Chapter 42

42.

         “You know, I never believed in you,” the child’s voice said from the darkness.
         Tristian stopped moving, his body taut and his eyes darting around, searching for the source of the voice. Slowly, he turned in the direction he thought it had come from, his fingers brushing against the sword still at his belt. From his position against the wall of a house, which he had been creeping past moments before, his eyes scanned the immediate area, looking for anything out of place.
         He saw the child a moment later.
         “I mean, not you specifically, but in your general concept, what you represented,” the child continued, and Tristian could see now that it was indeed a kid, sitting crosslegged against the house across from the one he was near. He was unable to make out any of its features, but he could tell it was a boy. The boy was holding what appeared to be a stick in his hands, turning it over and over lengthwise in a rhythmic fashion.
         Tristian said nothing immediately, briefly ignoring the child and straining his senses to try and detect anything else that might be lurking around him. This had to be some sort of trap. He didn’t hear anything, but that meant nothing. He was only human. If he tried to escape, he might stumble right into it and that wouldn’t be doing any good. Best to play along with this, then, and see where it went. Perhaps he might learn something.
         “That so?” he muttered, keeping his voice low, setting his back against the wall and beginning to crouch low, his knees bent only slightly, ready to dodge in any direction if necessary. Even with his eyes now used to the darkness it was hard to see anything but this opaque satin draped around him. “And what exactly am I supposed to represent?”
         The peered at him strangely for a moment and then laughed. Somehow the sound didn’t carry at all, falling flat to the ground almost instantly after leaving the child’s lips. “You don’t know. Oh, that has to be a first. The first time someone has to tell a myth how to interpret himself.” The child stood up, his movements oddly disjointed to Tristian’s eyes, although the shadows seemed to give him a sort of armor.
         “I didn’t realize I was a myth,” Tristian noted dryly. “I feel real enough.” Deftly, he slid the sword from his belt into his hand. The weight was reassuring, although he didn’t think he was going to cut a kid in half. He should have had it out long ago, but in the dark it was too prominent, he might as well would have sent up a flare telling everyone where he was. But clearly, he had been found by someone. The time for continued secrecy was long past. They knew he was here. They knew who he was.
         “As well you should,” the child agreed genially. He was twirling the stick in his hands, fingers nearly a blur as the slim object spun end over end, drawing dark circles in the dark air. “After all, enough people believe in you that if you didn’t exist, someone would have made you up by now.”
         “A belief you don’t share,” Tristian pointed out, holding the sword so that the blade, when it emerged, would point straight at the child. Still, it wouldn’t close the distance. He hoped the child stayed where he was. There was a hollow feeling in his stomach now, a swirling nervousness that always made him slightly sick. There was going to be a fight soon. Not with the kid, but with someone. Licking dry lips, he tried to talk around the tenseness in his throat. “And yet you haven’t explained to me what exactly I’m supposed to be.”
         “Oh, any number of things,” the child replied, waving his arm in a gesture that was child-like and at the same time far too mature and knowing. “The stories get all garbled over the years, you know? You’re not in the legends, but you’re part of them, you know. You never get one all to yourself. The mystery knight, servant of the higher power, who rides into the crisis and solves it, gives the crucial piece of information, turns the tide during the final battle, and when all the celebrating is going on, slips out the back door and moves on.” The cockeyed smile that oozed over the kid’s face didn’t belong there at all. “Though it seems this time you’re trying to sneak in through the back door, eh?” The smile only grew broader in the wake of Tristian’s stony silence. “Does any of this sound familiar at all? Any of it?”
         “What exactly are you getting at?” Tristian asked sharply, wondering what the hell kind of game was going on. Did they think this would distract him? “Is there some kind of point to this?”
         “Depends,” the child sniffed. “Like most myths, you take out of it what you want to. I just wanted to point out what your role is supposed to be in these things.”
         “But you said you never believed in any of it.” That fact for some reason kept nagging at Tristian.
         “Oh, I never did,” the child said offhandedly, squatting on the ground and sketching abstract lines in the dirt with the stick. Even in the dark, Tristian could tell he was grinning. “I always thought that savior stuff was a load of crap. You’ll die, same as the rest.”
         That last statement was what sent Tristian to his feet. He stepped away from the wall, not sure what he was going to do to the kid but fairly sure it involved unconsciousness. “So are you one of the mindbenders that dropped me before?” he asked casually, hoping to throw his heckler off guard.
         “Not at all,” a voice said to his right. He halted again, turning in that direction to see a young woman leaning against the wall, arms crossed over her chest, night wind plucking at her thin nightgown. “But that was something I definitely would have enjoyed seeing, to be honest.” It took him a moment to realize that the voices of the woman and the kid had nearly the same cadences. Her grin was far too similar to the child’s. The humor failed to touch her eyes, which were flat and glassy in the moonlight. Those eyes drifted to his hand and the grin only grew wider. “Ah, you do still have it,” the woman breathed. “Why don’t you draw it? We’re not going to leave you with any choice in the end, you know. Besides, I’ve always wanted to see it.”
         He had lingered too long. Even as the woman spoke his finger was sliding along the recessed switch. The periphery of his vision flared crimson and the woman’s face was bathed in a light the color of pale blood. Somehow the contrasts drenching her face gave her a demonic appearance. It didn’t matter. These people weren’t enough to stop him, however they were being controlled. Too much had tried to impede his inertia already and the momentum of events was bearing relentlessly down on him even as he stood there. Soon, movement would be out of his control. The only direction possible was forward and those in his way would simply have to retreat or risk being trampled.
         “Such exquisite brutality,” the child cooed, giggling slightly. The woman’s laughter joined in a second later, creating an eerie echoed effect. The sound somehow touched the borders of madness. Tristian backed away, wondering how much of this was planned to disturb him or if the mindbender had simply lost his or her mind. Either way, it occurred to him that it was time to leave. He did so, dashing in the only direction available to him, realizing that it was probably exactly they wanted him to go. The sickness in his stomach increased. His body still remembered the harm it had suffered during Kara’s rescue from Mandras and the trials it had endured. He was not all that inclined to be hurt again. Yet he knew he would do it, for Kara, for Joe, for any of his friends. Perhaps I am a mythical hero, he thought wryly, the sword throwing his shadow up on the opposite wall, the image both exaggerated and sharply defined.
         A crossbolt slammed right into the center of the shadow’s head. In response, Tristian threw himself to the ground, the sword gouging a shallow groove in the soil as he did so. The bolt remained in the wall, thin cracks spreading from it like tentacles, although the shadow itself was gone now, melted into the ground, pressed flat in an effort to disappear. But no shadow ever truly went away. Not while there was light to define it.
         “What happens when you die?” a man’s voice said, over his head but not too distant. There was the rackety wooden sound of a crossbow being wound again, in preparation for another bolt. He couldn’t stay here. He was a sitting target. “Do your creators come and lift you up to the sky, before laying waste to everything around?” The weapon twanged again and Tristian flung himself to the side, watching out of the corner of his eye as the bolt skidded along the ground. There was other shadows behind him, pointed like missiles, growing slowly closer. “Or do you simply die, like anyone else who dares think himself some kind of hero?”
         The next shot went completely wide but by this point Tristian was on his feet again, the sword cutting a fiery blur in the night air. He saw the man with the crossbow now, standing in the shadows some distance away. Another bolt was already loaded, and pointed directly at his chest.
         “Can you even be killed?” the woman’s voice asked and Tristian saw her creep into his peripheral vision. “Perhaps the fear of untold trillions sustains you, the power of a million ghost stories and bogeyman tales told to wide eyed youngsters. You need to exist, to be there to haunt their nightmares and fantasies.”
         “I’m just a man,” Tristian whispered, not caring if they heard him or not. “That’s all I am.”
         “Legends are men before history grabs hold of them,” came a wrinkled voice, as an elderly man shuffled into view. “But someone like you can transcend history itself and pass out of reality.”
         “You’re none of these people,” Tristian said. “You’re not any of them. Why are you doing this? Show yourself, or let me finish what you started.”          
         “You didn’t start it and you won’t end it,” the child said, crawling to his right, hugging the wall for support. His small face was surprisingly intent. “That’s the thing with legends. No one is big enough for the whole story.”
         “Not even you,” the old man said, almost in his ear.
         The crossbow fired.
         “Enough of this,” Tristian said with a shudder of calm, stepping smoothly to the side, the blade cutting across the air and slicing the bolt in half. “Either fight as yourself, or get out of my way. I’m not here to debate you. No more of these games.” How many were there? Could the same person be controlling them all? What was going on?
         “Games, he calls them,” the old man said, raising his cane to strike Tristian. It was an awkward motion, one that Tristian easily countered, not even bothering to use the sword. He angled sideways and tapped the man with the palm of his hand, sending him bodily into the wall. The cold eyes never left him, not even for a second.
         Tristian pivoted in a tight circle, the sword gripped in both hands, his face grim behind its angry light. Beyond its halo, faces emerged from the darkness, set like masks, all staring at him. He counted more now, silent witnesses shambling up to participate in this grisly dance, to add their views to the debate, all in the same voice.
         “Games,” another man said, nearly a twin to the first one, also holding a crossbow. This one was already loaded. Tristian balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to dodge if they both fired at once. He was tempted to charge them but up close the only thing he could do was cut them down, to prevent from being shot in the back. “You would think this is too important for mere games, hm?”
         “That’s what I thought,” Tristian responded, searching for another opening that he might escape through. But slowly the gaps were being closed with people, one by one, their bodies becoming the mortar for his cage. “But you seem to disagree. That would be a very costly mistake.”
         “Costly? For who?” the woman mocked, smiling and running her hands over the stomach of the man who had appeared at her side suddenly. Their looks were oddly similar. Tristian wondered if they were related. Such thoughts didn’t seem out of place here tonight. “Surely neither of us have anything to lose here.”
         “You least of all,” the child said from behind him. Tristian ddin’t dare turn around, not with two crossbows staring him in the face. But who knew what weapons were being prepared behind him. He had to get out of here. “After all, even if you die, you don’t. Not really.”
         “There always has to be one,” the second crossbow man said matter of factly. “Isn’t that right? Isn’t that how it goes?”
         “But tell me this,” the other man said, raising the crossbow to eye level, “when you die, when the end comes . . . is the next one still you or do they find someone else entirely? Because I’m not sure which makes better sense, honestly.”
         “I wouldn’t know,” Tristian admitted. “Ask me again in fifty years.”
         “Oh, I don’t think we’ll have to wait quite that long,” the other man said casually.
         Both men fired in tandem, the sound having a rigid elasticity that tore through the night’s stillness.
         This was ridiculous. They weren’t going to get him this way, not even with twice as many attackers, not even with an armada of projectiles. Even as the bolts left the crossbows he knew the trajectories, the paths might as well have been drawn in neon for him. A slight adjustment of his arm and the first bolt struck the sword head-on, disintegrating immediately, moving even beyond dust. The other streaked for his right side, the night nearly hiding its path. His other arm dove down even as Tristian stepped deftly to the side. Something jarred his arm, the shock vibrating up to his shoulder.
         “Amazing,” the woman laughed, and the man with her laughed as well, forming a crude harmony. “Such graceful majesty.”
         Lifting his hand, Tristian stared at the bolt clutched tightly in his palm with a sort of detached awe.
         “Indeed, you’re at the peak of your abilities, aren’t you?” the old man said, his voice level. “There’s not a man here who can stop you.”
         “Then why are you trying?” Tristian nearly shouted, not caring who he directed his words toward. It didn’t seem to matter. The tip of the sword sliced into the air before him, leaving crimson afterimages behind. “Don’t make me go through you to do this. Don’t make me.”
         “Ah, but who will you go through?” one of the crossbowmen asked. He couldn’t tell which one. All the voices seemed so similar now. Between the two men stepped a small family of four, the children moving in front of the parents, all dressed in their nightclothes. The two children were bleary-eyed, clearly having just woken up. Tristian heard more rustling behind him, indicating the arrival of more people. “The young? The old? The families? Who among these is expendable enough for your cause?”
