Chapter 27

27.

         “So if I understand what you are proposing,” Kilun says, his brows knitted in thought, “we’ve been . . . conditioned?” He is walking several steps ahead of you, his shadow a distorted and stunted thing, not looking like him at all.
         The two of you are walking some distance from the camp, the only real sound other than your voices the quiet hiss of your boots on the soft sand. The sun is strong but not entirely unpleasant. Although the two of you are alone, the constant buzzing is always there. Kilun has counted the number of people in the camp as well over a hundred. Sometimes the background chatter makes it hard to sleep at night. But you think it might be due to something else.
         Nodding, you answer your friend, “Yes, I believe so. Think about it. You have seen the nature of this gathering, the various factions involved. Under normal circumstances they would not work together, or if they tried, infighting would soon led to the destruction of whatever enterprise they were attempting.”
         Kilun raises a finger at you. “Ah, but my friend, these are not normal circumstances. We are existing in extraordinary times.”
         “So we are told,” and it’s hard to keep the skepticism from your voice. It is good that you are not near the camp. “But we’ve seen little evidence of that so far. All this talk of destiny and people of legend walking among us . . .” you shrug, unable to hide your discontent. “Perhaps my imagination has withered and I cannot make myself believe such fanciful things anymore.”
         “But isn’t this gathering reason enough to believe something is occurring?” Kilun protests. “As you yourself said, this is not a normal thing. And yet it is happening.” His words are sincere, the cadences and emotions behind his words are real, this is no automaton spitting out programmed answers to you. Yet you know you are right.
         “Extraordinary events have no true significance if they are manufactured,” you tell Kilun, frustrated that you cannot find the right words to rattle him, to break whatever hold this camp has on him. You can feel it now, a smell without any scent, a flavor without any taste, saturating the air and coloring every sense you have. Stopping abruptly, causing Kilun to draw up short, you level him with your most piercing stare and say to him, “Did you not, in the first days that we came here, express to me your doubts about this whole scenario. How unlikely it all seemed?”
         “I did,” Kilun admits, and you breathe a small sigh of relief. Your theory still holds. That is some comfort. “But since then the things I’ve seen have dispelled those doubts. Is a man not allowed to change his mind? I can admit when I was wrong, although I am not sure if you have learned that skill yet, my friend.” That last is delivered with a casual smile, of one comrade to another. You can sense the mild criticism hidden beneath it, however.
         “But what changed your mind so decisively?” you ask, pressing your attack, not even sure if you inadequate words can overcome an obstacle that you cannot see. “Can you name the thing that has truly convinced you, what you have seen and experienced that warrants such laudable devotion to this cause?”
         “Well, I already told you . . .” he says, sounding vaguely irritated. You wonder how deep the conditioning really goes. It’s unlikely you’ll get the opportunity to find out.
         “A mere gathering of people suddenly getting along is not enough to convince me and unless you have drastically changed from the person I knew, it should not be enough for you either . . .” you cut in, stamping down all his anticipated responses. At your back you can feel the sun’s heat bearing down on you like an avalanche of sand. The brightness is reflected in Kilun’s eyes and he can’t help but squint, his pupils shrinking to mere dots. “And I do not believe it would be enough, if you spoke from a clear mind.” You take a step back in a motion that you hope is suitably dramatic and point at him, finishing with, “So I would like you to tell me . . . what is it that makes you believe, Kilun?”
         The other man matches your gaze for a minute and for a second you fear that he will simply turn and walk away without another word. You do not know what you will do if you lose his friendship, Kilun is the only man you have even been able to broach these ideas to, let alone challenge him on them. It strikes you that the thought of being absolutely alone in the camp is one that you do not wish to bear. If you do not convince him, you will simply apologize and repair the rift. Whatever madness is transpiring in this place, it is not worth losing a friend. It is lonely enough here at it is, these days.
         But abruptly, Kilun looks away sharply, his eyes going down and to the side. In a low voice, barely rising over the ambiance of the air, you hear him say, “I . . . do not know. I . . . I just do.” When he looks at you again, his eyes are confused, “I do believe . . . but I do not know . . . why.”
