Chapter 35

35.

         Her parents had been unremarkable. Wealthy, well-meaning perhaps, but essentially boring. It had not been an easy admission to make but now, with so much behind her and the experiences of a thousand minds at her disposal, it was the only intelligent thing to say. They had given her an easy childhood and would have given her an easy life had events not conspired to make it otherwise. Even so, nothing in her life had been utterly unconquerable. Some things just took longer than others. Most of the time she could simply outwait the obstacles and time did the rest.
         But now she was old and each wait became riskier and riskier. One time she would finally blink and that would be it. Life only has to win once to be forever victorious. She had known that for the longest time. From the first boy she had seen dying in the street, foaming drying on the edges of his lips, his limbs twitching with possessed malice, his eyes seeing nothing but the same laughing face of his defeat, his skin stretched tight on his too warm frame, giving him a transient, translucent look. He had known, long before she did. Often she wondered if he deserved such an early loss, if life would have not promised him greater things had he lived. Perhaps he would have been more successful than she was. But that was life and that was luck. Just because you had it didn’t mean you deserved it. But no one was willing to give it up.
         Life’s finality was her only obstacle and it was one she thought of constantly, in fits and starts, in spurts of existential clenching, in moments of worn resignation. Things did not have to be the way they were, but one could not change the laws of the world.
         Or could one?
         “So you want immortality, is that it?” the soldier the girl had called Brown said to Maleth, his eyes not bothering to hide his contempt. Even captured, arrogance still came easily to him. Maleth could admire that. But he didn’t let the sentiment blind him. Even when he stared at her, his eyes were all over, darting about the room, seeking cracks in the defenses, constantly forming and discarding plans. He was not a rash man, or he would have attacked long before. Instead he waited. That they had in common at least. Everything and nothing, for he in theory could wait forever. “One day I’m going to have to get around to writing those brochures. Immortality’s not a switch you can just flick on, or in a pill you can take.” His eyes narrowed as he stared at her, at the room encasing them. “If that’s what you dragged me here for, why you’re continuing this little game, then you have a lot of waking up to do, lady. Because that’s not happening.” He pointed at her with his dully gleaming stub, framing the gesture with a sardonic smile. “Though I do give you credit for setting your sights so high. I suppose that counts for something.”
         “I’m grateful for your praise,” Maleth said pleasantly. At the other end of the village she listened to a couple arguing, her ears a baby’s in a cradle, the voices warped like something emerging from the inside of a bell. The timbre of their tones said everything. She lingered only for a second. It was nothing she hadn’t heard before. Perhaps later she would see if how the couple would react to evidence of adultery. From both parties. “But I’m afraid you have me all wrong. I’ve let a good life, I have no wish to extend it.”
         “That’s good to hear,” Brown said mildly, “because at the rate you’re going, you won’t be enjoying much more of it.” The statement was delivered without much inflection, merely throwing insults at her to see if any actually stuck. His heart wasn’t in this. Maleth had the impression he quite simply couldn’t be bothered. But that might have been a facade as well. Because he had every reason to pay very close attention to what happened in the next few minutes.
         “The girl called you Commander,” Maleth said, drawing him out. Now that he had spoken to her, it would be that much harder to convincingly stay silent. Valreck’s mistake had been to jump right in and begin the interrogation even before he had finished walking in the door. Valreck was far too direct, perhaps a result of his arid upbringing, where the only path was the quickest and the quickest path was straight through. “That sounds like a very high rank in the Time Patrol . . . almost near the top, I would say.” Very much unlike the grounds behind her childhood home, which had been infiltrated by a great dense garden, crouching like some spiky green beast against the back of her home and the adjacent grounds. Its paths were twisted and winding, barely seeming to take the same route twice. It was there she first jumped, as an eight year old, right into the body of a young serving boy who was energetically copulating with one of the handmaids. Things like that had gone on all the time, Maleth had been aware even as her young age. But when seen from that perspective, all the gasping and sweat and scratching and moaning, it had been overwhelming, her mind flooded with sensations so foreign they might as well have come from another species. They found her in the middle of the garden, curled in a fetal position, her face absolutely pale. Her heart had stopped, the physician said later. Twice. He never said so outloud. She heard him all the same. “I can’t imagine there being anything much higher than Commander . . . wouldn’t you agree, Commander?” That’s where it began.
         Brown merely eyed her silently, much as she expected him to. He would talk about anything as long as he could bring the subject back to their eventual defeat. But when it came to divulging actual information, he became very mute indeed.