         “Don’t do this,” Tristian warned dangerously. “Just tell me what you want.” A small girl rushed at him, a knife held close to her stomach. In his surprise he nearly took her head off. Instead he tripped her, snatching the knife away as he did so. He swore he heard her nose break when she hit the ground. He tossed the knife away, heard it rattle haphazardly in the darkness. “You’re just making it worse for when I find you-“
         ”Find me?” the old man chuckled. “And how are you going to do that?”
         One of the crossbowmen loaded another bolt. As he loaded he spoke, “Certainly not like you found the others. They made the mistake of assuming the quickest escape was the safest.”
         “But it’s not,” the child said, almost at his feet. The girl was trying to crawl away, her face pressed close to the ground. A dark smear was being left on the dirt. “Because you can hear us teleport, can’t you? That’s how you tracked us. You just waited until you heard us.”
         “You won’t hear me, though,” another man said, wheezing as he spoke. He slid into view on his hands and knees, not for any apparent reason. The shadow he threw against the wall was inhuman, the memory of a bloodstain long faded. “No matter how hard you listen. Because there’s nothing to hear.”
         “You still haven’t told me what you want,” Tristian said, trying to keep his voice even. There was a game being played here, but he didn’t know any of the rules. Surely the mindbender wasn’t mad enough to expect him to try and plow through all people? Surely he knew that if he forced Tristian’s hand, he would, somehow. The need was too great. He couldn’t himself be halted now. “Either tell me or get the hell out of my way.” The sword slashed out, gouging a mark in the nearest house, close to a woman’s head. Beyond her he could see the twinkling gleam from a dozen other eyes, all standing silently, watching. Dust trickled to the ground from the freshly cut groove. “I’ve wasted enough time here. I’ll waste no more.”
         “I think he’s serious,” the old man mused, running parchment fingers through the wound in the wall, uncomfortably close to Tristian. Tristian stepped away, deeper into what he realized now was an uneven and wobbly circle surrounding him. The garish light radiating from the blade made their faces ghastly to behold.
         “Then I’ll get down to business,” the young woman said, her voice so close that it felt like her breath creased his ear. Tristian spun to face her, holding the sword low to avoid cutting her unnecessarily, but she was some distance away. The eyes that focused on him were no more alive than before. The grin on the face of the man with her might as well have been surgically implanted.
         “You won’t find me here,” the man began.
         “But someday,” the woman continued, “somewhere you will. I know you, know your type. Already you’re planning on how to do it. All I want is safe passage, just one time. After that, I’m fair game.”
         “Just one time?” Tristian asked, suddenly aware that the assembled group was slowly shuffling toward him, threatening to further bow him in. None of the others except the one speaking said a word. The only remaining noise was footsteps rustling the dirt. He pointed the tip of the sword to the air, for fear that someone might rush forward suddenly and be impaled on it. “What kind of a request is that?”
         “It makes perfect sense,” the woman said, the only one to hang back. Even the man with her was coming forward. Every person had their arms at their sides. It was just bodies, shambling toward him. The most passive kind of assault there was. It wasn’t one he could easily defend against. “After all,” she added with a smile, “what are the chances of running into someone like you more than once?”
         “So what do you say?” one of the crossbowmen asked, his weapon nowhere in sight, an unwashed stench rising from him. Tristian tried to step back, but a child brushed against the back of his legs. He tried another direction but found two tall men approaching, sealing off yet another exit. This wasn’t good at all. Tristian had never been one to be bothered by enclosed spaces but this shrinking cage of flesh was unnerving. He wasn’t sure what to do. If he tried to force his way out he might seriously hurt one of his unwilling assailants, all of whom he was sure were being controlled. These people were only involved through unlucky proximity and any pain he caused them would be on his conscience. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for that.
         “That sound reasonable to you?” a woman asked him, her hair almost entirely concealing her face. Through the hair he could see her grinning. Her hands reached for the blade of the sword.
         “Stop this,” Tristian whispered, seeing the mindbender’s gambit and understanding that it was no risk at all for the other man. These people were not him.
         “Because I think it’s the fairest offer you’ll get,” another said, a sharp brush of breath stirring the hairs on the back of his neck. He couldn’t even see faces anymore, the sword wiping away most of their features with its light, all he felt was the small mass of humanity pressing on him. In the halflight he could see more hands reaching for the sword, fingers just inches from it.
         This was mad. With an angry shudder, he sheathed the sword, plunging the entire scene in thick darkness, the presences only noted by blacker shapes within the night itself. He tried not to think about how vulnerable he had just made himself.
         “Unless you’re not the man I think you are,” the young girl from before muttered, her face almost entirely covered by a flower of dried blood. She had slid under the adults and leapt high into the air, like she had been about to kiss the blade. But it was no longer there. He stepped to the side with the limited room remaining to him, letting her fall past him, feeling the hot pulse of humanity on all sides. If he fell their bodies would keep him upright. It was too warm here. He had to get away.
         Voices hissed, out of time with each other.
         “But honestly . . .”
         Eyes glittered, a fallen dusk reflected in each one.
         “. . . can you really say . . .”
         Sweat shimmered, a fine film covering each participant. The air was saturated, dense with restrained abandon. They were reaching for him now, with nothing to impede their progress, to pull him down, to drag him to the earth and bring him low. It would not happen. He would not let it occur.
         “. . . that you’ll get . . .”
         In a moment he would have no room with which to move his arms. Their breathing rattled around him, almost in time with each other, one giant heaving beast closing in on him, a mouth formed to swallow him whole. Against the opacity of their bodies, he could barely see the sky, a minor hole punched in this stifling cage. For the first time in his life, the stars above looked as far away as they truly were. Just pinpricks in infinity. That’s all this life was. Pinpricks.
         Hands found his body, his face, wriggling with a blind man’s purpose. Sweat left tracks unlike a slug’s on his skin, slow to dry in the drenched air. His movements restricted, he tried to shrug the appendages away, with nothing truly useful being accomplished. Far away, he swore he heard laughter. Was that the plan, now? To suffocate him here and thus leave him no good to anyone? Because that’s what he would be. No good at all.
         “. . . a better offer?”
         Have you truly fallen this far? Have you?
         Two hands closed over his face, obstructing his breathing and his view. The skin was surprisingly soft. It was funny how he noticed details like that in moments such as this.
         This won’t do at all.
         Vision stolen, he struck out blindly, precisely. If you know where the arms are, then the face is not much harder to find. He heard the unmistakable crunch of bone breaking, most likely a jaw, and the vise closing around his face was suddenly removed and he gulped in the stale night air, his body already readjusting for the next strike.
         Someone was reeling before him, and without thinking he pivoted, lashing out one, two more times, first in the chest and then in the neck. Their shape vague in the darkness, the person hunched over in obvious pain and then, with a second’s pause, lurched toward him again, arms outstretched.
         “Enough!” Tristian shouted and he punctuated the statement with one more blow to the face that sent the person spinning away, the interlocked crowd somehow parting to let his assailant crash unopposed to the soil. “Enough of this!” he said again, spinning as he said so, thrusting the crowd away, bodily shoving them aside. They fell away like so much rotted wheat, his rage bending but not cutting them down.
         The circle spread wider around Tristian. Before him, still on the ground, the woman who had spoken earlier looked up at him, her eyes pained and betrayed, the lower portion of her face already darkened and swollen. She made no more to get up, but lay there, propped on her elbows.
         “No more,” Tristian murmured, unable to take his eyes off of her, his voice a hoarse shiver.
         Weakly the woman coughed. With a great effort, she spoke a single word, spitting it out across the gap between them. Distorted as it was by her injury he didn’t understand it at first.
         But then, with greater venom, she spat it again, along with a tooth and Tristian was certain he knew what it was.
         “Why?” she asked him, and there was no answer he could truly give.
         From within the crowd, a voice called out matter of factly, “One down.”
         As one, they began to shuffle forward again.
         “No!” Tristian said, feinting with the sheathed sword menacingly, forcing the crowd to slow down a step. “No more!” he called out, and he was startled to find how heavily he was breathing. Part of him was glad it was dark. He didn’t want to see if his hands were shaking. The crowd had stopped moving now and he tried to make eye contact with each one, not sure how much of a difference it made. Running was pointless, he could just control the entire village. All he was doing was wasting time. But he didn’t have that luxury anymore.
         “All right,” he said finally, exhaling slowly. There was no other sound. Turning left and right, dismayed to see how perfectly he was surrounded, he picked one person, a young man who appeared to be about Tristian’s age when all the madness had entered his life. Had it really been that long? The years were burning through him faster these days and each departure left him diminished, leaving him tired, time exerting a dread inertia on him. How much longer could he keep this up? He didn’t know. But wasn’t he satisfied with his life? Looking at the woman nursing a wound that might never heal properly, feeling the odd throbbing in his hand where bone had connected with bone, he couldn’t say for sure anymore. He couldn’t remember the last time he had.
         Speaking directly to that young man, he said firmly, “Very well. One time, then.” The crowd had no immediate response. “That’s what you wanted, right?” he said, his gaze level. He wondered how they saw him, through one uniform view, or fractured like an insect’s vision, multifaceted and dizzying. “One time,” he repeated, “that I leave you alone. I agree. But that’s all you get.”
         His finger twitched and with a hiss the blade extended again, draping the ground in rusted colors. “And I suggest you take it,” Tristian added evenly, “because that is the best offer you are going to get.”
         “Agreed,” one, or all of them said.
         Then each and every person fell over, flopping to the ground loosely and limply in a grace that had to be choreographed, an orchestrated symphony of unconsciousness, puppets remembering that their strings were gone.
         Tristian raised the sword when the first person fell, but as more and more tumbled to the earth, he merely stood there silently, lowering the sword, turning in a slow circle, watching the crowd crumble around him.
         He watched, until, in the end it was just him.
         Him and one other.
         His eyes fell on the one woman still standing. He had never seen her before. But then who had time to memorize faces in a mob? He didn’t make any effort to now. The smile on her face was somewhere between triumphant and sardonic.
         “Do you hear me?” he asked the woman, barely able to hear his own words. He spared a second to glance over the fallen group of villagers. All he saw were still breathing. He hoped it stayed that way.
         “Honestly, I didn’t think that would work,” the woman commented offhandedly. “I figured you would kill them.” She shrugged. “Shows what a good judge of people I am.”
         “That’s not how I work,” Tristian responded. “But this ends tonight. Whatever you people have been up to here, it ends now.”
         “Indeed it does,” the woman said quietly, almost to herself. Louder, she added, “It’s the largest house, you want, if you don’t know that already.”
         Tristian did, but he saw no need to mention that.
         “You should have no trouble getting in there now,” the woman continued, absently picking at a fingernail. “In fact they’re probably looking forward to it. You’ll be the most exciting thing there, at this point.” The woman paused, looked up, smiled thinly, “You see, they sent the child away some time ago.”
         “Kara?” he whispered, taking an involuntary step forward. What have you bastards done now? Hasn’t she suffered enough? “What the hell do you mean, sent her away, what do you-“
         But the woman only returned his words with a mock salute, dismissing whatever else he had planned to say. “I’m sure the fireworks will be simply extraordinary.” Her smile widened. “All she needed was a little injection of creativity.” Bowing at the waist, she said, “Well, I have a few more stops to make before I take my leave but . . . farewell, noble myth. I doubt we’ll meet again.”
         Then the woman collapsed, before Tristian had taken even two steps toward her.
         “What did you do to her?” he said to the now oblivious woman when he reached her, shaking her as he demanded an answer. “What the hell have you done?” After a few seconds it was clear she wasn’t going to respond. “Dammit,” he muttered, slamming his hand against the hard ground and rising to his feet. Some distance away he thought he saw the roof of the largest house, poking above everything else like some great slumbering dragon. He had skulked around it before, gauged its perimeter, taken stock of its entrances and defenses, all so he would be ready when the moment came. None of that mattered now. All his preparation had been useless. Now he could only hope to contain the holocaust before the fire spread too far.
         Forgive me, for this delay, Tristian thought grimly. I’ve taken too long, Kara, I know and I’m sorry.
         But I’m coming now. This time I’m coming.
         And then, casting one last look at the sprawled and unconscious people scattered around him, he pressed on, disappearing quickly into the quiet night, with only the slash of light from the sword to guide him.

