Don’t get me wrong, I like to think that my little act in Rekir’s study was pretty good, but I couldn’t count on it convincing a lifelong politician with two centuries of experience.
That little nugget of wisdom regarding politicians had probably just saved my life, though. It went something like, ‘Whatever a politician tells you, believe the opposite and you’ll come out ahead of the curve.’
So, applying that particular piece of wisdom to what I had just heard, I could conclude that Pi’Vari was probably not working with House Listoh; no matter who he was working for, he probably wasn’t working against House Wiegraf’s interests, at least not to Rekir’s knowledge; and House Tyrdren wanted nothing more than to directly control the mythicite located at Coldetz.
There was more to be learned from the meeting, but I needed to focus on maintaining consciousness until I made it back to Wiegraf Estate. My legs ached, my lungs burned, and I was fairly certain that another dire cardiac event was nearing its final phase as my chest felt like it was being crushed by a dump truck.
It was possible that I had unnecessarily confirmed the existence of mythicite at Coldetz during our conversation, but that was a risk I’d had to take. My heart literally felt like it was going to burst less than halfway through the meeting because of anxiety, and I’d had to advance the conversation more quickly than it looked like would happen naturally.
As I approached the gates of Wiegraf Estate, it felt like my lungs had closed and wouldn’t allow me to take another breath. It had been a gradual thing, but I knew that if I collapsed on the streets of Veldyrian I was as good as dead so I had to keep going.
I just made it to the still-locked gate when I collapsed to the ground, the world spinning in my field of vision as the Wiegraf guards rushed to help me. I couldn’t make out what they said as the world got smaller and smaller, until I finally lost consciousness.
Chapter XXIX: Pain
I opened the door to the hospital room where I had spent nearly every waking hour for the last two weeks. My arm was still in a sling, mostly to protect the tissues from too much activity—at least that’s what the doctor had told me. The ragged gash caused by being impaled by the metal of the car door had required twenty two stitches, and the doctor was insistent that failure to follow his prescribed mobility restrictions could result in permanent nerve damage.
My head had required another two dozen stitches to re-attach the nearly severed flap of skin covering the right side of my skull, but at least it was feeling a lot better—even if the hair had yet to grow back.
The man lying in the hospital bed, however, wasn’t feeling better at all…and his hairdo was the least of his worries.
I set my burger and fries down on the bedside table and looked at his body, which wouldn’t even technically be alive if not for the multitude of hoses and tubes which forced it to go through the motions in the hope that his brain would eventually recover well enough to resume its usual duties.
The doctors had been purposefully vague in their prognosis, but I had managed to get them to admit that he currently had no significant brain activity. They backpedaled of course, saying that he could still recover given enough time and the proper care, but I was starting to come to grips with the fact that my brother Adam was as close to dead as a person could be prior to making it official.
I turned the portable stereo on and skipped ahead to song number seven—the same song we had been listening to two weeks before when the drunk driver had smashed into us and totaled the Mustang. I’d managed to figure out how to put the thing on repeat so that it played when I was in the room, but most of the time when I went out for food or something the nurses would turn the music off.
“You said this one made your brain relax,” I said, “and since the doctors want me to relax my arm so it can heal, I thought maybe your brain would work the same way.” I knew it wasn’t likely to be true, but I had heard that familiar voices sometimes registered when someone was in a coma. I had no idea if that was true, but I needed a little hope and it had been in pretty short supply to that point.
The woman’s voice came on, as usual, and she was talking about paper flowers of all things. I actually had difficulty processing most of her words, probably for a multitude of reasons, but I knew that at the beginning she talked about alarm clocks. I shook my head at my brother’s odd fascination with the song.
I sat down in the chair at his bedside and picked up the CD case to look at it, like I had so many times in the last two weeks.
The CD had been burned as a copy of someone else’s album, and for some reason Adam had gotten a copy of the cover art picture to put inside, but there were no names or words printed on it. There was just a woman’s goth-looking face bearing an expression that was somewhere between contempt and shared understanding.