         “In fact, and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, I would say that if not the highest, it would be among the second or third in ranking, in my opinion. Am I close, Commander?” He said nothing to her, his face carefully controlled. His mind was a maddening void as always. Most people were to her open doors, only the thinnest of membranes keeping her from experiencing every past aspect of their lives, abstract or otherwise, and if she so desired, creating new memories in as hands-on a fashion as possible. Outside and nearby, as if by clockwork, five boys who never spoke to each other normally came together and by a prior agreement they never quite fathomed, proceeded to beat the living hell out of a man in his home. It was the same man every day, at the same time. Maleth had once caught him doing something terrible, his hands like slabs of greased fat, caressing in a manner he should never have dared. In the end killing him was simply too easy. There was something primitively feral about blood on the knuckles. Especially when it splashed, as it often did. Sometimes she allowed him to assist in his own beating. The pain remained totally his, of course, although occasionally she delayed it by a few hours, just to make him think that he had someone avoided this day’s punishment. “Should I ask the child again, Commander, because if you’re memory is not doing so well, I’m sure hers-“
         ”No!” Brown snapped, nearly getting off the bed. His movements were amazingly fluid. It was sometimes hard to remember that he was just as human as she was, although perhaps more resilient. His outburst expanded further, spread into his face, before he caught himself and retracted the emotion, returning it to the same opaque hole it always hid in. “That . . . it’s not necessary,” he said, his voice flatlining. “Leave her alone, we don’t need her here.”
         “If you say so,” Maleth replied with a friendly, open smile. “Though I think you’d want her here, you have so few familiar faces around here . . . although one wonders why a teenage girl is wandering around with the Time Patrol, especially one with our abilities.”
         “She’s just a kid,” Brown said roughly, his stare trying to push Maleth out the door. But no, he couldn’t affect her mind at all. His only weapons were the veils and mirrors of legend, the subtle club of mythical intimidation. In the light, these shadowy warriors faded away completely. He was not powerless but he was certainly impotent. “Let her go, she has nothing to do with this.”
         “Oh I don’t know,” came the offhand reply. “I think she’s fitting in quite well here . . . one might even suggest she was destined to come to my home . . .” In a bed in a dark room, with only a pale slit of light allowed to touch his face, a man counted down his remaining heartbeats. When he reached zero he said a silent prayer and began again. One of these times, he would get it right. Sometimes Maleth would have his granddaughter come in and sit by his bed, silently stroking what fragile strands of hair were left on his thin skinned forehead. Quite blind and nearly deaf, he barely knew she was there. The rest of the time the girl complained about how much he smelled. Maleth suspected he was older than even her, although the years had not been as kind. “She’s been an absolutely delightful guest, I’ll have you know, the whole house has simply fallen in love with her. There’ll be tears if she decides one day to leave, that’s for certain.” The old man’s breathing was a broken wheeze, barely heard over the gentle whispering of the day’s breezes. He smelled of dirt and the grave. Maleth reveled in it. She needed the reminder. It kept her fighting. It kept her moving. Never present a moving target. Her first instructor had told her that. When alone he would speak of himself in the third person. He was much thinner than he pretended to be.
         “What is it you people want?” Brown said suddenly, rising from the bed in a blur of dark quicksilver. It occurred to her that if he wanted to, he could easily beat her to death with what was left of his hands. In a sense his entire body was a weapon, right down to the skin. It was said that some soldiers would tear out their own ribcage for a weapon if they had nothing on hand. She wondered how one taught that particular technique. Even his voice was a barbed net, every intonation designed to claw her in different directions. “You keep me imprisoned . . . for what . . . so you can come here and make vague threats, pass me off from person to person and see who can kill me with boredom first? You haven’t told me anything the first guy didn’t say in tedious detail . . . and at least he had some demands, as inane as they were. All you’ve got is an inflated sense of self importance and apparently this weird idea that if you annoy me long enough I’ll tell you anything you want to know . . .” he held his wrists out before her. “I hate to break it to you, but these are going to grow back and it won’t be pretty when they do. You’re not stupid, you know it as well as I do . . .” He slashed down with one stunted hand, creating a low humming noise in the air. “We’re going to win this, there’s no doubt in my mind that we will, if only because we’ve faced things that make your little operation look like a grotesque circus on the verge of closing down . . . and the longer this goes on the bloodier it will be, I assure you.” He had been pacing back and forth in front of the bed, as animated as she had ever seen him. Even that was a facade, as carefully crafted as anything else about him. Every motion was a feint, designed to test her reflexes for when the real strike came.
         But it was best to play along anyway. All in the name of the game. “Very well then, in the interest of fairness, what exactly do you want from us?”
         “Total capitulation,” Brown replied without hesitation. Such gall. “You release me and anyone else you might be holding, you drop them off somewhere safe . . . and then I want total disclosure, I want to know why you’re here and what you’ve been doing . . .” his eyes, constantly being renewed, swept over her. She imagined those eyes commanding armies. She wondered what the world looked like through those orbs. “I’ll give you the same offer I gave the other fellow . . . if there’s nothing screwy going on here I’ll leave you alone . . . but if something is wrong, then I fix it. My way.” His expression did not change, although something in his face reflected a form of triumph. “That’s the best offer you are going to get, I’m afraid.”