* * * * *

         The house had gone utterly quiet now. In the shrouded night of his room, Brown wondered if this was it. Any moment he expected to hear footsteps tapping closer to his door, and the tendrils of a certain mind reaching for his thoughts, picking them apart, teasing them into tangible pieces, eventually triggering the reaction that would leave him with nothing at all.
         No. Not nothing. His body would be intact and eventually, he would be a person again. Eventually. But the man who had once called himself Joseph Brown would be gone entirely, all traces of him wiped clear. All he would share with this new man would be DNA and fingerprints.
         He had spent the last few hours trying to resign himself to this eventuality, the concept of his spirit being essentially deleted while his body soldiered on. Part of him didn’t want to believe it. Did everything that made a man what he was, what made him unique, only reside in the mind? And if the mind was tampered, did it change the man into someone else? He had never wanted to accept that, but the evidence kept insisting otherwise. Mostly, Brown wanted to know that some portion of him would continue on even as his entire personality was wiped down to a clean slate and restructured, that some tiny fragment of what made him Joseph Brown would carry on in that new person. If that occurred, he could probably go to his fate somewhat content. He had become accustomed to dying some time ago, within his first year of joining the Time Patrol. It held no fear for him now. But what was going to happen to his mind, that was new, unknown territory and although he hated admitting it, yes, dammit, he was a little afraid. Rightly so, perhaps.
         But he couldn’t give up now. For the moment he still had his mind and his wits, and this prison they had fashioned for him was not foolproof or perfect. For too long he had focused on his lack of hands and while that was a detriment to his attempts to escape, it shouldn’t be too much of a barrier. Brown suspected his hands were becoming infected, what skin peeked out from the metal caps covering his wrists was puffy and grey and far too warm when he rested it against his cheek. If not for his overly healthy physiology, illness might have taken him long ago. No doubt his immune system was working overtime to keep him going. Hopefully it was only necessary for just a little longer. Once he got the hell out of this place, he was going to just sleep for a week. Nothing but slumber. It gave him something to look forward to at least.
         Focusing on the possible delights of the future took his mind off the near demise that was no doubt being prepared as he sat here. He couldn’t be idle anymore. The longer he let himself vegetate here, waiting for an opening to exploit, the quicker they would rip whatever information they wanted out of his head and erase him in the process. The old witch couldn’t possibly be serious about her demands and yet, he suspected she was very much serious. And that was a problem. Not only would he rather have all the wrinkles in his brain smoothed out than accede to whatever mad demands caught her fancy that morning, he suspected it was impossible to fulfill her wish anyway. Still, he wondered what event she wanted changed. He would have to ask her, just before he stuffed her in the biggest, deepest hole he could find.
         The sudden silence reigning over the house took a while to fully grasp his attention. When it did, his senses were instantly alert. Before, he had thought he heard voices arguing over something. One of the voices might have been Kara. Perhaps the kid was fighting. She could level this entire house if she wanted to, but she didn’t have the training and the stamina, he feared, to fight off the old bat and do what needed to be done. He couldn’t blame her. This wasn’t the life she wanted or deserved, people just thrusting her into these situations without even asking her and leaving her on her own. It was wrong, Brown knew, and if they got her back this time, they would have to consider themselves especially lucky. For all their good intentions, it was insane to keep exposing her to these things. She needed a choice and so far she hadn’t been given much of one at all. When they got back to Legoflas, something would have to be done. Legoflas wasn’t the place for her, not for any teenager. It was a matter he’d have to discuss with Tristian, eventually.
         That, of course, would have to be done when he wasn’t a prisoner with his life in imminent peril, but it was an issue to file away for later discussion. Sometimes he did his best thinking while locked in a small, dark room and nursing hideous wounds. The fact that he could state that with any sort of confidence probably meant that this had happened far too much over the years. Perhaps it was time to find a different line of work.
         “But not while the fun is just beginning,” he muttered, unwilling to break this strange silence. The sudden quiet was almost absolute, a lake frozen over with all the noise in the world trapped underneath. He would dance over it, but for all his weight he wouldn’t be able to break it. The house had never been like this, even at night. People could be heard moving around at all hours, voices whispering as they moved past his door, the creaks of footsteps, the grunts of nearby sleepers, all of it forming a sort of mosaic. It was all gone now, utterly unraveled. It clearly wasn’t a good thing, but Brown wasn’t sure who exactly should be worried, the old woman or him.
         He didn’t want to stick around to find out. It was time to try something daring. With all his free time he had spent hours examining the door, trying to find some weakness in it he could work with. It was well made and serviceable, no doubt able to take no small amount of abuse. If he had hands he would have tried to chip his way through it, a little at a time, so they had no reason to suspect. But without them, what he had in mind was to be a little . . . noisier.
         Standing up, he crept over to the door, sizing it up like an elusive opponent. It hadn’t seemed to possess anything but the usual thickness. It’s been a while since I did this, but they tell me it’s like riding a bicycle. He waited for another scant second, making sure that the silence sustained itself.
         Then, in a sharp, violent motion, he kicked out at the door, hitting it squarely with the heel of his boot. The door made an ungodly rattle and Brown bounced back, off balance, nearly cracking his head on the bed. Flailing a little, it took him a moment to cover and when he did he crouched near the bed, listening to the rasp of his own quick breathing, waiting for the clatter of footsteps growing closer. None came. The echo of his blow against the door had already faded into the night.
         Did they all leave? he wondered, creeping over to the door again, squinting to see what kind of damage he had done, if any. Ah . . . there. A hairline crack ran along the center, following the grain of the wood. Putting his ear to the door, he listened carefully, still hearing nothing. Weird. This would be his best opportunity then. Something must have distracted them. Perhaps his cavalry had finally arrived. Wouldn’t they be embarrassed to show up and find that he had already done the hard part?
         The fracture appeared to run the entire length of the door. His ankle and shin were throbbing from the shock and he walked in a small circle for a few seconds to shake the stiffness out of it. How was it that people in movies always did this in one shot? They must have had pistons for thighs. Lifting his leg he struck again, managing to stay on his feet this time, only hopping back a few steps, every muscle and bone from his foot to his hip screaming what the hell are you doing? Again the bang resounded throughout the house, going off like a firework, loud enough to cause Brown to flinch at the cacophony. But there was definitely a crack there now and splinters were poking out at odd angles from it. A few more good kicks and he’d be through. Then the fun part would begin.
         Standing up, he prepared to step back again for a third try. Perhaps if he tried to aim further up . . .
         Abruptly the temperature in the room dropped.
         “What the hell?” he muttered, putting his foot down slowly, feeling goosebumps rise up all over his arms. Settling like a suffocating blanket, it seeped right through his clothes, seemingly seeking the heart of his marrow. It was cold suddenly, and he half expected to find his breath forming vague clouds before his eyes. What was going on?
         Not too distant he heard the murmur of voices. It was coming from the wall to his left and he moved closer, straining to make out any of the words. But whoever was speaking was too far away for the words to become distinct and it was just an unintelligible blur, a guttural subliminal moan. Ghosts? Maybe? This place deserves to have some. Still, it meant that he might not be completely alone here. Frowning, he glanced at the now clearly cracked door. If they came along they’d know exactly what he was up to and probably fix the door, or move him into another room. Brown had gotten himself quite used to the idea of escaping and he wasn’t about to let go of it yet.
         Far away, the voices rose and for a second he thought he caught a snatch of an actual sentence. But without context it was meaningless. This eavesdropping was pointless, he was learning nothing and wasting time. Let’s finish what we started and if they come after me, well, Mrs Brown’s eldest will just have to go down fighting. Shivering slightly, he crossed back over to the door, his skin already feeling numb. Damn it was cold, he kept expecting to find frost forming on the clothing. Something was up now, but the sooner he got out of here the sooner he’d figure out what it was.
         Just when he readied himself to take another shot, a jagged, sharp keening caught his attention. Now what? Out of the corner of his eye something flickered and he turned just in time to see the wall waver and flash, forcing him to avert his eyes. It hurt to even look at it.
         The ambient temperature plunged further and Brown felt a headache arc up through his spine, stabbing at him with invisible needles. Mouth open, unable to scream, he dropped to his knees.
         In that moment a woman burst through the flickering patch on the wall, his body somehow composed completely of translucent light, giving her an almost glassy appearance. Her face was strewn with a detached horror and her scream was shards of glass being driven into his stomach.
         “Ah, what the-“ he heard himself shout but it was difficult to hear over the noise. For a brief second he made eye contact with the woman and with a shock he realized he knew the face.
         Then she was through the opposite wall and was gone. Brown immediately leapt to his feet, feeling the heat quickly returning to the room. How long had that taken? Only a few seconds, at the most. Here and gone. He examined the wall adjacent to the bed first, finding nothing out of the ordinary. Then gnawing on his lip in thought, he ran over to the opposite wall, where she had come through. I know you, he thought feverishly. You were the one who taunted me in the other room. The one who teleported me here. But what the hell had just happened? He’d never seen anything like that before. Is that what happens to mindbenders when they die? That’s a pleasant thought. Better them than me.
         The other wall was also strangely unmarked but when he put his ear to it again, he could still hear the voices, louder this time.
         A burst of words, anchored to a voice he knew, fluttered to his ears.
         “. . . your turn now, I believe . . .”
         Then the house shuddered, violent enough to force Brown to his knees again. Somewhere not too distant, he swore he heard an explosion of sorts. In this room he felt sealed off from the world, trapped in a stasis bubble while the battles of his friends unfolded all around him. He stared at the wall in wonderment, the voice turning itself over and over in his head, a fractal that resonated the same no matter what angle you viewed it at. Is it really . . .
         “Ranos?” he asked the air, desperately trying to put the pieces together while the puzzle kept threatening to change around him.
         This is it, he thought, seized by a strange calm. Shaking off the last remnants of the cold, he leapt to his feet, a flush of new energy coursing through him. This is it.
         Time to rejoin the cavalry.
         “Ranos!” he shouted, banging the metal cap into the wall, ignoring the blinding pain it brought with it, not caring how much of a racket he made. Let them come, then. Let them come and try to take him down. They had no conception of what defiance was. Or how deep it ran. If anything of Joseph Brown ever survived, it would be that. “Ranos, I’m over here! Let me help!”
         The house shook again and this time Brown distinctly heard a scream, followed by a crash, one that seemed somehow suspended, tumbling with a detached grace. When the impact finally came, it sounded all too final, a thump he felt right through his boots.
         “Ranos, what the hell are you doing out there?” he asked quietly, cursing his prison one more time. I have to get out of here. Raising his voice, trying not to hear how frantic it was becoming, he shouted, “Dammit, Ranos, answer me, what the hell is going on?”
         In the house, silence reigned again, waves frozen into crystal, nature turning back the clock. Nothing sought to shatter it. Nothing dared.
         Except for one voice.
         “Ranos!”
         Unafraid, it thrust out like a beacon, begging for a response, a hand shoved through the bars, raw and bruised, waiting for a single touch.
         But no one answered, and no one came.

* * * * *

         Since there were no words for it, you might as well call it a seizure.
         Curled up into a ball, wedging himself into a corner, Jaymes tried to make his shape adhere to that rigid right angle, to give himself some sort of definition, but it was impossible. He was all rubbery and loose, his form threatening to seep into the floor if he lost his will for even a moment.
         He was afraid. This house reeked of death. The air reeked of death. His whole world was descending into oblivion. His head felt pinched, the contours of his skull slowly being molded into a shape that didn’t suit his thoughts anymore. For some reason it was impossible to stop shivering. The room was absolutely dark. He didn’t recognize the house. He had no reason to. It wasn’t his. His was gone. He was an intrusive stranger, bursting his way in to become a static guest, staying only because there was no one left to argue. On the table on the other side of the room were neatly laid out plates of cold and uneaten food. They had just been sitting down to have dinner, when it happened. There hadn’t been a warning.
         Fearful and famished, he had thought to eat part of a loaf of bread. Stomach rumbling, he picked it up, ready to stuff as much as he could into his mouth. It was filled with insects. Eggs and bugs. Some spilled out and touched his hand, tickling the skin. Bugs and eggs. Eating each other, devouring everything inside. It reminded him too much of certain people he knew.
         He could see them now. Every time he closed his eyes. Which was every time he blinked. Their actions flickered in strobe motions, second by jerky second. The faces never changed. There was madness in all of them, always the same, merely manifesting itself in different ways. He could still smell Prescotte’s sweat, feel the spray of spittle from his too close face, the hot rage of his words. His words weren’t important. The point of his sword had left a mark in the center of his chest. It burned like a brand, still, an infection working its way to his heart. Madness. Maybe they’d kill Prescotte. But all of them had it, that madness. It was a corrosion, eating them away from the inside, growing to fill every space available. Just like insects. It was inside everyone. Even Valreck, with his calm descent into irrationality, his unswerving belief that grasping a sort of pristine insanity would somehow redeem him. It didn’t matter.
         All of them were there now. In his dreams. He wasn’t asleep but the dreams wouldn’t stop coming. A new scene had greeted his vision every time he tried to move. He didn’t know where he was anymore. He assumed it was a house. But that might be part of the dream, too. It had paralyzed him, driven him to his knees, to the floor. Every step was into a different landscape. There was nowhere to turn and he had crawled along the floor with agonizing slowness, afraid to try and stand, not sure what would greet his stride. Perspective was skewed, almost eliminated entirely. People shouted at him from angles that didn’t exist. He had moved in an attempt to get away from it but there was no way to remove his mind. Not any way that would have helped him. When he first reached the corner he had cracked his head against the wall. The pain had been as assertively ephemeral as everything else.
         If he closed his eyes the house dissolved, replaced by a place he had no name for. Jaymes had tried to avoid blinking, tried to affix a single scene into his vision but his eyes had started to burn and dry out and the scene had wavered, gone hazy, replaced by a dozen others, all contradictory, all vying for the same frame of reference. His head wasn’t attached right, it kept wanting to float away. Closing his eyes was supposed to ground him, keep all this madness at bay. If he couldn’t see it, then there was no possible way it could see him.
         What he could see was an endless grassy field. A host of humanity was standing there, row after row after row of men and women. There was no way to count them all. The sunlight was pervasive, emanating from no specific source. The sky was eternally blue, stretching all the way to the edge of space itself. Everyone was smiling, the way people do when a child has done something unimaginably quaint and cute. There was just the slightest hint of a breeze, the scent of spring carried into a summer day, with all winter’s grim traces far away, tucked into a corner and forgotten about entirely. Jaymes was not there but he knew it. Your dreams can show the future. That was Valreck’s voice, already infected with the madness. But what had he meant? What kind of future was this? Who were these people?
         Then, before his eyes, unseen hands began to yank them into the clear sky.
         He didn’t notice it at first, his gaze focused elsewhere, the earliest ones were too far away. But soon enough he saw. One by one, he watched them go. Without a word or a sound or a squeal they were lifted into the air, limbs flailing and dangling like puppets suddenly recalled to the master, pulled away and getting smaller and smaller and smaller, until they were nothing more than dots, so far away, and then finally gone from his view. There were no clouds to obstruct his vision, but he couldn’t see where they went. Just away. One. By. One.
         Jaymes wasn’t there. It was only a dream. He ran through the crowd, seeing people taken on his left and right, without protest and without fear. He didn’t know any of these people, but every disappearance felt like a blow to his heart. There was an odd melancholy lurking in his chest, a sense that he would never see these people now, even if he lived long enough to rival the length of time itself. Gone meant gone. They weren’t just going away, they were leaving existence itself, were being wiped completely from the slate. This can’t be the future. What kind of future is this? He refused to panic. He refused to get frantic. It wasn’t happening, clearly. By now, he knew what a dream was.
         In the center of the crowd, standing just like everyone else, he found his father.
         - Dad, Dad! he shouted, his words sounding strangely flat to his own ears, one dimensional, possessing neither depth nor breadth. It was just part of the tapestry. All on the same page. We’re all made of paper comes the mad thought.
         “It’s so sad,” his father commented wistfully, his voice coming from another life entirely. “It’ll be like they never lived. None of them deserve that, you know. Even the worst of them don’t deserve it.”
         - Dad, what are you talking about? What’s going on?
         Next to him a man was lifted away on invisible strings, his face losing nothing in its expression, even as he was absorbed by the sky.
         “But there’s no room for all of us. Not anymore. Did you notice, some of these people have two or three versions? It’s too much, something has to give and it’s the people who suffer, always. I guess they won’t suffer too much. There won’t be any of them to suffer. Not even a memory. That’s what makes life hurt the most, you know. The memories.”
         - What’s happening? Why don’t you make sense? Dad, please!
         “I’m so stuffed with memories of you and your mother that I might just burst. There’s no room in me anymore, son. I’ve got too much in me and I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t live. I remember the hundred different ways your mother’s voice sounded, when she was young, when she was angry, when she had just woken up in the morning. I can’t let go of any of it. I can’t let go of anything. But they can let go of me.”
         - Is it really you, Dad? In this dream? Or are you just, just some kind of-
         “It’s the only weight keeping me here. But I’m growing lighter by the day and soon I’ll be just full of feathers. Nothing to me at all.”
         Receding they go. So few now. He wished some would cry out. It would make the entire affair less eerie.
         “It’s the dreams that do it, you know. Dreams are nothing, less than air. In the end, they count for nothing. When you were a boy, I used to watch you sleep and it’s the damndest thing, watching a child sleep, it’s like watching the future take shape right before your eyes. I wondered what kind of dreams might be playing in your head, if you’d want more than what I ever had. All I ever wanted to be was a farmer, but I could tell you needed more. You’d babble to me in that kidtalk all babies have and I could see the dreams in your eyes and I thought you’d just drift away, you were so full of them.”
         - Don’t go, Dad! Don’t go!
         Fearful, he grabbed the man, clutching at his clothes, trying to keep him tied to the earth.
         “I never really had any, son. Never thought I needed them. But now I’ve seen what it can do to a man, to a world full of men, and I realize, there’s too many bad dreams in the world, boy. Too damn much. And it’s because there’s too many like me, who’d rather have no dreams at all. So the bad dreams win because there’s nothing else to oppose them. But that was wrong. The world needs those good dreams.”
         - But I don’t have good dreams. In my dreams everyone dies.
         “And that’s just the way it goes. I see that now. The world, all the worlds, are heading toward a bad dream now and it’s going to be hard to dream for a while afterwards. It’s going to hurt too much, people are going to be afraid that it’ll turn bad. But there’s nothing to be afraid of. Not anymore. You’ve seen the future, son, you know. You’ve seen. It’ll all be okay.”
         - But I don’t know, Dad. I don’t. My dreams are of darkness, now. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what’s going on.
         “And I’ll be okay too. I may not have dreams, but I have my memories. You and your mother are keeping me here and everything is just fine. Nobody will forget me. Not like these poor people. They have nothing, I may not have had everything . . . but I had a small piece of it, for a little while.”
         - Oh, Dad, I’m sorry, I gave you to him and now . . . now . . .
         His hand pulled at his father.
         - Come with me, Dad. We’ll leave, we’ll get out of here. I never meant to get you involved, please just . . .
         “Oh, son, I’m afraid that’s just not possible now.”
         He tugged at the front of his father’s shirt. A wetness trickled into his palm. Startled, he pushed forward and felt his hand reach deep into a strange softness.
         Looking down, he saw part of his hand sticking into a neat hole in his father’s chest. A dark stain was spreading from the hole, reaching ever outward, as far as the body could stand.
         “I think it’s too late for me, really.”
         He was so pale, his skin the color of chalk. But his expression and his stance never changed. Regardless of his words, the smile never faded. Most of the people around him were gone now. Jaymes couldn’t even remember their faces.
         - Dad, no-
         But his voice had no reach, had nowhere to go.
         “I think I have to leave now. It’s too bad we’ll never have this talk.”
         Already fading.
         - Dad-
         “Please don’t try and save me.”
         Already gone.
         “Dad!”
         His voice leapt back into three dimensions, though somehow now it all seemed like so much illusion. His body going rigid, he nearly banged his head against the wall. Scrambling to his feet, he stumbled over to a window, startled to find that it was still night. The same night? How long had he been out? He couldn’t tell. Time was meaningless now, in dreams. Perhaps this was still a dream. The corners of this room didn’t seem to meet properly. Maybe it meant nothing. Perhaps he was dreaming about remembering a dream. It didn’t make sense anymore.
         “Dad,” he whispered, clumsily making his way toward the door. His head was swimming, buoyed by dark waves, their collective momentum threatening to slam him into the wall. His father was in danger. Somehow he had to rescue him. He just had to. A weak bravery filled him, propelling him forward. It hadn’t been right, to leave his father with Valreck like that, to put him in such danger. He had to make it right. He had to make it-
         A headache staggered him, caused him to clutch his forehead and lean against the door, his breathing ragged and loose. He expected another dream to come roaring forth, slipping in like some exotic scent, reaching his senses only when everything else had faded.
         But nothing came. Oblivion filled his mind like a endless dark lake, with no breeze to stir the surface at all. It was a mirror looking into itself, showing only what truly remained.
         Nothing.
         There was nothing.
         “I have to save him,” Jaymes murmured forcibly to himself, fingers gripping the doorframe in a brutal vice.
         Nothing.
         Your dreams can see the future.
         Nothing.
         But if you don’t see anything.
         Nothing.
         Is it because you’re not dreaming.
         Nothing.
         Or because your dream is of when you won’t dream anymore?
         Nothing.
         “I have to save him,” Jaymes said again, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. For the first time he wished for the intrusion of the bizarre, foreign images that had plagued him these past few months, in their impenetrable array, cloaked with a meaning he could never decipher.
         But what lay there was only a vision of an elegant, endless darkness.
         “I’m coming, Dad,” Jaymes promised, a faint tremor at the edge of his words. “I’m coming.”
         He made no such move at all.