Somewhere around the end of the first verse, and just as the chorus broke in, I fell asleep in the chair.
I was falling again, but this time I could clearly see the light. I’d had this same dream before waking up in the wrecked Mustang and finding Adam’s ruined, unconscious body.
The light was bright and it was exactly where I remembered it being, which struck me as odd since I couldn’t really turn in any direction even if I tried. Didn’t that mean directionality was meaningless?
“Aaron,” came the voice, exactly like before. “Aaron, come with me.” Actually, the voice might have been different this time—the voice sounded strangely androgynous, but I could have sworn it was feminine before.
I tried to speak, and at first nothing happened. Then I somehow found my voice and I yelled, “Who are you?”
“Aaron,” repeated the voice, “you must come to the light. I do not have the strength to do this again. I know of the pain you feel, but you must leave it behind and come with me.” The voice was hypnotic, and I found myself silently agreeing with it.
I let the light pull me closer, but after a few moments I heard a sound of some kind that I thought I didn’t recognize, but seemed familiar somehow.
“What is that?” I asked, trying to look for the source of the noise, but finding once again that I was unable to ‘turn’ at all. “What’s that noise?!”
“Aaron, focus on the light,” the androgynous voice said. “Let it draw you near, and soon you will leave your pain behind.”
But the noise continued to grow, and I thought I recognized it but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.
Then it hit me. “Adam!” I yelled as panic swept through me. I realized that the sound I was hearing were his machines, and they had made those same sounds once before when he had nearly died from some kind of spasm a day after they had put the tube in his throat that would help him breathe. “I have to go back to Adam!”
“Aaron,” the voice pleaded, “this is your last chance; we are running out of time! Please come with me!”
I forced myself to fly away from the light as fast as possible, and this time it happened almost instantly, unlike last time when it was a gradual process. “Adam wouldn’t leave me,” I shouted, “so I won’t leave Adam! Not ever!”
The voice became incoherent and distant as the light shrunk into obscurity.
Then I woke up.
There was a team of doctors surrounding Adam’s bed, and a nurse was doing chest compressions while one of the doctors used some kind of bag to keep him breathing.
“Amp of epi in,” reported one of the nurses.
“Alright, that’s four,” confirmed the doctor. “Stop compressions,” he ordered after another minute or so of furious pumping up and down on his chest, and the nurse ceased pushing on Adam’s ribcage.
I stood up, and while I would like to say I was shocked at the scene unfolding before me, what I actually felt was a kind of numbness. I had been thinking of how this would happen, and now that it was here I was shocked to find that I had kind of accepted it. My brother had died two weeks earlier in the car wreck, but we had stubbornly kept him alive in the interim, probably
just so I could come to terms with his loss.
“Do we have a pulse?” the doctor asked, and another doctor pressed his fingers up near Adam’s groin. The second doctor shook his head and the first doctor, the one who looked to be in charge looked up at the clock. “Unless anyone objects, I’m going to call it,” he said. When the half dozen people surrounding the bed shook their heads silently, he looked up at the clock again. “Time of death—“ he was about to call the time when I interrupted.
“Please keep trying,” I pleaded as a flood of emotion washed over me like nothing I had ever felt. “Please!” I was well past the point of preserving my dignity, but I didn’t care.
The doctor turned to me with a look that spoke volumes, and he nodded as he pursed his lips. “Resume compressions and load another amp of epi,” he ordered.
“Yes, doctor,” replied the nurse I had heard earlier.
Another nurse came across the room to where I was standing and took my hand. “We can try another round,” she said hopefully, “but if it’s his time…it’s his time.”
I nodded as tears welled in my eyes. “I know,” I replied, “but I just can’t let him go without a fight…” Then the nurse did something I hadn’t expected: she hugged me, and I’m eternally grateful for the human contact she shared with me in that moment. I returned her embrace, and found myself wondering just how many people she had consoled in this fashion throughout her career.