         It is hard to keep the smile from your face. You are not truly triumphant here, not yet. Perhaps not ever. “And now you see. What has been done. To all of us.” And it is the first confident thing you have said in a long time. Another voice, not yours, tells you that isn’t so, but you push it away. It’s not important. Not now.
         “I realize . . . but what you say is . . . it can’t be . . .” Kilun is speechless for the first time you have known him. Not that he is prone to garrulousness but he often knows just what to say in most situations, and when not to say anything. It’s not clear to you what time this is. He raises his hands to his chin, looks down to the ground, past you and says, “This is very strange.” His eyes flick up to you, a quiet question. “But how do you know, my friend? What was done?” His eyes narrow. “Should you not be similarly afflicted?”
         “One would think . . .” you say, motioning for Kilun to continue walking with you. It is not safe to be too far away from the camp for very long. It is said that people are disappearing, but you don’t know anyone who is missing. Maybe it is all just stories. Maybe everything is. “And I am not truly sure myself. I think . . .” and even though no one is around you let your voice drop to a near whisper, “I think it is because there was no need. Once. I believed, at one time.”
         “And, now, you do not?” Kilun’s voice somehow avoids being judgmental, though you know you are telling him things that should offend him to the very soul.
         “I am not sure,” you reply in the same wisp of a voice as before. “Maybe I believe . . . but in the concept, not in the cause. Maybe I don’t believe at all. Maybe, in the end, it doesn’t matter.” You are not looking at Kilun as you speak. You’re not even sure of your own words. Perhaps all of this is, as they said, destiny, and before you achieve full acceptance you must have a time of doubt. You don’t know. Finally you venture a glance at him. He is staring at you with a veiled expression. “But to force men to believe is wrong. That I do know. That is not destiny, but coercion. That is not how it works.”
         “Indeed,” Kilun says, his voice doubtful, and you know that while it is Kilun speaking, they are not his words. “But how would they do it? Condition us, I mean. How would it be done?”
         “I am not completely sure, I’ve been . . .” you break off, not sure how much you can say, not sure how much you can truly trust Kilun. What will stop him from running and telling others. You have no desire to disappear, or to die. But you do not wish to lie, either. Perhaps there really is no choice for anything, in the end. “It’s a form of psychic surgery, I believe. Done so quickly and deeply that you don’t realize how you are being altered. I suspect it could be done on a large crowd . . . we discussed the techniques once, you remember . . .”
         “Yes, one could in theory control an entire group of people . . .” Kilun replies, his face pensive. “But the danger . . .” and his eyes seek yours, tinged with worry, “you destroy the personality, possibly all the higher functions . . . they can be controlled but they’d be no better than . . .” he stops, the concept obviously disturbing him a great deal. Gingerly he touches his chest, runs a hand through his thick hair. “I feel the same,” he says in a quiet voice, rife with denial. “What did they do to me? I feel the same.” His gaze finds yours again. “To alter that precisely, the skill required . . .”
         “He’s getting help,” and it’s clear to both of you who you mean. “Nobody has that fine an ability. Not even through practice. He is being helped.”
         “Can it be undone?” Kilun asks suddenly.
         “You wish for that to be so?”
         “I . . . I may have once had . . . doubts . . .” Kilun says slowly, running both of his hands through his hair. “And maybe I don’t anymore. I don’t feel like I do. But I wish to make the decision myself, and not have it forced upon me.”
         You are silent for a long time. When you do speak, it is with an arm on your friend’s shoulder. “I am doing some studying into what . . . exactly was done. I can . . . take a look and maybe . . . maybe I can undo it.”
         “Are you sure?”
         You are not. “I am . . . not without skill, but what was done was beyond skill. But maybe . . . maybe I can do . . . something. I do not know.” You give him an honest glance. “Maybe, I can try but I do not-“
         ”Then you shall,” Kilun says without hesitation. His sudden insistence is surprising, considering the potential danger. A smile flits across his face, a ghost of a man they couldn’t bury. “I will be your grand experiment, if need be.”