* * * * *

         “I know you haven’t left,” Maleth said, her voice barely touching the edges of the walls of her big house. She was on the stairs now, climbing up, one hand on the railing, the other tightly clutching her cane. The grim tapping of the wooden stick on the wooden stairs was the only true sound in the house, each hollow clatter echoing like a threat, or a shout. “I know that you’re still here, because leaving will do you no good. It means nothing.”
         Pausing, she peered down onto the ground floor of her house, seeing nothing more than shadowed draped like grey coverings over her furniture, the floor and walls, drenching the area in monotone colors. Below her, it was impossibly still, frozen, more an exhibit than a display of a vibrant household. Looking at it, it made her wonder how much of that life she had forced into this setting, a grand illusion strung from end to end, possessing no more vitality than the dead wood the house was built from, a piece of theatre that ended whenever she turned her back or left the room, holding itself in place, waiting for her return.
         “Nothing at all,” she repeated forcibly as she reached the top of the stairs. Her mind slithered toward all the angles, trying to form a grip on something, but all the available objects were elusive, or useless. His doing. His presence hung like a repugnant vapor over the house, threatening to suffocate everything. The minds of the servants were there, just within her touch but a wall of static was blocking them, keeping them separated from her. In the right circumstances, the barest inch might be stretched to a mile or more. “You might think that you’re limiting me, but you’re doing nothing of the sort.” Making her way down the hallway, she reflected on how limited her perspective seemed now that it was reduced to only one vision, to the senses of a very old woman. But she wasn’t diminished at all. Weakness was merely an illusion we used to explain why we had to die. Once you got past the lie, all else was effortless.
         Maleth passed the series of doors on the long balcony, each featureless, each exactly like the other. There was no urgency in her steps. He could emerge from any angle and take her any time he wanted. She knew he wouldn’t do that. That wasn’t the way his kind worked. He thrived on the drama, on making the tableau as bold as possible. Blank faced doors watched her like sentinels. Only she knew what lay behind each one, but none of the contents were important now. Even a certain door held no interest for her, not now. The floor creaked with each step she made, a siren calling out into the darkness. The first time she heard a man die, he had made a noise like that, a blunted groaning, trying to somehow stretch that last breath into something forever, knowing that when the exhalation was done, so was his life. The lights in his mind had flickered for a long time before going completely dark. It was the most frightening thing she had ever seen. There was no poetry in death. Let the writers spill their fallacies and in the end see what a mess they’d made of things. Somehow, people had become convinced that death was somehow desirable, a long rest the reward for a life of hard work. All lies. The only reward for life was more life.
         “It occurs to me,” she continued outloud, “that the only reason you are remaining here is to avenge your own humiliation. Otherwise you’d have no real reason to stay, would you?” No response greeted her words, the doors remained silent. The end of the hall was her destination. She had no problem thinking it. Let him read it from her mind. Let him dare and try. It would only fall apart if she allowed it to. The next move was his. “That’s how you always were, wasn’t it? A mercenary, they called you, that was the word, correct? Taking money to get involved in other people’s problems was good business for someone with your skills, I imagine, but you never truly cared, did you? It made it easier to simply walk away, in the end.”
         The last door lay before her. In the second before she opened it, Maleth expected some kind of attack. It would be just like him. She swore she felt a rustling in the air, a quick stirring of the silence. But nothing happened. Nothing came. The walk all the way from the downstairs had left her slightly winded and she stood there for a minute, letting her heart calm down, reveling in each beat. You’ll never stop it, she thought gleefully. Not completely. You don’t have it in you.
         Her smile nearly concealed in the darkness, Maleth turned the knob and let the door swing open. For a second, she swore it resisted her efforts.
         “I could offer you a deal,” she said to the air itself, pausing in the doorway to allow her eyes to adjust to the textured darkness. It seemed to take so long these days. Not that she needed the time, she knew every inch of this house. It was her home and her advantage. Its frame sang with the pulse of her life. “Something to turn your attention aside. Money, secrets, power, no matter what interest drives you, I can meet and exceed it.” The darkness had no answer. Where was he?
         “I won’t, though,” Maleth sneered, as she stepped deeper into the room. The contours of the place were lost in the darkness, and the only clear detail was the large bed that dominated the center. The fine paneled wood of the closet doors dominated the far wall. Under her feet whispered a soft carpet, deep enough that if she happened to fall, it would be no worse than tumbling into pillows. “I won’t, because I have no interest at all in satisfying whatever desires you might have. I’m sure that comes as no surprise to you. If I had wanted to buy you off, I would have done so long ago.”
         There was a person on the bed, a woman. Her mind was a quivering mass of light, falling into mad frequencies, falling in and out of her sight at random moments. She was curled into a near fetal position, her wrists tucked under her chin, knees pulled up to her chest. The woman was shivering, and moaning. The heat of her body was a blazing shimmer, washing over Maleth even across the room.
         “Ssh, ssh . . .” Maleth said, going over to the woman and running her gnarled fingers gently through the woman’s hair, stroking and smoothing it. It was grimy and slightly stiff to the touch, coated in dried perspiration. Her mind was an erratic needle, scrawling crazy lines. “Sh . . . it’ll be okay. Not too long from now, everything will be just fine.” Maleth’s voice barely made an impression on the darkness. The woman moaned again, appeared not to hear anything. Her words were either nonsense syllables, or a language that didn’t exist anymore.
         “I just need you to do one simple thing for me,” Maleth whispered, her eyes shining like coins in the bleak room. “Let me in again, just one more time . . .” her voice was calm and insistent. She is the path and the route away. The woman made a keening sort of noise and entered into a brief spasm, wrinkling the covers on the bed. What is wrong with you tonight? Maleth thought. You are not yourself here. “Please, for me, do this . . .” The fractured maelstrom that was the woman’s head began to clear and take proper shape, a sliver somehow opening in the center of it. “Just once more . . . and then . . .”
         “And then I track you anyway,” a voice sighed, just behind and above her head.
         Maleth spun, flinching as she did so, lashing out with her cane at the empty air, feeling it strike nothing, knowing it would do so even as she began the action. The motion threw her off balance and she stabbed the cane down hard into the carpet to regain her equilibrium, feet shuffling madly to recapture lost traction. Her heart began to race again, counting down the seconds.
         On the bed the woman jerked and moaned, the sound stretching out into a near scream, a tongue forced through clenched teeth. Her mind threatened to collapse entirely, forming shapes that there were no true words for, things that were only discussed as abstract theory but were now coming to horrifying life before Maleth’s eyes. Just then, she saw what was happening. Just then, she saw. The woman’s mind had been rigged, weakened, the structure corrupted in just the right spots, an alteration here, a change there. It all added up into something hideously effective. A small bit of tension would ruin everything entirely. By all the gods, Maleth thought with a brief burst of fear, what has he done to you?
         “No!” she raged, her small eyes desperately trying to pierce the darkness. He’s here. His presence was no more than a mist, less than a ghost, even. More hinted at than spoken of. Barely real. A myth, perhaps, some might say. If I can, I’ll tear it all down. “No more games here! No more hiding!” Realizing how perilously close she was to ranting, she gathered herself and said in a more level tone of voice, “Am I so terrible that you cannot face me directly, that you resort to these parlor tricks in some vain attempt to frighten me?”
         The air shimmered, formed ripples. From somewhere far away there was the hot scent of a desert wind, cutting her nostrils like a knife. On the bed, the woman emitted a strangled shriek. The density of his mind was the heaviness of frozen vapor. He was rain, locked tight in the invisible. She had forgotten how strong he could be.
         But she wasn’t afraid. She had outlived the emotion.
         “Face me directly, then, Ranos. You owe me that much. You know you do.”
         “The only thing I owe you . . .” and suddenly he was there, appearing on the other side of the bed as if by magic, a man only invisible sideways turning to face her, falling out of solution to condense fully in the air itself. “. . . is a reckoning.” His eyes were dark gems in the shrouded confines of the room. On the bed the woman drew in a rapid, rattling breath, turning her face violently away from the newcomer. Maleth drew back an involuntary step. Gods, she had forgotten how damn tall he was. If he cast a shadow it would cover her entirely. That meant nothing. She was not afraid.
         “You have trapped me, abused me, mocked me,” he spat each word out like a hammer toward her, a coiled anger gradually unspiralling with each further statement. “Were you so arrogant to think that I would not fashion an escape for myself before long?” He took a step closer to the corner of the bed, his robes flowing around his body like liquid vengeance. There was iron in his gaze and death in his stance. “And that when I did, not all your assumed power would keep me from taking my revenge?” His mind was a dark star, pressing its inevitable weight upon them all. Standing before her, he somehow surrounded her. Maleth stood her ground, already looking for a way around. Nothing was infinite, and if you stretched out far enough, a corner always presented itself.
         “You interfered in something that was none of your concern, Ranos,” Maleth told him, the air quickening around her, forming a near shell. Her mind, molecule thin, slid around his careful blocks, seeking for the nearest entrance. It was all too close. The static caused obscene flashes of color to pepper her brain, but she ignored it, pressed forward through the pain. He was powerful, but not invincible, and she had learned many ways to be flexible over the decades. Fortunately, she would not have to go far. In this house, a weapon was always close at hand. “Where was your mercenary code then? How much did the Time Patrol pay you for your troubles? Was it in money, or something greater?”
         “My motivations are none of your business,” Ranos replied curtly. “And certainly not your immediate concern.” The air seemed ionized, somehow crackling, glimpses of electricity spearing the empty spaces like pale fish. Maleth knew she had little time. When he did strike, it would be brutal and final. “You were so interested in myth, old woman, but I think you will find that I am very much real. And all the riches in the world will not be worth what I am about to do to you.”
         His mind hardened, prepared to come down.
         Maleth took advantage of that firm moment to slide behind and past. Her body might have been aged and worn, stiffened into a near corpse, but her mind was as limber as ever. Static hissed, then cleared and suddenly she was in again. Contact. It was stabbing a hole through a confining suit, and letting the pure air from outside rush in. The darkness leapt into nuance clarity. Through horizontal blocks, she saw Ranos, as if from behind, even as she stared directly into his eyes. It was all very abstract.
         “I do not intend to make it worth your while at all, Ranos,” Maleth said, stepping back even as the tendrils of her mind rediscovered new connections, limbs that had somehow fallen asleep returning to new life once again.
         A rustle rattled the undercurrent of the room.
         Ranos paused, turning slightly, his gaze darting to the side.
         “For you see, in this place, I am never defenseless.”
         Just as behind him, a closet door quietly slid open.
         They emerged a second later, leaping out toward him, arms outstretched, their shadows skeletal in the darkness, a quiet hiss escaping from their thin mouths. The dank stench of unwashed decay flooded the room. Maleth’s vision went double, triple, splitting into more angles that a mind might conceivable be able to safely hold, trying to accommodate for the strange weightlessness that sought to overcome her, the sense of shoving something without proper mass along, trying to move it forward in a fierce wind, where the smallest miscalculation might send it spiraling away.
         “This house is mine,” she said, her sudden grin a slit in the air. “But it was not always this way.” Ranos staggered back, his mind flaring too late as the first of his attackers reached him. Steering their actions was piloting a too loose costume, the remainder stuffed with feathers. Everything was happening so fast. It was hard to see their features in the dimness, their hands were spectral claws that grasped at him, thin lips pulling back from rotted teeth, sunken eyes that burned with a fever that didn’t belong to them. Not anymore. Their movements left moldy tatters of their clothing littered all over the floor. “It took some . . . persuasion to convince the owners to give me control of the place, but in the end it was mine. And so were they.” A stick-like hand pressed into Ranos’ face, forcing his head toward the wall. Together they staggered into a large nighttable, with a mirror overlooking the bed. There was an audible crack as Ranos’ face slammed into the mirror. It reflected nothing but fractured darkness. His fingers clutched at his attacker but found nothing. There was hardly anything to grasp. “I allowed most of them to be my servants, you’ve met some . . . but some of the others I had no real use for.” The other one tried to bite into Ranos’ shoulder, but he drew back his elbow and caught it in the teeth. Something snapped like old wood and clattered loosely against the floor. She was surprised at how little blood there was. At how little pain she felt. “Still, that didn’t mean I had to get rid of them. After all, some people require so little in the way of sustenance.” They had turned him around now and were trying to slam his head into the hard wood of the table. He kicked back at them but missed completely. His hands pressed into the table, arms locked to keep his face away. They were bending his back into a forgotten letter. Break him. I want to hear his bones shatter and his mind boil. She was taking far too much pleasure from this. “And the wonderful thing about people is that you never really know when they might be useful again.” Dirty crooked fingers encircled his face, nearly digging into his eyes. She waited for him to cry out, but he made no sound. Even the woman on the bed had fallen silent.
         One of Ranos’ arms slipped and he was driven to his knees, his face only inches from the table. One of his attackers had found a hairbrush and was aiming the pointed end toward his eye. In the darkness the whole affair seemed like so much pantomime. Hardly anyone was making a sound. Just grunts and hissing, ambient noises from a tape recorder left running in an empty room. In the end, it didn’t tell the story at all. You needed the visual, or it meant nothing.
         “Everything in this house is mine, Ranos, body and soul,” she told him. Hands that weren’t hers were smeared with his blood. “And for a while that included you.” It was so effortless, like directing the limbs of a spider. Her own body felt so far away, a series of knotted string, held together only by friction and will. No matter how long you live, I will outlast you. “But I have no longer any need for you and so . . . you’re discarded. It’s as simple as that.” One of his arms was flailing aimlessly, a severed nerve seeking stimulation. The point of the hairbrush touched the edge of his eye, began to press down. The last time she had done this, the orb had made a quite comical popping noise, like an overripe fruit.
