Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (105 page)

…Or perhaps…perhaps you did come to see me.

Revik fought to blank his mind.

I apologize,
he said again.
I had concerns…

Do you not still have these concerns?

They are no longer relevant. I wish to return to my––

Your wife, yes. But you are here on your own. Why, brother? Why would you not bring her? Do you not fear leaving her alone?

Revik fought confusion again.

Allie. Why was it talking about Allie?

That fear shivering through his light intensified.

All around him, Revik felt tastes of what he remembered.

It wasn’t as strong of course, not like that dark green room with its alien life…the one that wanted to pull him apart like a lab animal as soon as he ventured into its lair. This wasn’t the same, but it still
felt
like that consciousness. It seethed around him with a resonance that set his teeth on edge, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. It gave him that same feeling he remembered, too…like an animal with a gun sight painted on its body.

He grew more conscious of that animal fear as he thought it, of the alienness there, the touch of light and mind…

Yet there was something…something…

What did it want with Allie?

Dragon?
he sent.

The thought startled him, even as it grew more sure.

Dragon?
he repeated.
Brother…is this you I am speaking to?

The thought came with an emotion that edged strangely towards relief.

Are you here?
Revik prodded again.
Are you in this place with me?

Inside that dense seething light, what flickered around the nearly bloodless bodies and the podium with its hand scanner and the blank, pulsing walls…Revik felt a clicking, purring kind of sigh. He felt what might have been sadness in it, too.

I am this place, brother,
the voice told him.
...It is me.

Revik felt a denser understanding, even as the consciousness around him grew sharper, bringing back that wash of nerves, making him feel again like an insect pinned under glass.

You cannot let me go?
he said, swallowing.
Why?

The silence deepened.

Then Revik felt more than heard the being sigh.

I think you had better come to see me first,
Dragon said.

Revik fought his light neutral, fought the part of him that really hated that idea, more than he could formulate into words. But he couldn’t think of a good way to refuse. Not with the exits locked, not with the clock ticking faster all around him.

Not with this machine that wasn’t a machine seething through his head.

“Where are you?” Revik said, speaking aloud that time.

An image formed.

Immediate. Stark.

It showed Revik exactly what he knew he would see.

An image of that dark-green room.

Revik felt his fear return in a cold pulse, coiling back into his intestines. Swallowing harder, he stood there for a few seconds more, stalling, fighting to think, or maybe reminding himself of the limits of his options…maybe trying to force his limbs to move, to carry him to the other side of that gristly floor covered in corpses and body parts so he could get this over with.

Allie had been right. He shouldn’t have come down here.

That fear grew more visceral…darting around his skin, tensing his muscles as he remembered what he’d felt in that room the first time.

Sixty-one minutes, twelve seconds…

He was already inside the thirty he’d allotted to get back to the surface.

He wouldn’t make it to Tiananmen Square.

Clearing his throat, he nodded.

“Yes,” he said, choking on the word. “All right, brother. Of course.”

He walked to the edge of the podium and rapidly descended the steps.

He moved fast now, maybe because it was the only thing left he could control, the only hope he could hold on to, that it might let him out of here if he cooperated, if he did what it wanted of him. Even so, his body fought with itself, pushing him down the stairs and across the floor in jerking, ungraceful steps, like some part of his light forced each limb.

He tried not to look at the bodies as he passed.

He didn’t really focus on anything until he’d reached that far wall, and then he was surprised to see the door open, almost like how he remembered it from the last time he’d been here. Inside the room, light coiled and sparked and seethed in circles around a cross-legged form who faced Revik from the middle of the concave surface.

“Hello, brother,” the being said, smiling at him.

The fucking thing really did wear his face.

It couldn’t be a biological brother, or even a cousin, not unless he’d been a twin. The similarities were too exact, even with the different scars and other body marks, and the different amount of bulk on the rest of him.

It had to be a clone.

The body, at least.

The familiarity hit Revik differently this time, now that his mind was more or less working. It didn’t just disturb him…it unnerved him entirely. Like some part of him had been stolen. Like this being had actually stolen his body from him…stolen it as he slept.

“Gaos…”
he muttered, staring up at the lightning sparks that coiled around his form. He watched them crash into the wall and dissipate like liquid, only to reform.

Somewhere in that seething light around his skin, he felt Dragon smile.

“One of them, I suppose,” the voice said, aloud that time.

Humor lived in those words.

Revik looked over sharply, feeling that fear amplify in his heart when he saw Dragon looking at him. It took a moment longer for Revik to understand what he’d said.

“The Old God…” Revik muttered, remembering.

Dragon smiled.