         You consider this for a second. “I must warn you, the . . . the alterations are deep . . . I will have to probe . . .”
         “I know,” Kilun says quietly. “I suspected as much.” Shrugging nonchalantly, he adds with some cheer, “Well, I have always said I have nothing to hide. We shall find out if that’s true.”
         All you can do is nod. You expected to make some progress with him, but not this much. It’s almost more than you are ready for. You want to tell him no but you’ve come too far now. “Very well,” you say, “come to my tent after dark. I shall see what I can do then.”
         “Your tent?” Kilun asks quizzically. “Will that not wake up . . .”
         “It will wake up no one,” you say firmly, trying not to wince at the words. It is perhaps the first time you said stated such a sentiment outloud. Still, it does not hurt as much as you had expected. For some reason, this bothers you a great deal.
         “But what about-“
         ”There is only me,” you say quickly. It is more true now than ever. “That’s all.”
         “I’m sorry, I didn’t think that-“ A sympathetic expression plays out over Kilun’s face and for a second you fear he is going to pursue the subject. Perhaps spying something in your face, he intelligently ceases. “Tonight, then.”
         “Agreed,” you say. He looks at you one more time, his expression veiled, before turning away. You follow suit and the two of you part, then, in opposite directions.
         You do not see him that night.
         But you will see him two more times.
         On the last time he comes to you without warning, before dawn, near tears and shaking. He cannot say exactly what he has seen. You hold him as he sobs into your clothes, and he babbles of ghosts and children and things that exist only in the tales beyond imagination, of sand streaked with blood, of the sky shattering and the fragments turning into screaming corpses as they fall, of a beauty so inverted that the world cannot let it exist for fear of rendering all else pale and frail in comparison.
         He speaks of nothing that makes any sense. You do not know how long you hold him. All you know is you need to get out. But you will not leave without him.
         The last thing he says to you before he leaves that night is “Everything is real.”
         Two days later he will walk into his tent and not walk out.
         You never see him again.

* * * * *

         The branches rustled softly as Prescotte slipped back into the clearing. Tritan, kneeling by the small fire, looked up at him without saying a word. The gnarled shadows thrown up on the giant man’s face made him look like a child’s monster emerging from the darkness. Only the azure of his eyes suggested otherwise, but combined with his tapered and angular face, the result was inscrutable.
         His face taut, Prescotte came over and crouched by the fire, rubbing his hands near the flames to ward off the night’s moist chill. Firelight glinted off the hilt of his sword where it protruded from over his shoulder. The fire was sickly looking, munching hungrily at the small twigs and branches that it was comprised of, but its flames were futile fingers stabbing at the blackness, illuminating the immediate area for a mere second before allowing the darkness to reclaim it.
         “There’s no one out there,” Prescotte said after a while, his eyes riveted to the flames. “I checked the whole area, I went in a decent sized circle and . . . nothing.”
         “But I have heard them,” Tritan said. “Faraway, somewhere.”
         “Yeah, me too,” Prescotte replied, nodding. He paused for a second, as if listening. The night rippled, remained silent. “I can hear them, shouting , I guess, I don’t know what it is, there’s . . . there’s nothing organized at least, I mean they may in small groups but . . .” he bowed his head, shifting his weight to go down on one knee. “Nobody is looking for us. As far as I can tell.”
         “Did you go back to the house?” Tritan asked. He reached behind him and took a handful of wood and branches from a small pile, thrusting them deep into the fire. Prescotte watched the Slashtir stick his hand unflinchingly into the flames and noted that he should he have been more specific when he had told the alien to feed the fire.
         Prescotte sighed, bringing his mind back to the matters at hand. “I did,” he said. He looked over the flames at his friend. “It’s gone. The place is a shell. It’s totally deserted, even the animals are gone, you’d think it had been like that for years. I even . . .” he pauses, weighing his thoughts, trying to organize the impressions, “The fire looked mostly out, so I went inside. I shouldn’t have because there might have still been . . . but there wasn’t. Everyone was gone. Ah, there was some bodies, I thought they were from the fight and . . . I thought they were until, until I saw them . . . up close.” His eyes looked past Tritan, into the shrouded forest. “There were teeth marks all over some of them. Human teeth.” He vigorously rubbed his face before folding his hands together and staring to Tritan’s left. “How are they? How are they holding up?”