         “Is . . . it . . .” Ranos grunted and too late she didn’t see the hand snaking toward the insides of his robes. His other hand slipped out and his face crashed into the table, rattling the mirror in its frame. His attacker was pulled down with him and Maleth received a flush of vertigo as the room shifted crazily. Too late, she tried to adjust, reaching for his closest hand. But the arm nearest his assailant grabbed the hand holding the brush and Ranos rose to his feet with a sudden roar, pushing the arm up toward the air, throwing the other person back toward the bed. The room fell into a flurry of darkness. The two of them fell to the floor and flailed about, Maleth wrestling through proxy, seeking elusive footing even as his mind pressed on hers, an inexorable vice seemingly indenting her brain, bursting her fragile concentration. Struggling, she forgot herself, fought to throw his body off hers, broke her most basic rule as she forced herself to her knees. Never let your focus be too narrow.
         Frighteningly precise, his free hand darted out and metal flashed in the darkness, a light too swiftly snuffed. His attacker gave a squeal that became a gurgle. Wetness splattered the mirror, the table as the Ranos cut sideways again. The person shuddered and clutched at his throat, thrashing his head from left to right violently, crashing into the wall in an attempt to escape. The gurgle became a sucking sound and they tumbled to the floor, his chest rising and falling, gasping for air that would never come. Maleth felt an unbearable pressure enter her head, and it was all she could to do to keep from passing out. Something in her mouth tasted of blood and air seemed to leaking into her throat from all sides. It was terribly difficult to breathe suddenly. Too quickly the gasps turned into a wet sigh.
         Then nothing. Silence.
         His shape an unwavering pillar in the darkness, Ranos stood over the dying man, his face dispassionate, his eyes cold. He said nothing, just watched the man fade. His measured breathing was an integral part of the landscape, woven irrevocably into the background.
         Slowly, he turned to face her and Maleth saw that his face was bloody, streaked with thin stripes of blood. Somehow they appeared to form the imprint of a hand. There was a dagger clutched tightly in his right hand, the edges glittering in what little illumination there was. The other person, a woman, cowered on the floor, even as Maleth’s view became scrambled, static flooding the perspective again. Desperately, she tried to move, to push through. No signals escaped. No motion occurred. The dreadful weight reasserted itself over the room, the gravity threatening to tear it all apart. He was no star, but a black hole, pulling it all down with him. With a casual motion that looked disturbingly practiced, he reached down and planted the blade of the dagger into the remaining person’s face, almost to the hilt. It made a soft crunching noise not unlike paper being crumpled. The woman’s arms reached out for him, almost by reflex, somehow seeking comfort. Not surprisingly, they fell far short and a second later dropped limply to the floor. His face grim and emotionless, Ranos twisted and yanked sideways, stepping back to avoid the spurt of blood that greeted his efforts.
         Maleth hissed through clenched teeth, almost biting through her tongue. Her vision was strafed with blocks of incomprehensibility, chewing away at her sanity. This was not the first time someone had died while she was in them. But rarely was she this deep and their ends so violent, the situation compounded by the implacable mass that was Ranos’ will. He had amputated her and his mind was keeping the wounds from being sealed, spraying her blood over the walls, forcing her to watch as it spurted from open arteries beat by bloody beat. The illusion of escaping blood hammered in her ears, a tidal wave threatening to overwhelm every sense she still possessed, breaking her apart bit by bit with a brutal dissolution.
         Over the furor, his voice could be heard, each of his words as much a dagger as the real thing he now held. “Your tools, your weapons are useless, easily countered.” A thundering wash of disconnected thoughts, debris from the dying sprayed in her direction, assaulted Maleth and skewered what remaining defenses she had. “They always will be, because the problem is the same, no matter the weapon.” Ranos was moving closer, warping the lines of thought with his proximity. Coherency. That’s all she wanted. Just one second of lucidity. “You seek to control all you touch, and in the process you consume everything.” There was no judgement or pity in his tone. She couldn’t see a thing. Was she even still standing? “You were correct in stating that all that exists in this house is but an extension of yourself. But that is not a good thing. The man and woman I just slew, like everything else, are only vessels. Your control emptied them, until there was nothing left but you. In a sense I did them a mercy, but perhaps it does not truly matter. They died some time ago, when they became your things.” Bile was crashing into the back of her throat but she clenched her teeth tightly together, unwilling to allow the release. The carpet scraped at her knees, the bed a low mountain before her. It was suddenly very cold here. Even in the darkness, Ranos cast a chilled shadow. Was he going to kill her? She could not allow that to happen. It would not occur. It would not.
         “And the problem with being surrounded by echoes of yourself is that the only voice you hear is your own, always agreeing, never a word of dissent.” Some amusement entered his words now, a barbed mocking infusing his tone. If she could find her hands, she could cover her ears. But he was not speaking in a way that could be ignored. I . . . will not . . . you . . . Ranos. Distantly, she wondered if she was crying. “If there had been a second voice, it might have argued that sending the child away would have not been in your best interests. It might have said that the child’s power, no matter how closely directed by you, was the only thing keeping me trapped in here, unable to act.” His voice was close now, a cone of warm air scratching at her eardrum. Had he lifted her into the air? She was glad it was dark. She was glad she couldn’t see. This blindness obscured her indignity. “You had wanted me to believe that it was your ability alone that imprisoned me here. But I trained the child, Maleth, I know the scent of her work, it possesses a clarity you will never achieve. And you were using her as a lens, to focus your own strengths.” His smile, unseen, was still a razor across her mind. “The problem with lenses, Maleth, is that once moved, the focus is never quite the same.”
         “I . . . I’ll call her back, she . . . she is still . . .” something had swelled her tongue to three times normal size, it sat like a bloated slug in her throat, blocking all attempts to speak. Weakly she clutched at the dangling sheets of the bed, trying to pull herself up. There was no strength in her arms. Perhaps there never had been. Perhaps it had all been in her head. She had no idea where her cane had gone. He was going to kill her, came the stark realization, the fact alone nearly stopping her heart. It was not merely an idea, a concept, it was real. Ranos meant to end her life. Here.
         “You will not summon her to this place,” Ranos intoned and it was less a command than unbreakable law. A spike slashed across her brain, nearly sending her to the floor again. For some reason she kept tasting blood. “You will not do so for the same reason you sent her away. Do you understand, Maleth, do you see now?” There was no escape. Sightless, she managed to wrench her body upright, even as her senses dimmed, descended down a dark well. In isolation, she could hear the breathing of the woman on the bed, erratic and quick. Ranos’ voice was the hiss of air spewing into a vacuum. “Your thoughts were not your own.”
         No.
         “You . . . you didn’t . . .” she rasped, sounding unbearably pathetic to her own ears. He was corroding her from the inside out, turning it all to rust and debris, until she was nothing more than a shell filled with dust. All her strength was departing, fleeing to dispersal in the outside air. The bed was supporting her completely, her legs were utterly gone now, her arms draped across the sheets, inches from a warm body even as she lurked moments from death. Her vision had dovetailed into a darker tunnel. Is this death, then? Is this how it ends? “You . . .”
         “I caused you to send the child away,” Ranos nearly sneered. “And you never realized the thought was planted, foreign, so caught up were you in your own paranoia. You may own everything in this home, Maleth, but the most important thing . . . was not yours at all.”
         Perhaps. There was still time. There were still traps that had not been uncovered. Her fingers strained, reached out, brushed the faintest edge of silken fabric. But do I need to remind you, Ranos, all else here is still . . .
         Her cheek resting against the too soft sheets, her thoughts nearly obliterated by the turmoil, Maleth whispered, “Junyul . . . now.”
         . . . mine.
         The air shivered, hardened . . . and struck.
         Maleth felt more than saw the impact, as close to the center as she was. Ranos barely had time to yell as a battering ram of force slammed into him, his body folding at the midsection, causing him to stagger back rapidly, his back hitting the wall with a distinct crack. The bed shuddered and Maleth felt liquid dripping from her nose. It soaked into the sheet but she made no move to wipe it away. Let him see. Let him. Nothing was without cost. She would bleed and it would not stop her.
         Above her, Junyul was muttering words that Maleth couldn’t make it out. It might have been in the other woman’s own language but all sound was strangely compressed, encoded for alien ears, a hearing she somehow no longer possessed. Ranos might have been shouting too, but it was all so distant, so abstract.
         Her face turned sideways, she dimly watched Ranos struggle to his feet, his eyes dark gems in the shadows. The rectangle lightness of the doorway framed him. The bed shook again as Junyul leapt to her feet. Something blurred rushed across the space between them, but the air around Ranos shimmered and he surrendered no ground. Drops of heavy blood splattered the sheets, forming star patterns near Maleth’s face. Junyul’s thoughts were lightning scratching at the pitiless sky, haphazard, unfocused. She was afraid, Maleth realized. Frightened of Ranos.
         Relentlessly Maleth tried to force her way into Junyul, battering aside the woman’s defenses, knowing that it made her vulnerable to Ranos as well, but not caring. Ranos had tainted her too much, the acrid stink of his mind was in every cranny, eating away at the foundations. She hadn’t realized how pervasive he had been, how far he had infiltrated. Junyul was half shouting and half crying, but nobody appeared to be listening.
         You must let me in, you must let me help, Maleth shouted internally, projecting her thoughts with all the strength that remained. But beyond the initial contact, she could get no further. Junyul was ignoring her now, ignoring everyone, infected by the impossible need to escape. It hadn’t been long enough and the woman had been through too much. The first attack by Ranos, then the wounding, and now another assault. It had come too fast.
         “I tried to kill you once . . .” Ranos said grimly, rising to his full height and holding out one hand. It wasn’t a threat but a statement. Junyul panted and screamed inarticulately again. Her thoughts flared, showing deep scars of anger. Her mind twisted, teetered, risked total collapse. There would be no entrance here, Maleth knew. Silently, she gathered herself again, preparing.
         Junyul launched herself at the other man, propelling herself with a jagged speed across the room, nearly tackling Ranos to the floor, the air becoming razor-sharp around her. His arms went out and he moved with the impact, seeming to catch her in an embrace. His mind locked into a new pattern, shifted into a new array, one that Maleth had never seen before. She’s lost, she thought with some measure of sadness. The poor dear. He’s going to kill her.
         Grunting, Ranos pushed, flung her bodily away, the motion causing him to stagger back into the wall, his hands going out to brace himself. His face was cut up, as was the front of his robes. His face was set and dispassionate. Junyul sailed into the air, hardly struggling now, and landed up against the opposite wall, her head inches from touching the ceiling. Hatred blazed down from her face, nearly igniting the room. Still slightly dazed, Maleth picked up her head and felt more than saw the lines of force running from Ranos to Junyul. The woman’s battle to escape was fought utterly out of sight, stressing the structure of the room. A vague creaking could be heard. Maleth began to form another plan.
         “Your loss was . . . great,” Ranos murmured, hardly aware if Junyul could hear him or not. “But I did not cause it . . . nor can I alter it.” His eyes narrowed. “Still, it does not excuse the things you have done, the abuses you have allowed to occur.” There was blood running down Junyul’s face, flowing freely from her nose. Ranos was holding one arm out now, palm extended, and it was shaking slightly.
         Junyul’s eyes bored into him. There was a certain clear dignity to them now, in these moments. Something seemed to pass between her and Ranos, and the hardness of his eyes softened just slightly.
         “Perhaps that may, but . . .” a strange sadness infused his face then. “I am not going to kill you . . .” he turned his hand and clenched his fist slightly, and Junyul gasped as the bandage on her shoulder suddenly darkened with a rush of blood. Looking at her now, Maleth saw just how terrible she looked, her hair in disarray, her face thin and spectral, her hands twisted like claws as she tried to move her arms from the wall where they were pinned. Her mouth opened wide in a wordless scream but sound refused to emerge.
         “. . . but I suggest you use what time remains to you to get as far away from here as possible,” he finished quietly.
         Ranos closed his hand, thrust it sharply downward.
         Junyul vomited a strangled growl, twisted her body away from Ranos, toward the wall itself. Her entire body tensed, seemed on the verge of crumbling to pieces, when suddenly what felt like a string snapped, the free ends dancing wildly in the air. Invisibly, impossibly, Maleth felt one end scrape across her face and she resisted the urge to touch her face in search of a mark. Theatre, it’s all theatre, she thought. Only seconds now, she had. Only seconds left to act.
         In a burst of blurred action, Junyul tensed once more, her body seeming to stretch, her feature briefly elongating, warping her voice and mind. It was hardly recognizable anymore. Ranos never took his eyes off of her, his concentration absolute.
         And then, Junyul’s body pulsed, stretched an inch further than was possible and seemingly dispersed, breaking into streaks of light that forced Maleth to shield her eyes, even as she knew there was nothing really there. The musty stench of imploded air carved a streak across the room, leaving nothing but a vague rumbling behind in Maleth’s ears and an air pressure frantically seeking to readjust itself. Her truncated scream, never really vocalized, lingered in the air, a message from the past that had been to the beginning of time and looped back around again.
         In the aftermath, nothing was said for a long time.
         Maleth found her voice first, as she tottered clumsily to her feet. Ranos was staring at her now, something between a smile and a pensive expression sketched on his face.
         “What did you do to her?” she asked, trying not to pay attention to how worn her voice sounded. Her cane was gone, discarded, and her hand sank into the bed as she used it to support herself.
         “Just what I said,” Ranos answered perfunctorily. He clasped his hands behind his back. Just before he did, she saw that they were covered in blood. He was swaying on his feet, a barely noticeable motion but there nonetheless. This was not easy for you, Ranos, no matter what you’d force us to believe. “And now, it is your turn, I believe . . .”
         “Is it?” Maleth asked simply. This house is mine, Ranos. I’ve always said that. I’ve held it together with nothing but my will.
         Let me show you what happens when I loosen my grip.
         In the last second, perhaps, he realized. In the last second before she did it, maybe he saw.
         Still smiling, Maleth let herself relax.
         Ranos’ eyes widened. “Don’t-“
         Let me show you control.
         And slackening her grip, she allowed the world to explode.

