Chapter 16 Last Illusions
Last Illusions
Every Son received training in the art of explanations to a confused, resistant potential, though most never had a chance to use the skill. Nigel expected a great deal of difficulty, but his new lirai simply listened, a vertical line appearing and vanishing between her eyebrows as she concentrated.
And her questions were soft, but entirely to the point. “An actual god? Like…”
“It’s the only term which applies.” Nigel passed another breakfast sandwich up to Edward, who was quite content to munch and steer.
“This being is vastly powerful, and beyond reason. He almost had the world, but the Sons—his greatest soldiers, sworn to his will—realized we’d be consumed as well.
So we switched sides.” He recited the details flatly, well aware of the shame.
There was no honour in the god’s chosen belatedly arriving at the conclusion that their own survival was at stake as well.
She tried the coffee again; certainly by now it had cooled to drinkable temperature. “How did that work out?”
“The lirai accepted us.” Four small words, unable to carry the weight of that forgiveness, a grace no traitor deserved. “Despite all we had done, hunting them at the Mad God’s command, they trusted us. In return, we swore fidelity. Somniorum serve.”
“In omni re,” Edward murmured from the front, the traditional response.
Nigel’s new lirai absorbed this, the line between her eyebrows deepening. “Is that Latin?”
“After a fashion.” The temptation to veer into etymological discussion sternly repressed, he returned to duty. “In any case we turned the tide, though barely, and the greatest Dreamers of that age sacrificed themselves to shut the Mad God away. So far as they could.”
“So… they sent this guy to jail?” Another spare, starving bite, chewing carefully. All her attention rested on him, and the sensation was quite pleasant. “Then how can he—”
“He can’t approach this world directly, but he is a god.
” Nigel had expected panicked disbelief far before this point.
She was suspiciously calm; he waited for the inevitable explosion.
“He lingers in the nightmare portions of the Dreaming Lands, sending others to do his bidding. Shadowbeasts, mostly, but plenty of humans swear themselves to serve him.”
“Like you.” She neither paled nor shrank away, simply regarded him coolly.
The question stung, but was only what any Son deserved.
“Not like us, my lady. We can pass the mark to others, but unless there’s a Dreamer nearby to stop the corruption with the Flame, it spreads until the bearer is consumed.
Besides, the god can’t reach through to that degree anymore, he works with dreams and visions, money and power.
That’s easy. No few governments are suborned or influenced by his agents, a lot of law enforcement too.
Some cults, some other movements. It varies. ”
“Shit.” A small shake of her tousled, gold-streaked head, almost apologetic.
She took a gulp of coffee, grimaced slightly at either taste or temperature, and visibly decided to grant him a sliver of context.
“Friend of mine was a cop. He swore there were people on the side of the bogeys, that they were pressuring him to join a cult.”
It was the first indication of actual trust from her quarter, and a suspicious warmth curled inside Nigel’s chest. He sternly throttled the feeling. A bad sign, he was already rather… what was the word?
You know what’s happening, Nigel. Control yourself.
His lirai gave a slight shrug and a rueful almost-smile. “We always thought the guys who approached him were connected to the big kahuna. So far, I’ve gotta say this is making some kind of crazy sense.”
Her terminology was charming, very nearly quaint—bogeys, big kahuna. Nigel hoped his own expression was encouraging—after a while, the control required of a Son tended to freeze the facial muscles into a set, grim mask.
At the moment, their short-term goal was using the freeways to lunge south and eventually east. A return to Salem was the last move human pursuers would expect, though that was not the only consideration.
Contact with shadowbeasts might create a disturbance large enough for the god to track, but only if he and Edward lingered over killing the filth.
The psychic noise of so many ordinaries jammed into a city would provide a manner of camouflage for their exhausted, nervous responsibility and—far more to the point—make it imperative she stay close to the Sons in order to be insulated from that cacophony.
How had she coped with the din before now? Did she understand how close she had come to being overwhelmed by the psychic surf-roar, delicate connections inside her skull melted wholesale?
She’d survived intact for some while, against thoroughly impossible odds.
A chill spilled down his back, thinking of this frail, serious girl roaming shadowbeast-infested wilderness.
At least she’d found a few ordinary civilians as protectors, but clearly none of them had any idea precisely which risks they’d been running.
