Allie's War Season Two

by JC Andrijeski

  Despite how he’d reacted when he first discovered Allie’s situation...Revik remained polite. He adhered to every one of the protocols requested of him, even when they bordered on ridiculous. He’d even sent gifts to Voi Pai...expensive gifts, from what Jon could discern...in an attempt to impress upon her the friendliness of his intent.

  He’d been quiet, but he’d also been calm.

  Jon still found himself staring at the Elaerian when the other man wasn’t looking.

  It wasn’t just that he looked different than he had for the last year or so...although the physical and facial expression differences themselves could be startling at times. It wasn’t even that he’d gotten quieter again, to the point where he didn’t speak much at all now, even in strategy sessions, unless he had something specific to contribute. This was in spite of the fact that he was ostensibly leading most of those sessions and had the final call on any real decisions that resulted. He led with a light hand, even given the potential disaster of throwing together some of the angrier individuals among the motley crew of the Seven, the Adhipan and the rebel infiltrators who now fell under his command.

  Jon stared at him in those silences, as if trying to convince himself that the change he saw in the Elaerian’s eyes was real.

  Dorje told him it was. He said he could see it in his light, ever since that day with Balidor and Vash and Tarsi in the tank. According to Dorje, they’d healed some kind of break that had lived there, a rift that kept his aleimi in pieces, rather than whole.

  Following that day...as well as whatever Allie had done to him prior to that...the very expressions on Revik’s face had altered. The odd, disjointed look of his gaze faded, leaving a more subdued and often shielded stillness. The underlying anger seemed to have faded, too, most of it anyway...along with that flavor of arrogance that irritated Jon in the Sword.

  He felt like a different person...again.

  What threw Jon more, though, was how much he felt like the old Revik...the one he’d gotten to know in that prison cell under the Caucasus Mountains.

  Jon had mentioned the same to Vash once, in passing. Instead of getting a blank look for his troubles, the old seer favored him with a surprisingly warm smile, and nodded emphatically at Jon’s observations.

  “Indeed,” he said. “It seems that without the blocks caused by the trauma, his surface personality is much like it was when we removed the traumatized pieces of his aleimi altogether...” Vash smiled again cheerfully. “...This is good for us, yes? He could have been anyone, really, in terms of surface traits. And I quite liked him as Dehgoies Revik...”

  Jon felt his own flare of hope at this, but the old seer gave him a warning look.

  “...But he is not really the same man, Jon,” Vash said gently. “Half of a person can never contain as much as the whole...and those other parts of him are still there, living inside of him. They are simply not broken as they were. As a result, they are no longer covering over the rest of him...or forcing him to hide in the light of the Dreng to escape the feelings associated with them. But he is not the same, Jon. He never will be.”

  Jon had thought about the seer's words at the time, glancing at Revik, who had been sitting on the edge of a table, listening to Wreg and Balidor argue with an intent look on his face.

  “So what does that mean?” he had asked Vash finally, shoving his hands back in his pockets.

  Vash smiled that wide smile of his, so that Jon could only smile back.

  “I do not know, young cousin,” Vash said cheerfully. “...But I imagine we will find out. In the meantime, it is good to see him in a more peaceful state, is it not?”

  Jon nodded, swallowing a little as he looked at Revik.

  The Elaerian’s eyes narrowed faintly as he stared down at something on a VR screen that stood on the table between Balidor and Wreg. From his expression, Jon could tell he was scanning, but a bare frown touched his lips as he clicked out, and he still didn’t speak, not even to break up the argument between the two seers standing in front of him.

  “He’s just so much like he was,” Jon said, speaking almost to himself. “It’s like seeing someone rise from the dead. I can’t help but think...”

  But he cut that thought off, looking away from Revik’s face. He wasn’t really ready to think about Allie yet, or how she might react to any of them, much less Revik, given where she was. Swallowing again, Jon shrugged, looking up at Vash.

  “...It’s a good thing, what you did,” he finished lamely.