         Tritan glanced over at the two man sized bundles laying just outside the warmth of the fire, curled up and looking very much not like people. “They have said nothing to me. In fact, they fell asleep as soon as you left.”
         “Hm, good for them,” Prescotte grunted, changing his position so that he was sitting on his rear sideways to the fire, his legs stretched out in front of him. In a quick motion he unclasped the sword from his back and laid it next to him, within easy reach of his hand. “I really don’t blame them.” Regarding the alien across the fire, he said, “Tritan, what the hell happened back there? Those people they . . . they weren’t acting like people, not even like animals . . . it was just . . . chaos.”
         “It was not typical human nature, I agree,” Tritan said, his deep voice inhabiting the spaces between the silence. “But I do not know what caused it.”
         “These . . . mindbenders, maybe?” Prescotte ventured. “Those people like Ranos? If they wanted to, some of them could control people, right?”
         “It has been known to occur,” Tritan agreed. “But not on such a scale, for so long. Some would inevitably rebel and break the control for the others. And there is a . . . uniformity to such actions, something that was missing in the people we encountered.” The Slashtir stirred the fire with his hand, watching dispassionately as the flames tried to bite at his skin, with no ill effect. “No,” he said, finally, “this was not so much control . . . as a lack of it.”
         “But chances are the mindbenders are behind it, whatever happened,” Prescotte asked darkly, his eyes hidden in the shadows. “Is that right?”
         “That’s very possible, yes.” After a moment’s consideration, he added, ”Yes, I would say it is almost certain.”
         Prescotte swore softly. “Then the first point goes to them, I guess,” he said lightly, his smile a weak, sickly thing. What little of his grin remained when he looked over at the two sleeping men some ways from the fire. “They didn’t deserve any of this, Tritan.”
         “One might point out that we didn’t either.”
         “True,” the man agreed with a brief smile. “But at least we knew what we were getting into, we came here ready to spill blood, we came here to fight to get our friends back.” He gestured toward Jaymes and his father, neither of whom stirred. “They were just living their lives, our running into them was totally random.” He ran his hands through his hair and clasped his hands on the back of his neck. In a quiet voice, he said to no one, “And now everything is different.” It wasn’t clear what he meant.
         Tritan watched him without expression. His voice unchanged, he said, “What happened, friend Prescotte, would have transpired regardless of the setting. Our presence may have actually saved these people.”
         “Oh?” Prescotte asked, raising an eyebrow. “How so?”
         “If we had not been at their home,” Tritan stated, “what happened to their neighbors would have also happened to them. And in that case, I have no doubt they would be dead. At the very least.”
         “Ah,” Prescotte replied, turning his face away from Tritan. “I guess,” he said, not sounding convinced. Suddenly he released a muffled laugh, his body shaking with the emotion. “Lord, it’s funny . . .” he turned back to Tritan, his eyes sodden with somber humor. “Everything has changed and nothing has changed. I used to think . . . I used to tell myself that everything was black and white. Nothing in this world has ever suggested to me that was the case, but I tried to make myself believe it.” He pulled his feet in, sitting crosslegged next to the fire. “As a soldier, a part of you wants to believe that, I guess. Regardless of the evidence. But it’s never like that. It never was. I don’t think it ever will be.” His words fading into the night, he fell silent, staring out into the darkness, his face frozen in thought.
         After a minute, he said, without looking at Tritan, “Did I ever tell you I knew Belmodeus?”
         The crackling of the fire was the only sound for a moment. “I . . . had heard, yes.” The Slashtir was oddly hesitant for some reason. “He was sent to your world, because no one knew who he was.”
