Illumination 6.1: Loss
Caught in a restless sleep he did not want, Ajax wandered through memories masquerading as dreams. Or was it the other way around?
His mother held his hand. “Doctors are expensive, my darling. I’m just a little tired. But let’s keep our fingers crossed that your papa’s ship comes in soon.” She sighed. “You mustn’t pester him, you know. He works so hard taking care of us.”
He doesn’t, Ajax wanted to say. It’s you. You take care of us, Mom.
“You look like him.” His mom smiled. “You have his fine nose and his good chin. You’ll be as handsome as he is when you grow up.”
An Awakened bit her arm. Another crawled up her chest to sink its teeth into her throat. She was still smiling as the monsters pulled her away from Ajax, still smiling as the monsters tore her into shadows.
Another hand slid into his own, this one child-sized just like his own. It belonged to a little girl, with a face he couldn’t place. She looked at him, then looked at the memories projected on the screen.
Something about the girl made him uneasy. Better to look at the screen of memories than try to understand why he knew her.
He’d bounced between a number of relatives and friends in the first year after his mother died, but it wasn’t until he landed with his father’s cousin that he’d started healing from the loss of his mother. Jenny was young and sweet and gentle. At first she had plenty of time for a grieving boy. Then she got engaged to a man who couldn’t stand Ajax.
“Why did you have to marry him?” Ajax demanded of the screen.
Screen-Jenny held out her hand to him, even as her husband pulled her away. “I need him. Who else would love me? I have to belong somewhere. But it will be better for you if you go away. I’m glad we spent some time together. Be well, Ajax.”
He wasn’t well. He went back to his father, but only for six months. Then his maternal grandmother invited him to stay with her. Recently widowed, she had plenty of room in her heart and just enough room in her pension for her daughter’s son. And they’d agreed on so many things. She never spoke of his father in the glowing way his mother had, never suggested that loving his father was his duty. She had understood.
And yet… On memory’s screen, she flipped through picture albums, looking at pictures of her dead husband. She touched mementos of him still placed on the fireplace mantle, beside Ajax’s report card with the certificate for improving his grades. The report card fell into the fireplace, but she didn’t notice. She faded, becoming thinner and older. She taught Ajax to make cookies and paused, looking off into the misty distance. “Your grandfather loved these cookies.” She argued with him about the series of books all the kids were reading. “My Cesar would have had opinions, oh yes.”
Ajax had thought his grandmother was all his. But her husband had called to her from beyond the grave, and in the end, she’d answered. She hadn’t even said goodbye. The EMTs pulled the sheet over her face and wheeled her away, promising Ajax somebody would call his dad for him.
The little girl holding his hand squeezed it, and Ajax blinked back tears. He was too old to cry.
The images flickered faster now. His aunt, accepting him into her large family out of duty and obligation rather than affection. But while she was busy, she wasn’t cold, and he became fond of her four children, all younger than him. That lasted until his aunt discovered her oldest daughter’s journal, full of her dreams and fantasies about Ajax. His aunt accepted that he’d never touched her daughter, in the end. All that meant was that she didn’t actually kick him out of the house in the middle of the night, and she bought him his bus ticket home.
He didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t look away. His girlfriends paraded across the screen, the ones who didn’t stick around and the few who did. They said they loved him, but he knew it wasn’t true. How could they even know what they were talking about?
And then there was Natalie. Screen-Natalie looked up at him, and said words. The subtitle under the words said, “I don’t want to be what you love,” and the little girl holding his hand squeezed it again.
He wanted her even more once she’d told him that. He’d almost admitted that he wanted to be with her, almost asked her how they could make this work. Almost chased her down, almost acted like the girlfriends who hadn’t been willing to let him go. Almost believed in a future.
He remembered how he treated his ex-girlfriends.
Better that it was only ‘almost’.
He finally looked at the little girl holding his hand. It was a young Natalie. She smiled at him, and even if she refused to be his object, she was there and he wasn’t alone.
Then Hatherly said, “If only the world was a different place,” and young Natalie dissolved into sparks.
Ajax opened his eyes and stared at the infirmary ceiling.
