by Karen Chance
“I am fine; I can control this. I am in control.”
That looked debatable to me, not that she appeared to be talking to us. I wasn’t exactly sure who she was talking to, but there seemed to be a difference of opinion. There also seemed to be a literal struggle going on, as the arrow moved and twisted in her fist, as if possessed.
I’d have dropped the damned thing like a hot potato, but the telepath held on. She snarled, her previously serene expression changing into something almost feral, and her eyes, formerly dark and lovely, suddenly glowing gold. They weren’t as bright as a vampire’s, and there was no tell-tale tingle up my spine such as a vamp would have caused. But there was something in there that wasn’t entirely human.
And it was pissed.
“I am in control!” she screamed, as the arrow suddenly sprang into the air, dragging her halfway to her feet.
A cluster of small heads peered in the doorway, accompanied by a worried looking acolyte. “Take them outside,” Gertie said, hurrying forward and blocking the view with her body. “No class today. But I believe cook has prepared seed cake.”
The little initiates were easily bribed, and the door was shut again after them and locked this time. But it wasn’t going so well in here. The telepath’s hair had come down from its nice chignon, her lip was dripping blood from where she’d bitten it, and her eyes were wild.
But she was a bad ass bitch, and she wasn’t losing to this thing.
Quadruple her fee, I thought, as she dug in her heels, as she forced the arrow to the floor, as she got a knee on it and then slammed her hand down on top of it. “I am in control!”
And, suddenly, she was.
The change was immediate and obvious. Her eyes didn’t to return to their previous brown, but instead of slitted and furious, they were suddenly round and shocked. And darting everywhere, trying to follow whatever she was seeing.
I felt a little dizzy, and realized that I’d forgotten to breathe for a minute. I sucked in some air, took yet another cup of tea that Rhea was trying to press on me, and drank it down. It seemed to help, although I still felt guilty, like I’d passed my problem on to someone else.
But there was no question that the telepath was better at this than I was—by a lot. I couldn’t see what she currently was looking at, of course, but I could tell what she was doing. Although it seemed bizarre.
Most imprints were a one trick pony. You’d get a flash of something, often a few seconds’ worth only, like a psychic scream. It was usually the point at which someone’s mind became overwhelmed: when they saw their lover coming at them with a knife; when they found their friend’s body dangling from a noose; when a door opened to reveal a policeman with news they didn’t want to hear.
Once in a while, there might be a couple of imprints on an item, and even more rarely, three or four. But those were usually very old, family heirloom type of things, which might have been handed down for generations. A locket, for example, that had been worn by many women, or a jewel.
In fact, one of the reasons why many famous jewels gave people the creeps or got a reputation for being cursed was because they bore imprints, the kind that were strong enough, in some cases, to drive a sensitive person mad.
But this didn’t look like a couple, or even three or four. It looked like she was having to sort through dozens, maybe hundreds of different scenes, which fit with my own experience. I didn’t know how many had been battering me there at the end, but it was a lot.
Especially for one freaking arrow!
I drank tea while we waited, even though it was going to make me have to take another bathroom break. I wanted breakfast, but it seemed rude to ask. The telepath was working her ass off; the least we could do was to wait patiently.
And we did, for what felt like forever. I had started to drift off, the comfy old chair cradling me, the fire warming me, the rain outside shush, shush, shushing me off to sleep . . .
When I felt a touch on my hand.
And when I looked up . . .
I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I looked around, blinking and still half asleep, but not for long. I sat up abruptly and then paused, unsure of what I was seeing. Because this . . . didn’t look like an imprint.
The ones I’d encountered before were hazy and often distorted, with warped colors that kept trying to slide off the edges of things and sounds that echoed oddly. They had a dream-like quality, fuzzy and incomplete, and frequently came with an unpleasant echo of the imprinter’s shock and horror. Even under the best of circumstances, they were like a crappy, homemade video, where the cameraman couldn’t hold still and kept putting his finger in front of the lens.
But not now.
Not this.
“Where are we?” I asked the telepath, who seemed to expect my reaction.
“Take a moment,” she said, letting go of my hand. “Then we’ll talk.”
I took a moment.
We were sitting on a gray stone bench near a gray stone wall. The temperature was wintry, with a damp chill that shivered straight through to my bones, but the sun was shining and there was no snow. Early spring, I thought, somewhere north enough to tease warmer weather long before it delivered any.
In front of me was a flagstone expanse with a wooden lattice overhead striping it with shadow. The lattice was gray, too, being old and weather-worn, but was sturdy enough to support a flowering vine of some sort, which was startlingly vivid against the washed out, watercolor view behind it. I saw pale, almost white skies over winter-brown fields and what was probably the ocean in the distance. I couldn’t be sure, because the water and sky blended together on the horizon until they were indistinguishable, but seagulls whirled overhead and the air smelled of brine.
A small group of people stood on the other side of the terrace, near a stone railing. Two of them were holding the slumped figure of a man in between them. They looked like the fey guards I’d seen in a previous imprint, in plain gray tunics and leggings, with leather quivers thrown over their backs. The quivers were carved and highly decorated, with a subtle, dark patina from many oilings, but their boots were plain, close fitting and coated in mud, and their silver hair was messy.
