Illumination 9.2: Sweet Blind Thing
Natalie had a room with a bed and many shelves. On the shelves were toys: clay and blocks and paper and paint. Outside of her room was another room, much larger and nearly empty. Sometimes she went out there when the walls of her room closed around her, squeezing her small and breathless, but she didn’t go beyond. Where else would she go? She was waiting for something here, and she was very patient now.
Hatherly visited her often, several times a day. He brought her meals, and inspected how she’d been occupying herself and spoke with her. Twice now he’d evoked new Cambions from her. They were small things, and Hatherly had tried to disguise his disappointment in them, but she didn’t know why. They were small things, but they were what she needed now. One of them had escaped him, as had the cat who padded through a cold landscape. The other he caught and held. “All things have a purpose,” he told her. “We just have to find out what it is.”
“If,” she told him, as she lay on the floor, weak from the evocation. But he didn’t understand. That pleased her. She didn’t want him to understand. She followed where he led, because she was very patient, and she wanted to understand more than he did. And he didn’t try to make her remember why she hurt.
“Let it go,” she suggested. “I don’t like it here.”
Instead he tucked the tiny cambion away, into a box, and she shuddered and crawled back to her bed. “Why are you doing this?”
“I think if I told you, it would hurt you, as other things do.” He sounded regretful. “So I won’t. But you may trust me that together, we will work to reduce the pain all things experience.”
“How?” she demanded.
“We target the source,” he said calmly.
Later, he told her about the nature of the darkness and the light, and how the darkness was responsible for suffering. She curled up in bed that evening and thought about it. The cambions, she thought, were both darkness and light. They seemed to be very much like people, except that they took their light from the people who formed them. The idea made her sad. While Hatherly was vague, she knew that he intended to give her great power. He trusted that her light would make her strong, make the power mean what he wanted it to mean.
But although he inspected her artwork and her models carefully, he didn’t know what was happening inside her head. She was very careful not to let him know, no matter how he tried to dig inside her. She couldn’t let him know that she wasn’t going to use the power the way he wanted. She was going to use it to destroy him, instead.
He was dangerous. She’d known that from the beginning, and after he’d forced the little cambions from her—
She drifted off to sleep, wondering how exactly he’d die.
She woke up in the dimness of night. A dark figure, bigger than Hatherly, stood beside her bed. It was the one called Malachi. She knew them all from encounters in the outer room, as she took her exercise, but only Hatherly came to her room, and Malachi had never even spoken to her before. It was mysterious.
She sat up, and he crouched down. “Has he explained why you are a prisoner?” His voice was soft.
“Am I a captive?” she wondered. “I haven’t seen any locks.”
His mouth turned down. “There are people who care for you still.”
She twitched. He didn’t say any of the forbidden words, but they lay under the surface, the things she could not hear without screaming. “It doesn’t matter.”
Malachi’s brow drew together. “His plan will most likely kill as many people as it touches, you know. Possibly the entire human population.”
She drew back. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No. He found the plan in another Tower. I think it explains what happened to the Antecessors: they tried to win an ultimate victory over the enemy of sentience, and wiped themselves out in the process. Maybe all that’s left of them is the Awakened Darkness.”
Malachi’s words sent unpleasant tingles through Natalie, brushing as they did against a whole host of things she could not let herself think about. But she understood enough.
“He said it would do something else.”
“Reduce pain? Yes. Destruction isn’t his goal. He’d like to create a god to fill the void.”
Another voice said, “Not his goal, but it’s yours, isn’t it, kid?” It was Tainter, a black shadow in the open doorframe. He moved forward. “Tsk, tsk. Ruining his plan just because you can’t bear a world without your girl. Nihilism is quite the bandaid, isn’t it? But it’ll never take away your own role in what happened to her. To Emily.”
Fascinated, Natalie watched as Malachi’s face changed. Hatred crossed it, then ice, then stillness, and she understood that like herself, like Aya, he had things that he couldn’t think about either.
“Sorry, miss,” continued Tainter. “Can’t let this one without a leash these days, oh no. He really would like to destroy the whole world. It’s kind of an open secret. He did a naughty thing once, and he just can’t bear it.”