  Vash smiled at him, but there was a sharper knowing in his eyes.

  “You helped too, cousin,” he said. “More than you know.”

  Jon had turned back to the three seers, watching Wreg and Balidor again. He saw Balidor fold his arms as he rolled his eyes at something the more muscular seer said, right before Wreg pointed emphatically at something on the VR screen, clicking loudly as his skin flushed on his high cheekbones. Seconds later, Balidor was clicking in return, gesturing a negative with one hand as he began speaking rapidly in Prexci, aiming his finger at the same screen.

  “The real question is,” Jon muttered. “Are the two of them ever going to stop bickering?”

  Vash chuckled, patting Jon on the back.

  “...Only time will tell on that account, too, young cousin,” Vash replied, still cheerful.

  Jon pulled himself out of the memory, staring again at the walls of the enormous audience chamber draped in silk tapestries over brightly painted walls. He tried to avoid the Lao Hu infiltrators with his eyes. Allie had called much of the Forbidden City the ‘kung fu palace’ while they’d been staying there a year previous. Glancing around at the antique-looking, enameled furniture, along with the swords and the silk kites streaming from the ceiling in tiers, he found himself agreeing with her. He would have agreed with her more if it wasn’t for the panels morphing on several flat surfaces that spoke of VR feeds, and the organics on the assault rifles trained at their significantly smaller party.

  He’d thought maybe they’d brought too many with them, coming in.

  Twelve...maybe thirteen infiltrators. Looking around at the thirty or so Lao Hu he could see now, and remembering the dozens they'd passed on their way through the gates and through the gardens outside the room's walls, he revised his opinion belatedly. Revik had said he wanted to remind Voi Pai that they represented more than simply his personal interests, and now Jon found himself thinking that maybe they’d undershot.

  Revik’s eyes remained emotionless, apparently calm as he held the Lao Hu leader’s gaze.

  “We cannot speak with her directly?” he said again.

  Jon watched him narrow his eyes at the female seer, lifting the tea cup that sat on the lacquered table in front of him. He took a sip of the likely-lukewarm tea, his gaze steady as he sat easily in a wooden chair with embroidered cushions. He gazed up at the elevated seat of Voi Pai, his expression unreadable. Jon knew that her being seated above him broke protocol too, severely enough that it had to be deliberate.

  If it bothered Revik, that did not show on his face, either.

  “She is working, Illustrious Sword,” Voi Pai replied smoothly.

  Jon knew that had to be deliberate, too.

  Not a ripple touched Revik’s face.

  “When will she be finished, sister?” he said. “We are willing to wait.”

  “It will not be anytime soon, I’m afraid.”

  “We are willing to wait,” he repeated. “We will wait here, if necessary. For as long as you require us to.”

  Voi Pai continued to measure his gaze, her expression also difficult to read. Jon found himself wondering if the Lao Hu leader noticed the changes in him from their last encounter, or if she noticed any hint of the differences in his light. As far as Jon knew, she’d only ever encountered him as Syrimne.

  “You are imposing on me for overnight hospitality, Illustrious brother?” she said then, lifting an eyebrow, a smile teasing her lips. “Is that polite, I wonder?”

 
“No less polite,” Revik replied, his voice as calm as a windless lake. “...Than asking an intermediary to wait on an audience with his wife. Or refusing him the basic courtesies of his rank.”

  Voi Pai sighed, as if bored. Clicking softly, she tilted her face towards the ceiling.

  “I was under the impression from her that your marriage to her was terminated,” she said, blowing by his second point without comment. “...Perhaps there is a communication problem in more than one area, Illustrious Sword...?”

  “There is a miscommunication,” he conceded. “It is true.”

  “Illuminate me, dear brother.”

  Revik shrugged with one hand. “I have, sister. Repeatedly. I am here declaring myself in need of forgiveness from her. I wish reconciliation...and an opportunity to make amends. Under every recognized seer law, including the initial Codes and the common law of the Lao Hu, I have the right to be heard by her in this...”

