The seer ticked off the list with his fingers.
“...Drugs must be avoided for the same reason. I do not want to kill you...and I would prefer you with limbs and organs intact. If I scan you outright, you will fight me, whether you mean to or not. If I scan deeply enough, there is a very good chance the telepathic restraint will kill you. Or destroy your mind, and I do not wish for that either. I obviously cannot deactivate the restraint.” Terian-2 spread his hands wider apart, smiling. “Truly? I wish I had my friend Dehgoies to ask. He was always so very good at puzzles of this kind.”
Revik kept the irritation off his face.
Terian-2 added, “You always had a bit of a dark twist in your methods, Revi’. I wonder now, was that from the wars, also? Did your creativity blossom questioning French prisoners? Or was it the Nazis themselves who sparked this in you?”
Revik stared at his thin hands clasped on the floor.
He could feel something trying to get at him, a pale, silvery thread, hovering over his light. Paranoia bit at the edges of his mind, a vague memory of being lost, of being broken. Worse than that, he felt the buttons the seer was trying to push, a flicker of pleasure that tried to insinuate itself, to flex into parts of him that lay dormant but unlocked. Memories tried to coalesce, to remind him of other things he’d been good at, once.
It occurred to him that his sight reflex ought to have kicked in. The collar should have ignited when he flexed his light.
But his mind felt relaxed.
Too relaxed.
He stared at the empty glass.
“Yes. Well. I did say drugs should be avoided, Revi’,” Terian-2 said apologetically. “...Not eliminated altogether. They must be handled with care, of course. You always did have that odd tolerance.” Terian-2 studied him as though he were an insect climbing wet tile. “It may help you to remember, you know. That would be good for you, yes? Less confusing?”
Revik’s fingers tightened on the glass.
“You see, I have a theory,” Terian-2 said. “I think that you have been remembering for some time, Revi’. I am curious to see how much of you is awake ahead of your conscious mind.” He watched Revik’s eyes. “I also truly do believe you have the succession order, my friend. Or perhaps you did something with it, yes? Something you forgot?”
When Revik continued to stare at the glass, Terian sighed, clicking.
“I confess, I still find it very difficult to read you. Even now, when you are ostensibly under my power, I feel I know you less, not more.” His dark lips thinned as he studied Revik’s face. “Some of this is act, yes. But not all. You hide behind a veneer of obedience. Obedience to Galaith, to me, to the Seven...your Ancestors. It does make me wonder what lies beneath.”
Internally, Revik rolled his eyes.
Smiling, Terian lit an expensive-smelling hiri stick, exhaling a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke. Revik’s hunger worsened.
“I suppose I understand,” Terian said. “...In part, at least. The way you were raised, you would have had plenty of practice in both lying and submission.” He bit gently on the end of the hiri, sucking resin. “And yet, in all of these months, I find it astonishing that I have yet to see a response from you that did not feel amazingly well-scripted. I believe all of this actually bores you on some level, am I right?”
Revik stared at his hands.
When the silence stretched, he gave a sort of barking laugh.
Terian smiled, settling his weight back in his chair. “If you do not wish to speak of the succession order, perhaps we can speak of other things. Tell me about Elise, Rolf.” He ashed the hiri. “How did you come to marry a human? How did you come to be in Germany at all?”
Revik’s mind remained lax. Images seeped through cracks. Her dead eyes grew into her living ones, smiling at him, laughing as she waded through blue-green grass, trailing dark hair. He caught her fingers, then the rest of her, and it was familiar, so familiar...but deadened somehow, far away. She was taking off his clothes before he’d caught his breath, asking him, and he lay on her, could barely hold it once he was inside.
Time rushed forward. He was older, bigger. She looked small to him now.
She blindfolded him, taking him into her studio. A wall of their house, painted with the sword and sun...
Everything went dark.
When he opened his eyes, he lay on the cold tile, naked, shaking with pain.
Tears poured down his face. He didn’t know where he was. He felt Terian with him briefly, his friend, laying an arm on his shoulder, laughing as he told another story about that hooker he’d loved in Paris...
Terian-2 clapped his hands. “Wake up, Revi’! Wake!”
He opened his eyes. He heard her voice, but too far away this time; he couldn’t make out her words. Walls dripped like liquid mercury around him. He was afraid he’d get some in his mouth, but he was so thirsty still, he almost didn’t care.