“Ah, you’re awake. That’s a good sign.” Kwan sat in a nearby chair, with newspapers spread around him.
“She’s gone,” said Ajax. “I let her slip away because I was too weak.” He coughed. His mouth was dry and his chest hurt. So did his hands, as if he’d been clenching them tightly.
“Yesterday was a bad day.” Kwan’s voice was even and controlled.
“Natalie’s gone, right? That wasn’t a dream?”
“No. Not a dream.”
Ajax sat up, or rather, tried to sit up. But there were restraints across his chest, legs and arms, and a handcuff around one wrist. “What the hell is this?”
“The Tanist didn’t want to bring you back, but I told her that if we didn’t, she’d be leaving you to give more information to the military.” Kwan shrugged. “She insisted on the restraints when you started fighting us without ever waking up.”
Ajax processed this. “Are the soldiers okay?”
“As far as I know. Nobody on our team hurt them. I don’t know how their HQ felt about their failure to stop us from leaving.”
“And…” He searched his memory for names that he suddenly barely remembered. Meeting those faces seemed like a lifetime ago. “Laurel? Rose? Seth?”
“Laurel’s dead. We lost Laurel, Natalie and Hatherly yesterday. Everybody else made it home.”
Ajax stared at Kwan. “You’re counting Hatherly as a loss?”
Kwan looked very tired. “When you know somebody for over twenty years and you realize that person didn’t exist… yeah. We’ve lost a lot of people lately. Malachi. Emily. Kentigern. Slade. Aya. Laurel. Hatherly. Natalie.”
All Ajax could think was, Half of those people aren’t dead, and Is Natalie? And finally, They don’t think it matters.
***
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Illumination 6.2: Knives Like Chains
Jehane woke from a deep and dreamless sleep to a buzzing from the walls. As soon as her eyelids fluttered, Elian said, “Please wake up, Jehane. You’re needed. At Seth’s home. He’s acting dangerous.”
Barely awake, head still fogged by painkillers, Jehane rolled out of bed and scrambled into the nearest clothing she could find. She was sore, but everything seemed to work all right. The doctor had sent her home the night before after giving her a bill of ‘healthy enough’, and returning his attention to the more seriously injured. She ran through the halls of the Tower on automatic, without really processing why Elian had woken her, until she reached the door to Seth’s home. Then, she hesitated.
“Dangerous how?”
“Every way somebody can be dangerous,” said Elian.
“Why do you want me, then?”
“Because Natalie is gone.”
Oh. Jehane knocked on the door.
“The door’s open.” Valeria stood in the kitchen, punching some bread dough. There was nobody else around, and the house was quiet. “Hello, Jehane. Jake took the children out. If Seth doesn’t calm down soon, I’m going to borrow a tranquilizer gun from the Prowlers.” She shook her head. “Doctor Pepperman drugged him hard last night. He said Seth would be out a lot longer than this.” A grim, horrible little smile touched her face. “But he doesn’t know my son.”
“Why—”
Valeria glanced up at Jehane for the first time. “He misses his sister. He was always very close to her.” Her voice was flat, and Jehane realized that as much as Natalie was her friend, Seth’s sister, she was Valeria’s daughter. Maybe more. She couldn’t imagine.
She hesitated, then said, “He— Hatherly— wants to convert people. So… she may not be gone.”
Valeria looked down at the dough again. “I hope not.”
Jehane looked around. “It seems very quiet now?”
“It wasn’t earlier. And he’s injured, and his wounds need tending and he won’t let anybody do it.” Valeria sliced a piece of dough in half viciously.
“I’m not very good at talking to people.”
“Elian thought you could help.”
It’s just Elian, not Kentigern, Jehane wanted to argue. He doesn’t have a thousand years of wisdom.
“I’ll try,” she said. She went to Seth’s door. It was closed and locked.
“Seth? I came to see how you’re doing.” There was no answer. She was really not very good at words, so she sat down outside his door, pressed her head against the wood, and closed her eyes instead. Seth’s shadow music enveloped her. What had once been careless and playful was now hard-edged and snarled with jagged bits, like a meadow littered with shrapnel. She leaned into it, until the sound itself painted a shadowy picture for her.
