Sun

by J. C. Andrijeski

  I was still gazing around at those faces, taking in their expressions, the fear I could feel tangibly on all of them––when Dante, the person I’d heard shout out while we were inside the crystal cave, walked over to us, talking in a sharp voice.

  “It’s lighting up all over,” she said, breathless, fear in her voice. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry… but it just started, out of nowhere. It was like all of them started at once, so I’m not even sure where it started. There wasn’t any warning.”

  She walked right up to me and Revik, her voice growing increasingly agitated.

  “I’m trying to calibrate now, to get a sense of the acceleration––”

  Revik broke into her words, his voice utterly calm.

  “It’s okay, young cousin.” He laid a heavy hand on her shoulder, steadying her with his presence, with his light. “Just show us. Show us what you know now. Explain to us what we’re seeing.”

  She nodded, still pale.

  I watched her hit through keys, sweat running down her face as she worked.

  I’d been noticing that the temperature seemed to have risen down here, even in just the last twenty or so minutes since the rest of them arrived.

  The significance of that fact only hit me now, though.

  The Mythers were closing off ventilation shafts.

  They were likely trying to force us to the surface as much as kill us. That, or they intended to gas us once they got enough of those shafts collapsed or blocked off.

  I had to hope we’d have at least a few hours of air left, given the size of the caves.

  On the other hand, there were so many of us down here now, I knew we couldn’t count on that, especially if the Dreng forced us into smaller and smaller segments with diggers and poison gas and whatever else.

  We were out of time.

  If there’d been any doubt in my mind before, that doubt was entirely gone now.

  I could feel it overhead, like a building storm. I could feel clouds darkening the skies all around us. I could feel the Dreng massing overhead, realizing the same thing I did, that it was now or never, that the clock had run down on this millennium-long chess match.

  Even before Dante opened up her more detailed screens, showing us the hot spots activating all over the world, I knew more or less what she was about to tell us.

  The Dreng were making their attempt.

  They were going all-out now, trying to open the doors.

  That meant they’d figure out fairly soon that they couldn’t open those doors with their human and seer feeding pools alone… assuming they hadn’t figured that out already, watching Revik and I make that same attempt.

  In fact, we might have just sped things up on both ends, by letting them know they had to find some other way to kick those doors open.

  Dante’s screens expanded out while all of that ran through my mind.

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I think I’ve pinpointed the origination point. It started in Lhasa.” She zoomed up one screen in particular, lighting up the hotspot on the Asian continent. “All the others are so connected, it was hard to see where it first started, but there was a fraction of a second delay on the others after Lhasa lit up.” Swallowing, she steadied her voice. “From the aleimic scans, they’re definitely drawing from the Shadow cities, and all of the people they’ve collected around them. I’ve seen a slight drop in overall aleimic light in those populations already… which is kind of crazy, frankly.”

  Balidor and I exchanged looks.

  I saw the worry in his gray eyes and bit my lip.

  Dante wasn’t wrong in calling such a thing crazy. It was almost inconceivable that she would be registering a drop in aleimic light in populations of that size in under a minute. It said they were draining those humans and seers at a rate I frankly wouldn’t have thought possible.

  It also told me they weren’t being the least bit conservative about how much light they took.

  They would drain them unto death if they thought they needed that much light to force open the doors. Knowing the Dreng, they’d likely do it even if they suspected it might not work, just to eliminate the possibility.

  I didn’t speak any of that aloud, of course.

  Every set of eyes in the room stared while Dante showed us the flares on the screens, how they were getting brighter and hotter at an alarming rate. She overlaid those initial, infrared and heat-spectrum screens with ones showing the aleimic flares that accompanied them.

  She was able to show us the incremental drop in aleimic light in the overall amount of light being emitted by the humans and seers currently clustered around those hotspots and cities.

  I listened to her talk.

  I listened to Jon, Balidor, Declan, Wreg and Yumi ask her questions.

  I didn’t realize Revik was silent too, until I saw him looking at me.

  He was still looking at me when he took my hand, raising it up to kiss my knuckles.

  Only when Dante finished her explanation did Revik turn back in her direction.

  “What about this door, cousin?” His voice remained calm as a still lake as he motioned his fingers towards the crystal-lined slit in the rock. “The door here, under Ship Rock. Is this door being affected at all by what is happening at those controlled by the Dreng?”

  The teenaged hacker frowned, staring down at her screens.

  From her expression, it hadn’t occurred to her to check that, but after hitting a few keys, surprised flickered off her light, reflected in her eyes.

  “Yes.” Her voice grew distracted as she hit through more keys, still holding a hint of that surprise. “I’m mostly seeing it in the aleimic imprints, and it’s faint compared to the others, but it’s definitely being affected.” She frowned. “I can’t quite tell in what way, or by what mechanism, but the aleimic light here is brighter too. Right now, it’s only by a few percentage points, but the rate seems to be growing, just like with the other doors.”

  Balidor frowned, looking at Revik, then at me.