  “And if she does not wish to grant that right?”

  “I have the right to hear the refusal from her directly.”

  “And if she refuses to grant that right, as well?”

  Revik gestured again politely, if vaguely, with one hand.

  “I would need to see her in person to know that as well, loyal Voi Pai,” he said, his face unmoving. “I would not be willing to leave until I had been granted this right.”

  His Prexci sounded different from the common tongue Jon had grown accustomed to hearing most seers use. At times, Jon even had trouble understanding him through the accent, although the style was slow enough, and enunciated enough, that he could usually stay at least only a beat or two behind. The more formal cadence was one that Jon had never heard from Revik before; it came out practiced, however, enough to sound almost like Vash’s manner of speaking, or Balidor’s when he was particularly annoyed.

  But Revik didn’t sound annoyed. He sounded completely at ease, in fact.

  He also sounded absolutely immovable, which Jon supposed was the point.

  Again, the Lao Hu leader’s eyebrows rose, cartoonish under their dark paint over the white powder of her face. Her red-painted lips pursed over a pointed chin.

  At her prolonged silence, Jon felt himself sigh internally.

  This particular ping-pong match had been going on all morning and for most of the afternoon already...through tea and a number of odd dances, two epic-long poems and other entertainments that were likely seer in origin...not to mention all the b.s. they’d encountered at the gate and in each subsequent courtyard following their initial entrance through the high walls around Tian’anmen.

  They’d gotten here not long after dawn the day before, and it was dark outside again.

  Jon glanced at Wreg and Balidor, who stood side by side, wearing similar postures despite the different expressions on their faces. Wreg looked angry, and Jon knew without being told that he was likely furious at Voi Pai’s blatant disrespect to Revik, both overt and implied. Balidor wore a similar expression as Revik, actually...like a rock that did not intend to budge, no matter how long it took, or how many distractions were put in front of him.

  The older seer’s patience surprised Jon less than Revik’s, however.

  Revik leaned back in the wooden chair, even as Jon thought it. He didn’t noticeably shift to adjust his weight, despite his probable discomfort from sitting in the hard-looking chair for so long. Jon himself had struggled with being forced to stand for a similar amount of time, but he didn’t bother trying to hide his body’s lack of ease.

  He nearly jumped when Voi Pai spoke into that silence, even before he heard her words.

  “Very well,” she said, as though it was the first time Revik had asked. “She will be brought up presently.”

  Revik did not flinch. He continued to look up at the Lao Hu leader, a layer of impenetrable silence over the clear irises of his eyes.

  Jon knew his own expression was probably a lot more transparent. When he glanced at Balidor and Wreg, neither of their expressions had changed, for the better or the worse. Only Garensche, on the other side of Balidor, let a flicker of relief reach his broad, scarred face. His hair had grown longer too, since Jon had last seen him, and he wore it similarly to Wreg’s, making him look even more of a pirate than he had before, with his thick girth and near-Wvercian height and chest proportions. The scar running along one side of his face to his hazel eyes only added to the image. Still, Jon knew him as one of the softer souls among the rebel seers...and one who had a particular fondness for Allie.

  Jon found his open emotions a relief.

  He watched Revik lean back in the red-silk lining of the wooden chair, a chair that might be several hundred years old, or only carved to appear as such. His eyes never left Voi Pai’s face, even when the configuration of infiltrators shifted slightly around them, presumably to prepare for Allie’s arrival.

  Jon felt his own heart constricting in his chest, and wondered again at Revik’s completely flatline appearance. The look went past the infiltrator’s mask Jon had grown accustomed to when he knew him before. His very light seemed to exude a kind of calming glow, as if he were merely there to mediate a discussion between foreign parties...on a topic that interested him only peripherally. Jon watched his face minutely, but he could not penetrate that demeanor. Nor could he hide his own increasing anxiousness at the thought of Allie walking in there any minute, in gods only knew what condition.