         “And they call you the prisoner,” Maleth said with a smile. Shifting in her chair, she stared up at him with clear eyes and said, “Very well, let me spell out what I wish from you . . .”
         “I told you, you’re-“
         ”You call off your friends,” Maleth said, cutting out his voice, somehow slicing right across those vibrant tones. His words would never decay with age, he would never have to strain. Did he deserve it? It was not for her to say. “You tell them to halt their attacks and withdraw, with a promise never to interfere with our lives here.”
         “That all?” Brown asked dryly.
         “Not at all. Please. I’m just getting started.”

* * * * *

         “It was you,” Junyul said, after standing in the doorway for a full minute, waiting for him to notice her first. “In my head, it was you.”
         “Hm?” Ranos said, not facing her, engrossed in examining a finely wrought piece of pottery, turning it over and over in his spidery hands. Without putting the object down, he turned slightly to see who was speaking to him. His eyes betrayed no reaction as he regarded Junyul. “Oh, yes,” he said after a moment. “Why, it was.” The coldness refused to leave his face, made his words only stronger. “Did you enjoy it? I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
         “You were in my mind,” Junyul said again, entering the room now, the door slamming shut violently behind her, rattling the hinges. Part of her wished his tone was more mocking, that was making light of the incident. But no, his voice remained stoic and even. His detached manner was neither mocking nor ironic. Junyul had the impression that he simply didn’t care. “Why were you there? You had no right to be there. No right at all.” Fleetingly, she probed at his thoughts, trying to find a conduit through which to convey her anger. Using only words hardly seemed adequate. But he remained closed off and aloof. There was no entrance.
         “I suppose that’s true,” Ranos said mildly, removing his hands from the piece of pottery and letting it float back to its place on the table. “But then, one might be able to say that you have no right to imprison others.” His voice never wavered from its calm monotone. “One might say that you have no right to interfere with the minds of others on a regular basis. One might say that it is not your place to set yourselves up as a sort of shadow puppeteers, manipulating the scenario until it is to your liking.” Ranos paused for a second, as if expecting her to say something. He continued without making a note of it. “And finally, one might also say that for all your efforts here, it will soon enough crumble, with or without outside interference.” His gaze dared her to disagree. For the first time a smile twitched at the edge of his lips. It was the least comforting thing she had seen all day. “Isn’t that right . . . Junyul?”
         Behind Ranos the pottery trembled, as if cowering. Nothing else moved. The smile remained on Ranos’ face, his mind a perfectly featureless shell. Nothing got in, nothing got out.
         Junyul forced herself to take a deep breath. Mindgames. That’s all it was. He sought to provoke her, though for what reason she didn’t know. They had the upper hand right now, although that was a unstable pedestal, prone to toppling at any moment. “So this is how you strike back in your desperation? Throwing my violation back in my face?”
         “Just proving a point,” Ranos replied inscrutably. He moved away from the table, making a semicircle around the room in a clockwise fashion, as if trying to pull the ninety degree corners into something rounder, more suited to his views. “And for the record, it was you who came here and brought it up.” He stopped at the point on the other side of the room, hands clasped behind his back and looking up at the second floor. Of the series of doors lining the walls up there, all were closed. His eyes were focused on a specific one. Junyul knew why instantly. She hoped that Maleth had thought to put up barriers around the room, for all the good it would do. “Besides, names are easy to discern, merely surface embeddings. Any novice could do it with some practice, learning to walk is frankly a more complicated exercise.” His eyes never left the door. She swore she heard the wood strain and warp. “No, it’s the deeper things that take some digging, and often . . .”
         you have to speak outloud or it will find you have to keep your head quiet or the thing will come and eat you all you have to keep quiet quiet quiet-
         Junyul yelled and jumped back, her back nearly hitting the wall. The memory had suddenly emerged from the loose sand of her mind like the creature she had been frightened of, rising up without warning, displacing everything else in its wake.
         “. . . what you find rewards the effort it took to search,” Ranos concluded, still without looking at her.
         “You bastard,” she whispered, unable to keep the sensation of sand out of her eyes. It was false, she knew that. With an effort she pushed all foreign sensations away. “Do you find this funny? Is this the kind of thing that excites you?” She tried to spit out the words with as much venom as possible but it merely slid down his defenses, leaving them as unmarked as always. “What else did you see in there? What are you looking at now?” She was letting herself get too angry, being drawn into his game. Her wrath would only shatter against his dense calm. This is the legendary Ranos, then. He was older than she thought, and much taller. At the College people often spoke of him, especially those who had been there during his tenure. His room was still left empty, partly from superstition and partly tradition. Sometimes a young image of him could be seen pacing around the floor, a testing the borders of a cage he helped create. Sometimes the students would test each other and try to spend the night in the room. Nearly every time indescribable nightmares drove them away. It was said he visited the room occasionally, when he was in the area. People reported seeing him all the time.
