Allie's War Season One (148 page)

Sitting down on one of the plush chairs that probably would have stains all over it if he shone a black light on it, Jon closed his eyes, trying to calm the worry twisting his gut. Something about the look on Revik’s face...

Whatever Chan said, Revik wasn’t handling this well at all.

Jon hadn’t given himself much time to think about what Allie might be going through; he just couldn’t go there, not yet. Still, it scared him, seeing Revik like that. He knew he was projecting, at least to a degree...that part of him thought that if he couldn’t do anything for his sister, he could at least keep her husband from self-destructing while he tried to save her life. He’d even considered trying to contact Vash...or Balidor. But Revik already made it pretty clear he didn’t want to talk to either of them, at least not until this thing was finished.

He wished like hell that Cass were there.

Cass had an odd knack of getting under Revik’s defenses. She’d always been like that, with everyone...even Allie. Revik would listen to her. He might yell at her too, but he’d hear her out at least.

But Jon had no idea where Cass was...and anyway, she’d been acting pretty damned weird the last time he saw her, too.

BALIDOR PAUSED ON the rocky trail, hands on his hips.

He gazed up the side of the nearly sheer cliff, to where Cass and the mountainous Wvercian edged along a hairline path hugging the striated stone wall. Veins of red and black twisted through the gray rock, making it look almost like cut flesh. Despite the altitude and the fact of her human biology, Cass seemed to be able to walk for hours without showing any sign of stopping.

Balidor was beginning to wonder how he’d let himself get talked into this.

When Dehgoies refused his help, he should have joined his brothers and sisters, escorting refugees back to the Pamir and to Vash.

“Cass!” he shouted up. “Are you all right?”

“Yep,” she called back, somewhere between talking loud and shouting. “I think we’re pretty close now...this looks exactly like the drawing in the book. Baguen thinks so too...”

“Do you have any idea of the odds against that?” Balidor said in some exasperation. “And anyway, that book could be a decoy, Cass, or—”

“No,” Cass shouted back. “This is right.”

Balidor noticed the Wvercian didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

But then, it was pretty clear he was following Cass like some kind of human prophet, maybe because of her relationship to the Bridge. Balidor still didn’t know his name, although she called him some form of “Baguen” which Balidor suspected was a pidgin word in Wvercian she’d misheard.

They’d been hiking for days, with only the provisions carried by the three of them and the equipment Balidor had on him when he'd left Seertown with the Rebels, including his gun.

He’d managed to hunt on two of those days. Water hadn’t been an issue, so far at least, but he grew increasingly uncomfortable with his diminishing ammunition stores and anxious about what they were doing exactly. Cass seemed determined that this was the best way to help Dehgoies and the Bridge, but his faith in her was beginning to falter, given everything.

Whatever she intended to accomplish, he couldn’t get a read on it with his sight. For him, that was more faith than his rational mind could allow.

Yet, he had to admit, for the first time in several decades, if not centuries...he couldn’t say there was anything directly pressing for him to be doing.

Seertown was deserted. The Adhipan had scattered. Those who hadn’t gone after Dehgoies and the Bridge were leading caravans of refugees to the Pamir, Sikkim or Ladakh to assemble to determine their losses. Some of those groups would be en route for weeks, if not months. Balidor could be helping them, of course, but again...his presence wasn’t strictly needed.

The government was in shambles, but Balidor himself couldn’t do much about that, either. He’d heard directly from the remnants of the Seven right before he, Cass and the Wvercian left that dugout in Southwestern China. The vast majority of the news was bad. Yerin had been killed by the Americans...or possibly the rebels. The Americans still denied their involvement, and the Rebels maintained they’d only appeared following the assault, but in Yerin’s case, the end result remained the same.

Vash was in mourning for his son, and not involved in the work of rebuilding, at least not yet. Likely as a result of his absence, and that of the Bridge, the Council had effectively gone on hiatus. Balidor didn’t yet want to think about what they would do if that hiatus ended up being permanent.

Balidor received a list of the dead.

He could keep it all in his aleimi because he was a seer. He could have recited it, for the same reason, but there was no need. He knew many of those behind the names personally, but beyond that, the sheer numbers were devastating.

If not the end, Balidor knew he might be seeing the beginning of the end of his race.

He should have gone with Dehgoies.

He knew why Dehgoies didn’t want him along; that had been clear when he made his excuses, even before he hooked into that network of Dreng filth just because it might save him a few days in recovering his mate.

Vash had warned him that Revik retained some attachment issues still. When Balidor asked what Vash thought about the Adhipan recruiting the ex-Rook, it had been Vash’s only misgiving. He’d spent too much of his life alone, Vash said. He retained a vulnerability in that lack, and would until his mate had helped him heal it.