He sat on the floor, on the other side of the door, a dim and sparkling darkness. His knives were out, and they glowed as they shimmered and flowed across his hands. Sometimes he moved his hands while the knives seemed to stay still, and sometimes the knives danced across hands that didn’t move, appearing and disappearing and crawling like living things, until they seemed like a chain binding his hands together.
Then the dance of the knives stopped, mid-tumble, and one balanced briefly on its edge before falling over. Seth cursed and flung the knife away from him. It faded out of existence as it flew.
Jehane remembered when she first met him, when he first became more than another face in a world too full of faces. It was two years ago, after she’d made the decision to start attending school, but before she’d found a way to talk to anybody other than the doctor and her teachers. He’d caught her moving between class and her room, after hiding in class all day. He always smiled, even then, but he looked at her before touching her arm. “Come eat with us. It must be awfully lonely in there.”
He wasn’t the first person to try and pull her out of her shell. But something in the way he smiled at her reached her, as if he saw her and thought she was funny, rather than strange or worrisome. It was acceptance. It was value. She thought if she went with him, she might remember how to smile, too.
“Please,” she whispered to the door. “Please see me again.”
The shadow music shifted, and Jehane stopped leaning on the door just as Seth threw it open.
“One last time,” he rasped. He crouched down again, looking at Jehane. “Hasn’t anybody else noticed? The way one half of a partnership vanishes and then the other side falls? You can come in and wait with me if you want.” He was smiling, smiling still. But it was the most twisted smile Jehane had ever seen.
Cold and frightened in a way she hadn’t been the day before, Jehane stood up and slowly stepped into Seth’s room.
Illumination 6.3: The Only Reason
When Dr. Pepperman came to check on Ajax, he removed all of the restraints except the handcuff, muttering under his breath. Ajax caught, “…put these on the wrong person…” before the doctor realized he was listening and his mouth became a thin line.
“What about this?” Ajax rattled the handcuff.
“I don’t have the key,” snapped Dr. Pepperman.
Ajax grinned. “I bet you have a good hacksaw, though.” His smile faded as the doctor failed to return it.
“Don’t be another idiot. The Tanist will be here soon. Convince her you’re a good kid and she’ll let you go.” He prodded Ajax here and there, then sighed. “You’re in better shape than the idiot I sent home yesterday. Here. Relax. Watch a video. Try to stop clenching your fists.”
Ajax ignored the tablet the doctor left with him, laying back again and closing his eyes. He dreaded dreams, but oblivion was very appealing right now.
It wasn’t to be. He thought about Natalie instead, until an unpleasantly familiar voice said, “Is he awake or not?”
Kwan said, “Ajax, wake up. The Tanist is here to see you. Come on, I know you’re awake.”
“God, I hope not.” Ajax opened his eyes anyway.
The Tanist had a bandage on one cheek, but she’d had a chance to shower and dress in clean clothes and sleep without being tied down. It didn’t incline Ajax to make nice, especially when she said, “I’m still pondering the appropriate disciplinary action for you.”
Ajax ignored her, looking at the ceiling. “Where’s Seth, Elian? I’d like to talk to him.”
The Tanist said, “What is he, your lawyer?” He could hear the sneer in her voice, but he breathed gently and let the words pass through him. Her sneer had nothing on the endless disappointment of his father.
Elian said, “He’s indisposed but as soon as he seems sane again, I’ll mention that you asked after him.”
The Tanist added, “Not that it will help you.”
Ajax raised his free hand to rub at his eyes. “Did you just come here to sneer at me? If so, I’m going back to sleep.”
“I came to see if you had any explanation for your behavior, which almost got all of us killed! Kwan insists you aren’t just a traitor, although how he could be certain is a mystery to me.” She gave Kwan a dark look and Ajax realized that the teacher had put his own crumbling stock with the Tower’s leader on the line for him.
That was… kind, but Ajax wished he hadn’t. “Are we really going to do this? Yeah? Okay. So you led your people into a royal asskicking, and now you want to come gloat over my choices because it’s so much more satisfying than facing the consequences of your own.”
