Sword

by JC Andrijeski

  Truthfully, he couldn’t imagine his sister sleeping with anyone these days.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true, either.

  Once he’d admitted that much, he found he understood what was really bothering him.

  He hadn’t really believed Allie would cheat on Revik––even as Syrimne. Even if he was psychotic. Despite everything that had happened in the past however-many months, Allie still seemed, in her own way, determined to make things work with her husband.

  If not now, then at some indeterminate time in the future.

  But the man in the drawing clearly wasn’t Revik.

  It was unmistakably Balidor.

  Jon stared at the male seer’s face, the expression Terian captured with a series of fine, charcoal lines. He again found himself a little thrown at the talent in those nervous hands. But he couldn’t quite remain as detached as all that, either. He knew he was a little old to be reacting like he was, but he could admit it to himself, at least.

  He was shocked. Actually and truly shocked.

  After staring at the image for another few seconds, Jon met Dorje’s gaze.

  Dorje shrugged, his eyes flat.

  “The future?” Jon said.

  Dorje hesitated. “Past, I think.”

  Jon felt his jaw harden. He couldn’t quite bring himself to stare at the picture again.

  “Does anyone else know?”

  Dorje shrugged again. “Who knows? I do not even know, Jon. I know there is a picture. I have my own guess. But he is the best infiltrator alive, Jon. And she is the Bridge.”

  Feeling his mouth tighten further, Jon nodded. Despite his reluctance, he found himself looking at the image again. Terian had really outdone himself. Seeing the expressions on both of their faces, he looked away a few seconds later, feeling almost like he’d walked in on them.

  Dorje watched his eyes, his own cautious. Taking the book from Jon’s hands, he flipped the pages forward again, looking for the image he had wanted to show Jon originally.

  “This one,” the seer said, once he’d found it.

  Jon looked down to find a detailed picture of an old lady with a lizard-like face. She looked vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn’t pinpoint where he’d seen her before. In the background stood Revik, gazing upwards at a pyramid made of light. It was an odd picture, in that, for the pyramid, he’d drawn in black charcoal what wasn’t there, rather than what was, so that the Pyramid seemed to be made of light.

  “Who is that?” Jon said, indicating the old woman.

  “Xarethe, we think… although we have no current images of her.”

  Jon jumped a little.

  “What?” Dorje said.

  “Just the name. He mentioned her.” Jon looked up. “Feigran. When he was babbling about creating more bodies.”

  Dorje nodded. “She was believed to be dead before now… killed in seer purges in Eastern Europe before World War I. She was a geneticist. One of the first to really latch on and experiment with human science.” He raised an eyebrow at Jon. “If she is alive, and if Terian knows her, it explains a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “She is the one who likely split Syrimne,” Dorje explained. “She had the skill to do it. She also is a servant of the Dreng. She has been for many, many years. She may even be the shadow connection to the current wave of Rooks.”

  “Shadow connection?”

  “Yes.” Dorje gave a lightless smile. “There are shadow governments in the human world, right? Those that outlast whoever is in office, at any given time? You told me this, yes?”

  Jon rolled his eyes. “Okay, yeah. Sure. Technically.”

  “She is the shadow connection. One of those who holds the line to the Dreng. There would likely be more than one.”

  “Salinse?” Jon said, glancing at him.

  Dorje smiled. “Yes. Very good. Balidor thinks so. Maybe.”

  “Balidor,” Jon muttered, frowning.

  His eyes lost focus on the cherry blossoms as they waved in a faint breeze. That same breeze sent fragrance over where he sat, making the sun pinkish through the petals, but Jon barely noticed as his mind returned to Allie.

  Well, he knew now, why Revik wanted the Adhipan leader dead.

  Even beyond the shooting Allie part, he would have wanted him dead for this. He supposed it was a testimony to Balidor’s abilities that he wasn’t dead already.

  Christ. What had Allie been thinking? Did she really need sex that bad, that she was willing to let Balidor risk his life like that? She had to have known what would happen. And whose idea had it been, anyway? Hers? Balidor’s? If Balidor had a crush on her it might explain some of his erratic behavior. It would also explain why he seemed to take it so personally that he hadn’t been able to sever Allie from Revik.