  It didn’t escape his notice either, that Voi Pai hadn’t given them any kind of time frame for her arrival.

  “And what do you intend,” she said as Jon thought it, still staring at Revik as if the rest of them weren’t present. “...In the event your wife is amenable to reconciliation?”

  Revik laid an arm on the hard wood of his chair, his eyes still focused on Voi Pai’s.

  “I intend to buy her from you,” he said.

  Voi Pai smiled, her thin lips twitching. “She is not for sale, Illustrious Sword.”

  “She is under debt contract,” he said, his cadence unchanging. “Her debt can be bought, even if she cannot.”

  “You are doing well indeed, to afford a debt of this kind,” Voi Pai remarked wryly. “Perhaps you are not aware of the full amount?”

  “I am aware of the twenty-two million agreed upon at the onset of the contract,” Revik said, his tone implying he heard none of the condescending humor of hers. “I assume she would have worked off a portion of that amount in the time since...”

  “That amount is no longer relevant,” Voi Pai broke in coldly.

  “Is it not?” Revik settled more deeply into the chair. “And why is that?”

  “She murdered one of her clients,” Voi Pai replied, smiling once more.

  For the first time, Jon saw Revik’s face flicker with a shadow of reaction. It was gone almost before he saw it, but he knew Voi Pai would have seen it, too. She smiled wider, as if in answer to Jon’s thoughts, waving a manicured hand.

  “...Penalties were demanded. The client she saw fit to kill was one who belonged to an important friend of the Lao Hu. There is more than simply the matter of blood money...”

  “How much?” Revik said, his voice polite.

  Voi Pai tapped a red-lacquered nail against her tea cup. “I was quoted a price for penalty. It was beyond our means, frankly...and the wronged party’s patience, in terms of her ability to work it off within a reasonable timeframe. I was therefore required to offer ownership of your wife’s debt to the wronged party...”

  “How much?” Revik repeated, as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “Forty million, Illustrious Sword...in addition to the eighteen million she still owed the Lao Hu.” Smiling at Jon when he choked out a sound at the amount, she let her eyes flicker back to Revik’s. “...The money is merely a courtesy. They require service of her, to compensate for their loss. They were unspecific as to the nature of that service.”

  “Was their loss so great?” Wreg asked, from the back of the room.

  She didn’t hono
r him with a glance, but continued to look at Revik.

  “The man she murdered was a favored pet of our friends. And he had certain...historical knowledge...that they claim is impossible to duplicate.” She paused, tapping her nail quietly. “...Although they claim your wife is able to supply some of that history...”

  “What is the name of her alleged victim?” Revik said.

  “This is important to you?” Voi Pai smiled again, quirking just one of those painted brows. “Have you not heard me on the relevant details, Illustrious Sword?”

  “I listen to all words that come from the leader of the Lao Hu,” Revik said, his voice as unchanged as the air of the room. “...I merely wish to know the nature of the knowledge that is said to be carried by my wife. After all,” he added, gesturing in polite deference. “...At her young age, historical knowledge is not her specialty. Unless you imply it is something from a previous incarnation...?”

  Jon caught some flicker of a taunt in this.

  He knew the politics around reincarnation were complicated in the seer world. He also knew that the Lao Hu’s official stance was that such a thing didn’t exist, since it conflicted directly with the Chinese doctrines around religion and communism. How they reconciled that with Allie being here and wearing her religious title had never fully made sense to Jon, but he figured there was some political subtlety there that he was missing.

  In any event, Revik’s comment seemed to irritate Voi Pai.

  “His name was Hulen, Illustrious Sword...but your wife called him by another name.”

  “She knew him?” Jon spoke aloud before he realized he intended to.

  He saw Balidor give him a faintly warning look.

  Revik didn’t turn his head. He continued to watch Voi Pai, his clear eyes unmoving.

  “I would repeat my question, most venerable Voi Pai,” he said.