         “By Ranos, I found out later,” Prescotte remarked, making a face. Twisting, he turned to face Tritan, his face wreathed in smoke. Even obscured, the Slashtir’s eyes shone through, a dusky, disembodied blue.
         “What was he like?” Tritan asked.
         “I don’t know,” Prescotte replied after a long silence, his voice strangely hushed. “I . . . it was weird, Tritan, I fought with him, rescued him, watched him die and come back and . . . eventually I swore fealty to him.” His eyes were lost in the fire, remembering. “I thought I knew the kind of man he was. I thought I was a good judge of that kind of thing. I thought he was my friend.”
         “Some would say you are lucky to even be alive,” Tritan told him, his palms brushing the tips of the fire.
         “So they tell me,” Prescotte said, frowning. He looked about to say something else, but instead continued, “He was a driven man, I could tell that, he was driven, but I don’t think he knew to what. He needed direction. I thought he had found it.” Prescotte let out a slow ragged breath. “Then I watched him rip Kara’s throat out. I saw him laugh in Tristian’s face, with the kid’s blood all over his hands.” He shook his head abruptly, violently, evicting the memories from his skull, rattling them loose. “To be honest, it confuses the hell out of me. What kind of person is that, who would slaughter a teenager, a hundred other people without a problem but would wed . . .” he stopped again, the dancing flames a shimmering reflection in distant eyes. The smile came to his face slowly and not without some pain. “Black and white, Tritan. It’ll get you every time. The world just doesn’t work that way.”
         “It appears not,” the Slashtir replied, cheerfully diplomatic. Or diplomatically cheerful. It was hard to tell.
         “And now here we are, running for our lives again,” Prescotte said with a long sigh, sliding forward and lying on his back, lacing his hands together and resting his head on them. The fire twisted and snapped in his peripheral vision, reminding him of something he couldn’t quite recall. “Though on a night like this,” he said, staring up past the trees, into the sky, “I’d be damned if you could tell.” His voice was resigned, shot through with a tenuous undercurrent. He squinted, peering into the air. His eyes widened slightly. “Hey, looks like the stars are all out tonight, Tritan.”
         The Slashtir glanced up, gazing up into the sparsely glimmering patchwork wheeling high above. “Indeed. There are very many of them, are there not?”
         “So many . . .” Prescotte muttered, his mouth a crooked line. “I don’t think I’ve seen any in the longest time. You know, in the sky like that.” He gave a rough chuckle, one that barely rose above him. “Back home, I don’t think we ever believed there was anyone out there. As far as we were concerned, it was just us, alone. Though I guess we never thought of it that way. And now . . .” he trailed off, taking a deep breath, his eyes never leaving the sky. “What did you believe, Tritan? You know, when you were younger? When you looked up there?”
         “Where I come from,” Tritan told him, “there are no stars. The sky is empty and uniform. The first time I came to this dimension was the first time I had ever seen any.” The Slashtir looked up again, his face betraying nothing. “In a way, I suppose they are very beautiful.”
         “No stars, huh?” Prescotte mused. “I guess that’s . . . I think that’s like Legoflas, right? Nothing in the sky at all. That’s probably . . . probably why I don’t really remember them. You start to forget, after you’ve been away a while. Too many other things to worry about. You don’t look up, you know? You just forget.” His voice seemed meant only for his own ears.
         “It is said,” Tritan said slowly, “that the sky appears different depending from where you look at it. Different worlds have different skies.”
         “Yeah, I’ve . . .” Prescotte said through dry lips, “I’ve heard that too.” He stared into the sky again, as if looking for something. Abruptly, he inhaled sharply, and said in a strangled tone, “Lord, I don’t recognize it. I don’t recognize any of them.” It was said so quietly that the muted crackling of the fire might have drowned it out. His exact words weren’t entirely clear.
         The Slashtir watched him with unreadable eyes, and said nothing.
         Prescotte closed his eyes tightly, took several deep breaths. Then, suddenly, he rolled onto his side, toward Tritan, the flames licking the air mere inches from his face.
         “All right then,” the man said, his face ruddy from the heat, “we’ve got a set of bastards out there who have our friends and are trying to kill us. They get this round. But they get only one.” A fierce grin colored his face. “So what are we going to do about it?”