If the Tanist’s lips got any tighter, they’d vanish. “Your temerity while a prisoner takes my breath away.” Her hand flexed convulsively, and Ajax remembered the marks on Seth’s cheek. Well, maybe that was a game Seth enjoyed but Ajax wasn’t going to tolerate even the threat.
“Oh, please.” He stood up, straightening to his full height, and flexed his own free hand. “You have me handcuffed to a hospital bed and I can summon a weapon that can trivially slice this bed into chunks. The only reason I haven’t is because the doctor here has worked so hard and other people will need it before this is over, especially if you’re still in charge.”
“Really? The only reason?” The Tanist’s voice was low and dangerous. Her blazing eyes met his own, somehow managing to still look down on him despite the nine inches in height he’d gained on her.
Kwan moved forward quickly, just enough to interpose himself partially between Ajax and the Tanist. “Take it easy, both of you. Kiley, you know he can’t remain handcuffed. There’s no cause for it now that we know he’s… safe. And you, Ajax. Show some respect.”
The Tanist transferred her piercing gaze from Ajax to Kwan, incredulously. “Safe? He ignored orders to follow us. He brought the mundane authorities after us.”
“I chased Tainter out of the Tower— Elian and others will back me up if they haven’t already. Right, Elian?”
“True,” Elian murmured.
“And then the ‘mundane authorities’ caught me. And then I convinced them to help you. And you can’t possibly say you suspected me of this. Because you and I both know you suspected me of being Hatherly, instead of suspecting Hatherly himself.”
To his surprise, the Tanist’s lashes swept down. “He was a good man.”
Harshly, Kwan said, “He murdered Laurel.”
The Tanist’s gaze raised again, fixing this time on Kwan. She stared at him for a long moment and Ajax wondered if she were trying to formulate a way to blame that on him, too.
But all she said was, “Yes, I know.” Then she turned on her heel and headed for the exist.
“Hey! What about me?” Ajax called.
The Tanist waved a hand. “I’ll be back later and we can continue our discussion then. Maybe some evidence in your favor will surface.”
Ajax stared after her in amazement as she vanished out the door. Kwan said, “That’s about as close as she’ll come to saying she’ll let you out later, after she talks to some of the others. Ajax… don’t do anything stupid.”
“You shouldn’t have stood up for me. I can’t promise to be good for your sake, Kwan.”
Kwan snorted. “You’re what, seventeen? I wouldn’t expect it of you. Just do your best. For your own sake.” He squeezed Ajax’s shoulder, then hurried after the Tanist.
Ajax laid back down again, feeling every ache. He’d felt an unexpected burst of sympathy for the Tanist when he saw her reaction to Hatherly’s name, but it didn’t really matter. He was sympathetic to Kwan, too. He was certainly going to do his best. But his best wasn’t going to be what they were hoping for.
Illumination 6.4: Keeping Up With Natalie
Seth’s room, always artistically chaotic, was a disaster area. Everything he owned had been flung to the floor, and two shelves of his bookcase had been cracked. His desk was flipped over and close to the door, as if he’d used it as a barricade. His bed had been stripped of sheets and the sheets had been knotted together. Something shattered beyond recognition crunched under Jehane’s foot.
Seth bowed as she stepped into the room, like an old retainer. He wore jean shorts and no shirt, and his chest, arms and legs were covered in nicks and scratches. She was pretty sure he’d acquired most of those the day before, but some of the cuts looked nasty. She glanced around the room until she found the bandages he’d discarded in the debris on the floor.
Carefully she picked her way over to sit on his bed, trying not to step on anything. He closed the door behind her and leaned on it, looking at her with that twisted grin. She cast around for something to say.
“Your mom is worried about you.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Seth laughed like nothing was funny. “You think I want to see her? See her expression? Natalie, always paying the price for me, and now she’s gone and the irresponsible son is still here.”
Jehane sat paralyzed. Better to not say anything at all, she thought. Then, hopefully, maybe I just need to listen.