“Amp of epi in, doctor,” reported the nurse again.
“Ok, that’s five,” confirmed the doctor. “Continue compressions for another minute,” he ordered.
I watched the clock, knowing it was a countdown to the inevitable, but I clung to the sliver of hope which I knew was nothing but a fool’s wish. The clock inexorably ticked the seconds off until the minute was up.
“Stop compressions,” the doctor ordered, and the sweat-faced nurse stopped chest compressions. Another doctor held the paddles in his hands and placed them on Adam’s chest.
“Clear,” he called, and the other health care providers stepped back as he sent a pulse of electricity through Adam’s body which caused his arms to twitch. He looked up at the heart monitor and shook his head, “Asystole.”
“Do we have a pulse?” the first doctor asked, and again the second doctor checked. He shook his head firmly, and the first doctor turned to me.
I nodded and began to sob uncontrollably. I don’t know what I would have done without that nurse there to give me something to hold onto, but I knew it was over.
My brother was dead, and I was now utterly alone in the world.
“Time of death: 12:02am,” the doctor said matter-of-factly before ordering his team out into the hallway, where they probably did some sort of paperwork.
I cried in the nurse’s arms for a few more minutes before deciding there was nothing left for me in the hospital, at which point I awkwardly thanked her for her kindness and left the building as fast as my feet could carry me. I took my portable stereo with me, which was still playing its tragic, tortured song.
And I know now that, right then, it was exactly what I needed to hear.
Chapter XXX: Leaving on a Jet Plane
“Jezran,” I heard Pi’Vari’s voice from somewhere above me. “Jezran, you need to wake up,” he insisted.
“Oh dear, I hope he will recover,” I heard Chester say in his usual, butler-tone laced with uncharacteristic tension.
“I’ll be just fine,” I said groggily. “How long have I been out?” I asked, trying to sit up and surprisingly, I was able to do so. Naturally, I wasn’t able to do so without paying a price, as a fit of retching overtook me but thankfully my stomach was empty so I didn’t make a mess.
“Perhaps twenty minutes,” Pi’Vari replied after I had regained control of myself. “What happened at the Tower?”
I shook my head. “No time to explain,” I said, cursing my decrepit body for failing me yet again. “We have to get ready to leave, and I mean now.”
Pi’Vari got a worried look. “Things went that badly?” he asked, a sliver of fear creeping into his voice.
I finally cleared the blurriness from my eyes and found Pi’Vari’s blue-haired head, and I saw that his face held the same measure of fear as his voice. “Worse,” I said bluntly. “Pryzius, Gaeld, and whoever else he brings along are taking us to Coldetz.”
Dancer bristled at the mention of Gaeld. “Dancer fight Gaeld?” he asked, and to the little man’s credit, there wasn’t a trace of fear in his voice.
I shook my head. “No,” I replied firmly before adding, “at least…not yet. We have to wait until we’re in Coldetz before making any kind of move against them is even an option—which is almost certainly the same thing Arch Magos Rekir is telling Pryzius right now.”
Pi’Vari stood up stiffly. “You are not suggesting what I think you are suggesting,” he said, a mixture of dismay and abject terror warring for control of his voice.
I stood up slowly, with Dancer’s help which I thanked him for with a curt nod. “I have no idea what I’m suggesting, Pi’Vari,” I retorted. “But what I am certain of is that we have less than a half hour to ready ourselves before they arrive.”
Pi’Vari blanched and Chester had to lean up against the wall, probably to keep from fainting.
“They are coming here…now?!” my herald all but squealed.
“Yes,” I confirmed, “they’re coming here now, and we need to be prepared for them when they arrive.” I turned to Chester, who looked like he was about to have a nervous episode I really couldn’t afford right then. “Chester!” I barked.
The head butler regained his senses at the sound of my voice. “Y-yes, my Lord?” he stammered.