* * * * *

         “Kill me?” Valreck asked, easing deeper into the room, trying to free his mind from the sudden pounding that had started to overtake it. Some kind of interference, but coming from her? He still couldn’t see the girl clearly, her features were somehow blurred, the darkness taking care of the rest. She hadn’t moved from the doorway yet, although he somehow sensed her presence close by. “And why would you want to do that?”
         “He’s coming,” Baress said, his voice hushed and quaking, his face pressed to the floor. “Can’t you feel it? He’s-“ he added, nearly rising into a shout before falling strangely quiet. Valreck barely paid him any mind. He was distracted enough as it was.
         “Because I have to,” the girl said to him and a table leapt at him suddenly, spinning through the air. He ducked, throwing a shield up at the same time, wincing as the furnishing shattered, large pieces tumbling to the floor, splinters spraying down in a shower. I didn’t even see that coming. She’s good. “Because you have to die.”
         At his feet, the fragments of the table smoldered and caught fire.
         Valreck slid to the side, away from Baress, who was lying prone, utterly silent, his mind screaming. Her mind was still water, impenetrable, immune to all his attempts to probe. Even the effort gave him a near blinding headache. He shifted the air in the room, creating a brisk wind that put the fire out. Instead the pieces flew at him, again without warning, one streaking past his hastily erected defense and searing his skin, drawing a ragged red line across his neck. He gasped, but didn’t let it interrupt his concentration. I cannot attack her directly.
         “Now why would you want . . .” he asked, his mind quickly sorting through his options, trying to take stock of the situation before it got too swiftly out of hand. He was somewhat limited, not being a fighter like Tolin, not being trained. His main speciality was the mind and affecting it, which wasn’t an option here. He couldn’t get in, she was too well guarded. He would have to try another tactic.
         The air hissed, crystals beginning to form, when Valreck caused a small explosion to erupt in the dirt behind it. The arc of the erupting dirt framed her, never touching her, but taking her attention away from him for a brief second.
         “. . . to go and do that?” he finished mildly, sending the chair, the lone piece of furniture left in the room, rocketing into her chest, the object moving so rapidly that the wood groaned under the sudden strain. So misdirection must be the key here. The chair impacted with a violent crack, sending her reeling back, out of the room, out of his sight completely.
         A moment later, he followed, not even leaving his shadow behind.
         Still on the floor, Baress picked his head up, stared with unblinking eyes toward the door. “He’s right there,” he said, pointing with his closed fist. “Why don’t you see him?”
         But, of course, there was no one left to hear.

* * * * *

         Air hissed, sizzled, ran down the walls like butter, leaving nothing but its sickening residue behind. Smoke swirled, sought the heights, was chained down by gravity. A scent of dying ozone lingered, retreating into the smallest spaces.
         Above it all hovered the voice.
         “Do you . . . see now . . . that nothing is as . . . terribly easy as . . . as it seems at . . . first?”
         Wizened, it grated against the friction of life itself.
         “I am not so easy . . . so easy to kill, am I? Am I? No, no, I think not . . .”
         Somewhere distant, water kept dripping, counting out the lengthening seconds. The voice darted into the moments between, thrived on the presumed entropy.
         “And neither are . . . are you, I see. We . . . we both have our failsafes . . . don’t we? Our ways to keep our . . . grip strong . . . on this life.”
         At the bottom of the spectrum, a jarring rattle began, gradually rising in volume, arcing toward an end lost to proper sight, to a place that was only experienced once, in fragments of inverted time.
         “Because we both know . . . that this . . . this is all we get. Regardless of what the . . . stories say, we know that the time between . . . our first and final breaths . . . is all there is . . . and it is not a thing we would relinquish . . . easily . . . I understand that better than most and the . . . I see the same drive in you . . .”
         If flame did not burn, where could it go? Falling, the pieces dropped through shallow liquid, never achieving rain, never coming near. The littered pattern spelled out a word that was no longer said.
         “And . . . if I allowed it, you could become a . . . a very old man indeed.”
         Step closer and you’d see the word.
         “But I have kept my grip so tight . . . on this thing called life . . . that there is no longer room for . . . for anyone else. And this road . . . will only lead toward a . . . destination . . . of my choosing.”
         But it’s dark clarity would burn out your vision, smeared stars tumbling toward each other in a final, elegant dance. Don’t do it.
         “But what you have done . . . has roots in the eternal. Your . . . name . . . will linger long after your passing.”
         So look away.
         “While my fate . . . will be merely to linger . . . and persist . . .”
         A slit lined with razors. The eye closes. If the pores are open then that is where all the blood can be found.
         “. . . farewell . . .”
         Wood shattered, broke. All part of the plan. All part. All.
         Look away-

* * * * *

         The unsullied air outdoors did nothing to clear his head. His mind remained a jumble, seemingly random words and phrases peppering his brain like rotten fruit flung heedlessly at the nearest wall. Just beyond the door, Valreck took note of the fine sprinkling of wood dust scattered on the ground, mixed in with unmistakable droplets of blood. There was no sign of the girl. He emerged into the grey night, arms straddling the doorway, alert for another attack, which he was sure would come soon. I have to end this. He was not ready to die yet, certainly not now, with so many goals suddenly revealed, so much unfinished. All he saw was the still village, its breath held, waiting for outsiders to inject it with the life that it could no longer sustain. We were ever outsiders here, always would have been. To believe otherwise was foolish. We were all fools. He didn’t like being out here, it reminded him of too much, irritating the piercing sadness embedded in his chest.
         A clatter above forced him to glance up, even as he hardened the air above him in preparation, all his senses tense, at the ready. But the blow came from behind, striking him in the back of the neck, causing his world to disintegrate into a series of blackened blocks, stars flashing like random paint splatters. The ground rushed up, touched him, another second of pain lanced through him as he bounced, not sure what to do with his hands, not sure where these attacks were coming from. Somehow another struck him in the face, even though he was only inches from the dirt, straining his back, lifting him in the air and sending him crashing back down again. The entire affair took place in suspended time, he watched the shrouded world glide past, trapped behind glass, somehow he managed to twist and land on his side, wrenching his shoulder. His mind was shouting a thousand commands to his body, all of which were being ignored. Where is she? She wasn’t invisible, he would have sensed that, but she was nowhere to be seen. Another fist lashed across his face, nearly throwing him onto his back. The stars glittered impassively above, neither mocking nor condemning. He had never realized how bitter blood could taste. Who sent her? Which of them has sent her?
         “Please,” he whispered, “there is no need . . . no need for this . . .” his muscles protested every motion as he struggled to his feet, aware of the stillness in the air. Half successful, he lurched to one knee, the world revolving slowly, out of time with his equilibrium. Questions piled up in his mind, crowding out all other thoughts, fighting for equal ground with impulses of survival. The air shuddered to his left and automatically he thrust out a shield, hardening the empty space. The shock still knocked him back a step, and he threw out one arm to brace himself, fingers sinking into the dirt. Who was causing this? Who had brought this down upon him? Certainly not Tolin, who would have simply attacked him directly, without sending an intermediate. He would have been the most likely suspect, the one who wanted him dead the most, especially now that Valreck possessed the knowledge that Baress had given him access to. Yet this was not his style.
         A second strike rippled toward him, coming from the other side. But seeing the pattern, he reacted by instinct and instead of letting the shield take the hit, he parted the shield, let it close around the barrage, allowed it to seal, isolating the knotted web of thought that had led to the action, pulling and twisting.
         The strands were almost impossibly dense and he regretted it a second later when the feedback laced into his head, skeletal fingers drawing burning lines throughout his mind. But he felt it reverberate on the other end as well and a strangled gasp reached his ears a moment later. All of a sudden the air had a quiet heaviness to it. I am not a fighter . . . but I am not defenseless either, he thought, with silent pride.
         He caught a glimpse of her then, crouched like an animal, but when he turned to face her, she leapt out of sight, darting away. A hundred tiny strings probed at the edges of his mind, searching for a way in. There was nothing subtle about them, the same with the physical attacks. She has the power, but none of the technique. Tolin would have killed me by now. This is not his doing. He would not allowed it to last this long.
         “If you kill me, what purpose does it serve?” he shouted, staggering away as he regained his feet, trying to move away from the house, trying to find an area that would offer a strategic advantage, or at least an opportunity to escape. Teleporting would only be a temporary salvation, she would easily be able to track him. Her vision was acute enough that he might as well lay out his trail in neon. “What does my death accomplish-“
         A circle of flame erupted at his feet, surging to the sky just inches from his face. The edges of his clothing smoldered and he reeled backwards, feeling the same flush of heat washing over his back. The fire danced, the flames seeming to rotate clockwise, the tips swaying closer to him with every second. His lungs filled with superheated smoke, protesting the infusion of tainted air, and he doubled over, covering his face and coughing, hearing the crackling echo in his ears like the shrieks of madwomen. No. Not Tolin, then. Unconsciousness bit at the edges of his awareness and it took all his efforts to stay focused. It leaves only one other. A weakness in his limbs forced him closer and closer to the ground, the coughing causing his entire body to shudder violently, consciousness swimming in and out, an ache in the center of his chest quickly spreading to the edges of his body, an infusion of heat that felt all too comforting. I have to get out of here. I cannot stay. But the thought, no matter how obvious, could not spur him to action. He tried to claw his way forward, seeking a way through the wall of flame but the surge of intense heat kept him back.
         I cannot stay. Shaking, beads of sweat coating his face, he gritted his teeth, settling back into a crouch, feet digging into the soil. Eyes closed, he could still see the fire, bordering him from all angles, his mind nothing more than dry kindling ready to ignite. Pieces were descending like a puzzle swept from a table, locking into place as they fell. The fire seemed to speed up his thoughts and suddenly matters were becoming frighteningly clear.
         Was I so dangerous, Maleth, that I could not be suffered to live? Was that it?
         He tensed, fighting the urge to sleep and die.
         But you will not succeed. Your soldier will not kill me.
         And neither will you.
         His mouth opening into a roar of defiance, he raced forward, covering his head in the second before he dove right into the surging fire. It accepted him readily enough and he was in.
         Agony enveloped him, coated him like a new skin, and his nerves screamed, sensations overloading him as his mind tried to process it all. Even without breathing, sharp fingers gouged the inside of his throat, trying to force him back, push him down. He was a drop of water, falling through an inferno, threatened with final dissolution in every spare second, holding himself together only through willpower. It’s what it all came down to. He would not die in this place. He had seen too much. Not until all the questions that remained in this life had been satisfied. Not until the lone voice he carried inside was silenced once and for all.
         Inertia fought against him, a beast he wrestled without arms, attacking him from all the wrong angles. His world was angry colors, spent in broad washes of emotion. It hurt so much. He was not allowed the luxury of screaming. But he couldn’t stand it.
         I will not die. I will not.
         He burst through with the momentum of a man traveling through plate glass, tiny flames scattering and sputtering on the soil in his wake. Skin burning from a glimpse from an unblinking eye, he hit the ground and rolled, half involuntary, moving and moving and moving, trying to outrace the pain, trying to leave it all behind, discarding only pieces of himself, his clothing, the skin still attached, smears of blood left in the dirt like screaming faces, and at the end of the trail his body, flailing uselessly, every inch reenacting the demise of the whole.
         By the time he came to rest, he had almost forgotten how to breathe. The cool night air was a balm, soothing but not eliminating. He tried to gather up the pain, shove it into a box and seal it away, a technique he had been taught long ago. But he couldn’t remember exactly how it went and tendrils of sensation kept leaking around the edges, stroking his nerves, lighting them on fire again. His face felt like a mask belonging to someone else, his clothes branded to his body, the rattle of his breathing the final gasp of an imploding world.
         Valreck struggled to his hands and knees, his arms shaking violently from the effort. His heart could barely keep up with the demands of the night, it fluttered, stammered, begged him to relent. But he could not let it give up. The final victory had to be his, or all he had fought for was pointless, a once noble cause hijacked to an ignoble end. His dream, once cracked, had now been entirely broken, the pieces trampled and buried underfoot, all while he was caught up in the stars, his lofty notions blinding him. Broken pieces were nothing more than shards however, and shards were still capable of laying open the hardiest of veins. And once breached, the end would come swiftly, spilled out onto the uncaring dirt.
         Footsteps trod lightly nearby, a vibration he felt through his too sensitive fingertips. Her mind caressed his, trying to find an entrance, seeking some kind of advantage. But her advances were clumsy and easily repelled, even in his weakened state. She will not win this by gaining access to my mind. Barking out a cough, he spit, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, trying not to look at the smear of red that appeared there. Everything tasted somehow like soot. No, she will simply beat me to death. That will be just as effective. Some strange tangible quality of her mind was familiar to him, in some aspect. He wondered how that could be.
         “Did she make him do it . . .” he rasped, his voice the crunch of footfalls on dead leaves. “The same way she’s making you do this?”
         “She asked,” came the offhand reply, far too young. Children, now, Maleth? Your tastes become more debased the more the years wear on you. “And it seemed like a simple enough thing to do.”
         A whistle dropped, some instinct caused Valreck to curl into a ball and roll to the side, ignoring every attempt his body made to make him stop. The ground was cleaved by some invisible force where his body had been. Her presence was humidity without moisture, a storm that held no rain, only lightning and other charged ions. The scuff of her stride was a ritual sigh, his eulogy and epitaph.
         “Nothing good ever comes from aiding her,” Valreck spat, wincing as the clothes branded into his skin pulled at him, restricting his movements. The infections would kill him if she didn’t. But he didn’t need weeks or months here. Tonight would do, if all went well. “I saved her life and yet here you are, presenting me with my reward.” He laughed, licked cracked lips, tasted more blood. “You can expect no better, if this continues.” A breeze carrying the remnants of smoke caused his eyes to water, obscured the barren world. “No matter what else happens here tonight, consider yourself warned.”
         The girl said nothing in reply. He tried to figure out where she was exactly, but her mind was seeds spread out by a single puff of breath, scattered and ascending, as substantial as a half remembered dream. A grasp of the hand left you holding nothing but the memory of the attempt.
         “Tell me this, then,” he said, painfully turning around, trying to rise one to one knee and failing miserably. “Did she mention to you if it was his idea and merely assisted, or was it her plan the entire time?”
         “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the girl said to him, directly to his left. How did she get so close? “Does it really matter, in the end?”
         “Perhaps not,” he said, spinning in that direction, one leg curled beneath him, two slices of sharpened air cutting downwards and sideways, high and low. “But you see, I made a promise to a friend. And I really can’t stop now.” The effort left a lightness lingering in the center of his mind and his vision blurred, formed double images and pastel colors.
         But she was no longer there, if she ever had been.
         Behind him, a soft gust of breath tickled his ear. “That’s so sweet,” she said, and suddenly too strong hands were on him. Something unbearably taut was pulling at him. “How about we discuss it somewhere more private?”
         “Ah, what-“ was all he had time to say before his voice was sucked away by the onrushing wind, before his feet left the ground, before a relentless tug overcame him.
         And before he could indulge in more than a brief stab of fear as together the two of them took flight, falling rapidly upwards into the opaque sky.