Seth slid down the door until he was sitting just as she’d visualized him before. One of his knives appeared in his hand again and he started passing it over his fingers. “Besides, it isn’t safe for them to be around me right now. Natalie was really an… inspiration to me. She really cared about this defending humanity thing. I was just in it for something to do. And because she was. Everything I ever did was to keep up with her. Couldn’t let her leave me behind.”
“Why are you talking like she’s dead? He wanted me to join him, why wouldn’t he want Natalie to do the same thing?”
The knife paused on the back of his hand, glittering, then vanished and reappeared in his grip. He looked at her like she was an idiot he’d already gotten tired of. “I can’t really hope my sister is being tortured instead of killed. Turned into something dead inside like Aya. I’d rather be dead inside. I wish I was.” The twisted grin returned. “Gotta keep up with my sister.”
Uncertainly, Jehane said, “I don’t think it works like that. Hatherly seemed to have… too much emotion.”
The knife started moving across his hands again. “I don’t see why not. Too much in one direction or another. They say it’s all about balance.” His voice became meditative. “I think you must hurt so much that you snap, and then you don’t ever hurt again.”
Jehane thought of Malachi and Aya. “I don’t. I think you hurt so much that you stop remembering a world without pain.”
“Ah, well, it’s all the same in the end, isn’t it?” The knife vanished again, and he flopped on his side, looking at her with eyes narrowed. “I bet Ajax feels great right now. If Hatherly’s hands had still been full of you, he wouldn’t have been able to grab Natalie.” Seth laughed. “He might just have killed her instead.”
Unfamiliar rage bubbled in the flood of cold dread. She didn’t want to go through it should have been you again. Hatherly had made a choice and it hadn’t been her, and it wasn’t irrevocable no matter what the others thought. Malachi wasn’t entirely Hatherly’s; Natalie didn’t have to be either.
But it hurt to hear it from Seth, all the same. “Do you feel that way?”
Suddenly Seth was crouched beside the bed, once again holding a knife. “I want to destroy everything, Jehane. Almost everything. I want this fucking cambion to be born so I can… stop existing. Stop thinking.”
“I promise you, that’s not what happens! Not to all of them, anyhow. You just get lost…” She thought of Malachi again. There had to be a way back. A string, a light, a guide.
Seth looked up at her, then brought his empty hand up to touch her face. One knuckle and his thumb, stroking along her cheek and down to her jaw, the touch so delicate it felt like a bird’s wing. His thumb stopped on her carotid artery. “You’re such a sweet kid. I wonder if I did something… really terrible… if I can get this over with.”
He was very close. Too close. She wondered if what he craved had already happened, if even now he was lost, chasing a dream of acquiring peace through …something terrible. But when she stood up, he didn’t stop her. She looked down at him, at the knife he still held in one hand, and her stomach turned. Shakily she pushed past him, and he still didn’t stop her. “I can’t help you, Seth. Not even that way.” She turned and hauled at the door.
Seth muttered, “I really suck,” but Jehane barely heard him, clawing at the door and failing to move it. Then the door opened from the other side, and Seth’s mother stood there, looking concerned. Jehane tried to speak, but only found tears. Instead she shook her head and rushed past Valeria, past Jake and the kids coming in the front door, and out into the depths of the Tower.
Illumination 6.5: Procedural Questions
Ajax woke from a light doze when Rohan wandered into the infirmary. He eyed the other boy silently until Rohan settled in the chair previously vacated by Kwan.
“How are you feeling?” Rohan asked, his voice cautiously friendly.
Ajax relaxed. “About how you’d imagine.”
Rohan shifted awkwardly. “I’m glad you’re alive. It sounds like it was pretty messed up out there.” He sighed. “They’re having another meeting. An endless meeting. No students allowed.”
Elian said, “I’m there, though. I’m everywhere.” There was a wry humanity in his voice Ajax didn’t hear around the adults. “Most of it has been a recap of what you experienced firsthand, Ajax, and what you already heard from Rose and Kotone, Rohan. And now they’re talking about what to do next.”
Ajax sat up. “And what’s that going to be?”