From her few grudgingly bestowed hints it seemed ordinaries had been trying to hunt the unclean, using vaguely paramilitary tactics—a concept both intriguing and terrifying.
“Sir?” Edward was more than content to let a Father deal with explanations. Neither of them had ever expected to be this close to a potential, let alone a full Dreamer. “What are we thinking?”
“We’ll halt briefly in the closest city of reasonable size, but only for gear and better transport.” Nigel did not bother to sound anything other than grimly relieved at their lirai’s perhaps-temporary acquiescence. “Shall we stop at dusk or travel through the night, my Elder?”
“I’d say keep driving, sir.” Edward kept his eyes pointed straight ahead.
“Do I get a vote?” Their Dreamer shifted, reaching into the bag for another hash-brown patty—still hot, another very useful minor sorcery—while her gaze wandered casually past Nigel, stealing glances out his window or down at her seatbelt’s catch.
Exhausted, under extreme stress and duress, she was still attempting to orient herself, testing the limits of what they would allow, searching for gaps in vigilance.
Was it kind to allow her a few last illusions? Nigel found himself unable to entirely rob her of hope. “What would you recommend?”
He also had to admit something else, if only inside his own skull.
The immense relief of her very presence, the muting of the Mad God’s constant taunting whispers, was more addictive than any civilian or ordinary could comprehend.
Especially to a Son who had endured long enough to achieve his particular status.
Some held Fathers were those who had given up every shred of hope, settling instead for gloomy resistance. A simplification, yes… but very close to the mark.
“Say we do go east.” Cass nibbled at the hash-brown. “What happens then?”
You think you have a choice, my lady? She was a full lirai, there was no need to betray her to the Flame.
Yet the urge to escape was near-constant for potentials and new Dreamers alike; being under continual, unrelenting guard plus the continual shattering of basic assumptions taught from childhood about how the world functioned were both destabilizing in the extreme, provoking frantic retreat to any perceived ‘normalcy’.
While certain measures could be taken for a Dreamer’s safety, outright lying was quite out of the question.
“If we can make contact, they’ll send as many teams as necessary to bring us in.
If not, we get over the Divide and reach a temple, frontier or active.
You will meet others of your kind, you will be guarded, your gifts will be trained, and everything possible for your comfort or pleasure will be immediately provided.
You’ll help keep a city clear of the unclean, extending our territory and making it possible for other potentials to be brought in and awakened. ”
The car bounced slightly, accelerating. Edward’s gaze flicked to the rearview, met Nigel’s, and returned to the road. If the Elder wished to add anything, now was the time; he chose silence, no doubt the safest of all courses for a Son.
“Awakened?” Their new responsibility pressed a little further, pinning Nigel with what she perhaps fancied was a daunting stare.
“And what about my friends? Some of them might still…” Her face fell, yet she continued nibbling.
Was she determined not to waste the food?
Had her former protectors perhaps starved her?
She was so painfully thin.
“Potentials are betrayed to the Flame, which awakens them into lirai.” Chapter and verse, but how could he tell her the men she had been traveling with were now dead?
Whether they had been her captors was another question; she had seemed very easy with the martinet, but perhaps that had been a function of improperly fostered dependence.
A hot bolt of something indefinable went through him at the thought. There was no way to blame the reaction on a mad god, not with her proximity bathing both Sons in warm, welcome power.
“The Flame.” She paled, and Nigel could all but hear the doors slamming shut behind those pretty eyes. She also retreated toward her window, though with the seatbelt fastened it could only be a small movement.
Her shudder, however, wasn’t subtle at all.
“It’s…” He caught himself; it’s all right was a ludicrous, imprecise attempt at reassurance. He wanted to do better. “It’s a lot to handle, even when strange experiences are validated. What you’re feeling is normal.”
“I’m fine,” she said, a transparent little whisper. “Just… whew. What a ride.”
“Sir?” Edward, asking for more decisions.
Very well. Nigel guessed her awakening, recent or otherwise, had been yet another trauma; how much more could this woman be expected to endure?
He could not rob her of any comfort, no matter how transitory—or how inconvenient for her new protectors.
“Supplies. One of those dreadful box stores should do, and we may begin teaching our lirai how to move with her guardians.”