by Mark Jeffrey
Max brain bifurcated. Slam-cuts of that life back then jabbed at him from his muddy waters of his subconscious, then came roaring to life.
He was remembering …
Max dropped to his knees without realizing what he was doing.
My God! He remembered seeing this very painting when it was only half-done! He could see it, the pencil draft of it with just a few bits of background paint layered on, in his mind’s eye. Every brushstroke thereafter had been lovingly applied to the canvas like a small prayer.
He could see Giovanni di Cyranus himself, grinning with delight, his clothes carelessly covered in egg-based ochres and magentas, meticulously working, while Venetia pouted and whined about having to sit still for so long. But secretly, she loved that her father was painting her, tedious though it was. She giggled and cried out now and then in glee — and insisted on seeing the painting every now and then as it progressed
Max saw himself stumble into the scene. Venetia was not being very patient on this particular day — and he saw himself bring out a crush of roses for her — something to make her happy as she sat there. Instantly, her face lit up in a blaze of joy. Delight shone from them on Max, who smiled back with a laugh. She accepted the roses, and held them tightly and then looked up at her father with this expression — the exact same one that the artistic genius of Cyranus had captured in the painting.
Max blinked as he realized that the roses in the painting were the exact same ones he had given Venetia all that time ago.
Cyranus threw his head back in clean, unfiltered laughter. The wide world was a smile.
And then …
And then the rest of it came crashing through Max’s mind like a rhinoceros.
The scenes rampaged through his brain, tearing blood from each ganglia through which they coursed. His mouth gaped in horror at what had come next.
Oh no. Ohhhh. No.
He had … and then he had … and then … which led to …
In a flash, Max recalled the entire story of his time with Johnny Siren in 1503 vividly, intensely.
He understood why Siren hated him so much.
The memory was clear and pure as mountain water in his mind — nothing was withheld, nothing was clouded or confusing.
What have I done?
This was nothing like the Machine. That had been an accident. He had been tricked. The outcome had been terrible. But it hadn’t been premeditated. It hadn’t been intentional.
This had been. His guilt was certain.
Casey had been right about him. She had been right!
She should have shot him.
It wasn’t horror he felt. He wasn’t learning something new. It was just remembering something he had always known on some level. It had been there, simmering. Now it was just in the light. He could give a name to it.
Logan must have sensed all this, because he was calling Max’s name.
“… You must pull out of this! Now! The Bondsman loves when you resonate with him and he can hear it! This is the Archonish way of filling you with self-loathing, of despair. And then you are lost!” Logan tried to rise, momentarily forgetting his paralysis. “I would strike you now if I could reach you!”
To Max, Logan sounded like he was in a far away tunnel. Max floundered in his inner gyre, trying to reconcile who he thought he was with the person he’d just realized he’d been.
Was he the Bondsman after all?
What he had done to Johnny Siren, to Venetia, to all the rest of them would be worthy of the Bondsman.
A gunshot and a bullet that grazed his cheek brought Max back to himself.
He flipped his head towards Logan in surprise: Logan’s old gun was pointed towards him, the muzzle emitting the telltale blue vapor of spent gunpowder.
“And I’ll give you another one if you don’t start paying attention to the here and now right now!” Logan growled.
Max raised his hand to his face and found it was damp with a drizzle of new blood.
“Now!” Logan said. “This painting is just another distraction. We have one more layer to go.”
Max shook himself into the present moment as best as he could. “How … how was this a photo one moment and then this …?”
“The photo was an object from the Bondman’s timeline. But that was just the surface layer, what had been recorded on top of something else that was already there: this painting, an object from our own timeline.” Logan hesitated and then added, “It appears the Bondsman chose an object that you would recognize to formulate the talisman that would protect his identity. That is unfortunate, as it has had the effect of plunging you into a Bondsman-like state of mind — which was undoubtedly his intent.”
“So the Bondsman knew we would come here,” Max said.
“Yes!” Logan snapped. “But we’re still not done, and we have less time than we think.” Then he turned towards the painting and bellowed, “CHANGE!”
Again, the painting rippled and wobbled, and melted into something new. Max felt his heart weep when he saw the picture of Venetia vanish — he longed to behold it further. But it was gone and she was gone and in its place was golden tablet.
It was inscribed with Niburian runes.
The writing appeared to be made of moonlight set into the brightest electrum Max had ever seen.
“Destroy it! Use your power! Now!” Logan pumped his fist into the air.
That reached Max. Right. Right!
He had to know who the Bondsman was. Here was they key.
Not so that he could defeat him, cast him down. He had to know whether it was himself after all. He was never more capable of believing such a possibility until this moment … which he knew was the Bondsman’s intent.
Was there no escaping this?
Furious at the thought of being trapped in a fate he couldn’t control — the tyranny of the page — Max became a pillar of fire.
“Destroy!” Logan howled again.
The shambling immolation of Max Quick approached the golden tablet, wrapped its burning arms around in. Tears streaked his face from the strain and the heat of his own fire.
Power flowed from his arms into the gold like he was pouring blood from an artery. He drenched the artifact with everything he had.
