Chapter 38

38.

         Ranos looked up suddenly. “Did you hear that?” he demanded.
         “Hear what?” Kara asked through a mouthful of salad.
         Maleth raised her eyes from the spoonful of soup poised at her lips and smiled thinly. “Imagining things already, Ranos? I would have thought you’d be handling things much better than that by now. Maybe it’s time for you to get some fresh air.”
         “I would like nothing better,” Ranos replied. They were all sitting around a long table in a room toward the back of the house. Dishes were set up at six chairs, although most were covered to keep them warm. Kara was eagerly munching on the vegetables and looked ready to dig into the meat any second. Maleth was clearly enjoying a thick soup that smelled of nothing Ranos had encountered before. Ranos’ food was untouched. “I’m not sure why that has not occurred to me before.” Making a motion to stand up, he added, “Would you then excuse me while I go for a brief walk?”
         “Certainly not,” Maleth shot back. “Sit down and stay for a bit. It’s rude to leave the table before the host is finished, anyway.” Her smile was a jeer and a warning. “I am certain the College still teaches etiquette. It’s a lesson everyone should retain.”
         Ranos lowered himself back into his seat, never taking his eyes off the old woman. “Very well,” he replied, after a moment.
         Kara giggled.
         “You should consider yourself lucky I am letting you dine with us at all, Ranos,” Maleth chastised him, waving the small spoon at him. Tiny flecks of soup flew off it and landed on the table, dark spots spreading instantly. Ranos tried not to let them remind him of blood. He kept failing. “Really, your behavior has been abhorrent over the last day or so. Harassing one of my dear friends, striking one of the servants . . . honestly I thought you were far more civilized than that. Your time alone in the world has obviously stripped you of whatever refinement you once possessed . . . and I really have no time to retrain you.”
         “Whatever shall you do,” Ranos said dryly. “It appears I am a hopeless cause.” He had picked up one of the forks and was turning it over and over in his hands. Occasionally his fingers would press against the points, as if testing their sharpness. “The question I guess you have to ask yourself is, am I worth the effort?”
         “A lesser person would have given up long ago,” Maleth told him. “Someone lacking my patience and good nature would have written you off the first moment you displayed your utter lack of manners and good taste.” Shaking the spoon at him again, she said, “The difference is, I know there’s a civilized, upright, honest man in there somewhere, Ranos. You choose to hide him from the world . . . for what reasons I can’t possibly fathom.”
         “Yeah,” Kara noted, her eyebrows drawing together. “That makes no sense at all.” Turning to the other man, “Why would you do that?”
         “The child gets to the heart of the question, as always,” Maleth said, idly stirring her soup. Stream rose from the hot liquid and danced in tantalizing wisps possessed of a brief, fragile beauty. “She has quite the gift for it, I must say.”
         “Thanks,” Kara replied, beaming. She deftly sliced a piece of the thin cut of meat before her and neatly popped a morsel into her mouth, chewing it thoughtfully.
         “She has the inquisitive nature these times need,” Maleth continued, looking past Kara to regard Ranos, her eyes cold. “Too long we just accepted things, letting curtains of myth and fable obscure everything we thought we knew. People like her will strip all that away and there will not be secrets anymore, no more hidden knowledge. Everything will be open.”
         “And to what end? Knowledge means nothing without the tools to process it. You can lay all the abstract explanations in the Universe before an animal, but he will have no use for it, it will have no relevance for him. You confuse myth with ignorance. One does not imply the other.”
         “Myths are incorrect explanations, poor interpretations. Myths and legends guide the lives of people, all of whom have no idea what it is they’re being led by. Don’t they deserve better, Ranos?” Taking a moment to cool her soup by blowing on the spoon, she added, “So some won’t be able to handle the dissolution of the veils. Does that mean that only a select few are allowed access to this other world, this realm of truth that you and the others inhabit? Should not all have access to this and be able to decide for themselves. You underestimate the ability of the Universe to absorb what it cannot immediately comprehend.”
         “And so it will create new myths and new legends to compensate. You merely talk of trading in one thing for the other.”
         “Speculation,” Maleth replied dismissively. “That’s all it is. Idle speculation.” Letting the spoon sit in the soup, she picked up a napkin and wiped the edges of her mouth with her, dabbing lightly. “You speak from a position of arrogance, Ranos, having been granted access to these myths, you have a leverage over those who do not know. But . . . there was a time when you didn’t know and were just the same as everyone else.”
         “That does not mean I rejoiced upon learning,” Ranos countered. “Life is a series of evaluations and reevaluations, taking what you discover and trying to fit it into what you learn. You can never make the framework fit perfectly, it is a useless task to try.” Glancing over at Kara, who was watching the conversation as if in agreement with every statement spoken, he said, “You speak of myth in general terms when in reality what you truly mean is the Time Patrol. You wish to strip away the mystery.”
         “And you wish to further a fallacy that has haunted generations.” Tossing the napkin down, then smoothing it out with wrinkled hands, Maleth said, “Of course I specifically mean the Time Patrol right now, but why stop there? Why should anything be clouded?”
         “The Time Patrol derives part of its power from its mystique,” Ranos responded evenly. “That is what frightens you. Stripped of that mystery, you believe they would be less powerful.”
         “And would that truly be a bad thing?” Maleth asked simply.
         Ranos did not answer immediately. “I do not know,” he said finally, hands lightly touching the cover to his food dish, regarding his warped reflection in the curved silver.
