Hatred wells up in me, mixed with a love that hurts more.
It is not my life, not my problem, but I take it personally. I take him personally. I crash through wall after wall, following the thread of that gaunt child.
He still exists...somewhere.
Haldren. His name is Haldren.
A recklessness lives in me. I decide I am tired of the slow way, the seer game of hide and seek, step by step, mapping and remapping of lines, all the cloak and dagger bullshit that I’ve tried my best to follow as Revik taught me. I don’t need to understand all the threads that tie me to this place and time. I am looking for the monster who killed my mother. I don’t care that he was once a child in some other version of Earth, except that it might help me find him now.
Dropping the pretense, I envision the child in the front of my mind.
I call to him.
I yell his name through the faceless shadows of a distant Pyramid, and most of the beings tied to that prison do not hear.
I think it is futile, that I am wasting my time, when...
I am with him.
Abruptly, I am there, at the top of all those chafing lines.
I float over the apex of the Pyramid.
Shocked by my success, I see him. He sits alone, in a structured room. Lines of silver and hard, metallic white stick to his head and heart.
The child is one of a thousand whispering masks.
He looks like a machine. The Pyramid has disappeared, I realize. It occurs to me that it disappeared because I am inside it. Haldren doesn’t move, doesn’t seem to see me at all. He rests inside a dream. A flat, pleasant emptiness.
Watching him exist in this state, I find I almost understand.
He is safe here. He is protected, in a way that the old man couldn’t protect him when he was alive. He is protected from feeling, from vulnerability, from caring about anything that might hurt him, or make him feel pain. He can sit in this empty space, untouchable, because the silver light ensures that he doesn’t have to feel any of it. He can give orders, and tell himself he is the cause of none of it. He can be the king of ghosts, of wasted machines.
He can kill my mom.
Or he can let it happen...and not care about that, either.
Anger flares my light.
A white arc leaves me, utterly different from the seething strands eclipsing Haldren on his metal throne. The flame sparks as it comes in contact with the Pyramid’s trembling strands. It finds one of the connecting points.
There is a strange silence.
Then a tangled, silver ball explodes.
I hear the crack below that single pearl of flame. Something totters, begins to fall. I hear voices scream, awakened from their collective dream. I watch that piece of the Pyramid tumble into a void-like abyss. Everything disappears below the connecting point I have broken. I watch lights disappear, erased from the network mind like branches cut from a dying plant...
Haldren disappears.
I fall. I fall for a long, long time...
Until I see only one face, one being.
A narrow, wasted mask looks at me, its eyes like poisoned urine. The face holds a dense knowing, a mirrored depth. The being smiles. I’m not looking at a person anymore. I am looking at one of the Rooks.
I see you, Bridge, it whispers.
I see where you are...
...and I sat up, gasping, batting at my head with my hands.
Just like that afternoon, I found myself lying on my back on the carpet, but instead of VR stars I see the low, white-painted ceiling of the stateroom.
My head hurts. There is sharp pain, but also a feeling of despair.
I realize I am still partway in the Barrier and dig my nails into my arm, trying to force myself the rest of the way out.
My eyes clicked back into focus.
The silver light clung to my head in some undefinable way, so I sparked outwards with my aleimi, trying to get it off me.
All I felt was amusement, laughter as the being left.
I was still sitting there, gasping, when a sharp knock rattled the cabin door. I turned to stare at it, fighting to regain my breath, fighting the fear that wanted to throw me back into the Barrier.
Revik wouldn’t knock.
“Allie?”
I recognized the Irish accent. Eliah.#p#分页标题#e#
“What the hell’s on in there, love?”
Only minutes had passed. Seconds, maybe.
White hands on green mirrors. Blood with water.
He was thirsty. So fucking thirsty. Everything hurt, and...
Pain whispered through my fingers. I held my head, biting my tongue as hard as I could to try and keep my light inside my body.
“Yeah,” I managed. “Okay. What do you want?”
I don’t remember saying he could come in, but the door opened. Eliah crossed the threshold into the room and stopped, looking around as if startled by a strange smell. Closing the door behind him, he studied me with cocked head.
“What’ve you been doing in here, love?”
I pulled myself shakily to my feet, wincing at the bruises from our earlier fight.