  But jeez louise… what was Allie doing?

  It was so not like her to put her friends in danger like that.

  But really, Jon realized, that was just an excuse. It took him another minute to puzzle out that he was actually angry at her, and not for himself.

  He was pissed off at her for cheating on Revik.

  Jon felt his jaw harden. Gods. What the hell was that about?

  Dorje didn’t seem to notice Jon’s expression. “Balidor has been looking for this shadow group for many years,” he said. “He had wanted Dehgoies to help him with this, once upon a time, when he tried to recruit him to the Adhipan. But now, of course—”

  “Dorje,” Jon cut in. Turning to face him, he caught hold of the seer’s arm. “Why are you still here? Why haven’t you left yet?”

  Dorje looked at him, surprised. His expression had some hurt in it, too.

  “You want me to leave the Bridge also, cousin?”

  “I want you to not be dead!”

  Dorje didn’t look away from his face. After a pause, he shrugged with one hand. “If I leave, who will play chess with me?” He touched Jon’s face with the back of his fingers, his eyes softening. “You want me to leave you, too, cousin?”

  Jon felt his mouth harden. “You did it once already.”

  “I had orders then.”

  “But you know he’s coming!” Jon burst out. “You don’t need to be one of your ‘true prescients’ to know that! You were with Balidor when he took her. Do you think he won’t know that?” His jaw hardened. “Do you think anyone around Balidor is safe right now?”

  Dorje clicked at him, dismissing this with another gesture. “He wants his wife back. He doesn’t care about me.”

  “Bullshit. He’s pissed as hell. Even Allie wants you to leave!”

  “She does?”

  “Ask her!”

  “I will.”

  Jon felt his frustration worsen as he stared at the Tibetan-looking seer. “Why won’t you just go? For me?”

  “If I go,” Dorje said, tugging his hair playfully. “Will you come with me, cousin?”

  Hearing the teasing in his voice, Jon shook him off, his mouth hardening.

  “I can’t,” Jon said. “Not now. You know I can’t. I’m probably one of the only people in this whole complex he won’t hurt.” His voice sharpened. “Dorje, please. Please go. You can come find me in a few months. Or I’ll ask one of the other seers to help me look for you. Don’t just stay here, waiting for him to kill you.”

  Dorje’s eyes grew serious.

  After a pause, he sighed, clicking softly as he gazed up at the cherry tree. He laid a hand on Jon’s, clasping it on his leg.

  “Jon,” he said, looking at him with those serious, dark eyes. “If you think you can find me, don’t you think Dehgoies can, too?” Before Jon could speak, Dorje shook his head, clicking at him softly. “I cannot live with one eye always open. I will not live that way. If he wants to kill me, so be it. I am in the Adhipan. I follow the orders of my leader, or he is not my leader.”

  His smile grew wry.

  “Besides, death by Syrimne… that is not such a bad death, do you think? It is historical. Mythic. A very
interesting death.”

  Jon’s lips pressed more tightly together.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  “Jon,” the seer chided softly.

  “Just how many people do you expect me to lose?”

  There was a silence while Dorje watched his face.

  Realizing the seer could see him crying, Jon wiped his eyes angrily, refusing to look up from where he stared at the stream running by his feet. The seer’s clicking grew softer, until it was nearly a purr, right before he slid closer on the bench, tugging at Jon’s arm. Reluctantly, Jon allowed the seer to pull him up against his chest, and wrap his arms around him.

  “You will be okay, cousin,” he soothed. “He won’t care about me, you’ll see. If he comes at all… to this place… I will be the last thing on his mind.”

  The soft words brought up another surge of anger in Jon.

  He almost made a cutting remark about how no, Revik wouldn’t care about Dorje––he’d just abduct his sister and kill Dorje’s boss, and maybe kill Dorje for the hell of it on his way out the door––but he didn’t.

  He didn’t push the seer away, either, or loosen his arm’s grip around his waist.