         Kara was watching this with narrowed eyes. “But wouldn’t . . .” she said slowly, “wouldn’t revealing everything about them just drive them further underground . . .” she was looking at Maleth as she spoke. “They’d just make up new myths to compensate for the ones that were lost. You’d be right back where you started.”
         “Not necessarily,” Maleth replied gently, patting Kara’s hand. “It wouldn’t be instantaneous and would take time, nor would it be guaranteed. In the meantime, there is ample opportunity to replace deception with a new kind of openness.” The next words were meant for Ranos. “The Time Patrol is connected to many legends, I suspect. It’s a wall of dominos just waiting to tumble apart.”
         Ranos snorted with derision. “You’re even more deluded than Mandras was. Even if you were to pierce through the heart of these so called myths . . . even if the facts were anything near whatever is it you wish to deem as truth . . . how would you disseminate such information? And why would people have any desire to believe you at all.”
         “Would you believe word of mouth?” Maleth offered with a twisted smile. “Revelation is a contagion, Ranos, and once one person is infected with it, the rest will soon follow. And as for inoculating the population,” and she reached out and patted Kara on the hand again, “we have our ways of getting the message out.”
         “She won’t do it,” Ranos said darkly, his words strangely snarled.
         “Why wouldn’t I?” Kara asked, her eyes confused. “It seems like a good idea to me. I’m just projecting what I find in that guy’s head upstairs as far out as I can . . . it doesn’t seem too hard.”
         Ranos’ eyes flashed. Standing up halfway he leaned over the table at Maleth and breathed, “You’re going to have her do what? Are you mad, woman?”
         “Well I certainly can’t do it,” Maleth said, wiping her mouth again and leaning back in her chair, sated. “And before you spread the word, you have to determine what it is, first, right?”
         “I’m pretty sure I can do it,” Kara commented. “It’s tricky, but not impossible.”
         “Of course you can do it, child,” Maleth said to her. “After all, you had excellent instruction, didn’t you?” Her eyes grew briefly distant and she straightened up in her chair. “Now why don’t you have go have a brief chat with our guest and see if he’ll tell you anything new before you have to dig deeper. Okay?”
         “Sure,” Kara agreed brightly, flashing a quick smile at Ranos before getting up and walking around the table, toward the door that led back into the central room and the rest of the house.
         As she reached the doorway a shadow appeared in it and another man stepped into the room. Kara stopped, stared up at him with a vaguely puzzled expression, then her face relaxed into a smile again and, nodding a friendly greeting, she slipped passed him and was gone.
         The newcomer, meanwhile, looked extremely startled and involuntarily had backed up against the wall as she came past. His eyes followed her cautiously, without comment, even turning to watch her leave the room. After she was presumably out of sight, he turned back, shooting Maleth a pointed look, before coming around to sit at the table, situating himself directly across from Ranos. He didn’t acknowledge Ranos’ presence and barely made an effort to make eye contact.
         Ranos, of course, knew the man instantly. It had not been that long since they had last met.
         “I’m pleased you could take time to join us, Tolin,” Maleth said graciously. “I believe your food should still be warm.”
         “I can’t stay long,” Tolin growled, already looking uncomfortable. Ranos noticed that he barely moved one of his arms and his shoulder seemed thicker, as if he had padding in that area. His face and what could be seen of his upper body was covered in small scratches and parts of his face appeared swollen. That was not our doing. Clearly, he had been involved in some kind of fight after he had encountered them. But what had happened? Had Tristian tracked him down? “So let’s not waste time chattering. What did you want me here for?”
         “Well, I was hoping that some of the others would arrive first, but we can discuss some matters now that you’ve arrived.”
         “And what would that be?” Tolin asked, lifting the cover off his plate and regarding the meal before him. A quick burst of satisfaction flashed across his face.
         Maleth ate another spoonful of soup before answering. “How we’re going to go about killing him.”
         And with a lazy wave of her spoon, she indicated Ranos.

* * * * *

         Now who the hell is it? Brown thought, eyeing the door with some impatience. He was standing on the bed, examining the ceiling for weak spots, or at least some clues to its construction. At the very worst he might be able to force a hole in the ceiling and escape through the roof, which they wouldn’t expect. If all went really well, he could manage to bring down this part of the house down onto the ground floor. With luck, granny would be sitting right underneath. Let her try and hold up an entire wing of the house.
         At the light knock on the door he leapt off to the bed, deftly landing into a sitting position, looking for all the world a model prisoner. Still, even as his innocent exterior fooled no one, beneath it was a man who was getting more than a little nervous. What the old lady was proposing was nearly impossible for him to grant, but the only other available option could prove to be very bad for him. Before, his passive resistance had been the more attractive tactic, especially since rescue was really only a matter of time. Now, he had a deadline and things could get a lot uglier before they saw the end of this.
         Another knock on the door sounded, which he greeted with the same silence as the first one. It couldn’t be the old woman, or any of her eerily cheerful servants, since none of them ever bothered announcing themselves. Probably a good thing because Brown had thought of at least ten interesting ways to severely hurt these people in the last hour that didn’t require hands. He could execute all of them from sitting on the bed where he was. But even if he managed to pull it off, he’d never make it past the door. Whoever that old woman was, this house was saturated with her. Insects probably couldn’t get in without her knowing. And once she knew, she’d take action. No, he wouldn’t make it. Neither force nor subtlety would help him here. What he needed was pure luck.