  “They are connected,” he said. “Not only through the machines.”

  I nodded, once.

  “What does that mean?” Jax said.

  There was a silence after he spoke.

  Then Revik shrugged with one hand, still staring at Dante’s aleimic maps, his eyes scanning between the map of our door and those of the doors modified by the Dreng.

  “It means we have to start now,” he said.

  He looked at me, his clear, crystal-like eyes already glowing faintly with green light.

  “It means it’s time for us to open the door,” he said.

  “JUST CHANNEL WHAT I send you.” His voice was calm, reassuring. “Don’t worry about anything else, okay? Yumi and the rest of the infiltration team will do their best to shield you down here. I’ll do what I can to help up at the higher levels.”

  I nodded.

  Even so, I clung to his hand, not wanting to let him go.

  I knew there was no time for me to react to this, to even think about it clearly.

  There was no time for any of it. I’d lost my chance to even say goodbye to anyone. I’d lost my chance to process any of it.

  All I could do was hold onto my husband’s hand, wish and feel everything at him I hadn’t had time to tell him I wished and felt. I fought to focus on his words, even though I pretty much knew everything he was telling me.

  “It might take me a while to figure out how to channel aleimic light from a star,” he said, his voice still unnervingly calm. “I don’t know how long… or how different it might be from channeling light from a person, or something like a feeding pool. I don’t know how well I’ll be able to control it… or if I’ll be able to control it at all.”

  I didn’t try to interrupt him.

  I honestly wasn’t sure if it was me he was trying to reassure or himself.

  I didn’t want to get in the way if he needed to hear these things out loud.

  “Let the others deal with the logistics,�
�� he warned. “Don’t think about any of that, Allie. Wreg, Balidor and Jon will bring our people in and start funneling them through the door if we manage to get it open. They’ll handle that end, okay? You just need to stay focused on keeping the channel open. There’s a good chance the Dreng will attack us––especially you. They’ll come at you from the Barrier most likely, or using the connected doors. They’ll hit us with everything they have if they think we’re in danger of opening the doors before them.”

  I nodded again, letting him know I understood.

  “I’m here, wife,” he said, his voice firm, almost fierce. “I’m here. I won’t leave your side. I’ll help you in any way I can. You won’t be alone. Not for any of it.”

  I nodded, wiping tears from my eyes that time, in spite of myself.

  Biting my lip to try and stop them from falling, I gave him a stiff smile.

  “I think you might have your hands full, husband,” I said.

  He shook his head, squeezing my fingers in his.

  “Never mind about that,” he said. “I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Swallowing, I nodded. That time, I clenched my jaw until it hurt.

  “I know it’s going to be hard not to think about what’s happening down here,” he said. “But that’s not your job. You have to focus on the logistics. You have to focus on the door. Try to ignore everything else, okay? You might not even be fully aware of the rest of it, unless we somehow manage to stabilize the connection––”

  “Who’ll bring Lily through?” I said, my voice low.

  Revik flinched.

  For a second, he didn’t seem able to speak at all.

  Before he could recover, another voice spoke up.

  “I will, Esteemed Bridge.” Maygar stood next to me. I hadn’t felt him approach, hadn’t realized he was standing there, listening to Revik talk, but now he rubbed my shoulder with a muscular hand. “Angie and I will bring her, Allie. Don’t worry.”

  Looking up at him gratefully, I nodded.

  Tears once more filled my eyes. I forced myself to look away.

  “We’ll be with them too, Al,” Jon assured me, rubbing my opposite shoulder.

  I hadn’t felt him walk up either, but now I opened to his light in relief, looking back at him and Wreg. Both of them had tears in their eyes too.

  Jon swallowed. “Wreg and I, we’ll walk through with them, okay? All five of us. Don’t worry. Lily won’t be alone. She’ll be with family the whole time.”

  I nodded again, swallowing.

  That time, I didn’t trust myself to speak.

  For a moment, we all just stood there, silent.

  “Allie.” Revik’s voice was soft.

  Hearing the faint warning in that one word, I nodded, wiping my eyes more vigorously that time, as if trying to wipe my mind and heart clean, too. I could feel the clock ticking over our head, just like it always seemed to be. I could feel it, but I knew this also might be the last few minutes I had with these people.

  Looking down when a smaller arm slid around my waist, I clinched Lily in a hug, so tightly she probably couldn’t breathe.

  Releasing her, I wiped my eyes again.

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s do this.”

  Revik nodded, squeezing my hand.

  Lily didn’t let go of me.

  Jon and Maygar still had their hands on each of my shoulders.

  Closing my eyes, I opened up to the structures above my head, watching as they unfolded downwards, telescoping down like a complicated ladder made of diamonds and light. That folding sensation reminded me again of the feeling I got when performing the telekinesis. It even had that same rush of satisfaction, almost of pleasure that rippled through my light.

  This felt more structured though––and somehow more specific.

  It felt like some part of me had been waiting for this, like it had been waiting to be given this exact task, using these exact frequencies of light.

  Which I suppose it had.