         And now Junyul was in the room with him, being taunted by him, her thoughts and memories already rifled through like so much trash. She wanted to make him stop, she wanted to see him suffer. And yet he was vastly more experienced than she was. Any conflict would be no contest at all. Junyul told herself that walking out would be the best option. After all, he couldn’t follow her. She had no reason to be here. Certainly not a good enough reason to let Ranos make a fool of her. Nothing was stopping her from leaving right now.
         Except this was Ranos. This was a legend. Honestly, she had never thought him to be real. And now here he was. Junyul told herself leaving was still an option. For some reason, she didn’t believe it.
         He hadn’t answered her question, but he chose to now. “What am I looking at?” he asked, as if he had come up with the inquiry himself. Men with legs of needles ran across her brain. Stop it, she whispered silently, driving her nails into her palms. He did it so effortlessly. That kind of ability you couldn’t learn even if you had forever. You were born with it, it chose you. It was hard not to be jealous of him. Except they had the upper hand. They were winning. In the end, that was all that counted. Right? “I won’t be so lacking in manners as to list a catalog of everything I see. Unless, of course, you feel it’s necessary.”
         She didn’t. He knew that. For a second, Junyul thought he would anyway.
         Instead, he continued to speak, but not about that. “What I see in the same as what I see in everyone else, moments of joy interspersed with seconds of tragedy and sorrow. You would see much the same if I allowed you a glimpse into my own memories.” The last was said something approximating a kind smile. But it was just another move in the game, another feint. Junyul wished she knew the rules. It would make everything so much easier. The temperature was an aberration here, pockets of hot and cold kept washing over her.
         “But you won’t do that, will you?” Junyul said with some bitterness. “You know far more about me than I do about you.”
         “I do,” Ranos said simply, the admission costing him nothing. “Is that fair?” He paused again, although he knew her answer. Still, he shrugged. “It does not matter, I did what I did because I had a need, my friend was missing and I needed to find him. You were the means to that end.”
         “But it did nothing, it revealed to you nothing at all,” Junyul pointed out.
         “Nothing?” Ranos asked, one eyebrow raised questioningly. “On the contrary, it told me there were mindbenders about, it gave me a relative idea of the strength of the people I would be facing and as for finding my friend . . .” and now his smile was triumphant, a man caught in a cage but realizing that the world is just a bigger cage and once you know you’re caught, you aren’t really trapped anymore. “. . . well, sometimes indirect results are the best ones, wouldn’t you say?” as he inclined his head toward the second floor and its line of featureless doors.
         All of a sudden, Junyul realized what a horrible mistake Maleth had made bringing Ranos here. She had thought to imprison the man, to keep track of his movements at all times and by doing that render him impotent and useless. It was just the opposite. All she had done was focus him. And when you focus a lens, that’s when things begin to burn.
         “You won’t get him back,” she said, telling herself to teleport out right now, wishing she had somewhere to teleport to. “Not without compromise, not without conceding. It’s inevitable.” She believed what she was saying. Ranos had to see that. He had to.
         “That’s exactly what Mandras said,” Ranos told her, without any trace of mirth. Just the name sent a shiver of cold through her chest. “You should ask him about certainty now, and see what kind of answer you get. If he’s at all coherent, that is.”
         Without waiting to see if she would answer, Ranos tore his eyes away from the room, then strode past her in a leisurely fashion, moving to complete the shape he had only begun to draw. “I want you to understand, everything you do from this point is merely theatre, delaying and prolonging what it is going to be an unpleasant conclusion. Not all of you will make it out alive, I can guarantee you that now . . .” his voice was a low hum, nearly inaudible. It was impossible not to listen. “The question is, then,” and he was looking at her without eyes. His back was to her and his gaze was sending shivers through her. “Would you like to be one of the ones left at the end.”
         “I won’t help you,” she spat out almost immediately.
         “Oh, I knew that already,” Ranos replied. She could feel his mind darting around the crevices and crannies on the surface of her thoughts, poking and prodding, gathering more information with every second. It was maddening in a way, but Junyul was determined to stand her ground and prove that she wasn’t frightened. Unfortunately, that have been playing into his hands as well. She should get out while she could. Let Maleth handle him. But something kept her there. “I was just giving you something to think about.” His tone was too helpful, hiding the concealed barbs. He paced ahead a few more steps, until he was nearly back to where he had started from. The piece of pottery appeared to catch his eye anew, and he regarded it silently for a few moments.