         After what seemed like a long time, the door finally opened. Watching it carefully, he saw a familiar young head poke its way around the corner, deep brown eyes peering deeply into the room. Figures she’s the only one in the house with any sort of manners. I should have guessed.
         “Oh, you’re awake,” Kara said, sounding surprised. “I didn’t think you were sleeping but you didn’t answer so I didn’t know if I should come in or not.”
         “Am I glad to see you, kid,” Brown replied, standing up. With only that glimpse of her from before, Brown hadn’t been sure if she was actually here or not. She looked okay, someone had given her a change of clothes that weren’t exactly her size but she appeared unhurt and in oddly good spirits. But what is she doing here? “It’s about time we figured a way out of this nuthouse-“
         ”I don’t think you’ll be leaving anytime soon,” Kara said, biting her lip and frowning. It struck Brown that he hadn’t seen any flicker of recognition in her eyes. She knew who he was, but it was the familiarity associated with an acquaintance, not family. “Unless you’ve decided to give Maleth what she wants.”
         “Now we’re on a first name basis with the skeleton that refuses to die?” Brown asked acidly. “I may be getting older but my memory isn’t going anywhere . . . they tried to kill us.”
         “She’s always treated me very kindly,” Kara replied, somewhat distantly. More and more Brown was getting a bad feeling about this. He noticed she had left the door open. He didn’t think it was an invitation. “I have no complaints about my time here . . . I actually think I’d like to stay for a while.” Some of her old cheerfulness returned with that statement but there was a curiously flat quality to it, as if she were reciting well rehearsed lines. This is very much not a good thing.
         “Really?” Brown asked, circling around her so that he was closer to the wall. She pivoted to follow him, not consciously blocking him but not making it any easier either. He couldn’t hit her, not even to escape. Even if he did survive, Tristian would probably kill him. “And what does your father have to say about that?”
         “Father?” she questioned, a confused tone to her voice. “He . . . he’ll be all right with it. It’s for the best, you know. This is where I belong, I can receive better training, everything . . . everything is just better, you know? This is a good place.” She looked around, as if confirming the fact with the walls. “Yeah, it’s a nice place. I could stick around. Easily.”
         “Kara, have you seen your father at all lately? You know, to make sure all this stuff was okay?” Brown was choosing his words carefully, very much aware that he was talking to a person who could conceivably reduce all their brains to something with the general consistency of pudding and with none of the nutritional value. “Because I think I know him pretty well and if he wouldn’t want me here I’m pretty sure this place is off limits to you too. Getting my drift?”
         “I’m sure he’ll come eventually,” she said placidly. Her calm was a flash frozen lake of ice, pristine and brittle. “We’re expecting him to show up soon. He can’t resist a party, you see.”
         “So you’re helping set a trap for him?” Brown asked, his voice hushed. He was definitely sure he didn’t like where this was going. “Does that seem terribly fair to you?”
         Kara bit her lip again, scuffed her foot on the wooden floor. The scraping was oddly abrasive in the silence. After a minute she said softly, “He’s not really my father, you know.”
         “And I’m not really your uncle,” Brown shot back, his words no louder than before. “But you call me one anyway. Remember? Uncle Joe? The weird, goofy one who isn’t Prescotte? Don’t you remember? The stuff we did together?”
         “I want to be here,” Kara told him flatly, without elaborating.
         “Like the time we slipped away from Legoflas to go skiing on Earth . . . remember, you’d never seen snow before? And you tried to ski and sprained your ankle and I broke my leg trying to help you and we sat there on the side of the mountain while it snowed around us, placing bets to see who would heal first? Remember who won that contest? Do you?”
         “That never happened,” Kara whispered, her lips barely moving.
         “I don’t either,” Brown continued. “It doesn’t matter.” Taking two fast steps forward, he knelt down in front of her. “The words you’re saying, Kara, aren’t yours. They don’t belong to you. Someone is putting them there and you’re saying them because you don’t know what else to do.” She wasn’t looking directly at him. He didn’t see that as a good sign. “But I’m here now, your father is coming, there’s no reason to be afraid. The cavalry is here . . . we can escape. But Kara, I can’t do it alone. Okay?” Dammit, look at me! “You’re the wild card they can’t control . . . the two of us, we can get out. We can leave anytime we want. You can leave anytime you want.”
         “Why can’t you just give her what she wants?” Kara asked quietly, harshly, her eyes finding his for only a moment. What he saw there he didn’t recognize. Ah, kid, what did they do to you? “It won’t hurt anyone. It’s not a big thing. Why can’t you do it?”
         “What can I say? Where I come from, you have to earn things. And they don’t win the prize, not by a long shot.” He positioned himself so that she couldn’t avoid his gaze. “We taught you that, Kara. You know that. So why can’t you admit it?”
         “It’s not . . . it’s not what you say . . . they . . .”
         “What is it, then, Kara? Tell me that. What is it, then?”
         “It’s . . . they don’t want anyone to get hurt. I know they don’t.”
         “Really?” Brown commented with only a trace of sarcasm. “Then go march downstairs and tell them to let me go, and see what kind of reaction you get.”
         “But they can’t . . . I mean . . .” her shoulders sagged for a moment, then straightened again. “They’re good people, I know they are.”
         “For three days they’re been devoting a lot of unhealthy time to figuring out ways to torture me.” Brown’s voice was deadly soft.
         “They’re good people,” she said again, flinching as if awaiting a punch that would never come.