“Shut up, Tainter,” said Malachi, his voice absolutely flat.
“Try and make me. But not here. This sweet, blind thing might be damaged by our coarseness. And then Daddy would angry, and it wouldn’t be at me. I’m his golden boy these days. But I’d love a chance to help you cope with your little troubles, boy. We could extract them and look at them together. I’ve got just the place to do it.”
Malachi flowed to his feet, then stalked past Tainter and out the door. Tainter smiled at her and she narrowed her eyes. She didn’t like Tainter. He was on the list. But the difference between Tainter and Hatherly was that Tainter seemed to know it, and enjoy it.
As he stood in front of the exit, he said, “It’s true, you know. I think your little friends know, from the way they’ve been acting. Oh wait. They’re all gone, aren’t they? They’ve all gone away and left you, your—”
A red mist descended over her eyes, and she lunged, and he laughed and slammed the door behind him as he escaped.
That was when she discovered the locks.
Illumination 9.1: Wishes
Ajax sat in the classroom with his arms crossed, glowering. His fellow students were even more disorganized than usual, because Kwan and the other room teachers weren’t paying enough attention to keep everybody focused. Instead, they were busy discussing the plans for retreat while standing in a corner. Kwan in particular looked exhausted.
As far as Ajax knew, no formal decision had been reached about just how far the withdrawal from Earth would progress, but everybody— at least everybody with any authority— agreed that at least a temporary, short-term withdrawal would be useful. And if the parents and families of Earthborn kids were invited to stay at the Tower for an extended visit— well, that was interesting and convenient timing. It gave the classroom a ‘last day of school’ buzz, which, in the circumstance, felt ominous rather than fun.
And despite everything, Ajax still wasn’t allowed out. None of the student Nightlights were, it was true, but it still felt personal. Like everything else, it wasn’t part of an organized plan, but a sort of side-effect of being too busy to really deal with the situation.
Kwan’s conference with the other teachers ended, and he strode past Ajax without a glance.
“Kwan!” called Ajax. “Why don’t we just luminate everybody?”
Kwan’s head pivoted to look at him. The teacher had been sharp with Ajax since their adventure with Natalie’s cambion, as if his otherwise endless reserves of patience had finally drained. But when other heads turned at Ajax’s question, he stopped and came back to Ajax’s table.
“What good would that do?” he inquired, as one administering a test.
“Make it harder for Hatherly to succeed? And allow people to defend themselves?”
Kwan stared hard at him for a moment, then said, “But most people cannot cope with lumination. They do not wish to see monsters everywhere. Civilization relies on the fact that the monsters are managed by a special class of people. And lumination attracts them. Lumination is not enough to help people. They have to be trained as well.”
“Oh, come on. You’re underestimating people.”
“Am I? But look at Jehane. She has survived, but most people born luminated on Earth do not.”
Ajax started to argue again, but recalled his own initial reaction to the flash of light. He’d wished it hadn’t happened, wished he didn’t know the truth of the shadows of the world.
Kwan nodded at him, and moved on through the classroom. But Jehane left her table and made her way over to Ajax. In a low voice, she said, “They’re trying to decide on which city to put the last active emergence point in,” and Ajax realized that from where she’d been sitting, she’d been able to eavesdrop on the teachers’ conversation.
“Because that will help. Giving up always helps.” He leaned forward. “I don’t want to be sealed in here when they finally give up entirely, how about you?”
Jehane shook her head. “I’m not giving up. I never have.” She glanced at the wall. “Elian won’t let us out, though.”
“Kentigern didn’t seem to mind. Maybe he’ll come around.”
Elian said flatly, “I’m not Kentigern.” Jehane and Ajax both jumped and looked at the wall closest, where Elian’s voice had emanated from. “And I’m not going to come around.”
Jehane said, “I bet we can convince you. Why are you being so strict, anyhow? You can’t let them convince you you’re in trouble.”