  I’m going to start now, my love, Revik’s voice murmured in that high space. It might take me a few minutes to figure out how to connect, but I wanted to warn you. I have no idea how intense this will be, or how fast it will flow if I manage to tap in––

  It’s okay, I told him, blowing away his concerns. It’s okay, Revik. Don’t hold back. It’ll be fine. Don’t hold back at all.

  I love you, wife. I adore you.

  Revik… don’t. Please, don’t. I can’t. I can’t right now.

  There was a silence.

  In it, I felt him understand. I felt him understand my words completely.

  Even so, when he didn’t speak, I couldn’t remain silent too.

  I love you, too, I sent. More than anything. So much so, I can’t deal with saying goodbye to you. Please don’t say goodbye to me, not now.

  Not ever, wife, he promised, his thoughts firm. I’ll never say goodbye. Never. And you’ll never say goodbye to me.

  Feeling him up there, watching those higher parts of him reconfigure in white-gold-blue flames, forming complex geometries even as they wound deeper into that ladder-like structure in my light, I could only nod. I had no idea if I was nodding with my actual head or with some other part of me, some part I couldn’t see.

  Either way, he must have seen it, or simply felt it and understood.

  I felt him twine the strands of his light deeper into that ladder above my head, coiling into it, merging more and more of his light with mine. As he did it, I felt him receive a jolt of power from that connection somehow, even as it steadied him, giving him a foundation that solidified and grounded his light from that higher level.

  Using me as a kind of scaffold or platform, he began to ascend, still gripping the top part of that ladder. Those structures continued to hold him as his light rose up, stretching upwards in a pyramid until our combined aleimic geometries looked almost like a light-made version of the Eiffel Tower.

  As I looked at him up there, watching his light as it stretched upwards towards the sun, it hit me suddenly, what I was seeing.

  Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. I also couldn’t help wondering at my own blindness.

  It wasn’t a ladder at all.

  It was a bridge.

  REVIK FOUND IT strange, how easy it was in the end.

  Not like any of this was easy.

  Not like he could think about what was crashing down around him, around his wife and his family right now as easy without that word, that whole idea, striking him as some kind of a macabre joke.

  In terms of the reality of what all of this actually meant, none of it was easy.

  Even so, the mechanics of his light with hers––after all the years he’d spent working on his aleimi, all the beatings and torture he’d endured, all the people who got killed or harmed along the way, all the years he’d spent believing he’d never be able to do anything with his light at all––compared to all of that, the mechanics of this was bizarrely effortless.

  Allie’s light unfolded over her head like some kind of Giza Pyramid made of gold and stardust, coming out of her with so much intricate structure, presence, Barrier knowledge, confidence, solidity, and just plain intelligence, it was like she’d cracked open her head and a whole other world erupted from a single light inside her skull.

  Not only was it so beautiful that it completely awed him, turned him on, and intimidated him (and gaos, it was that fucking beautiful, and it definitely did all those things)––it also contained so much internal functionality, so much information and know-how of what needed to happen, it completely blew his own mind out of the picture.

  Which ended up being fine, since it pretty much told him exactly what he needed to do.

  The instant he touched that structure, his light just… moved.

  It morphed into new shapes, moving where Allie’s light told it to move, connecting with her in ways it never would have occurred to him to connect to her before. He found his light following her
s in an intricate dance, creating new shapes as they morphed and twined together.

  All of it happened fast.

  So fast, he mentally blinked, and it was done.

  Uncoiling out of him in liquid strands, above and below, his light wound deeper into hers, following her light’s gentle prod. He allowed that intricate scaffold of light and presence to envelope him, and to create a rock-solid platform for his––high, high above where his physical body lived on the ground.

  Once that structure had him, it urged him to climb.

  So Revik climbed.

  He rose without releasing her below, and he’d never risen so effortlessly in that space, or so fast. He rose so fast it disoriented him, until he feared he might shoot past his target altogether, end up in some realm of the Barrier too far from Earth.

  It struck him how different this was from normal Barrier travel.

  Unlike the kind of traveling he’d taught Allie, way back when he first brought her out of San Francisco, this kind required him to bring some element of the physical world with him. In this, he could feel Allie acting as a true bridge––a bridge of light between that physical, material world below, and what existed in the plane of light.

  In theory, he understood the need for this.

  He’d even known, from his previous studies and understanding of the old books, that Elaerian were called “intermediaries” for this very reason––for this ability to act as true links between the physical world and the Barrier.

  That ability is what supposedly differentiated them from regular seers, who generally had to exist in one plane or the other.

  Of course, this was a simplification, too, but Revik understood the theory.

  He could see beyond it in some ways, sense the complications there, the possibility, but he knew now wasn’t the time to explore that either.

  Rather, it was time to actually put that theory into practice, whether he could articulate it to himself or not––and not just in terms of ripping apart or agitating atoms to create explosions or displace air to conquer enemies.

  The heat clued him off first, that he was getting closer.

  It was cool at first, as he rose through that night.