         “They removed my hands,” Brown nearly shouted, shifting uncomfortably close, waving the metal studs attached to his wrist in front of her face. Kara threw up her hands to protect her face and took a step backwards, making a small noise that might have been an invitation to stop. Brown didn’t listen. It was his turn to be a typical teenager. “Do good people do that, Kara? Do they? You see these? You see them?” His wrists were only inches from her nose. If he paused, she’d see her reflection in the tarnished metal. Would she recognize it? “Is that the work of people you really want to be around?”
         “I . . . stop . . .” she gasped in a strangled voice, and without hands she shoved Brown away, sending him skidding along the floor. Only his shoulder clipping the edge of the bed halted his involuntary motion. He was back on one knee almost instantly, ready for whatever she chose to follow up with, although for the life of him he didn’t know what he’d do.
         “You have to do what they say,” Kara told him in a more normal tone. The color, which had briefly fled her complexion, slowly returned to her face. “Please.” For a second she sounded like herself again. “I don’t want to see this get any worse.”
         They got you, kid, Brown thought darkly. I don’t know what they did, but they got you. And I’m not sure if I can get you back.
         “Did they tell you what they want from me?” Brown asked evenly, still on one knee, not daring to budge one inch from his position. The atmosphere in the room was exerting a strange pressure on his brain, indenting it in certain spots, calling forth old memories he had thought long buried. For a splintered second the wispy burnt stench of the General’s shattered shell slid into his nostrils. The tears in his eyes might have been imagined. He tried not to think about how his old leader would have had this all sewn up already. It was useless moaning. Kara was doing it to him. His mind couldn’t be affected by mindbenders and she was doing it to him without even consciously trying.
         “It’s better than the alternative,” Kara insisted, nervously tucking her hair behind her ears. The simple gesture made her look younger than she was. “They’ll take you apart, they’ll ruin the Time Patrol-“
         ”It’s a fairly resilient organization, I think it will survive.” His words were only masking the issue. “Kara, do you understand what they want you to do to me, what that will do . . .”
         “They want me to read your mind and broadcast everything in there . . .” she stated, her voice slipping back into that the flat recitation from before. “I’ll spread every secret in your head to anyone who can listen. I’m the only one who can do it. I know I can do it.” In a quieter voice, she added, “If I have to, I will.”
         “I know you will,” Brown answered, awkwardly climbing to his feet. His brain felt compressed, shoved towards a single point. Ranos had once commented to him that Time Patrol soldiers were like voids, that when you tried to read them there was simply nothing there. Brown felt like that now. Perhaps Kara had already started. “And if you do, you’ll kill me.”
         Kara responded with a light laugh. “I can’t kill you, you’re Time Patrol. You can’t die. Not for good.”
         “There’s dying and there’s dying,” Brown shot back, becoming weary of this. He was running out of strategy and it was too tempting to simply rush her and to hell with the consequences, just to feel a need to do something. It was an effort to make himself wait, to hold his position, like he had taught so many others. Like the General had taught him. Not all plans fall apart at once, sometimes the disintegration takes time, but it happens all the same. Brown just wanted to be there when it happened, that was all. “And getting killed doesn’t always involved getting shot and blood spurting everywhere.”
         “What are you talking about?” was her response, the laugh dancing in a jittery fashion around the edges of her sentence. Folding her arms across her chest, she pronounced, “Don’t be silly. I know you can’t die.”
         “Don’t be so sure,” was all Brown said, as he seated himself on the bed again, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankles. Her eyes examined him and on the back of his neck he felt a number of pinpricks. She was probing the outskirts of his mind, he could tell, looking for what he was talking about. She thought he was lying. He wasn’t.
         “You’re just trying to get out of it,” she told him. “You want to be able to resist without any consequences. That’s all you’re doing, just ducking what you don’t want to happen. But it won’t stop me,” she finished firmly. It was a vintage Kara statement. Hearing it in this context tore at Brown’s heart. She didn’t deserve this. Whatever they had done, she didn’t deserve. Nor did she deserve what was going to happen next.
         “Don’t believe me?” Brown asked coolly. “Take a quick look inside my noggin, just a surface brush . . . tell me what you see. Tell me I’m not lying then. Tell me I’m making this all up.” It was a calculated dare. She could just as easily plunge right into the center of his mind and all his plans would have to be enacted by someone else. Kara always did have a sense of fair play though and he was counting on that.
         He felt it, then. The tendrils of a jellyfish gently sweeping across the surface of his mind. It felt awfully strange, like sand had someone gotten inside his head and it wasn’t going to make pearls, it was just going to irritate until he went mad. Fortunately the sensation was over in a second. Maybe it never happened. Having never had his mind read, it was anybody’s guess as to what it actually felt like. He heard a noise not unlike an orchestra falling apart. It was all in his mind. Her eyes could peel his synapses away and rearrange them in a new pattern. It was going to happen anyway. Every day, we remake our own minds. He could show her the surface but it was written in a code that even on his best day he couldn’t decipher completely. How do you read a mind? Not like the newspaper. Not unless you reversed all the letters, cut them up and strung them together like so much gibberish. The connections only make sense to the person who put them there. To an outsider, it’s madness. We’re all mad. The pictures vacillate between color and black and white, shot through with forced perspective, nothing ever looks the same close up as it did from far away. Nothing makes any sense and if by some random chance it all falls into a linear fashion then the story will appear to be written by someone else. It’s the way it goes. It’s what you’d see. It’s all he knows.