Elian said, “I don’t want to hear it! And listen to yourself, Jehane! You’ve been spending too much time around Seth and Ajax. You used to be…”
Jehane scowled. “Sweet?” She slouched in her chair. “It is wonderful, oh yes? I finally know what I want and seek it, and everybody wishes I was helpless again, because it is not what they want. It is Natalie who is everybody’s dream girl. So good, so helpful.”
Ajax said mildly, “She wasn’t a good girl when she saved me. I got the impression people were pretty unhappy with her over that.”
Jehane flushed. “I’m sorry. It is true, I think, that even Natalie can’t live up to what they want Natalie to be. They make of her an ideal, so nobody wants to know what has happened. Maybe I should have said…” and she stopped, glancing up at the wall again. Then she shook her head. “I wish, Elian, that you and the others would not wish me back in my bedroom.”
Elian said, his voice acidic enough to etch steel, “I’ve got wishes, too. And I’m not Kentigern”
“I’ve never wished you were,” said Jehane, with some dignity.
“Oops,” said Ajax. “Sorry about that.” But he was thinking about Jehane’s look to the wall, not really paying attention. It was clear there were some things they couldn’t discuss here, not with Elian becoming increasingly more hostile.
“Well, I’m not going to let you go out and get yourselves killed,” said Elian, sullenly. “Kentigern didn’t care the same way I do. And I don’t want to be him. And… nevermind. I have work to do.”
Ajax stared at the wall, and wondered where he could find a Prowler.
Illumination 8.11: Essentials
When the box opened and light crept into the inner space like the sunrise, the girl inside didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know who she was or how she’d gotten there, and she wasn’t even sure there was someplace else to be. Her head seemed quite full enough, cluttered with snapping lights and twitching pains and an ache that made her feel something had been cut away. All of this was enough to make the idea of outside the box no more interesting than a shadow.
But a shadow was what moved in front of the grey glow, and words wiggled their way through the sparks and pain in her head. Man and then there is a world out there.
“Hello, Natalie,” said the man, his voice smooth and golden brown.
She might have thought more words, how interesting, but the words burst over her, popped by that voice, and raining down meaning that dripped off her without sinking in. All that was left was a residue of hatred and pain.
“No,” she said angrily.
The silhouette took her hand and tugged her out of the box. She emerged willingly, because she wanted to see more of this creature and his words that popped like bubbles.
“No?” he said. It was a question. His voice was thistle-prickly but not all words were as fragile as the one.
The girl hesitated. Then she said, “No ‘Natalie’.”
The man considered the girl. “The trip was hard, but progress always is. Surge tells me you had an epiphany on the trip.”
“Did I? I don’t remember. Are you sure that was progress?” Clearly, there were many things she’d have to relearn.
“Hmm,” said the man. “Do you know who I am?”
She did. “Hatherly. You’re dangerous.” She knew it, and trusted the knowledge, but the reasons why were gone.
“I wish you only the best,” he said, and she thought, He believes that.
“Why was I in the…” she looked back at crate. “The box?”
“It is rather like an egg, isn’t it? I’ve found you can better appreciate the light after some darkness. But you should rest now.”
He left her in the room with the box. A dim light radiated from the walls, and there was a sleeping bag in the corner. She looked at the box again, trying to decide if she felt safer there. But she couldn’t go back.
She laid down on the sleeping bag. Her hands and feet tingled and she stretched them as she fell back into dreaming. Faces without names passed before her mind’s eye. Some of them brought her pleasure, and some of them made her ache in strange ways. Some of them made her feel pity. Some of them she hated.
She prowled a sleeping city on furred feet, laughing at everything that passed before her. She pulled Awakened into herself, devouring them, and replaced them with chains nobody could see. It was a game, and it made her feel satisfied. It was important that nobody was alone. And in her dreams, she cried.
A name passed through her awareness as she drowsed. Aya.
She woke up, and Aya was there. The girl from the box felt better than she did before. Her hands and feet felt alive, and the sparks of pain in her mind had faded. She felt like everything she’d known before was still there, right where she wasn’t looking— and it would stay there as long as she didn’t look for it. It was comforting.