Elian was quiet, presumably listening. Rohan leaned his arm on the side of the chair and stared at the light sculpture overhead, and Ajax wondered if Rohan had been prodded into visiting him by Elian. They’d been so close before, and since Elian’s… transition… Rohan had been strange and quiet, not at all social.
“Another tower has come to life,” said Elian, in a distracted voice. “It was harder to notice than the first one, because of the noise of the first one. Until it opened a portal, without any transmitter.”
“That makes sense,” said Ajax. “When the other tower turned up empty, they had to go somewhere. I didn’t see that big bastard of a lightning-tailed Cambion out in the city with the others. If he’s at another tower, that must be how they managed to escape.”
“You say that so blithely,” said Elian. “But only because you have no idea how challenging that escape was, as described. My best theory is that there’s something in the connection between Cambion and creator that substituted for a transmitter. But that must have–”
Ajax held up a hand. “I don’t want to know! You tell me too much, how can I go on with my blithe theorizing? The important part is that this tower must be where Natalie is.”
Elian said, “Do you think so?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Elian hesitated. “Seth thinks, if she’s alive, she’s being tortured into insanity.”
Rohan said, “So? Big deal. If we know where she is, we can just rescue her, right?”
“Like we rescued Aya? They’ve already talked about Natalie as a casualty and moved on.”
Incredulously, Rohan said, “Even Jake?”
“Jake isn’t there. Jake is spending time with the rest of his family, at the urgent recommendation of the rest of the Council. And I’ve been instructed not to let any of them out.”
Ajax remembered his fight with Hatherly. “Natalie broke— or at least damaged— the machine that was putting everybody to sleep and making us strong. But I think he must have some other advantage. Maybe from being Echthros? Because I was only competitive against him because of the machine, and he… kicked my ass. And then when the machine went down, he… wasn’t affected at all. He didn’t lose anything.” Ajax rubbed his ribs and his handcuff clanked.
“Oh, right,” said Rohan. “I didn’t just come by to say hi.” He pulled out a little plastic sleeve full of bits of metal. “Let me get that.”
“Thank you for not breaking the bed,” added Elian.
Ajax eyed Rohan’s tousled head thoughtfully as the boy set to work over the handcuff. There was something going on there. Elian wasn’t happy with the decisions of the Council, and he was the bodiless god of the Tower now. And Rohan seemed quite willing to be Elian’s hands. Maybe this could be useful.
“Elian, is there any discussion about replacing the Tanist? She’s not like a Queen, is she? Can’t there be a recall or… or an impeachment or something? She clearly can’t cope. When does her term end?”
Elian’s voice trembled in a laugh. “No term. A Tanist serves until he or she retires, steps down or is replaced by a formal election. And organizing a real election is a pain in the ass. The true population of the Guardians is scattered all over both Earth and the land beyond the Tower.”
Ajax frowned. “What happens if she dies?” Rohan gave him a look and he raised his free hand. “Just a procedural question.”
“Then there’s a temporary Tanist appointed by the Council until a real election is organized. Sometimes it takes months and months.”
Rohan said, “This is an ugly situation, but it isn’t actually her fault.” The handcuff clicked open.
Ajax shook off the cuff. “This is.”
“That’s hardly a reason to replace her. There are lots of other things she could do with you. Exile to the land beyond the Tower. They take you out in one of the vehicles, give you a pack, and drop you off alone in the middle of nowhere. And nobody ever talks to you again.”
Ajax gave Rohan a quick smile. “And yet here you are, picking the lock. Would you talk to me, Rohan?”
Rohan looked away. “That’s not the point.”
“All right. That’s fine. Well, my point is, if she’s going to treat me like an enemy, I’m going to act like one.”
Rohan’s fingers clenched on the lockpick. “What does that mean?”
“I’m not going to run around attacking people, don’t worry. I’m just going to make my own plans. And you and Elian are going to help me, aren’t you? We need to get stronger, focus more, figure out Hatherly’s new plan, thwart it, and…” Ajax took a deep breath. “And get Natalie back.”
Because it hurts so much not to have her around to ignore. I’m just as much of an idiot as my mother, aren’t I?