         It wasn’t until it was over that he realized it was finished. All of a sudden he was staring at the ceiling, lying on his back on the bed. There was a shadow coming from somewhere vague that appeared to be a giant mouth. It had no teeth. For some reason that aspect of it was worth a few seconds of his precious time.
         He felt okay. He was still himself. But how would he even know? A copy was not the original but isn’t a flawless copy close enough? He wasn’t even sure what the hell that meant. His brain was spinning, spewing random snatches of thought into the vacuum settling around him. And that was just a touch. Just a taste. When she went in for real, he didn’t expect it to be at all pleasant.
         A small sound, a muffled, scrunched thing caused Brown to abruptly sit up. It was Kara, of course. She hadn’t moved at all. But everything had changed. Her face was ashen and the eyes that stared at him were almost comically wide. He wondered if she had really seen what he had intended her to see. There was a lot in his head that wasn’t teenager friendly. No matter how he handled this, he was going to get a lecture from Tristian. But that’s what he got for letting his kid go off with the irresponsible uncle. Next time let her hang out with Ranos. She’d never leave her room again.
         Face still pale, she stared at him without speaking. What he saw in her eyes he couldn’t quantify. Brown desperately hoped she wouldn’t remember any of this when it was all over. But he had to live. The instinct was just too strong. I’m sorry, kid. But I won’t let you do this to me, or let them force you.
         Neither of them had spoken for at least a minute. Or maybe not. Time felt different here. Was it dark out already? Without a window, it was impossible to tell. The snows might have come and gone while they regarded each other.
         “Do you see now?” Brown asked piercingly, inserting the needle into the armor’s fracture. “Do you see what you’ll do? What you’ll cause?”
         “It’s not . . .” she appeared to have some difficulty speaking. “Why would you . . . that’s not right . . .” her voice was sickly and shriveled, a vegetarian catching a fatal glimpse of a cannibal’s charnel house. She was closer to the door now. It was still open. “Why would you do that . . . why would you do it to yourself . . . that makes no sense, it . . .” she closed her eyes briefly, massaging her forehead as if to ward off a migraine. “No sense at all . . .” and it wasn’t clear who she was talking to. When she opened her eyes again, Brown strained to detect some sort of change. It wasn’t there. Not that he could tell. “Why would you let that happen?”
         She’d never understand. Not now. Sometimes the fear sought to paralyze him in his tracks. His throat was dry now, fearful that Kara might disregard all she saw and do it anyway, and damn the consequences. “It’s not a matter of letting, Kara. Some things are more important than one person. You knew that once. You know it now.” He tried to keep his voice gentle, to softly but firmly push through whatever armor was surrounding her. Too harsh or too fast and she would just seal herself up again and he’d be locked outside, alone and with no recourse.
         “No, it’s . . . it’s stupid . . .” she spat out the word with enough venom to cause a hot flash of pain to erupt in his chest. Vainly clutching at it, the sudden stabbing sensation nearly drove him off the bed and onto the floor. Damn, that hurt. How the hell was she doing it? “You’d do it, too, for no reason at all, for stupid reasons . . . why, just so she wouldn’t find out? That’s not worth it. You’d be dead and she’d get it anyway.” Her voice was rising as she spoke, and the pain in his body increased, a seed planted in the center of his being that was endlessly spreading outward, snaking into his limbs, his lungs, rendering it all useless, nothing more than a quivering mass of a man, he could barely hear anything she was saying anymore. “I don’t understand you people, you . . . you go through all this trouble to become immortal and all of you are ready to die at any time, without even thinking about what it means . . .”
         “We know damn well what it means,” Brown gasped, coughing roughly and feeling something shift in his chest. Oh God, what had she done? He forced himself to his feet, both hands on the bed, leaning on it heavily. “That’s why we do it. For all the people who die and don’t come back. By acting like every time is the last time, because for someone out there it is and . . . and if in our case it’s not the final time, then it doesn’t mean we sit back and breathe a sigh of relief . . . we go back out . . .” it was suddenly very warm in the room. He didn’t think it was Kara’s doing. “And if one time it does turn out to be permanent . . . well, that doesn’t erase what you did.” A spasm writhed throughout his stomach but he suppressed the grimace and somehow changed it into a smirk. “Not bad for a myth, eh, kid? Not bad for a bunch of stories designed to make kids afraid to leave their beds at night, right?”
         “You’ll die . . .” was all she said. Somewhere a worm was burrowing into his back. If he tried to grab it, he’d find nothing. “The same as everyone else.”
         “Hey, it was either that or not be born,” Brown quipped, trying to sound flippant. It was impossible to gauge whether her resolve was breaking or not. Not being a mindreader, or her father, Kara was impenetrable. Her expression hadn’t changed but that didn’t mean all out war hadn’t exploded in her mind. He hoped she was fighting. He prayed she remembered how. “I like this choice better.”