The other girl, Aya, stood over her and looked down at her. She looked feral and wild, with her hair tangled and her face dirty. It was wrong. Aya was colder, and cleaner than this. Perhaps she’d lost part of herself, too.
Aya spoke, her voice low. “I hate you. I promised you something and I haven’t kept that promise yet. You’ll be pleased to hear that, I’m sure. Laugh at me.”
The girl didn’t remember the promise, but she remembered that Aya was one of the faces she’d felt pity for. She sat up, and Aya backed away.
“Hatherly doesn’t trust me. He keeps me with him like a dog. He says I’m his guard. But now he’s shoved me in here with you. Do you think he’s tired of you? Shall I kill you? This tower spirit isn’t mad the same way as the other one.” Aya held out her hand and a sword materialized there. “Well? Say something! Stop looking at me like that.”
But the girl who didn’t like to be called Natalie didn’t know what to say.
Aya’s weapon vanished again. “I won’t kill you. If Hatherly wants that, I won’t give him the pleasure. I still want to find your precious Seth—”
The name made the girl hurt, her mind and body twanging in unison. She cried out. The name Natalie was only a burden in comparison.
Aya looked taken aback, and then a terrible smile curved her mouth. “I see! You understand now. Seth! He always smiles. Can’t you see his face?”
It hurt. There was only hurting, and emptiness, and then Natalie leapt on Aya, knocking her to the ground and covering the other girl’s mouth with her hand. Shut up, shut up, shut up.
Natalie held her down, palm over her mouth, then pressed her head against Aya’s. “It hurts,” she breathed. “You hurt. We don’t have to hurt each other.”
Aya stared at her in puzzlement, as if Natalie was speaking an alien language. But she wasn’t fighting, so Natalie released her, sat back, and offered her a hand.
Instead of accepting, Aya scrambled away, like she was drowning in Natalie’s presence. “You can’t give me back what I’ve lost.” She banged on the door of the room until it opened, and then she darted out and down the hall beyond.
Hatherly appeared to take her place. He was smiling broadly. “What serendipity, my child.”
Natalie looked keenly at Hatherly. She could see the darkness flooding through him, gilded with silver.
“I am so pleased. You’ve retained your most essential traits, the reason I chose you. But let’s see if you’re truly balanced, or simply as focused as Malachi. Let’s do an experiment. I would like to see if you can have another living epiphany, like the one you had in the box.
He closed the door behind him.
Illumination 8.10: Choose Your Fate
Everybody looked at Jehane, and she was reminded of an age ago, when she’d sat at the Council table and lied about knowing who Malachi was. It was long past the time for games like that. Now it was a new game, figuring out how to convey what she wanted to convey in a way they would care about. “We met Malachi. He doesn’t like the situation he’s found himself in.”
“And what situation is that?” asked the Tanist dryly.
“The situation where Savannah has the right idea about Hatherly’s end goal. He said he thought the only way we’d survive is if we were in the Tower. If we hid, and waited. Oh, and he said that Natalie was still herself.”
She watched Ajax’s shoulders relax as he passed a hand over his face, and was glad everybody was looking at her. He’d expected her to say something different.
I believe in Natalie. I believe in Malachi, mostly. It was a mantra in her head. But she wasn’t sure she believed in Ajax, if he fell. If he decided there was no point in having people around, showing him he wasn’t alone wouldn’t matter. Jehane wanted very much not to reach that point.
The Tanist said, “And did he provide you with a timeframe for when they’d like us to stay out of the way?” She sounded amused rather than worried.
Seth muttered, “Oh, this is going to go well,” and Jehane realized that the Tanist thought Malachi was manipulating her.
“Are you being stupid?” she demanded, her voice rising. “Who do you think killed Emily? Why would you think he would have any true loyalty to her murderers? Do you understand anything about people? He worked alongside them when he thought that was all he had.”
The Tanist jerked like she’d been slapped.
“The idea that Malachi has turned against them is the simplest answer,” said Seth lightly. “We haven’t exactly been providing them with a setbacks so much as unparalleled recruiting opportunities.”