“Fetch me a pen and paper,” I ordered. “I have instructions for you to follow after we depart.”
“Very good, sir,” he replied, and turned to walk down one of the corridors adjoining the entryway, still using the wall for vertical support in case his legs failed somewhere along the way.
I rolled my eyes. “The rest of you,” I continued, turning to my companions, “need to gather a whole bunch of things we don’t actually need—but they need to look like things we would use for setting up shop in a new city. Pi’Vari,” I snapped, catching my herald’s attention which had clearly been drifting, “gather a whole collection of more or less useless books from the library and package them carefully, as though you don’t want anyone knowing what they are. Use the House staffers to assist you, and make sure you get at least fifty volumes.”
Realization dawned on Pi’Vari’s face and he nodded eagerly before proceeding at a jog toward the library.
“Dancer,” I said, looking down at the fearless little warrior. “You need to be ready for Gaeld,” I explained slowly. “No one else can even hope to stand up to him long enough to do any good, so you use whatever new steps you’ve learned recently—or whatever old steps you’ve been saving for a special occasion, understand?”
Dancer’s lips peeled back in a shark-like grin. “Understand,” he said.
“You know he’s dangerous,” I continued, “but you’ve only seen him fight in the challenge cage, and that was against an opponent he clearly outclassed. If you have the chance to finish him then you take it, regardless of how satisfying it may or may not be. Do you understand?” I asked in an iron voice.
I knew this would give the little man pause. Aemir had been right about him when he observed that Dancer’s flair for the dramatic was a potential problem, and we were about to line up against one of the toughest foes we had ever faced. I really didn’t need Dancer going Maverick on me when the situation called for brutal, ruthless efficiency.
What I really needed, now that I thought about it, was Gaeld. Or Baeld, but Baeld was in Coldetz, and I seriously doubted that Pryzius and Arch Magos Rekir would allow us to disembark and fully marshal our forces before they made their move.
Chester appeared with a pen and paper in hand, which I took and began to hastily scribble
out instructions for him. “Do not open this until tonight,” I instructed, “at sundown. Do you understand?”
Chester looked confused, but he nodded. “Yes, Lord,” he replied, “tonight at sundown.”
“Follow these instructions precisely, and without deviation of any sort, understood?” I pressed. I really didn’t want to be responsible for any collateral damage, and Chester had always been reasonable in his interactions with me.
“Indeed, sir,” he assured me, having regained most of his professional bearing.
I folded the paper and sealed it with my Wiegraf signet ring before handing it to him. “House Wiegraf is in your hands, Chester,” I said with a smirk before adding, “no pressure, right?”
He was clearly confused, but I didn’t care. I had to go to the library to make a point to Pi’Vari.
“What about the books we actually need once we arrive in Coldetz?” Pi’Vari asked as a gaggle of servants bustled about this way and that, preparing the packages which would contain the decoy books I had instructed Pi’Vari to gather.
“Change of plans,” I answered with a shake of my head. “You don’t need to separate them any more.”
Pi’Vari looked at me with a look of shock. “Jezran,” he said as though I had gone mad, “without those books, we have no chance of unraveling the true nature of our enemy. We cannot abandon our only hope of finding victory!”
“I agree with you, Pi’Vari,” I assured my herald, “which is why we aren’t abandoning them.”
He gave me a look of incredulity, “Then why are we not—“
“Pi’Vari, we really don’t have time for this,” I cut him off irritably. “Just do as I instructed and I’ll explain everything later when it’s safe to do so.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Pi’Vari with my plan, really. He didn’t have time to report to anyone with the work I had put in front of him, and my conversation with Rekir and Pryzius had done nothing but improve my herald’s trustworthiness, at least in my estimation. But, in general, he hadn’t earned my unflinching trust so it didn’t hurt to keep him in the dark a little while longer.
Revelation (Seeds of Humanity: The Cobalt Heresy) Page 36