So Balidor should have gone with him to America, but he hadn’t, and now they might have a problem greater than the Bridge being owned by a lunatic like Terian. If Dehgoies turned again, with his relationship to the Bridge, he became a serious liability. In fact, they might have to find a way to kill him without harming her...or worse, killing them both to prevent the harm they could inflict together, which far outweighed her ability to help the humans in the coming Displacement.

He didn’t know what to do about that right then, either, however.

Chances were, the issue couldn’t even be addressed until Allie was out of Terian’s custody, and as much as Balidor hated to admit it, Dehgoies, dark or light, was their best chance to accomplish that without getting her killed. She couldn’t be allowed to stay with the boy, no matter what occurred. A dark Dehgoies, daunting though that prospect was, they could handle...it was nothing compared to a Syrimne-in-training with the Bridge at his side.

So Balidor continued to follow Cass and her Wvercian giant, all the while trying to decide how long he could continue his stalling tactic before he turned and walked the long road back to Dharamsala or Delhi for a plane to North America.

He was approaching his limit, he’d decided that morning.

He was still staring up at Cass, watching her feel along the face of the sheer, ribboned rock wall, when her arm seemed to disappear.

Balidor blinked, looking again.

Her arm still appeared to end at the elbow, the rest stuck inside the smooth, featureless stone. He saw a grin break out over her face, distorting the thick scar that bisected her countenance. She flipped back her dyed, dark-red hair.

Then, seemingly in front of his very eyes, she disappeared.

“Hey!” Balidor yelled up the cliff in Prexci. “Baguen! What happened?”

The giant grunted, looking down at him. He touched the rock wall where Cass had been, seconds before. Balidor saw his fingers disappear. Then, while he watched, the Wvercian disappeared too.

Balidor shouted up again. “Cass! Goddamn it!”

Neither of them answered.

Frustrated, and now a little afraid, he vaulted up the path to reach the ledge.

He slid his body and feet along the narrow edge. Fumbling to keep a good grip on the wall, he made his way to the sheer drop where the two of them had been standing. He lost his footing a few times, spraying gravel with his organic-tipped boots in his haste to reach the last point he’d seen her on the path. It was hardly a path at all, really. Instead, it looked more like a trail for goats, a narrow, pebbled ledge with only intermittent foot-holds.

How Cass managed to get up here in the first place...

He paused, concentrating as he reached the place in the cliff wall where the two of them disappeared. He felt over the rock with his fingers, looking for openings, any place where the sediment gave. Taking a breath, he pressed harder, focusing on the area where he could still feel the imprints of her hands.

...And suddenly, he found himself inside the mountain.

There was no warning, no transition. If he didn’t know better, Balidor would have thought he was absorbed by the rock itself.

Or perhaps teleported.

Blinking to adjust his eyes, he glanced briefly at the rock wall behind him.

But he’d examine that later. He needed to find Cass.

He stretched out his light, looking around the cave in which he found himself. Instead of being entirely dark, it was dimly lit with phosphorescence on the walls, a living paste. He touched it briefly with his gloved fingers, inhaling the wet, rotted smell before making a face and moving deeper into the cave.

“Cass?” he said. He kept his voice low.

Using his light, he followed the traces of her aleimi deeper into the cave. Reaching what he thought had been the end, he realized it as merely a bend in a longer corridor. He followed the curve of rock. He had barely walked ten paces when he found himself faced with another dead end. This one appeared to be made of solid volcanic glass, a deep black in color. It looked like a flat, black mirror.

“D’gaos,” he muttered. “Where is that human?”

Extending his light, he realized there was a larger space on the other side of the rock, and reached out with a hand. He felt over the surface, until again…

He found himself someplace else.

For a moment he could only stand there, blinking in the sharp increase in illumination. Glancing around, he focused on the wall of organic machines, staring at them in a kind of disbelief before Cass’ voice jerked him back to the present.

“Hey, ‘Dori.”

Balidor turned, found himself staring into the elfin face of Cass.

She motioned him over impatiently, her hands hovering over what appeared to be the main console for at least a portion of the organic machines.

“Do you recognize any of these controls?” she asked, pointing at the array of keys. “I can’t read the language...”

Approaching warily, Balidor stared down at the console, then around at the larger bank of machinery. The row of organics slid deeper into the rock walls than he’d first realized.

“Where the fuck is this?” he said in his broken English.

Cass looked up, grinning. Her eyes shone with a light he hadn’t seen in them in all the months he’d known her. There was an easy joy there, a kind of happy sense of triumph that reassured him somehow.

“See that?” she said, pointing to a monitor.

Balidor followed her finger, staring at the VR projection. His brow furrowed as he tried to make out the image on the screen, to make sense of it.

“What is it?” he said finally.

“Space,” she said, laughing. “Can you believe it?”

“Space?” He looked at her blankly. “Who is in space?”

Her grin widened, filled with so much joy Balidor couldn’t help but smile back, bewildered by the depth of emotion there.

“Feigran is,” she said. “...But we’re going to bring him home.”