         Then he glanced over at Junyul again, regarding her in much the same fashion. His face became briefly thoughtful, and he said, “I have no real desire to harm anyone, least of all you. I have stolen knowledge from your mind without your consent and, regardless of my motivations, it was wrong and I should try to make amends.” Junyul found herself nearly transfixed. What was he talking about? Amends? How? “The best way I can do that is to trade knowledge for knowledge. That is the only fair way to do it.” He looked down briefly and Junyul heard him take a deep breath. When he spoke again he did not look at her. “I can tell you what happened to your husband, Junyul. If you want, I will tell you.”
         Heart rumbling, Junyul found herself unable to say anything. That was it, then. He knew everything. Just that brief glimpse into her mind had showed Ranos her entire life, all her fears and dreams. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. Her abilities were supposed to keep her apart from such things. It wasn’t even a violation anymore, it wasn’t even a rape, it was like he had been written into her life without warning, scrawled into the memories, fading into the photographs and paintings. He was never there, but now he was. He knew it all. Everything.
         And surely if he knew all that, then he knew her answer. Nothing was closed to him anymore. She might as well admit it to herself. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore.
         Ranos peered at her closely for a second, looking for answers that she couldn’t say. She had no idea what he would tell her. It didn’t matter. The hole needed to be closed off. Somehow. Even if she had to plug it with whatever was at hand.
         Then, he blinked, apparently spotting what he needed, what little prompting she had. His eyes became fleetingly sad and his lips barely moved when he spoke.
         “I’m sorry,” he said, quite clearly in a voice that might have only been in her head, “but he died. They all did. I’m sorry.”
         And then he showed her how.

* * * * *

         “Immortality is irrelevant to me at my age. Dying I can accept, remaining forever old is another matter entirely. In any event I do not suspect that I could force you to grant me such a gift anyway, I doubt it’s yours to dispense. There is more than one way to achieve such a thing, anyway. If I desire it, I’ll get to it in my own good time.”
         Brown’s eyes merely watched her, saying nothing. Maleth could sense him weighing every option, a million neon lit paths out of this room, all crisscrossing, all focusing on her, all fraught with a subtle danger. He could get out, but he couldn’t leave.
         “So what do I want from you, Commander? It’s very simple and only involves two other demands.
         “One, you will deposit me and whoever I choose to come with me in a time and place of my choosing. It may be the future, it may be the past, it may be next door to whatever place you once called home. You will forbid the Time Patrol from ever having any sort of presence in that time and place and once I am safely there I do not see any reason why we will ever have to see each other again. You should draw some small comfort in that.”
         “Oh, I do,” Brown said dryly, absently clanking his wrists together. In the light it appeared that flaps of skin where growing around the edges of it, translucent and inflamed. Maleth imagined such a thing would make their removal all the more painful. Wasn’t that a pity. “So if I’m following this right so far, you want them to stop trying to rescue me and you would like us to drop you off somewhere and never see you again.” His smile was predatory. In the proper light it might have glinted. “Three guesses which aspect of that I like. Bonus points if you figure out where I’d like to send you.”
         “You sense of humor during your confinement is laudatory,” Maleth replied, offering her own mirthless smile. “However, I am still not finished.”
         “Really? I can’t imagine how’ll you top yourself. Perhaps you’d like to go back and start this conversation over again?”
         “My last demand,” Maleth said, her withered voice weathering his sarcasm with ease, “is that you will allow me to change one event of my choosing. I promise you it will be nothing major, and perhaps it is something of a whim, but while I have the opportunity, I might as well do so.”
         Finished, she smiled again, saying, “Well, any comments? When would you like to start?”
         Brown appeared torn between laughter and outright disgust. “You think it’s that easy, lady? To just go and change whatever the hell you feel like changing? That’s not how it works, that’s never how it works.” A hollow, nearly hoarse laugh emerged from his throat. He was nearly standing now. Maleth wondered if he was actually angry or this was just another feint. Misdirection was their method. Any moment she kept expecting him to turn into mist. “You think just because you have me captured here I’m going to go along with whatever weird demands you come up in your less senile moments? My God, you people are nuts, I can see why you people left Mandras and crew, you’ve even wackier than he was.”
         “I’ll see you’ll need time to think about it,” Maleth said, getting to her feet with a mild groan. Every day the bones protested more and more. “Take as much time as you need, the demands won’t be changing. But remember, the longer you wait, the greater the risk that something terrible will happen to your friends.”
         “The thing I’m going to do with my time is think of more ways to get the hell out of here,” Brown retorted. “And as for my friends, they are more than capable of taking care of themselves. The longer this goes on, the more advantage they’re going to have.” His tone became abruptly pleading. “Lady, I don’t want to see this turn into a bloodbath, I don’t want to see people die for no good reason . . . let it go. Whatever the hell is making you do this, let it go. It’s not worth it. I guarantee you, when it’s all over, you’ll see. Don’t push this farther than it has to go.” Another feint, as usual. Mere posturing. Who could fall for it?
