not allow him to go.

  The difficulty is in the allowing. The difficulty is in creating the need to see over the resistance to being seen.

  And whatever the reason, Allie is on her mind tonight.

  Not Alyson the Bridge.

  No, that is not who Balidor feels.

  He feels Allie Taylor, Cassandra’s best friend.

  Allie, Cass’s human friend from San Francisco, the friend Cass has known from her earliest years, who Cass attends grammar school and high school with, who lives as her roommate while Allie attends college, who has been Cassandra’s inseparable friend since either of them could talk. Allie, who as a child lived the life Cass wished she could live, who had the family Cass pretended she had… who later became the person Cass told herself she should have been allowed to be.

  When Cass brings Balidor into her mind, into the dream world they share, their lights weaving together slowly in the dark…

  * * *

  …Balidor finds himself sitting on a faded yellow carpet.

  He sits on the floor, just as he does in her cell.

  Only here he leans against the base of a flowered couch in a house he now recognizes.

  He glances around from his low vantage point, sees pictures on the walls he knows, of a family with four people––a young Jon who is all elbows and bones and smiling teeth and coke-bottle glasses. A baby-faced Allie with giant eyes and a serious expression. A pretty woman with dark curly hair heading into young middle age. An older man with thinning hair, big ears, hazel eyes, workman’s hands and a smile not dissimilar to Jon’s.

  Balidor feels not only the house and Cass.

  He feels the differe
nce in time period.

  He feels the shift in the world.

  The light is different.

  It is… lighter.

  Even apart from the bubble Balidor feels over this particular house––a bubble of the Adhipan, of the Seven, of Vash, of Revik, of the Bridge herself, a bubble in which Balidor even feels some flavor of a younger version of himself––the time period is different. History has not yet made the cold war of light and dark into a hot one.

  The light is gray, yes––but that heavy, dense feeling of oppression and forboding is absent from the closer pieces of the Barrier.

  The dark is held at bay, however imperfectly.

  Balidor lets his aleimi adjust to the difference in energies.

  Each time, the transition is easier.

  Each time, it is somehow more familiar.

  Cass doesn’t fight him very much anymore, not openly.

  She used to resist this, too.

  She used to resist seeing how sheltered she was in Allie’s light, even at such a young age. She used to resist seeing how she ran to this bubble of protection, how it stood as her only refuge in the world, the only place in which she felt safe. She used to resist seeing how many beings watched over Allie, keeping her safe. She used to resist seeing how Allie pulled Cass into that bubble with her, how she welcomed Cass inside, wrapping that protection around her, too, including her in everything she’d been given, including her in her family, her light, all that protection and love, as if it was nothing… as if it wasn’t everything.

  Even now, Balidor can feel the part of Cass that hates it.

  He feels the part of her that hates being forced to remember how dependent she was on Allie, before she was old enough to have anywhere else to turn.

  Allie couldn’t protect her all the time, though. Even back then, Allie can’t protect her.

  When Cass returns home, it is to a house that is dark, in which she is alone.

  As this flickers through her mind and light, he feels her react.

  He doesn’t see hard walls, not anymore. Instead he senses areas of her mind she avoids, skirting around the dark patches with a deftness that frustrates him, even drives him mad when he gets close enough for the barest taste––when he senses the charge behind those chasms, the deeper, more complex intensity of her light.