The anger seemed to drain out of the Tanist. Quietly, she asked again, “Any sense of a timeframe?”
Jehane shook her head. “Not in so many words. But soon.”
“I suppose we should implement your plan, Elian.”
Seth looked between the Tanist and Kwan. “What’s this?”
“Shutting down exterior operations.”
“I thought we did that once, and then went back to Operation Ignore The Rats In The Walls?”
Elian said, “This time, we shut down most of the emergence points. As far as I can tell, they’re still using those to transport between their base Tower and Earth. And why wouldn’t they?”
The Tanist said, “All of them. That’s the only way we’ll really be able to protect this world. Otherwise, if they have even one portal open, a disaster could leak through to here.”
Elian sounded exasperated, as if this was an argument they’d been having for some time. “There’s been no evidence that’s even possible. The field has been active many times when the emergence point has activated and nothing has ‘leaked’.”
“But it’s a much weaker field than all of my advisors say is coming. Elian, really, it’s your plan.”
“I wanted to restrict them down to using only a few points so we could predict where they’re going to appear.”
Seth looked around, then shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m the one saying this, but— are you actually talking about abandoning Earth to whatever Hatherly wants to do to it? I’m not cut out for being a Nightlight, I know, but that’s… abhorrent.”
“Our friendly neighborhood Echthros, so full of useful tips, thinks our best bet is to burrow. He doesn’t think there’s any way to stop what’s coming, or surely he would have mentioned it?” The diamond glitter in the Tanist’s eyes was more than a little disturbing. Jehane looked anxiously at Kwan, but he was staring at the ground, scowling. “We have the opportunity to make the Tower into an ark. We can guarantee humanity survives, or we can risk everything on an ill-defined hope of stopping them.”
“Or we could do any number of other things,” said Seth. “We could go to the mundane authorities and tell them everything. I’m pretty sure if we did that and used Elian’s plan, they could evacuate a city, wait until they showed up, and nuke the place. Oooh, or make the only remaining exit go to a prison filled with nerve gas. Problem solved!”
The Tanist frowned. “It would be the end of us. The same result, only much slower.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe we’d get government funding. God, just think of what the space organizations would make of this place, and the computer people of Elian.”
“I don’t like this plan,” said Elian flatly.
“You like it less than hiding while six billion people are murdered?” said Seth.
“A false dichotomy,” snapped Elian.
“This isn’t a meteor hitting the planet. It’s a God damned metaphysical bomb going off. Bombs are set off by people, not unstoppable natural forces.”
“Yes, I know! The Tanist’s plan isn’t mine. I—” Elian stopped.
The Tanist rubbed her brow. “We’re the guardians of civilization. We have to figure out what’s best for civilization. For humanity as a whole. Given how much success we’ve had against one rogue Guardian with a long-term plan, it might as well be a meteor.”
Sullenly, Elian said, “I don’t know if this is even relevant anymore, but they’ve moved again. Another Tower has lit up. This one is marked on my records as a materials depot.”
Illumination 8.9: Pro Tip
When the hands reached through the emergence point and yanked them through, Ajax discovered the hard way that weapons made from your own anima don’t like to go through the void between portals. His scythe appeared in his hand without conscious effort when the hand landed on his shoulder and then, as he was pulled into the blackness, there was only pain. It was like the rawness of a toothache or an ice cream headache all over his body, and the scythe moved in his hand like a living thing, cornered and furious.
In the endless transit, he found at himself at war, struggling to overcome screaming nerve endings to stop the weapon in his hand from burying itself in the warmth of his companions. It could cut them open and drink up their warmth, transfer it to him and sooth his pain, if only for a moment. And once the pain returned, why, there were always more people willing to be his friends. It was a gift he had, just like his father.
Ajax tried to release the scythe, to send it away again. But his fingers wouldn’t open. He wasn’t holding the scythe; the scythe was holding him. All he could do was pit his strength against it, to keep it from moving him as a weapon. And all the while, agony burned through his frame, encouraged and channeled by the weapon.
