Chapter #19Memories Like Constellations, Part 1 by: Seuzz   You lay back onto the gurney, under the robotic arm. Even in the dark van you can see a hard twinkle playing on the tip of the crystalline drill bit. It's almost hypnotic.
Plante looms over you. "The mask," he says.
"Oh, right." You put your hand to your brow and pull.
Of course, consciousness slips from you.
* * * * *
But not entirely. Or this is a new form of consciousness, for all at once you are sharply aware of yourself, and it doesn't feel like a dream. In fact, you feel more awake than you have ever felt before. "Awake" almost feels like "asleep" compared to this alert state.
But it must be a dream, for you are floating in nothingness. You look around, and feel yourself spinning slowly in place. You twist about, and though there is no light, you sense that you are turning about and about.
You look up. Nothing.
You look down.
Your throat constricts.
It is the Moon, looking bigger and sharper than you have ever seen it. Or is it the Moon? It is a silvery disk, and it shows craters and seas and mountains. But are those the features of the terrestrial moon? You've never really looked at the Moon, but it seems wrong, somehow. The shadows in the craters are deeper. They look like fissures opening to emptiness, not like pock marks in a surface.
They are gaps, you realize, but they aren't empty. Something blacker than the vacuum is behind them, and even at this vast distance you sense deep, thrumming energies coming from it.
Transfixed, you stare down between your invisible feet.
Then something is pulling you. Cords at your feet and ankles, winding up your legs and waist and torso and wrists and arms and shoulders and neck and face. You are being pulled toward the Moon.
You're not in the least frightened by this. You hunger to embrace it.
But though the cords tighten and bind, they also stretch and become taut. This puzzles you. Then it comes to you in a flash. The cords are tightening not because you're being pulled toward the Moon, but because you are being pulled away from it. And as soon as you realize this, every one of those silvery bands snaps.
The Moon vanishes.
You would scream with fury at the loss if there was air.
* * * * *
You are falling.
Let yourself fall. Let yourself be dashed to dust. You are lost. It has been taken from you.
What has been taken? you ask yourself.
Myself, you answer. The thought is so melancholy you let it evaporate.
You are falling, your arms flailing uselessly above your head.
Or not so uselessly. Your hand catches something, clutches it, and your arm is nearly wrenched from your socket. You swing back and forth.
You are grasping something hard and firm and rough, like an outcropping of rock. You look up. You open your eyes. You didn't realize you had them shut.
You are gripping an outcropping of black basalt. Wind whips about you, choking you with a stench of sulfur. You look around.
You are clinging to a sheer cliff of volcanic rock; the rust-colored earth reels beneath you; it must be miles below. Mountains of ice and lava, sheer and jagged like teeth, tower around you. You look up. A brilliantly glowing ribbon of snow stretches across one quadrant of the sky; the other three quadrants are swallowed by a dull yellow disc that looms like a millstone.
The wind howls, but not so loud as to drown out the sudden booming toll of an iron bell.
You would let go and plunge to your death, but your hand won't relax. Without willing it, but without fighting it, you tighten your grip on the rock, until blood oozes out between your fingers.
And as you bleed you feel strength warming your muscles. Slowly you flex your arm, lifting yourself, until with your free hand you can clasp another purchase. Your other hand begins bleeding as you feel for another handhold, and you kick at the cliff face with your bare feet, feeling for a foothold.
You're not wearing any clothes, and your naked torso bangs against unforgiving basalt.
One handhold at a time you take it, clambering with painful breaths up the cliff face, hanging almost upside down at points. Your breath saws through your lungs and at your ribs. Progress is impossible, it seems, until—
Hours? Days? Years?
—later you notice that the slope has become shallow; then you are crawling up the crown of a high and bitter hill. At the top, your knees crack as you rise to your feet. You look about.
You are standing on the lowest foothill of the tallest and sheerest mountain range ever glimpsed by human eyes.
And behind them looms another range, one that is even taller.
Another vast range, veiled by a haze, rises behind that one.
And behind it, the sky is itself another mountain, waiting to be conquered.
It doesn't matter. You raise your fists over your head and shout. And your cry of triumph drowns the tolling of that bell.
* * * * *
You open your eyes, briefly. The tip of the crystalline drill bit gleams. Your lids drift shut again.
* * * * *
The grass writhes beneath you, shouting in your ears. You bolt upright. The backyard is dark, and the crickets are silent. "Joe?" you say, for your brother is kneeling beside you with a hungry look on his face.
"Sort of," he says. "I'm projecting again. I guess I must've heard something. You're sleeping lightly."
"The vegetation is uneasy. I noticed as soon as I lay down. Took forever to go to sleep." Your eye falls on the silvery object in Joe's hand. It looks like a dinner plate. "What's that?"
"I must be dreaming," he says. "I know I'm asleep in the bedroom. Got the Libra on my mind. Remember the time in Vera Cruz I went cruising the streets with an Aztec zombie priest? Listen, I've been thinking about that box in the sub-basement, and Harrison and Mitchell. How do we know the third guy is still at Eastman? It could've been Bickelmeir. He also got fired from Salopek, and he moved to Westside. Maybe it's him."
You suppress a groan. This is not the hour for solving mysteries. "We've been over that. There's no evidence he was with them that afternoon. All the reports say it was just Harrison and Mitchell at the school that day."
"But if there was a third guy, and we've been assuming there was, then why couldn't it have been Bickelmeir?"
You lean back with a weary sigh. "This is something to talk about in the morning, and we've been over it before. The stuff is still at Eastman."
"And no one's touched it. While waiting for Rick to show up, maybe we should check out Westside more thoroughly. I made a contact over there this afternoon through Patterson."
But you're barely listening to him. You've got a better angle on that thing in his hand. It's not a plate. It has protuberances. From this angle it looks like a face. "Yeah," you grunt, then point at his hand. "Lemme see that thing."
"It's not real. I told you, I'm projecting inside a dream. I'm not even here."
So it is a mask. And if he's projecting, your hand will go through it, and there will be nothing to worry about. "Lemme see it," you repeat and grab for it.
Joe smashes it into your face.
* * * * *
You sit up smartly and blink at Joe, who is peering at you with a queer smile. "Well, no harm done," he says brightly. "Except maybe to your ego."
You grip him by the throat and slam him against the wall. "The fuck are you doing," you roar. He can only gurgle in reply. You put your hands on your hips and look around. How did you get into the living room? Why is it daytime? Why is Joe pinned against the wall and slowly turning purple?
Oh, right. You rub your nose with one hand, hike up your gym shorts with the other, and release Joe with the third. "Okay, what the fuck just happened?"
"I just rescued you, asshole," your brother gasps. "Check your feet."
"They're on the ground. Wait, what's—?" The words die in your throat as you spot the mask. "Joe?"
"Yeah, that's what you think it is. I just got it off you. Wasn't hard, it's the first spell in the book."
"What book?"
"The Libra." He grins and points to the table. An evil-looking grimoire is sitting on it.
You turn staring eyes on him. "How long have you—?"
"About an hour. I got loose. Well, a guy let me loose." He makes a face. "He let me loose and brought me home and ran away, but not before telling me where his friends had the Libra stashed. I ran over there, collected it and most everything else they had, then booked it back over here to release you."
You just stare at him.
He throws his hands in the air. "What is so fucking hard about what I just said?"  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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