         Maleth was at the door now, one hand on the knob. “I believe how far it goes is entirely up to you now, isn’t it, Commander?”
         “You’re all dead,” Brown whispered and Maleth had the impression he would have killed her right then. What stopped him she didn’t know. It was unclear whether he meant the sentiment as a promise or a prediction. It changed nothing.
         “Make the choice willingly, while you are able to, Commander,” Maleth warned. She didn’t think he would react well to such a statement. “The consequences won’t be on my head.”
         He didn’t, of course. “And what are you going to do to me, what can you possibly do . . . are you going to try and kill me?” The arch tone in his voice indicated he’d very much welcome the attempt. “Or maybe just cut off my arms and legs and annoy the hell out of my torso? Or perhaps you’ll come up with some new form of torture that doesn’t involve mutilation or talking me to death, although I have a feeling you’ve exhausted your collective creativity.”
         “A day ago I would have said you were right,” Maleth replied, her tone calm. Something in her voice silenced whatever further comment he was going to make. She had his attention now. “But matters have changed and with them have come new opportunities.” She paused, stepped back and let go of the door, letting it open smoothly. A touch, a nudge, that was all it took sometimes. Blunt force had its uses but it had no place in the finer areas of life. It always seemed to leave a stain, no matter how well you washed. “And I didn’t want it to come to more threats, Commander, but your immobility leaves me with no choice. So I will tell you this . . .” he tensed and for a second she thought he might do it. But the open door did not represent freedom, just an entry into another cage. “. . . if you do not cooperate, I will have the child pierce your mind. I know what she is capable of, I know she is more than able to do what the rest of us cannot. Furthermore, if I ask, she will do it.”
         Maleth stepped through the open door, stood framed by the doorway. Light coming from a distant window made her somehow look inflated and shriveled at the same time. “One way or another, Commander, you will pay, either by acceding to my demands or by telling us everything we want to know about the Time Patrol.”
         “And what will you do with it?” Brown asked, his voice level, some of the arrogance dissipated from it. “It’s useless to you. What possible use could you have for it?”
         “Why, I’ll disseminate it to every person who will listen,” Maleth said and this time her smirk was a terrible thing. “Because isn’t truth the thing that always destroys a myth?”
         Brown had no answer. She really didn’t expect one.
         “You have the demands, you have the stakes. From here on, the choice is entirely in your hands. Don’t waste any time.”
         Without another word, she moved away and the door swung closed with a quiet click.

* * * * *

         Bodies.
         There are bodies everywhere.
         Walking on the sand, I see them. Their blood congeals on the ground, there’s too much to evaporate and dry. I can’t see any of their faces. I know them all. They lay like they were felled in midstep, going about their business without knowing what was coming. All of them. As far as I can see. Row after row after row. An unwavering display of endless variation.
         That one there, his chest removed, his lungs lying several feet away like discarded and rotten fruit, he used to greet me every morning when our paths crossed.
         And that one, with an ivory white shard of bone jutting from her neck, she made beautiful colors from the sand, straining them together in a grainy prism.
         And those two, thrown against each other in a violent embrace, organs entwined in a mockery of love, at night she could hear them speak of what they would do once the battles were over and the Universe would be open to them.
         All of them.
         I knew them all.
         I did. That one lying sideways, the broken pieces of a tentpole rammed into his mouth and stomach, the work of a madman staking his claim to brutality, he used to look at me with undisguised lust. I hated him. He’s dead now, like everyone else.
         I can’t count them all. The stench hits me and all of a sudden it’s impossible to see. The hot sand sifts between my fingers, clumping together into blood soaked balls, the ground is saturated with violence. My eyes are watering, the smell is driving needles into my brain, its stinks of death and fear and despair and the screaming frustration of a victory by the one thing that proved the tenets right. Destiny meant death. It’s what they said. It’s what happened here. In every swollen, torn face, you can see it. In every twisted, distorted postures, fingers clutching at nothing, straining for the extra inch that might grant salvation, even as something that embodied all they believed in tore them to pieces.
         I can’t see. I can’t. I want to see. I have to find him. Where is he? I wander faster and faster but the sand is slippery under my feet and I can’t help but feel I’m sinking. Where are you? Where did you go? I have to know. I need to know. How you died. How they killed you. I have to see.
         But I can’t see.
         And I don’t know.
         Where you are.
         I don’t
         Where you are
         I don’t
         Know
         I
         Help
         She never screamed. She had no idea why not. Hands curled into claws she just stood silent against the barrage of images filtering into her brain, each one forming a unwatchable panorama, one that she was unable to look away from. He’s doing this. I know he is. There was blood in her nostrils. Where it came from, she couldn’t remember.
         Ranos was coming toward her now. His mind was a quiet storm but his face was expressionless.