* * * * *

         . . . and running won’t take you anywhere. The walls have closed in and they stink of your blood. You’ve slammed up against motion and there’s nowhere to go any longer. It’s taken you this long to realize that your legs aren’t responding anymore. Maybe they never did.
         You’ve wedged in the corner and the corner feels slick and something is draining out of you that isn’t quantifiable but it’s not fast enough. He’ll be here in a minute. He’ll be here and it’ll be over. Why did you do it? It never was a good idea. But you had no choice. Of course you didn’t. You’ll say that even as you go down screaming. Spit in his face and tell him and maybe it’ll be full of blood and he’ll realize that people like you don’t back down, that death is never the end.
         Into your vision he comes, a monolith backed with a mountain. He walks lazily in front of you, all victory and ease. You can’t see his face. You know who it is. He looks at you with an expression without pity. It’s suddenly very dark in the room. Why is it so hard to breath? Are they toying with you? Go on, you want to shout, get it over with. But that’s wrong. You don’t want to die. Not here. Not like this. But you can’t get up. And he won’t let you past.
         “I don’t know what the hell you were thinking,” the man says, pacing back and forth and finally come to rest at a point right in front of you. He’s shouting and his face is wet but really it makes no sense. Your face is wet too but for a different reason. Everything taste of liquid metal. “Or were you? Were you thinking?” He’s pointing at you and you can’t go back into the corner anymore. “Can you tell me? What the hell that was all about? What the hell the point of all of it even was?”
         You don’t answer. Of course you don’t. There’s nothing to say. You realize that now. Everything you ever wanted to say or was able to say has already been said. And it’s much less and far more simple than you ever thought it would be.
         “Well? Can you?” the man demands again. A whistle cuts the air. A rippling boom behind him says something you don’t understand. Disgusted, the man shakes his head. “Forget this. This is useless.” He takes a step toward you. There is no cause for alarm. Of course there isn’t. “There are more important things to do.” He sounds almost apologetic. “Let’s just get this over with.” Something gleams in the air, in his hand.
         With a sudden, blurred motion, he steps forward sharply and you feel something very cold enter your chest. Something scrapes against the wall behind you. There’s not even time to yell. It barely hurts. How very strange.
         Slowly, you look down to see the blade of a sword embedded in your body. Already the world is fading. There’s hardly any pain. You always thought there would be. It’s funny how there isn’t. You are tempted to grab it but there’s really no point. Not anymore.
         Prescotte smiles coldly. “You didn’t think I’m sorry was going to cut it, did you, kid? Not after that.”
         And without removing the sword, he turns away.
         Wait, don’t-
         With a start, Jaymes’ eyes snapped open to find nothing but darkness around him. Heart pounding, he found he didn’t dare move, for fear of something inexplainable finding him. After a few seconds the hushed sounds of the night filtered to his ears, and his eyes slowly adjusted to the lack of light around him. His father’s faint snoring mingled with the gentle rustling of the trees, all resting on a foundation of a snapping fire. Even from here he could feel its distant heat, a pleasant ache on his back.
         But the dream still unraveled in his head, taunting him. What was that? he thought, his chest suddenly tight. Closing his eyes, he made an effort to calm his rapid breathing.
         He had nearly succeeded when he heard the voices.
         Turning slightly, he witnessed the dense shadowy bulk of the giant man, crouched on one side of the fire and the more normal form of the other man. They appeared to be speaking to each other in low voices.
         “. . . do you believe they will cooperate?” the deep, distorted voice of the giant man asked.
         “. . . doubt it,” the other man’s voice floated to him, buoyed with a strange kind of glee, “which is why we’re just going to have to kill them, aren’t we?”
         Barely suppressing a shudder, Jaymes turned back to his side, curling up as tightly as he could, staring out with wide eyes into the seemingly endless darkness and doing his best to go back to sleep.
         But every time he began to fall asleep, the center of his chest began to ache sharply and he got nowhere at all.