* * * * *

         Either I’m not paying enough attention to my own drills or I’m having one hell of an off day, Brown thought, gritting his teeth as he tried to fight his way to his feet once again. The door lay cracked and battered before him, hints of freedom shining through his cage, but every few seconds the house would shudder and fling him to the floor, forcing him to repeat the process all over again. He had no conception of what it might like outside in the house proper. Screams lashed past him obliquely, arcing sideways just past the range of his hearing. At one point he had to abort a strike at the door when a face abruptly appeared right in the center. It vomited something foul and than vanished, spectral tears running down its transparent cheeks. Brown hadn’t had the heart to kick it. I know how it feels, he thought glumly, nearly falling backwards against the bed as the foundations of the house groaned once again.
         Something was happening out there and he needed to be part of it. Snatches of dialogue kept floating to him, but it was all meaningless, some of it in a language he didn’t comprehend. He kept listening for Ranos’ voice but hadn’t heard it again yet. Still, the fight hadn’t stopped yet, that much was clear. This mess had his handiwork all over it. He wondered if Ranos was fighting Kara, though he sincerely hoped it wasn’t the case, since if it was he might as well find a sturdy place to hide and get ready for the entire house to be swallowed up by the earth. Or get ejected into space. With the kid involved, it could go either way.
         Another sound screeched through the walls, almost taking physical form, a jigsaw line of pressed silver dust, fading even as the noise itself receded from memory. Footsteps strode up the walls, leaving bloody handprints every time they paused. Brown ignored all of it. None of this nonsense was important to him, or the task at hand. I’m just glad I’m not a mindbender, or I’d have one hell of a headache right now, I bet.
         A brief lull gave him the opportunity to kick at the door again. For once he connected solidity, but his balance became suddenly distorted and he fell into the door, feeling part of it give way beneath him, but not completely. His ear to the wood, he thought he heard the old woman’s voice, apparently shouting. He couldn’t tell who was the intended target however. There was a weakness in the air, settling like weary haze. This house was breaking down in layers, molecule by molecule. Brown strained to hear an answering reply to the woman’s snarled words, but nothing came. Ranos, I swear, if you die before I get out of here, I’ll stay dead just so I can find you in the afterlife and kick your ass. The door was noticeably damaged now, bent out of shape from the doorframe, spaces appearing large enough to fit his fingers through, if he still possessed them. We definitely have to rewrite the survival manual after this little adventure. Add a chapter discussing amputation. Angry, he drove his knee into the door, keeping his weight against it as the house rippled again. The woman’s voice was softer now, her words still no more audible. A dart of pain entered his leg, burning all the way down to his calf, but he thrust the sensation aside, let it wash away. He had to get through now, the sounds of fighting were growing softer outside and it didn’t seem like Ranos was winning. Perhaps he had some sort of hidden trick he was getting ready to reveal but Brown couldn’t count on that.
         “Come on,” he growled, moving back a half step and driving his shoulder hard into the door, hearing the wood warp but not give. “Why is it . . .” he slammed into it again, “every hotel I’ve been in never has a . . .” and again, nearly biting through his lip, “secure door, but in this place the . . .” and again, with a distinct crack rewarding his effort, even as he drew back to go once more, “damn wood is stronger than goddamn titanium!” the last words drawn out into a near roar as he threw his entire body against the door, feeling it give just an inch more.
         He stopped, rested his head against the door, tasted the sharp flavor of his sweat, took several deeps breaths. All the sound outside seemed to be coming from a place very distant, voices muffled and strangely echoed, all noise reduced to a low murmur, not unlike tape hiss, a subsonic rumble, a vibration with fingers prodding his very bones. None of struck Brown as a good thing at all.
         “Dammit,” he whispered, weakly slamming his hand into the door. He was tired, utterly without rest since he had landed on this damn world, fighting ever since he touched down and it all he could do to make himself fight some more.
         “Dammit,” he said again, louder, driving his shoulder into the door without much force, feeling it shift ever so slightly. Not much more, he thought, closing his eyes and leaning his head on the door. The house hadn’t shook for some time now, but he could still clearly hear things breaking, and all the audible voices were backwards messages, subliminal sentences drenched in nonsense, meaning nothing no matter which angle you viewed them from.
         Are you okay out there, Ranos? he thought, not sure if the man could hear his words, if any thoughts ever escaped from his own head. Pushing himself away from the door, he stumbled back a few steps, sizing up the beaten door through hooded eyes, his arms heavier than ever, his legs filled with straw, his brain ready to shrivel up and burst. Insects skittered along the floor, but none were to be seen. The story of his life. I’m coming, Ranos. I’m coming to help.
         His legs shook and he nearly tumbled to the floor, catching himself with a quick, mad laugh. “Ah, but you better have softened her up for me first.”
         Head down, he launched himself at the door.
         From nowhere, someone shouted, “No, no!” in the midst of his effort. It wasn’t directed at him, he hoped. It was too late to halt now.
         As he impacted he swore it would end with the same results as all the other attempts, his action only having an opposite reaction.
         Not this time.
         This time, his momentum continued.
         Forward. And through.
         With nothing to stop him, Brown fell with a crash, wood splinters stabbing at his exposed skin, blunt pain smothering his body like a blanket, his view shifting from opaque and familiar to an alien sort of clarity disturbingly quickly.
         Two seconds into his fall, it occurred to Brown that he didn’t have any way of catching himself.
         Ah, damn-
         His face bounced off the floor a moment later, jolting the thought from his head as he rolled onto his side, a haze of pain fitting like a mask over his face, blood pouring out his nose, into his mouth, he was spitting blood, perhaps a tooth, the pain was burning sparkles spreading all over his body, disintegrating all too slowly, distorting his vision, rearranging the world, chasing all other impulses from his mind.
         Brown came to rest on his back, seeing his chest heaving up and down through his peripheral vision, the ceiling lost in the depths that were an unreachable distance above him. After a moment he realized that the house was utterly silent. A constant slow dripping belonged to another life, to another place. The world was rotating lazily, with himself as the center. Isn’t that what his mother always said was his problem? If only she could see him now. Joseph, why are you missing your hands? Long story, Mom, long story. A tiny voice that wouldn’t shut up kept trying to remind him that staying in one place wasn’t exactly the best idea at the moment. Danger was still viable and lurking about. He had to admit that his nagging voice had a point.
         In fact, danger was coming toward him, in the form of sodden footsteps creeping up the stairs, not even bothering to soften the creakings. There was confidence in every motion of the stride. The vibrations he felt through the floorboards carried it forward, into the base of his spine. Sure, how hard can a cripple be? Brown couldn’t find the energy to turn his head and face his would-be attacker. His plan was to fling himself at the newcomer the second he came within view, perhaps throw the both of them off the floor down onto the ground. That was the plan. He knew he couldn’t enact it. There was no strength in his limbs anymore.
         The footsteps grew closer, nearly whispering in his ear. If he could get in one decent punch he wouldn’t feel that all this effort had been wasted. I’m sorry, Ranos. I’m sorry, Kara. I thought I could help. I thought I could. He braced himself, vowing to keep his eyes open, no matter what they did. His spirit remained intact. That much hadn’t changed. It never would.
         A halo of crimson light greeted his vision, piercing what few shadows remained.
         Brown flinched away immediately, old instinct shocking him into a flutter of action, only recognizing the glow after the fact. What the . . .
         Slowly, he turned back, squinting into the bloody haze that was painted on the air now. It was being emitted from a razor-brush, pointed and thin, a sharp line drawn on the air. If he followed it back to the source it led to a hand, to a face, to a person he most and least expected.
         About bloody time, he muttered internally, using what little energy remained to raise himself to his side, getting a better look at the house now, at what remained. Behind him, the walkway from his room onwards was completely gone. The downstairs was utterly demolished, all the furniture seemingly piled in the center of the room. A man lay facedown on the pile, as if in supplication, as if merely resting, his robes ripped and bloody. He didn’t move. Dammit. Ranos. Unable to finish the thought properly, he winced as his head swam again, his vision warping and he closed his eyes, laying his head down on the floor, trying to make himself the center once more.
         When he opened his eyes the man was still crouched over him. He looked no better, bruises covering his face, running down his neck like some tribal pattern, dried blood and scratches showing through the dirt and tears in his clothing. But his hands were steady and his eyes were concerned. He reached out one hand without touching Brown, stopping inches away.
         “Joe,” Tristian whispered, the glow from the sword throwing half his face into harsh shadows, “what the hell happened to your hands?”
         “Long story, Mom, long story . . .” Brown muttered, with a slim grin, barely hearing the question. It was all he could get out as just then his world decided to slacken its grip and chose that moment to slide limply off the table. He tried to grab hold, missed, closed his fingers around empty air, and by then knew no more.