  Dorje tugged on Jon’s blond and brown hair. “And I like the longer hair, cousin,” he said, stroking it in his fingers. He paused then, and his voice came out angry. “Stay away from Feigran. I think he likes it, too. Too much.” Still clicking and stroking his hair, he added, “Balidor thinks so, also. I am asking you, Jon.”

  Jon grunted from his lap.

  “I wouldn’t worry,” he said. “I don’t think I’m his type.”

  “What does that mean, cousin?”

  Jon only glanced up, giving him a wry smile.

  25

  FORBIDDEN CITY

  THE NEXT TIME I woke, I immediately wanted out of the room. Maybe I was finally getting better, or maybe it was that lingering claustrophobia that didn’t seem to be getting any better. Either way, I felt an overwhelming urge to be outside.

  I, of course, knew exactly where I was by then.

  I was in Beijing, housed inside the massive walls and even denser constructs of the Forbidden City of the Lao Hu. Vash informed me that night, when we sat down to dinner together, I was formally a guest of the People’s Republic of China.

  Therefore, when I got up to find clothes waiting for me that morning, it wasn’t one of my increasingly worn jean and T-shirt combos, but a silk, hanfu dress and sash, along with beaded silk slippers embroidered with dragons.

  Similar-styled clothes were left for me each day on a chair near my fort-like bed.

  According to one of the servants I spoke to, my bedroom belonged to a human royal princess, back when emperors still ruled China, and the Forbidden City housed more humans than seers. Now that ratio was closer to 70/30 in favor of seers.

  My bedroom had a private garden.

  I also had a spacious wash area with a sunken tub, also private. I had my own servants. Morning breakfast was brought to me after I dressed––which I sometimes did alone and sometimes with the help of yet more servants. The breakfast was intimidatingly exotic at times, but usually delicious: quail eggs and rice, noodles and steamed pork buns, congee, fresh fruit and even berry pancakes once. I got my back scrubbed when I took baths. The servants were all women, thank the gods, but it was still strange, even unnerving.

  They offered me massages, pedicures, facials. They styled my hair and applied make-up to my face. I was brought animals to play with––dogs, cats, monkeys, birds, baby goats, foxes, even a large lizard on a leash and a snow leopard with a diamond-studded collar.

  The clothes I wore all appeared to be hand-sewn, and made of silk, fine linen or the lightest of cottons. They fit me as if someone had measured my every body part while I slept.

  The dress I wore that first day was made of silk so fine it felt like water on my skin, dark green with flowing sleeves and covered with embroidered gold cranes. It flattered my figure enough that I forgot to care how skinny I’d gotten from my time in the tank.

  With it, someone had left a folded, black, silk sash like I’d seen on Voi Pai. When servants appeared with breakfast and to help me dress, one of the older women confided that the sash was meant as an honor. Being the insignia of the Lao Hu, it was given only to those considered members of their family of seers.

  Knowing Voi Pai, there was some other message there, too, but I didn’t try to decipher it, and I didn’t ask the old Chinese woman with the kindly eyes to interpret it, either. I just bowed, thanked her, and asked if she’d help me tie it on the correct way.

  Then I sat down and ate pancakes covered in whipped cream, listening as they talked about small things around the City, the weather and the daily markets, changes being made to the grounds now that it was spring.

  I ate a lot. I was still trying to remake my body back into something I recognized.

  Outside my bedroom, the City was like another world.

  It completely fascinated me, I admit.

  That first day, even weakened from no exercise and little food, I walked the grounds for more than two hours, with a lot of short and long breaks spent sitting on benches. I panted from the exertion as I recovered in pristine gardens, staring up at cherry blossoms that swayed over my head, hearing the sing-song gurgle of man-made streams over elaborate rock sculptures and carved screens. I watched birds flit from branch to branch, and marveled at the stillness.

  Still, I couldn’t wholly relax.

  They’d done something to my light. I couldn’t feel Revik anymore.

  I knew that was at least part of the uneasiness I felt.