Two other men stood nearby, one of whom was obviously a vamp. He was tall and portly, in a long, light blue tunic and thick, dark red leggings. He had a hefty, brown leather belt trying to gird the former and to hold up the latter, but mostly serving as a rest for his substantial belly. He wore a peplum-style jacket in royal blue velvet over everything, which was gorgeously embroidered all over with multicolored birds.
The jacket looked expensive, like the ruby ring that decorated a fat finger and the ridiculously long sleeves on the fine linen shirt he wore underneath the tunic. They were dyed a bright yellow and almost swept the floor. He only lacked a Robin Hood hat with a feather to be the perfect, late medieval dandy, but his expression didn’t match the outfit.
Or maybe it did. His head was thrown back and his fangs were flashing in what might have been a laugh or a snarl. I couldn’t tell which because he wasn’t moving.
Nothing was, including the flowering vine, which had been caught in a breeze and blown inward, scattering bright red petals across the scene. But the cascade stayed suspended in the air, because it looked like I’d been dropped into the middle of a 3-D painting, or like a Pythia had frozen time. It would have fascinated me, since I was rarely in a mood to look around much when I did it.
Except that the last person in the group was Aeslinn.
“Fey imprints are often more vivid,” the telepath said, watching me. “As well as longer and more comprehensive.”
Yeah, I guessed so.
I started to get up, to get close enough to hear them talk, which I guessed was the point. But I turned dizzy as soon as I tried, and plopped back down onto the bench, harder than I’d intended. It was jarring, but not as much as certain other things.
I put my head between my knees and, after a moment, fe
lt a tentative touch on my back.
“It doesn’t usually take people like this,” the telepath said, sounding worried.
“It’s . . . I skipped breakfast,” I told her, because it sounded better than the truth. And maybe it wasn’t a complete lie, because I felt vaguely nauseous, like maybe my blood sugar needed a bump.
Or like my body was thinking about a panic attack, despite the fact that Aeslinn wasn’t even here, that I was basically watching him on T.V.!
I didn’t understand myself sometimes. I’d just seen him with Gertie, not two hours ago, but that had been across a good distance of both space and time. It was a little different from a couple dozen yards away.
And that made me furious, because that bastard didn’t get to do this to me. He didn’t get to make my heart pound and my skin crawl and my eyes want to roll up in my head. He didn’t get to do any of that!
After a moment, I sucked in a deep breath, sat up and leaned my head back against the wall. The cold stone felt good; bracing. I just stayed like that for a while.
“Are you—” the telepath began, before I cut her off.
“Tell me about this place,” I said, wanting something else to think about. “How are you making it look like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like I just walked into the middle of a play.”
She didn’t immediately answer, and I could almost feel her impatience; she was practically vibrating with it. She clearly wanted to get on with this, whatever this was—maybe she had another job lined up for later—but I wasn’t there yet. Which she seemed to realize, because after a moment, she answered.
“It isn’t me. As I said: fey imprints are different.”
“Yeah, but this different? It’s 3-D!”
“What?”
“Like a stereoscope,” I said, because the original version of the View Master toys for kids were in practically every parlor, allowing Victorians and their Edwardian cousins to juxtapose two slightly different pictures of the same thing to give a depth effect. They oohed and ahhed over 3-D pictures of lions on the Serengeti and junks riding a Chinese river the same way we laugh at funny YouTube videos.
And I guess she understood that, because she nodded. “Allied fey have a group consciousness that they can tap into, to coordinate movements in battle and share information. In times of stress, this group mind can sometimes create an imprint, combining the knowledge of all those assembled.”
“Like having a bunch of different cameras recording the scene from different angles?”
She nodded. “In a way, although a camera wouldn’t include sound and scent, even touch, as a fey imprint does.”
I felt the cold stone under my fingertips and wondered what Hollywood would pay for tech that could duplicate this. Probably a lot; probably anything. And then what else she’d said registered.
“A group consciousness? You mean, like a vampire clan, in each other’s heads all the time?” Because I’d never heard that.
“I don’t know a great deal about vampires,” she said, sounding surprised that I did. “But no, the fey can’t read minds—most fey. Not in the sense you mean.”
“But in some sense?”
“Their consciousnesses are able to access the Common, a fund of knowledge compiled over many generations, for the use of all. Information is constantly being added, and they can retrieve that, but it isn’t true mind reading.”
“Okay, I don’t get it,” I told her honestly and opened my eyes.
I deliberately didn’t look at the little group across the terrace. I faced the telepath instead, and the small garden over her shoulder, which was just starting to put out fresh, green shoots. It made me feel better, although having my back to Aeslinn was giving me hives.
“Say that one person from a clan has been to an area before,” she explained slowly, as if trying to put into words something that she’d never had to think much about. “Another fey from their house could visit the same place and know how to navigate it. He wouldn’t have his family member’s exact thoughts, although he might get flashes from time to time—sights, smells, a snippet of conversation. But he likely would be able to trace his relative’s footsteps and find his way. Even an ancestor’s footsteps, although the terrain may have changed, in that case.”