         It occurred to Junyul that she should do something.
         But all she could do was watch.
         Through the air they fall in strobing hardlight images, a dozen twins charting their progress to the end, a study in deconstruction. Flesh tears. Bone shatters. Blood flies, suspended droplets hovering like heavy stars, sticking to the air and leaving pieces of themselves behind, descending in an environment too dense to support this life. You read the marks scrawled by desperate hands, striving to leave behind some sort of sign, some notice that they were here, that they lived.
         I can’t see his face.
         I can’t find it.
         It’s so slow motion but oh it’s so fast. One by one. A flurry and a spray and the sky is painted with a red hue. One by one. To their base components. Grains of sand. They’re soaking. Into the grains. Of sand. At my feet two eyeballs stare at each other, asking a question neither know the answer to. They’re different colors. I shouldn’t know this. I wasn’t there. He was there. But I can’t see him. Where did you go? What did they do to you?
         Without pity he slammed Junyul against the far wall. The brief sensation of motion was dizzying. The montage made it impossible to think. It was burying her. There was too many. Too many dead. So many of them? How? Who let it happen? That’s not what they were promised. Not what he said. She tried to push away from the edge, move back toward the center when Ranos shoved her away again. Involuntarily she bit her tongue and tasted blood. There was old sand in her eyes, in her mouth. No, there wasn’t. Through an inverted theatre she witnessed a man’s face peeled from his skull, mocking Mandras’ dream. No more masks. That’s what he said. But underneath the masks was nothing but blood and muscle. Blood and muscle and bone. It didn’t take destiny to remove the barriers. Just a firm, cruel hand. Everything about him was forcing itself into her eyes, her nose, her throat. Ranos was smothering her with himself. He never laid a hand on her. He was sitting on the couch now, his eyes cold, glittering things, his mind an implacable glass fortress bearing down on her with a terrible weight. By all the gods.
         The air itself weeps a clear, viscous liquid.
         I never . . . never realized . . .
         Nobody screams. There wasn’t time. There just wasn’t time. He came through with a madman’s efficiency, handing them the ending they craved and least expected.
         . . . how strong . . . he was . . .
         If she called his name he wouldn’t hear it. But he must be one of them. Perhaps the one with his dreams leaking out his ears and his spine twisted into a letter they never bothered to name. He has to be here. He’s not here at all.
         He was speaking now, and ignoring his voice wasn’t an option. It was the clanging of hammers and the quivering echoes that remained after the hammers had fallen silent.
         “I said I would not be caged here and I will not be . . .”
         What did you do to him?
         Junyul was crying now. It wasn’t because of Ranos. Their pain stabbed at her from a thousand angles, endless overlapping waves of suffering, a hundred pulsebeats stopping suddenly, their cargo needlessly emptied into the naked air. The tears on her face was soaking into the collar of her robe. His pain wasn’t there. It was gone. Missing. A hole in this nightmare patchwork.
         Where are you?
         “. . . what you seek is hidden behind an infinitely small knot hidden in the center of my mind, binding me to this place. I could teleport myself away, but the strings would tear me to pieces. It’s very cleverly designed, I am somewhat impressed.
         “I will be leaving soon. This is how.”
         She told him nothing on the last night. They had meant to make love but she had been so nervous that she had fallen asleep too soon and then later, when he was asleep, she had gone for a walk in the shredded moonlight. She had met Tolin out there, he was standing vigil for the camp and while there he had pointed out to the east and said that they were coming, the nomads and the rescuers. It was going to be decided one way or another, he had said.
         He was still sleeping when they left. She touched him once on the face, on the soft curve of his lips, and silently promised that she would come back for him. Her last words had been so inconsequential that even in this heightened state of memory, they were forever lost.
         How did he die? I have to know.
         “I cannot reach the knot myself but you can. And everything you need to know is linked to the knot. So all you need to do is transfer it from my mind to yours. Then you’ll know everything. It’s all very simple.”
         Oh, he was going to do it. To her. It was very simple, what he was doing. And it was going to happen. So classically simple. A blade wedged in the cracks in her mind, making the spaces wider, making anything possible.
         Did he sleep through his own death?
         “All you have to do is reach out . . . that’s it, just like that . . . that’s it . . . and wrap your fingers around the knot . . . excellent, just like that . . . just like . . .”
         Or did he have a moment of terrible comprehension before uncaring hands cleaved the sense out of everything he once held dear?
         “. . . closer, that’s it . . . closer . . . and once you have it . . .”
         Did it even matter?
         “. . . you’ll place it right in the center of your own mind, right in that spot I’ve prepared . . .”
         She was letting it happen. Everything he said was coming true. Every image was etched in her mind with steel teeth. The puzzle was welded together but with one piece still missing. Ranos had it. She had to take it. Had to take it and make sure she kept it.
         “. . . and once that happens . . .”