His clear eyes filled with light––a darker, more earthy green light than what Revik saw in his own eyes when they glowed from those higher structures, or in the eyes of his wife, which looked to him like ethereal pale emeralds.

But the thought of that only brought his pain back again.

Revik was still trying to force it back, to force back the images that wanted to come with it, when Dragon smiled a second time.

“…It could be argued one of them, most certainly,” the intermediary said.

“What do you want from me?” Revik said, staring at him. “What is it you want from either one of us? From Allie? From me?”

“Nothing, brother. Nothing. Not anymore…”

“Then let me go––” Revik began, his voice harder that time.

But Dragon spoke as if he hadn’t said anything.

“…You’ve already done what I wanted,” Dragon said, that smile once more touching this narrow lips. “She did before. You have now…and I appreciate it, brother. I truly do. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to show you how much I appreciate what you have done, as I tried to do with her…but know that I love you too, my brother. As much as I love our beautiful Bridge. Know that I left a gift for her…a gift for both of you.”

Revik frowned. He fought to think through his words, to make sense of them.

He couldn’t.

He could feel something with his light, something that pulled at him, lingering at the edges of his awareness. Some part of himself that he could feel Dragon tugging on, tasting with those lightning-like sparks of his aleimi, making his own.

“And what is that?” Revik said, gruff. “What did we do for you?”

“You set me free.”

Revik continued to stare at him.

As he did, the figure sitting in the middle of that dark green room grew brighter, those flaring, lightning-like shards twisting around him in more violent and colorful sparks, blindingly bright now, raising the hairs on his arms, sucking in his breath…

The lights whipped through that space faster, turning green and red, orange and light blue and gold, crashing into and around him, turning the form in the middle into a glowing triangle of multicolored flame.

Revik held up a hand, shielding his eyes, feeling that pain in his chest worsen.

Then, abruptly and yet without fanfare, given how it began, it ended.

The light flashed once, blinding him for real.

By the time Revik could see again, lowering his hand…

Dragon’s body had entirely gone.

He was just…gone.

Frowning, Revik stepped forward. Without thinking about what he was doing, he entered the room, crossing the threshold almost without noticing he’d done it. He didn’t pick up on the significance of that either, not at first…not until he was wholly inside those mirrored walls.

It wasn’t just Dragon.

The room itself…the sentient machine. It was gone, too.

That pulsing life, the alien mind that had made the room what it was had been stripped unceremoniously from every millimeter of its physical form. The dark green complexion from the organic itself had even gone. Without it, the walls, ceiling and floor shone with a steel-like brushed metal glow.

Devoid of life…devoid of even the most rudimentary of consciousness.

What remained was dead. Mineral and stone.

Holding his breath, Revik walked in a small circle, fighting to make sense of what he’d just seen, what it might mean. He looked around at those blank, lifeless walls, fighting a different kind of fear that wanted to crawl over his light.

The thing was gone, though.

The sentient machine…that alien intelligence…

It was just gone.

He honestly couldn’t decide whether to be relieved.

Even as he thought it, the lights around him flickered, then died.

Revik found himself in a darkness so complete, it felt like he’d been buried alive.

Panic exploded in his chest, so much he couldn’t breathe at first. He reached out with his hands as his light darted out of him, looking for contours, looking for any way––

Then a voice broke that quiet...strangely close, almost tentative.

“Revi’?”

Not Dragon.

Revik exhaled, feeling a relief so palpable his heart started back up in his chest. He honestly didn’t know why at first, if it was from the realization he wasn’t alone, or because of the identity of the person themselves.

“Feigran,” Revik said, the word a gasp. “Feigran?”

“Yes, brother.”

There was a pause.

Then Feigran’s voice grew closer.

Revik felt his relief intensify when he realized he could hear him approach, meaning his physical body. Feigran’s light steps even now echoed slightly against the dead walls.

“You’re really here, Feigran?” Revik said.

“Yes, brother,” the other seer said.

“Come here. Come here, brother…”

“All right,” the other said agreeably. “But we really should get out of here now,” he added solemnly, as if to convince Revik of the seriousness of his words. “They’re going to try and kill us soon. Well…” the seer amended, exhaling in a soft, purring kind of sigh. “They are
trying
to kill us already, brother. It is on its way here…some part of it, at least. But we should go before it arrives. I would prefer that, I think. Very much…to staying down here.”

Revik’s mind spun over the other’s words.

“What?” he said, alarm back in his voice. “What’s on its way?”

He flinched, jumping in spite of himself when the smaller seer sidled his body closer, grasping Revik’s arm in his hands. Revik didn’t move away when Feigran pressed into his side. Instead a strange surge of relief came over him at the contact.