* * * * *

         The chilled night air slapped at Valreck, pulled all the breath from his lungs. Below the ground was receding quickly, the village becoming nothing more than a collection of toys, a lifelessness that matched the view from the ground. He couldn’t feel his attacker’s arms around him anymore, but her mind hovered like a dense cloud overhead, almost completely enveloping him. What were they doing up here? What was she going to do?
         “I have two choices really,” her voice hissed to him, answering his briefly unguarded thoughts, “I can either just let you drop, or launch you completely into space.” It again startled him again at how young she sounded. A teenager, perhaps, barely an adult. The wind whistling through his body, the ground spinning so far below, the cold cutting into his bones all prevented him from forming coherent thoughts. Something wasn’t right with the child. She had too much power with too little training. It didn’t make sense.
         They continued to climb higher and higher, Valreck beginning to lose the feeling in the tips of his fingers, the shift from extreme heat to this new temperature adding another layer of agony. It was all he could do to keep his thoughts centered, to remained focused on the matter at hand. He tried to struggle, but whatever grip she had on him was almost impossible to break. Too powerful . . . she’s too-
         It hit him, then, as they entered a cloud and the world became hazy and opaque. The Child, he thought, as a cold realization flooded into a hollow in his chest. It had to be. They had discussed the possibility before, whether she had existed or not, and if she had, what had happened to her. The Time Patrol had taken her, then. They had stolen her and now Maleth had gained control over her. Grim irony indeed, he reflected as the clouds parted and the expanse of the motionless sky opened up before them again. To be killed by the very person that was supposed to symbolize the cause?
         Breathing was becoming more and more difficult, the air growing sparser, each attempt to inhale driving knives into his chest. Is this your final revenge on us, Mandras, for living while the rest of you perished? The child had not said anything for some time now. Perhaps she had let go and he was falling, these thoughts floating through his dying brain in an attempt to come to grips with his eventual demise. There was barely a feeling of movement anymore, if he closed his eyes he might be nowhere at all.
         No. No, he couldn’t believe that. Angrily he tried to thrust the cloying fog from his mind. He would not die here. It was not possible. Biting his lip, Valreck took shallow breaths and attempted to focus. He needed to be more solid, he needed weight and gravity. The girl’s arms were tighter around him, if he moved his arms he might even be able to touch them. He didn’t need to. Reaching out, he tried to connect with her mind, found himself rebuffed again, the rejection a sharp pain in the center of his head a ledge he could grasp. Their flight seemed to have ceased, the ground no longer falling away. Perhaps it was an illusion. Perhaps none of this was real. He couldn’t assume that was so, however. He presumed she would drop him soon, and somehow make sure he could land safely
         A comment she had made previously came back to him, about the choices she had in killing him. I can either drop you . . .
         Suspended in the air, Valreck checked one more time to make sure the child was still grasping him. Quickly, his mind found the threads that were holding them here, discovered them and with a simple twist, augmented their strength.
         . . . or throw you into space.
         Suddenly they shot upwards, climbing the emptiness with a speed that nearly snapped his neck, so abruptly did it capture them. The cold cut into his skin like razors and spots whirled past his vision, his brain screaming for air. He hoped this turned out to be a good idea.
         Behind him, the girl gasped and he felt her mind reel back, then surge forward as she poured more effort into her weavings, only succeeding in sending them ever upwards at a faster pace. “What . . . what are you doing?” she gasped in his ear, sounding strangely panicked, like the game had just become real. “Stop this, you’ll . . . what are you doing . . .”
         “You said you wanted to kill me,” Valreck may have spoken outloud but he couldn’t tell anymore. Perhaps he was laying in his grave, dreaming this entire encounter. Everything was transient. “I’m just assisting the process.” The stars were no closer, and they could tumble upwards forever and never reach them. She was fighting him now, pressing downwards, two hands struggling for dominance, the outcome either way perhaps his death. He felt their ascent slow, but not halt completely. He kept hearing the voices of dead friends. They should not get their hopes up, he thought grimly. Twisting, he tried to get a look at her, not sure what good it would do, wanting to let her know he would not stop fighting, he wouldn’t cease.
         “Ah . . . no, you’ll . . .” they dipped, halted, shot upwards a few more feet. He felt the weave pulsing, heaving, he wrapped a hand around it, readying himself. “You’ll kill us both.” Valreck found her hands suddenly, all too warm, tried to break their grip. The girl shouted behind him and twisted in response, and they fell into a spin, darting up further in a strange sort of dance. “We can’t . . .”
         “Did you think it would be easy?” Valreck said plainly, not sure where he was finding the energy to say so much. His imagination, perhaps. His defiance would only echo in his mind. “Have you ever killed anyone before?”
         “No, you have to-“
         ”No man goes quietly,” he stated with a calm more imposed than felt. Once more he pushed the two of them up into the sky, forcing her to press down even harder, causing them to dip slightly. Perfect. “And this is a fight I cannot afford to lose.”
         “But we have to-“
         And upon saying that he reversed his grip, changed his weave, added it to hers once again, pouring all of his will into it, even as his vision was bordered by thick black lines on all sides, until all he saw the oblivion of the night sky, a darker black he knew he could easily fall into. Here is a lesson, child. You can receive what you desire and realize it is not exactly what you wanted to begin with.
         Instead, he fell down, the two of them abruptly plummeting to earth, rocketing downwards at such a great speed that all his breath, all his thoughts were ripped away, scattered with a fluttering madness among the heedless clouds. She was screaming something but his ears weren’t processing it anymore. The houses were growing closer, becoming larger, it was taking so long he didn’t realize how far up they had been. He swore he felt icicles breaking off his body, he had left his skin behind up there and he had no defense against the elements anymore. But he didn’t need protection. He just needed to last. To persist and last. For a little longer. That was all. Just a little longer.
         The girl was trying to slow their descent but his will was fixed now and the shock of stopping so abruptly would have killed them both. If you try to kill a man, came the stray thought, best do in the first few seconds.
         A house loomed ahead. Valreck had the sense they were aiming for it. The wind pulled his lips back into an insane grin, and he forced them to go faster. Otherwise, he will do his best to take you with him. He grabbed her hands, leaving her unable to let go, making sure that wherever they were going, she was there until the bitter end. It was only fair. He could almost make out the pattern of the tiled room now, see the spots where animals had left their waste, the damage that nature had done. The only sound was the whistling of an incoming missile. Dazed, he began to question the source of the noise, when he realized that it was him. Them. The two of them. Falling.
         At the last second he managed to duck, shove her forward.
         They still hit the roof at nearly the same time and the girl must have thrown up a shield in those final moments because he barely felt anything, just the jarring crunch of impact, a sudden wash of heat and pain, but not as much as he expected and a sickening moment of freefall as the two of them separated, leaving him to tumble to the floor unaided. Oddly shaped debris fell past, turning lazily end over end in a sort of slow time, a recording trapped in repetition, falling without ever hitting bottom. Gravity caressed, clutched at him, but hardly seemed to have any effect. He had lost sight of the girl. It didn’t seem to matter.
         Without trying, he landed on a table. It barely broke his fall but he shattered it, bruising his bones even further but adding little to his already persistent agony. Time wrenched back into a normal speed, and the room was filled with a penned in clatter as wooden fragments splattered around in a parody of rain. Peering around, he found himself amidst the debris of his passage, the pieces arranged in a near circle. Nothing really hurt at all. For a second he marveled that he had been able to shove the pain aside, but he realized that it was more likely because he had no nerves remaining. Frayed moonlight streamed down from the crude hole punched in the ceiling, the meager illumination ultimately revealing nothing.
         Valreck crawled painfully to his feet, the ground slick under his feet with what he hoped was water, even as a second pile of wreckage shifted on the other side of the room, in the shadows. A girl’s voice groaned and again he felt the too familiar wash of her mind, a giant stretching its muscles. But in these moments she lacked complete control and her mind spasmed, becoming oddly slippery, not able to achieve a total grasp of anything. It whirled, confused and groping, looking for solid land, some kind of balance.
         He had no desire to provide such a thing for her. This fight was still fluid, all too easily tipped in either direction. But the child was looking for victory, while Valreck sought only survival. Awkwardly sliding back from his own too hard cushion, he swept up the rubble and let it arc toward her. It hit the back wall, threatened to smother her in fragments. “I told you before that it was not worth it,” he shouted across to her, even as the debris ballooned outward and formed a sort of dome around her, fought off by a desperately improvised shield. The attack drenched the girl in shadows, the elements combining to craft a shell to cover her. But the cracks were already showing. Her mind was still reeling, unable to stay on top of the situation. He could end this here. He wanted nothing else.
         Valreck crawled forward, needles of pain reaching him no matter how gingerly he moved. Perhaps a physical confrontation might prove more worthwhile. Even wounded as he was, his size could allow him to overwhelm her, and if possible, convince her to call off this madness. Maleth’s way was wrong and would give her nothing of value. She had to see that. “If the old woman has a quarrel with me, let her come and settle it. No more sending others . . . no more . . .” he was shouting, but his throat so ravaged that he could barely croak out the words anymore. The girl was huddled at the far wall, her body obscured, her mind swirling, seeking equilibrium still. The ragged dome pulsed, tried to expand outward and he had a glimpse of a young girl covering her face with her arms. Valreck barely repulsed the effort, an unbearable lightness exploding in his mind. The constraints on his body were never more frustrating. Any second she would regain her bearings. He would not survive another attack from her. The sober fact only drove him forward. If he did not succeed in the next few seconds, she would kill him. It was that simple.
         “If I can give you one piece of advice, child, it is this . . .” he spit out the word while attempting to struggle closer, the air turning electric, his vision blurring, streaked with a strange fuzziness. Everything seemed covered in blood, tinted in a tainted sheen. It was so much darker over here, in this corner of the room. It couldn’t be his eyes. “You will have to fight enough battles in your life on your own, without any assistance at all . . .” the dome was a heaving womb now, trying to disgorge its contents but finding no true outlet. Her mind would sweep everything away, a storm stripping the landscape bare. It would leave him no ground to stand on and his battered body would not be able to sustain it. If she brought the full force of her will down on him, he would be unable to hold her back. Valreck suspected he had only scant seconds before that occurred. He couldn’t think about that now. “. . . and be left with precious little time to spar on behalf of others, no matter how just the cause.” She was a knot working in reverse, undoing all of his work. Quickly, Valreck prepared one final attack, a piercing gesture that might paralyze her in the one second where she dropped the shield to ward off his assault. It might buy him time to subdue her. Or escape. Or both.
         Her mind was skidding sideways to his efforts now. The rough covering was swirling, he caught snatches of her form shining through. He had no doubt she was the Child now, her power was too severe for one of her age, her use of it too sure. He had expected to be slightly more awed. Perhaps he didn’t care anymore. Perhaps he had no room left inside for the emotion.
         “This is something that you, all of people should be aware of . . .” and he prepared himself for the strike.
         Suddenly her mind countered his will, unraveled it all with deceptive ease. Somehow he held his ground amidst the shock.
         The fragments and debris crashed to the floor at her feet, revealing her crouched there, body bent, hands slowly lowering themselves to the floor, ready to launch herself at him.
         “ . . . and . . . know . . .” he finished, and found himself unable to speak further.
In the moonlight, she was plain to see, her pale radiance seeming to hardly be a reflection. Her face had an effortless youth to it, even grimly set as it was. There was a fire in her eyes and without warning it sparked a memory, igniting an entire chain even as his heart swooped, plunged, threatened to leave him altogether. Is it . . .
         Words didn’t come, couldn’t be expelled. He had no throat to scream from. Distantly, he heard a voice that sounded like his say hoarsely, “Kara?”
         The name caused the girl to blink, draw back closer to the wall, clear confusion evident in her face. “What . . . what did you say?” she whispered, and for the first time she appeared her true age. “What did you . . .”
         No. No, it can’t be. That’s not right. But his voice wasn’t listening. “Is it . . . Kara, you can’t be . . .” The familiarity of her mind finally struck him and an aching, forgotten sadness lanced through him then, his planned attack abruptly falling apart, unable to take his eyes off her face, the ringing contours of her mind filling his brain, unfreezing bells long since dormant. It can’t be, it’s not . . .
         “How . . .” and an old pain, cutting far deeper than it had any right to be for someone so young, bled into her face, wiping everything else away. “How do you know . . . my name?” and her mind shrank back, dwindling to a point, all aggression fading, all colors muted, an immoveable stillness seeping into the room. The two of them stared at each other for unmeasured time. Above, the stars never deviated from their dance, never seemed to move at all. Perhaps it took no time. Perhaps time just wasn’t here.
         There was fear in her now, all too familiar, the texture well remembered, an emotion he could read blind, pick out from any crowd no matter how densely arranged. You always said, came the mad thought, addressed to an absent friend. You always told me. You said.
         “Oh God,” the girl said in a hushed tone, as if in hallowed space, “what did I do? What did I almost do?” In an even softer voice, she added, “Who are you? How did you know my . . .”
         Valreck blinked, the effort not improving his vision any. The elements were there, but it wasn’t the same. The old pain pressed on him, forced him forward, one hand reaching out. He had to let her know. He had to tell her. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, his words slurred, unable to meet her gaze. She was receding now, falling away. “I think I made a mistake. I think this is all a mistake. You see, I thought . . . I thought you were . . .”
         “Get away from me,” came a voice without words. Her mind pulsed again, stabbed, the air was filled with the sound of gradual destruction, a spasm of dust sprayed into the room. No. Don’t go. You don’t understand. I think I can tell you, I think-
         He fell to his knees then, splinters on the floor cutting into his hands. A rush of night air splashed over his face. Looking up with eyes that couldn’t bear anymore, he witnessed the edges of the newly formed hole crumpling. Her presence was leaking out the breach, filtered away, until it would be little more than a strangled memory, a copy of a copy, a scent buried so deeply that it might never be released again.
         “. . . someone I once knew . . .” he finished quietly, staring at the hole with uncomprehending longing, trying to imagine her leaving, reliving a single day over and over in compressed time, wondering if all life wasn’t merely a variation of a moment, repeated until the strain could no longer be borne. It wasn’t her. And it was. And it wasn’t.
         Bowing his head, Valreck slumped slowly to the floor, unable to overcome gravity’s chains, his lips spasming once, muttering a name that he couldn’t hear anymore, calling for a person who might not be there, whose presence could have been a cruel figment or frustratingly real. Come back. I don’t know you.
         But people only live for so long and names do not live at all. And so he spit out the word, and it was only a word, and so it rose into the air and, twirling in the lazy night’s wind, broke apart, was carried away, carried to nowhere, disintegrating without a destination. Because, in the end, there was no place to go, for a name was not a person, and a name, no matter how strong the impression, how sharp the memory, could never resurrect a person, could never become them.
         Kara?
         And if a person happened to recall a name, then perhaps it was an accident, or even a deliberate echo. But it was not the same, and never could be, as long as life persisted and names were given, there would always be echoes and accidents, for it was the way, and if nothing else, he would have to be content with that.

* * * * *

         His head was too full, but somehow sedate. Eyes wide, seeing nothing, Baress tried to climb to his feet, made it to his knees, collapsed onto his rear.
         Pausing a second, he went to try again, but halfway through the attempt, stopped and sat back down heavily. “Good boy,” he said to no one at all. The fingers on one hand curled, clenched, appeared to stroke the invisible air. “That’s a good boy. You did fine, son, you did . . .” Baress’ voice was hushed, gentle. “There’s nothing to be afraid of . . . nothing at all. Okay? Okay?”
         In silken silence, the night rippled, a shadow fell over Baress. He blinked, looked up, but nothing registered on his face. “It’ll be over soon . . .” he said softly, as the shadow grew larger, spread out, covered his entire body. Footsteps barely made a sound. “You’ll find out, it’ll be over before you know it.”
         From the corners, past an edge he couldn’t see anymore, a voice laughed, “While I hate to break up such a fine outpouring of emotion . . .”
         Baress’ lips twitched upwards. “You remember, boy, the time when you were five and you decided that . . . that you needed to see what was on the top of that tree in the field? And you tried to climb it?” The man was sliding back now, his limbs acting independently of his body. His one hand, still clenched, made a scraping noise as it moved across the floor.
         “. . . I unfortunately have a lot of things to do tonight . . .”
         “Your mother heard your fall, but you never made a sound. Do you know that, son, you never made a sound. The damndest thing. I ran out there, thinking you were dead, son, you weren’t moving at all, I thought you were gone.” He grimaced, shook his head violently, put his back up against the wall. “You had an ugly gash on your forehead, there was blood all over my hands. Your blood. And your leg was broken, I remember that.”
         “So I’ll be brief here, so I can be on my way . . .”
         “Nearly stopped my heart, seeing you like that, son. You probably don’t remember,” and he gave a faint smile. “But I do.” He was looking at the source of the shadow now. “I remember every detail. And you never made a sound. Even when I carried you inside. Not one sound.”
         “So I’ll just reclaim something of mine, that I unfortunately misplaced . . .”
         “I yelled at you, me and your mother both did. The two of us just kept carrying on, and you never said anything. Maybe it was shock. I think you knew, then, son. Knew what we didn’t know.” His hand jerked up suddenly, his fist pointing at the man in the room. “You understood. What’s done is done and nothing you can do will change it.”
         “. . . not that it was mine to begin with, but I’ve grown rather attached to it and frankly, I have far better uses for it in mind than you do . . .”
         “And all you can do is move on,” said in a low murmur. A wasted keening began to rise, oddly muffled.
         “Although yours are refreshingly simple.” There was a brief, soft scuff of footsteps. “But, to be honest, you don’t even know how to use it right.”
         “It’s all about mistakes, son, it’s what we’re made of, from the moment we’re born, and once made, they can’t be unmade.” His hand jerked, and his expression clenched, struggling with something he couldn’t name.
         “But you don’t even have it facing the right way,” the voice chuckled quietly. “So let me do you a favor . . .”
         His fingers spasmed, and suddenly his hand popped open, palm unfolding. A small, blunt object dropped a few inches from his hand before hovering suspended in the air. The sound cut off, faded away abruptly.
         A few seconds later, the object floated away.
         “. . . and allow me to take that off your hands.”
         Eyes focused on the object, while simultaneously looking through it, Baress began to stand up, using the wall as a brace, stumbling to his feet with an angular grace. “But mistakes are better than regrets, I want you to know. I want you to understand that. A mistake will carry you forward and keep you from making it again. A regret will only blind you, and pull you back.”
         “I saw your dreams, you know,” the voice said conversationally. “I’ll have you know, I found them highly entertaining. And informative, too, don’t get me wrong. This was definitely one of Valreck’s better ideas, even if it didn’t work out the way he had planned. Which is how most ideas turn out, I’ve found. It seems to be a rule with this kind of thing.”
         The whining was heard again, more piercing this time, a true crease on the air.
         “Don’t . . . don’t be afraid, son . . .” Baress murmured, hands straddling the corner, ready to throw himself forward. “It’s going to be okay. It is. It’ll be okay.”
         “No, I’m afraid it won’t be,” the voice replied, suddenly serious. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m sorry.”
         “I have no regrets at all, son,” Baress stated flatly, his face set, his eyes glazed steel. “I hope you know that.”
         The whining increased sharply, seemed destined to rise into a pitch beyond hearing.
         “That’s good to hear. But I think you’ve done enough damage already . . .”
         Baress met the speaker’s eyes without fear and without horror. “You could do far worse,” he said, almost inaudible. “Far, far worse.” He began to walk forward.
         “Indeed.”
         And just as the whining reached its highest point it dropped suddenly, and a beam of blinding light shot out, divided the air, reached out to just touch Baress on the forehead. The wall behind his head was abruptly dotted with a dark pattern of splatters. Eyes wide, a brief wisp of smoke rising from the neat hole now in his forehead, Baress staggered back a full step, hit the wall. A redness welled, began to leak into his eyes, down his nose. His legs buckled and he began to slide downward, his hands offering no resistance, his head touching the wall and smearing what fluid lay there, drawing a grim trail tracing his path. A light in his eyes flickered, flared and just before he hit the floor, went out entirely.
         His upper body slumped forward awkwardly, a tiny drop of blood spilled from his face to land between his legs. A second and a third joined it a moment later and then that was all.
         Shortly afterwards, the man walked forward, bending down to examine the unmoving Baress, resting splayed fingers on his head, taking care not to get any blood on his fingertips.
         “You see,” Rathas murmured, “as useful as you were, I think Valreck relied on you a little too much.” Patting the man gently on the head, he rose to his feet, striding back toward the doorway. “Dreams are all well and good, you know, but in the end they’re as subjective as anything else.”
         Framed by translucent starlight, he turned the small laser this way and that, watching as its tarnished metal surface caught the night’s glitter. “And what you see,” he continued, tossing the weapon a few inches into the air, “isn’t always what you get.” He caught the weapon neatly, twisted his wrist and opened his hand, showing it to be now empty.
         Casting one last glance at Baress, Rathas pursed his lips, appeared ready to say something else, and then merely shook his head and laughed quietly.
         A second later, he took a step out, and disappeared, taking all traces of his presence with him, and went away.