         “But most people don’t get another chance,” Kara accused, although he could barely see her anymore. She was a shadow seen through an inverted tunnel, her voice coming from every angle except where it was supposed to be. “They die and they don’t come back. You teach that it’s okay, that giving up your life is a good thing . . . but it’s not fair, you can’t take someone away like that, to just say, no it’s fine, it’s okay to go . . . it’s not okay, it never was . . .” her sentences were scattered and Brown wondered if she was talking about the same thing he was anymore. Taking advantage of her confusion seemed like a good idea. “It’s selfish, to not think about the people that are left behind . . . to just go-“
         ”Kara,” he interrupted, “Tristian couldn’t save your mother. We weren’t able to save your father.” Brown wasn’t even sure that this was what she had been referring to. But it got her to shut up, even if the oppressive atmosphere of the room hadn’t diminished any. “But we’ve done our damndest with you since then and none of us are going anywhere.” Out of the blurred corner of his eye, her form was blurring and shifting, a girl seen underwater. “So whatever you’re afraid of, whatever they’re using to keep you here, it’s time to stop and let it go. Because none of it’s true. It’s more of a myth than I am.”
         “But you don’t-“ she said in a voice that crumbled like old parchment.
         “No, that’s what it is, Kara,” Brown snarled, cutting her off. The air in the room trembled but refused to be punctured. “It’s not about that anymore, it’s about getting out alive and stopping these people before they hurt anyone else. Okay? Do you understand now?” She wasn’t answering. He hoped it was a good thing. “Do you? I mean it, because I’m tired of this and I’m tired of you doing this to me . . .” gradually he escalated his voice, with the intent of overpowering whatever rebuttal she was going to attempt.
         “No, that’s not right, that’s not-“ and her voice was oddly thick, almost porous.
         “So I think it’s time you got off your ass and got us the hell out of here!” he barked at her, using the tone suited for the middle of combat, with the artillery blazing overhead trying to tear holes in the sky and the screams of the wounded all around, coating the situation like a sodden second skin. His words were almost a physical slap. Even across the room he could feel the blow.
         “Stop, it’s not-“
         ”Now!” he screamed at her, turning to rush her.
         “No!” she screamed back and something harder than a fist and just as unyielding caught him in the chest, sending him back against the bed, spinning him around. “No! Not like that, no!” she yelled again and he flipped around, his head bouncing off the edge of the bed, the world exploding into melted stars, flashbulbs of violence bursting in his brain. “I won’t let you do it, no!”
         Somehow he was on the floor. Weakly, he tried to regain his footing. “Kara . . .” he whispered, making it halfway up and slipping.
         “Leave me alone,” a voice said from a position that was far too close.
         The door slammed, taking some of the ambient air with it.
         Brown got to his knees, shifted until he was sitting on his rear, sighed and coughed again, tasting blood this time. Drawing a ragged breath, he rested his head on the bed, the cool wood giving him no comfort. Did that go as planned? I’m not quite sure.
         Some time later there was another knock on the door.
         “Come in,” he said automatically, for a second forgetting where he was. Perhaps Kara was coming back in to apologize. Or the old woman was here to berate him for screwing with her good little servant. Or it was one of the other servants, here to simply beat the hell out of him. Or maybe it was all of them and he was really in trouble.
         The quiet scrape of footsteps made him turn around.
         To his surprise, he found it was none of those things.
         “Ah, geez,” he said wearily, “not you again.”

* * * * *

         “My advice is to just stab him,” Tolin offered, making his point with a forkful of food before popping the chunk of meat into his mouth and chewing purposefully. Swallowing, he continued, “When you try to go and get fancy, that’s when mistakes start to happen. No one I know has ever recovered from getting their head chopped off.”
         “You’ve met some people recently who would,” Maleth replied. One of her servants had brought away the now cool soup and replaced it with a fancy bread, dotted with multicolored seasonings. Still warm, its scent permeated the room, strangely reminiscent of falling leaves and discarded seasons. A window on the other end of the room was dispensing a still orange glow over everything.
         “I highly doubt he’s Time Patrol now,” Tolin answered, cutting his food into more edible portions. “He would have taken advantage of it by now. But still . . .” he added, sawing at a particularly stubborn piece, “there’s an easy way to check. Cut him. See how fast he heals. Better yet, just skip to the stabbing part. If it works, he’s dead, if not, now at least you know and can try something else.”
         Maleth broke off a piece of the bread with gnarled fingers, then placed it down on the plate and wiped the crumbs off her hands. “You never were very subtle, were you, Tolin?”
         “It works, right?” the other man shot back. “It’s simple and it’s almost guaranteed to work. People want the fancy stuff because it’s neater, but you know what, it almost never gets pulled off. You try something clever, he’ll figure it out and block it. Decapitate him, there’s not a damn thing he can do.”
         “I rather doubt that, actually,” Maleth murmured. “You forget, Tolin, he was a mercenary, a good number of people made it their goal to kill him. I can’t imagine someone didn’t think of it before. So it’s not as if this will be a total surprise to him. And how are you going to get him to stay still while you attempt to murder him?”
         “So what do you suggest?” Tolin asked. “I know what works for me. What’s your idea?”
         “Fractal trap,” Maleth offered, leaning forward slightly to accent the point. “I tried a variation on it before, but if we were able to make it more complex he’d be cut off from his lower functions and be unable to move through conscious thought. He would either stop breathing or starve to death.”
         “You’re going to try to break into his head?” Tolin responded with some surprise. Eyebrow raised, he said, “You’re going to need more than just you and me. Otherwise it’ll backfire something fierce. It might still, at that. You heard the stories about him.”
         “Not necessarily,” Maleth countered. “Done quickly and surgically, we could be in and out before he could muster a defense. They taught it when I was in the College, I’m sure you learned it as well.” A wrinkled smile creased her face. “Besides, as we’ve found, stories tend to grow in the telling and you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.” Her eyes flickered to the other person at the table and said, “Wouldn’t you agree?”