  I wasn’t cut off from him entirely, like in the tank, but I couldn’t talk to him, or feel him as strongly. Even in just those handful of days, I’d gotten so dependent on that, on knowing he was there, it was hard to quell the anxiety that came from his absence.

  The next day, I got up earlier, walked longer.

  I spent more time sitting on stone benches, watching birds, fluctuating between trying to think and trying to clear my head.

  Here and there, I tried to get a feel for the construct.

  I couldn’t get much through the collar, honestly.

  When I asked Dorje, Tenzi, Yumi and Poresh about it later, they told me about vivid, surround-sound spaces housed in layers and layers of smaller constructs, only a fraction of which they could even access. Some contained depictions of the City’s history and culture, like running movies behind their eyes. Others showed prehistoric time, space, the birth of worlds, other dimensions. Some were filled with mythological beings, dinosaurs, alien species, the minds of animals and birds. Dorje described a construct filled only with emerald green and gold frequencies of light––he said being inside it filled him with such a sense of peace, he fell into a meditative state for hours afterwards.

  Despite their enthusiasm, the uneasiness I felt in the background didn’t dissipate.

  I felt it on all of them now, not just on me. I knew, of course, what it stemmed from.

  Revik was coming.

  They all felt it. Not just the Seven and Adhipan seers––the Chinese seers and humans felt it, too. I saw fear reflected in those faces, resentment that I had brought these problems to them and their tranquil world.

  I saw fascination, too, along with an awe around who Revik and I both were. They all knew Syrimne d’Gaos would come, and that I was the reason.

  The faces of the Chinese infiltrators I ran into displayed more complex reactions to me, some of them religious, some more curiosity-based. One older male infiltrator with silver eyes watched me unabashedly whenever I crossed his path. His emotions hit me harder, and with less ambiguity, even through the collar. I felt lust on him, fascination, curiosity, and a deeper, more predatory aggression that made me distinctly nervous.

  Despite his openness with his emotional reactions towards me, he was too well shielded for me to determine much around his motives. Whatever they were, I didn’t really want to know;
I avoided walking in his area of the compound after the third time I encountered him.

  Some areas of the City were gated, and clearly off-limits to us.

  At least two of the larger buildings had guards stationed outside that I decided not to test.

  Apart from those few exceptions, however, I could walk pretty much wherever I wanted, at any time of day, without anyone questioning me.

  At night, lamps glowed from tall metal poles and wall fixtures, lit by servants at the same time each evening, just as the last of the sun bled down the walls of the palace. Wearing all red, the lamp-lighters went about their work silently, but they smiled at me when I met their gazes, bowing their heads and making the sign of the Bridge.

  After it got dark, I strolled the lit paths beside the canals, where potted plants and trees and stone statues created a fairy-like atmosphere along the water.

  I walked until my muscles gave out and I was too tired to walk any further. Then I went back to my room in the Imperial Quarters, ate, talked to the others, then slept until it was time to do it all again.

  It was a beautiful world. It struck me as a bit cut off at times, like a terrarium of light and culture isolated from time and history––but it was unquestionably beautiful.

  I understood why Voi Pai felt ownership over it.

  Whatever the Communists told themselves, the City I experienced belonged wholly to seers. I felt it with every person I met and piece of art I encountered. The Chinese history remained, but seers managed to alter that somehow, too, making it their own by shifting its symbols and imprints in subtle ways.

  Vash told me there had been attempts to open the Forbidden City in the earlier part of the twentieth century, when the Communists first rose to power. It had been seers who thwarted that change, arguing that their continued isolation was necessary for them to play the role the Chinese humans required of them. They named themselves guardians of the ancient culture, and claimed allegiance to the Communists and Mao as a function of that role.

  The Communists backed down.

  Mao needed seer support too badly in those early years to feel inclined to antagonize them, whatever their historic ties to the previous regime. The Lao Hu formed a cornerstone in his bid for global power, so the idea of leaving them locked inside the City––potentially breeding and proliferating quietly behind its high walls while the West killed off their own seers in greater and greater numbers––appealed to him greatly.