         He’s face down on the ground. There’s no mark on him. He’s not moving. You’re not sure it’s him. There was nothing distinctive about his body. Not clothed. You have to turn him over.
         “. . . what I want you to do . . .”
         Maybe he’s still alive. You have to know. You have to find out. All you have to do is turn him over. Your hands are right there. On his back. He’s so light. Just a little push. Just a small. Push. That’s. All it. Takes.
         “. . . is teleport as far away as you can.”
         The face is hidden. You just to have try harder.
         “I think you can do it.”
         Just try. Harder.
         “I think you will do it.”
         Almost. Like a stone coming free.
         “Won’t you?”
         Just . . . like a . . .
         “Hey, what are you doing?”
         no-

* * * * *

         Ranos was bleeding. He put one hand up to his nose in an attempt to stop the flow of blood but it just slid right over his fingers, threatening to stain his robe. He was on the floor now, although he didn’t remember how he had arrived there. In his mind there was the wreckage of what used to be a plan.
         The woman had teleported out. But it had been too early, the seed had not been properly planted. Chances are she was still alive. What had happened? He could not recall. The world felt strangely fluid, almost rubbery in a way.
         “I don’t think that was a very nice thing to do.”
         Hands roughly grabbed him, ignoring all his efforts to resist. Ignobly he was dragged across the floor, even as his feet struggled for purchase. Desperately he tried to reach out, to grab a mind, any mind, something he could twist and subvert, anything that would yield to his touch.
         A palm his entire mind could easily fit into grasped his perception and squeezed. Ranos gritted his teeth and gasped as a fresh flush of blood erupted from his nose, staining the floor, leaving behind a tortured snake of a design. Who is doing this to me?
         “Especially considering how patient everyone has been with you. Really, you could have hurt someone that way.”
         Distantly he became aware of a door ahead. The voice surrounded him, speaking directly to the core of his mind. He knew it. Even as invisible hands let him go and he tumbled clumsily forward, arms and legs losing the entire plot of coordination altogether.
         The floor was harder than he expected. Or he had become weaker than he had previously believed. It was an effort to get to his knees. Her presence infiltrated the entire room, almost the whole house. How had he not noticed it before? She was a solid phantom, extending into dimensions his mind had never even thought possible. Staring directly at her could cause a seizure if he didn’t remember to blink. It wasn’t possible. It was too fast. Without brakes, the vehicle can only careen off the hill.
         “But I really don’t think you’ll be trying anything like that for a while . . .”
         A finger full of burning stars touched his mind, ignited a spark. There wasn’t even time to scream. How had she known? How did she . . .
         Ranos sprang to his feet, stumbled awkwardly for a few steps sideways before crashing into the wall shoulder first, hands scraping along the wall in an attempt to stay upright. He did, but barely.
         She was in the doorway. The same as ever. But it wasn’t right. He knew it. It wasn’t right.
         “Kara . . .” he rasped, ashamed at how broken his voice sounded. “You have to . . . you have to stop this, you’re exerting in the wrong direction . . .”
         Kara didn’t appear to hear. Without looking at him directly, she said, “Do you think you could at least try to be civil now? I think that’s not too much to ask for, okay?”
         “You don’t understand what they’re-“
         A vice clamped down on his neck, reducing the rest of his intended words to a distended gurgle. Her voice was a velvet needle, leaving the poison behind only after the incision had been made.
         “I think I asked you a question, right?”
         He might have nodded. He didn’t recall clearly. Something fragile inside caused him to speak, forced him to stare directly at her. “I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me. Whatever you are doing, it must stop. Let her go.” There was no reaction from her eyes. Ranos didn’t expect any. Why did his throat feel so dry? It hurt to even speak. “Or else you risk teaching her the one thing she has avoided learning so far . . . the meaning of vengeance.”
         He swore something laughed behind her eyes, an old and terrible thing.
         The next thing he knew the pressure was gone and he was slumped against the wall, still standing, staring at the empty space where she had been standing. The air trembled with quantum motes at the memory of her presence. He stared at that spot for a long time, saying nothing, not even trusting himself to think.
         Ranos closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall, letting out a long, slow breath. How long he stood like that, he didn’t know.
         What made him open his eyes again was the nearby flicker of a presence. Even so, he didn’t know where to look.
         Until he heard the voice.
         “I think the best evidence of the existence of a higher power is how much it seems to want to try and prove me wrong.”
         Standing up straight, he turned toward the voice, a vague familiarity ringing in his ears.
         “I said this wasn’t a small Universe and yet here we are again, where you’d least expect it.”
         Slowly, with dawning recognition, Ranos’ eyes widened.
         “So how’re you doing, Ranos? Has it been as long as it feels?”
         “You,” was all Ranos said in reply, in a voice so quiet that it might not have even been a word at all.