         Ranos, who had been listening silently with a vaguely bored expression, replied, “As one who was there for most of those stories, I can attest to their essential truth. If you don’t believe them, you are more than welcome to find out for yourself.”
         “I look forward to the opportunity,” Maleth said with a friendly smile. “More tea?” she offered, indicating the ornate kettle, a strangled wisp of smoke rising from the spout.
         “No thank you,” Ranos replied politely, moving his own empty cup further away as if to emphasize the point. “I actually find myself to be of poor appetite today. Something in the air perhaps does not agree with me.”
         “As your host, I’ll do my best to not take offense at the slight,” Maleth told him, the smile still fixed on her face. Whether it was meant to be in jest or not, Ranos couldn’t tell for certain, nor did he particularly care. “The child must have stolen your hunger, Ranos, she ate enough for the two of you. For all of us, really.”
         “Yes, she always had . . . healthy appetite,” Ranos replied with a shrug. “A function of her metabolism, no doubt. Though I imagine the strain she’s exhibiting from struggling against whatever control you’re exerting over her isn’t helping.” His eyes narrowed. “You are playing with a dangerous talent, Maleth. It took a hundred of your comrades in Mandras’ employ to stifle her abilities. If she decides to test her strength against the walls of your cage, no matter how solid the construction, you’ll never be able to hold her. And in the process of escape, she may very well consume you.”
         “Is she the child?” Tolin suddenly asked.
         “The child?” was Ranos’ response, turning his attention to the other man.
         “Yeah, the child,” and the tone of his voice indicated that a capital letter might belong somewhere in the name. “The one that Mandras promised would lead us to victory or whatever crap he was trying to push on us.” Stirring some of his food together with a fork, he continued, “Me and Rathas discussed this before . . . she’s powerful, she heals and the Time Patrol has her. If the kid ever existed, my guess is that would be her.” He finished his sentence with a shrug. “Just wondered if you’d know. Pity if we killed you and never found out for sure. Waste of an opportunity.”
         “Wouldn’t it be?” Ranos noted dryly. “But to answer your question . . . I’m not sure. I believe Mandras thought she was and perhaps that belief would have been enough. But in the end, he failed, so maybe it was never true.”
         “Does it matter?” Maleth interjected. “We have her now and as Ranos likes to keep subtly hinting at us . . . Mandras lost, miserably as it seems. What was keeping us here no longer applies. All that remains is for to us to tie up the few loose ends and proceed with our lives.”
         “I’m all for that,” Tolin said. “Unfortunately, he counts as a loose end, doesn’t he?” he asked, pointing at Ranos. Ranos was beginning to get slightly tired of being referred to as if he were some kind of museum exhibit. It became tedious after a while. “Which brings us back to our original question. How are we going to kill him?”
         “Is my death truly so necessary, if you already have what you want?” Ranos asked pointedly. “It strikes me as a useless risk, honestly.”
         “Unfortunately, there is a greater risk in leaving you alive,” Maleth said, frowning slightly. “There are some enemies that one can tolerate having around and others that cannot be allowed any potential to retaliate. You, alas, are one of the latter. If we let you live, we’re going to regret it eventually, I am sure.”
         “Why don’t you just leave?” Tolin said, leaning with one elbow on the table and facing Maleth. “You’ve got him stuck in the house, right? He can’t leave? So just get out and let him starve to death in here.”
         “He is indeed trapped,” Maleth agreed, “but you of all people should know, Tolin, that it is not a permanent thing. Even now I imagine he’s working his way out of the cage I’ve shoved him in . . . aren’t you, Ranos?”
         Ranos met her gaze with a level stare of his own, but said nothing else.
         “So it’s only a matter of time, really,” Maleth finished, dabbing at her face with a napkin again. “Time is not something we have the luxury of at the moment. It has to be soon and it has to be final.”
         “I can burst his heart,” Tolin said after a moment, looking down at his food. “You mess with the air pressure in his chest and everything in there turns to soup.” His voice was quiet and matter of fact. “It only takes a minute and it hurts like hell. The last guy I did it to kept screaming until his throat was full of blood. He leaked the stuff from his fingernails. It’s not pleasant, but it does the job and that’s what you want, right? Something final, you said.” A thin smile was scratched onto his face. “And afterwards, we could cut off his head. Just to be sure, you know.”
         “It won’t work,” Ranos said, his voice even. The room had become very quiet.
         “When can you do it?” asked Maleth.
         “Just give the word,” was Tolin’s answer. “Just tell me when.”
         “I know the technique you’re speaking of. There are a dozen ways to counter it. The last person who sought to use it on me has to spend the rest of his life consciously telling his heart to beat.” He fixed Tolin with a deadly stare. “That was a long time ago, when I was much younger. The years have only heightened my imagination. Do not seek to test me.”
         “I wouldn’t think of it,” Tolin said, his expression unconcerned. He sat back in his chair, resting draping one arm across the back of the adjacent chair. “But I’ve had a clamp around your heart for the last ten minutes we’ve been sitting here. It may account for your loss of appetite.” His smile was etched in granite. “Just because I use violence as a tool doesn’t mean I’m always blatant about it.” Without shifting his position, his gaze flickered back to Maleth. “When you say. I owe you that much. You tell me.”
         “He needs to be gone,” Maleth said quietly and for a second it wasn’t clear who she was talking to. Her eyes were focused on neither of the other two men in the room.