He fell to the floor in the Portalry, fingers still clenched over the scythe’s haft. The pain faded, but the hunger of the weapon remained, running through his mind like chains. A boot came down on his wrist, pinning his hand down. Then Kwan’s hand rested on his forehead. “Let it go, Ajax.”
“Sedative?” asked the Tanist tightly.
“Wait,” said Kwan.
Ajax drew in a deep, shaking breath. He’d already made his decision, weeks ago. He was his mother’s son, not his father’s. And he didn’t want the weapon out right now. He pushed it away.
But the scythe laughed at him as it faded away, promising a new accounting the next time he let it take control. Oh yes. You could never be the child of just one parent, and neither of them were saints.
The boot lifted off Ajax’s wrist. “You all right?” Kwan waved his hand in front of Ajax’s eyes.
Ajax sat up, every bruise and abrasion aching. “I’m all here, at least.”
Kwan sat back on his heels, shaking his head. Seth and Jehane stood just behind him, both looking worried, and the Tanist stood right behind them, her hand on Seth’s shoulder. She tapped her foot impatiently.
Ajax looked between Kwan and the Tanist. “Just a guess but I’d say you’re not going to exile me back to Earth for misbehavior.”
“I haven’t decided what to do with you yet,” said the Tanist.
“Oh, we’re back there again. Right. Of course.”
“Cut it out,” said Kwan, his voice much sharper than Ajax had ever heard it before. He realized that under the concern brought on by the weapon trouble, the teacher was well and truly angry at him. “You couldn’t wait ten minutes for me to get here? I’ve been your advocate since you got here, Ajax and right now I’m really wondering why. I hope whatever you found out there was worth it.”
Ajax didn’t say anything. He wasn’t going to tell them about Natalie’s cambion, and he could barely think of anything else. Natalie’s eyes, Natalie’s smile, merged with a monster. A monster that played games rather than murdered, but still an uncomfortably alien creature. But Jehane had hope, had found real reasons for hope, and that was something. He needed something. But he didn’t want to talk about it.
Kwan narrowed his eyes, and looked between all three of them. “What happened, then? Elian said the field generator activated. Did you find anything else?” Something flickered in his eyes and Ajax realized that Kwan didn’t want to know, either.
The silence stretched out a little too long. Seth said, “The field generator was different. Subtler, smoother. There were no troops or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
The Tanist said, “Did you see Natalie?”
“No,” said Seth. “We didn’t.”
A wistful expression crossed the Tanist’s face. “Ah, well.”
Jehane looked up, her expression fierce. “We saw others, though. And we learned interesting things. And you should stop being such a cranky old man, Kwan, because I’m not grounded and neither is Seth. And we were both with Ajax. It’s not like he committed a capital crime.” Ajax looked at her in astonishment. She’d come back from her little trip with Malachi different, and it wasn’t just the blushing.
Kwan looked puzzled. “Seth—”
“She is correct,” said Elian, his voice absolutely neutral. “Valeria ungrounded him earlier.”
“And you’re not teaching him properly,” Jehane went on. “Nobody ever told him not to bring out his weapon in transit. You aren’t treating him like someone who can summon a stage 3 weapon, so if he does screw up badly, it’s going to be your fault.
“I know that,” bit out Kwan. “Maybe I just had more faith that he’d obey some basic restrictions.”
Ajax felt like he should probably get involved in his own defense but he just couldn’t summon the motivation. There were more important things going on than whether a teacher was disappointed in him. He met the Tanist’s gaze and realized the look she was giving him was meditative rather than angry.
“We’ve all done stupid things because we’ve lost people, Kwan. We can discuss it later. Right now I’d really like to hear what Jehane, who has become a rather valiant defender of underdogs, has to tell us. This important information.”
Jehane looked up at her suspiciously. “Why are you holding onto Seth like that still?”
The Tanist actually smiled. “Because he’s the only one of you who’s made a habit of actually running away lately.” But she took her hand off his shoulder. “Please, tell us what you found.”
Ajax wondered what Jehane was talking about. He hoped it wasn’t Natalie’s cambion.