I blinked at her. “An ancestor? You mean the memories don’t fade, even after someone . . . passes on?”
“It isn’t memory. This is a memory,” she gestured around. “An event from long ago, imprinted onto a prized possession. A previous imprint showed me the fey’s father making a quiver full of arrows for his son, along with the quiver itself. The son had been holding onto the last one since he heard of his father’s death, as a sort of keepsake. He must have fired it in error, as I cannot imagine him letting it go otherwise—”
“Okay, I get that,” I said, trying not to sound impatient, because I already knew how imprints worked. “But this Common thing . . . you’re saying it’s like a library? A bunch of information about Faerie that anyone can access?”
Because something like that could be really helpful. Something like that could be game-changing! Which made me wonder why I hadn’t heard about it before.
The war council had been getting briefed on Faerie a lot lately, to the point that I was pretty sure I’d deserve a degree, after this. I’d sat through long lectures on everything from politics and culture, to history and geography. And yet nobody had thought to mention a fey library in the cloud that they uploaded information to, about all sorts of things?
Seemed like a big damned oversight!
Especially where the war was concerned. If we caught one of Aeslinn’s people, could he tap into the hive mind and tell us where to find the army? Or could we figure out what the king was planning and how many men he had left? Or the location of his allies, a group of dark mages and traitorous vamps that we’d been searching for what felt like forever, and who had been waging a devastating war on us here on Earth?
I just sat there for a second, mind blown.
The telepath continued, unaware of my internal turmoil. “The collective mind remains, and grows richer over time,” she agreed. “As a library’s collection would. But it is not well organized, as a library would be. Nor does it always contain the information you seek.”
“What do you mean?”
“Simply that the knowledge is often donated unconsciously. To take the previous example, you may be able to find your path through unfamiliar terrain thanks to an ancestor who passed that way once, many years before. But the information he left might be superfluous in some ways and inadequate in others.”
“Such as?” I asked, because I was finding this whole concept a little mind bending.
She shrugged. “You might recall a bit of tasty fish he had at a tavern once, but not how to find water in a desert. You might remember a girl he tumbled, how golden her hair was or how . . . much he enjoyed her company. But not know the password needed to get through a warded gate, or whether a particular fruit is safe to eat.”
“You mean it’s random?” Because that wasn’t good. We needed specific information, not some guy’s accidental travelogue!
“Not entirely. People can try to donate information they think may be useful, to coordinate between group members scattered over a wide area—”
Which explained how the army had been keeping ahead of us, I thought grimly.
“—but their success will vary depending on their skill. And even assuming they are successful, someone else’s ability to retrieve that information will differ. It is why the fey often travel in groups. It isn’t just for protection; it is also about having more than one mind to access the Common, when needed.”
“I see.” Kind of. “Where is this information kept?”
“Kept?”
“Housed, located. There’s got to be . . . like a server somewhere, right?”
“A server?”
“A depository. A library. It can’t just be in their heads?”
The telepath looked confused. “But that is exactly where it is. This is knowledge, not a tangible thing.”
“But you said they tap into it. So, they don’t carry all that knowledge themselves.”
“No.” She suddenly looked sad, and then angry. She stood up abruptly. “No, they don’t.”
“Wait,” I said, getting up, too. I’d somehow put my foot in it, but I needed to know this. “I’m sorry—”
She brushed it aside, and started forward. “It is not important, and we have work to do—”
I put a hand on her arm, although she didn’t seem to like that, so I pulled it back. But at least it stopped her. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I know I’m not the sharpest pencil in the box, but I need to understand this. Help me understand this.”
She looked at me for a moment, her dark eyes snapping. And then confused. “Sharpest pencil?”
I tried again, although I was pretty sure they had pencils in her era. “Brightest bulb?”
“What?”
“Sandwich short of a picnic? Eats soup with a fork? Would lose a debate with a doorknob?”
She smiled slightly, finally understanding, and showed off a dimple in her right cheek. It gave her a slightly lopsided grin, which was quirkily attractive. It was also better than the almost tragic expression she’d been wearing a moment ago.
So, I kept it up, although I was pretty sure she had the idea now. “Knitting with only one needle? Would argue with a sign post? Hasn’t seen the ball since kickoff?”
“How do you know so many of these?” she laughed.
“I grew up at a vampire’s court. Some of the guys had this game, to see how many ways they could tell me I was . . . a nice house with no furniture. A few shades beyond blonde. Not that smart.”
The pretty smile faded. “You would think that creatures so old would be wiser. But then, many places have that problem.”
She sat back down, and gazed out at the horizon for a moment. “The souls of fey who die in Faerie are said to continue after death,” she said. “It is believed that none really die, but are reabsorbed into the great soul of the world, and eventually live again in some form. And when they return to this great soul, they take their knowledge with them, to be added to the whole—a common memory, you see?”