A Imaginal, eh? I’ll give you a Imaginal!
Now!
He strained towards detonation, but the tablet resisted him, would not accept annihilation. It bucked and twisted, seeking to vent the power somewhere else other than inside of itself. But Max wouldn’t let it; he held on, doubled and trebled the fury pouring into the artifact.
Concentrated suns and stars fused in the core of the tablet — and exploded.
The tablet shattered. The runes went dead, even on the shards. The information they caged was released, unbounded. The dark theurgy of the Bondsman had been undone.
Max panted and permitted himself a grin as he surveyed his handiwork. Then, exhausted, he let his power drop and sagged to the floor.
He expected the next voice he heard to be that of Logan’s — but instead a new voice echoed in the chamber.
It began with a preamble of clapping — the muted, dead clap of one wearing gloves. “Only two fools? I had so hoped for more.”
Max turned and thought he was hallucinating.
Standing over Logan was the Bondsman.
Shock poured through Max’s soul like burning oil.
He was alone. He wore a regal red robe lined with gold, almost like he’d just gotten out of bed. But as usual, he was entirely wrapped and swaddled in one way or another. His face was covered with the golden mask as always, but he wore a kind of black cowl with a square mortar over the remainder of his head and neck.
Max heard himself scream.
It only took a second to summon his power back to life. He hurled comets and meteors and blazing suns at the Bondsman — who shrugged them off an Ankh-shaped hoop he produced from the folds of his cloak. Everything Max threw at the Bondsman was pulled into the hoop like i
t had the gravity a black hole.
The Bondsman then produced another Ankh with his other hand. He crossed his arms across his chest with these two implements of power like a mummy. The second Ankh bucked and steamed, glowing red-hot.
“Here it comes,” the Bondsman said with a smile that was audible.
With a clang of metal, everything Max had fired at the Bondsman returned now through the second Ankh, concentrated, multiplied. It hit Max like a mountain falling on him.
Despite raising his own power around him in a shielded manner, Max was driven back across the far wall of the chamber. When his back hit the stone, he thought for a moment he’d broken it.
Those Ankhs … his brain managed to gasp. They were like the Battle Thrones. When Casey had attacked him, his own Battle Throne had responded in the same way.
Max sagged. His power was useless against the Bondsman. It just rebounded back onto him.
Now what?
He didn’t have anything else.
“What do you want?” Max rasped, getting to his feet. He kept his power lit, swirling around his body like a nebula, leaving only his head unsorceled.
“Want? I already have what I want. I have you, here, now,” the Bondsman said. “And all I want is to talk. No fighting, not between us. And anyway, you already see how useless it is. There is nothing either of you can do to harm me.”
“Yeah, well. We broke your little tablet,” Max said. “How do you like that? Why don’t you take off your mask now? Bet we’d see a lot more than that gray smudge Armand Ptolemy saw.”
The Bondsman laughed lightly. Goddammit. The voice was neither male nor female. It was maddeningly impossible to make out anything distinctive about it.
“You’re right. But that does not matter any more. You have seen your precious Venetia by now, which was my intent. And because of that, you’ve remembered the evil that you’ve done. What you’re actually capable of. Who you really are.”
“Max,” Logan shouted. “Don’t listen to him. Don’t talk with this — this — thing.”
“I’ll tell you what Max,” the Bondsman said. “I’ll answer whatever questions you want to ask me. So go ahead. Ask my anything. Anything at all! Although, your foolish little friend here is not so foolish in this one respect: you shouldn’t talk to me. You really, really shouldn’t.”
“That’s not his choice,” Max snapped back. “He has his opinions. And I’ve got mine.”
“Yes. And how well did your opinions serve you with Johnny Siren? Or should I call him Giovanni di Cyranus? That would have been his name back then, yes?”
“What do you care?” Max said. “What is it? Why do you care what happened between me and Siren? Are you Siren?”
The Bondsman laughed outrageously at this. “That’s really funny. Okay. Normally I don’t answer the ‘who is the Bondsman?’ question. Or rather, who I am not. It’s not really my thing — Golden Mask and all. Keeps up the mystique! But this one time, I’ll give you a mulligan. No. I am not Johnny Siren.”
“But you work for the Archons. Right?”
“Oh yes, assuredly I do. I am master of the world, but they are my master in sooth.”
“And that doesn’t make you mad? You like having a boss?”
“That doesn’t matter to me either. I am content with our arrangement. They are the ones with insatiable hunger, the ever growing need to eat more and more Time.”
“So why shouldn’t I talk to you? Tell me that.”
“You have nothing to gain. And everything to lose. And of course my goal is to make you lose everything. And because once I warn you, and you engage anyway of your own free will, I am absolved of any karmic rebound, if you will. There is no price to paid. I warned you. You did it. Your choices and your karma fall solely on you.”
That made Max stop for a moment.
“You see?” Logan said. “Even the damnable Bondsman agrees with me. Shut up!”
“Oh and by the way,” the Bondsman said. “Thank you for taking Casey’s bullet for me! That was really most generous of you. And I confess, even I did not see that one coming. I would have died if she’d hit me.”
“That’s a lie,” Max rasped.
“No! No it is not. Everything I tell you here is the absolute truth. I don’t work by lies. Far too inefficient, and then the karmic responsibility falls on me if I lie, and I can’t have that! I’m not big into spiritual debt, creates a lot of mess, mess, mess.”
“You would have been dead.”
“Yes.”
“And I stopped that from happening.”
“Yes. And thank you again.”
Max cursed himself inwardly. Was it really true that this whole thing could really have been over with that one gunshot of Casey’s? Had he made the wrong decision?
Again, Casey had been right where he had been wrong.
Or was that true? Romani didn’t seem to think so. Casey didn’t know the Bondsman’s name. That seemed to be a requirement for truly defeating him.
Too many questions. And he was dealing with a supernaturally intelligent being, or beings, namely the Archons, through the conduit of the Bondsman. This would be their doing, their traps.
“Okay. So what is it you want from me? First you spread this story about me handing the Pendant to Jadeth and get everyone to try to kill me. Then it turns out you made your little information cage out of a picture of Venetia — and you’re clearly happy that I showed up and found it, which means you wanted me to come down here all along. You can’t have it both ways. Do you want me dead? Or something else? What is it?”
“I want you alive,” the Bondsman said. “My followers want you dead. I told them you gave the Pendant to Jadeth, which you did. That wasn’t a lie. The tale grew in the telling on its own, but that was not my doing.
“But you asked what I want from you. I want you to become the new Bondsman. You have the power of a Imaginal, the most powerful one who ever lived. With that power, you could make all of time a chaos without end.”
“All of time. You mean, like everywhere in the galaxy? Other planets and … all that?”
The Bondsman laughed. “You fool. There are no other planets. There are no other suns.”
That was what Maurice had said. Well, that at least had to be a lie.
Yet the Bondsman continued: “But you have to choose this. To force you would make it useless, or rather, far less than it could be, far less than we need, than we desire. I could get more out of this useless, blind lame Indian at my feet.
“Oh, I know what you’re thinking. ‘I’m a hero! I’ll never do that! I have to save the world! Blah blah blah.’ And you’ll think that for awhile, undoubtedly. But now you’ll also have other thoughts. You’ve remembered Siren and Venetia; you know you’re capable of great evil. As your mind opens further, unfurling like the dark flower that it is, you will learn even more about the things you’ve done.
“You will learn that power makes you happy. Not love. Love is a fiction created by the powerless to nurse the wound of powerlessness. That is a truth you will come to understand about yourself as well as all those around you. And the Archons can offer you a savage joy you never even dreamt possible. Once you feel that … why, here. Here’s one on the house.”
And before Max could raise his power over his head, his spine snapped erect and his face clenched. Something wriggled up his spine like chocolate and lightning and every good feeling he had ever known concentrated into a single instant.
Logan moaned.
Max gasped. For a moment he drank in a more powerful and sublime, shivering pleasure than he had ever known. He want to drink from it forever —
And then it was whisked away from him. It felt like cord being ripped from his body. He dropped to the floor, agonizing over the loss like an instant addict.
“Ah. There it is,” the Bondsman said. “You see? If the evil weren’t already in you, you would feel nothing. You have to resonate with it to feel that!
“You could learn to
like this job. It’s like that all the time. That’s what we get from the fear and suffering and hate outside these walls. That’s why we want more. It sustains us, creates us, makes us whole. And you’ve only had a small, tiny little fraction of a decimal point! It gets even better. A lot, lot better.”
“I’ll never —”
“Stop. Spare me. You didn’t think you were capable of it. Now you know better.”
Max panted and flushed with shame because it was true. He hated that it was true. It filled him with rage.
“Hold on a second,” the Bondsman said. He turned on of his rings near where his mouth was hidden beneath the golden-frowned mask, and emitted something that sounded strangely like radio static — just as the homeless man in Raffle’s Pass had. When it was done, he said, “Okay, I’m good now. Where were we?
“Ah yes. Here is my final gift to you. You feel you made a mistake when you took Casey’s bullet for me, perhaps? Well here’s your chance to make it all better! You can go back and tell her your friend that you finally did the right thing: when you had your chance, you killed the Bondsman!” He lay down his Ankhs on the floor — and then kicked them away. Then he stood and spread his arms like an offering. “Kill me! I won’t resist. I’m powerless.”
Max stood and looked at him strangely.
Anger seethed in him. The Bondsman had aroused a dark place in his soul that he didn’t even know was there. And yet he had always known it. It was intimate. And the Bondsman had been right.
You always hate most the thing you secretly hate most about yourself.
His fist became a ball of power. It crackled and snapped and spun more violently than it usually did.
“Kill the Bondsman! Kill me for what I showed you about yourself!”
“Max!” Logan snapped. “No. You do this, and you are lost to yourself forever.”
For a moment Max rocked on the balls of his feet. He wasn’t sure if he was going to do it. He pictured himself doing it, though about the sheer savage joy of letting this much power rip molecule from quark from muon — shredding the Bondsman so utterly that no trace of him would remain even at the subatomic level.