         Ranos said nothing, but the air appeared to shiver around him. He might be able to block it, but there was no telling how much damage Tolin would do before the attack could be halted. And with Maleth in the room, that made everything vastly more dangerous. Whatever tactic he chose, it would be a gamble. Exactly the odds he didn’t like.
         “I don’t see a place setting for me,” a voice said from the doorway.
         Tolin’s eyes widened and he turned slightly to regard the tall, slightly gaunt man staring back at them from the entryway.
         “Does this mean a meeting has been called that I am not invited to?” Valreck continued, stepping further into the room. Maleth continued to stare straight ahead, not answering him at all. Ranos made no move as well and only wasted a second of his attention on the newcomer, preferring to focus his efforts on Tolin. He thought he could identify the particular pattern of weaves that Tolin was using but the man’s technique was off-kilter, protruding in unorthodox ways from what could typically be considered an even flow. Here it was more of a spiky beast, one that rotated at odd angles while the spikes projected into a plane that was not exactly lined up with this one. It didn’t make it anymore effective but it did compound the issue somewhat. It would just take time. Which right now was all he needed.
         “Or are you merely playing a gracious host and serving them a fine meal in the comfort of your own home?” His gaze went from Maleth to Tolin and back again. Neither appeared to be forthcoming with an answer. After a while Valreck merely shrugged. “No matter, I can’t quite bring myself to probe too deeply. Our petty rivalries are pointless now.” His face, which hadn’t been too jocular to begin with, turned abruptly serious. “I wish to speak with the prisoner for a moment. He is upstairs, I assume?”
         Still not speaking, Maleth looked over at him, nodded once, quickly. She didn’t seem completely aware that he was there.
         “Very good,” Valreck replied, nodding as well. Crossing back over to the entryway, he stopped, turned to the assembled gathering and said, “Maleth, Tolin, it was good to see you again. Give Rathas and Junyul my regards if they happen to appear.” His eyes jumped to the other guest. “You must be Ranos. I wish I had more time to make your acquaintance. The stories they told of your life would be fascinating even if they were all only half-truths. But I doubt we’ll speak again in a situation like this.” He turned away again, but not before saying over his shoulder, “Oh, and Tolin, if you persist in whatever you were about to do, the only thing you will accomplish will be to give yourself a stroke.”
         Tolin’s eyes widened. Ranos raised his eyebrows a fraction of an inch but did not otherwise alter his expression.
         A second later Valreck was gone without further comment.
         He was absent for a little over a minute when finally Tolin muttered, “Now what the hell was that all about?”

* * * * *

         “You know, at some point people are going to think you’re stalking me,” Brown said, easing himself back to his feet, never taking his eyes off the man standing in the doorway. “Nothing personal, but I think we’re really seeing more of each other than either of us would like.”
         Valreck returned the statement with a smile that at best could be described as polite. Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him. Brown thought the man looked thinner than before, the outlines of his skeleton somehow more prominent, although he had never truly seen him in decent lighting.
         “I would tend to agree with you,” Valreck replied and his voice was little more than a dry rustle, leaving too much space in the air where before it had been full and resonant. Your little war must not be going as planned, Brown thought icily. “And fortunately this will not take long.”
         “Oh good, the sooner I can get back to being a prisoner, the better,” Brown noted dryly. Spreading his arms sarcastically, he said, “Please, by all means, make yourself comfortable in my humble abode. It’s the least I can do for all the kindness you people have shown me.” He tried to keep some of the bitter tinge from his voice. The thought of what would happen if Kara was allowed to pierce his mind terrified him on a level that he couldn’t consciously accept yet. He knew what would happen. He knew what it would do to him. And he wasn’t sure if there was anything he could do to stop it. But there was no need to let Valreck know that. Let them believe they had the deadline, and he had all the time in the world. But you better hurry up, Tristian.
         Again, Valreck gave an absolutely humorless smile. Brown wondered if he’d have the same expression if he shot the other man. “As fascinating as it is to have you actually speaking to me, I have little desire to indulge in a protracted debate today. I just have a simple question and if you answer it honestly, I will leave and that, quite simply, will be that.”
         “Fine, then,” Brown replied after a moment, seating himself on the bed and giving Valreck his most opaquely honest stare. “But I warn you, I don’t kiss and tell.”
         Valreck took this in stride, with no flicker of amusement or distaste reflected in his expression. Not for the first time, Brown wished he could really read minds. It had to be quite the party in the heads of some of these people.
         The other man paced before the door for a few steps, moving to Brown’s right, before abruptly pivoting and going back the way he came, until he was directly in front of Brown again. His hands were folded together and Brown could detect the slightest hint of trembling. “A few months ago . . .” he began, “in the camps of those of us loyal to Mandras . . . why did the Time Patrol find it necessary to make people . . . disappear?” There was an odd quiver to his voice on the last word.
         “Disappear?” Brown asked. “What do you mean?”
         “I mean that . . . people who . . . were perhaps obtrusive in their defiance were made to . . . vanish.” He held the word, as if afraid to let it escape. “Yes, disappear,” he said again, looking down at the floor, folding his hands together and tapping at his chin with two fingers. “There one second, gone the next. It was the Time Patrol, they said. We were told. We always knew you were there, none of you were ever seen, but we knew.” Staring at Brown again, a watery pain buried somewhere deep within his eyes, “And all I wish to know . . . is where did they go? Where did you take them when they were taken away? The why is not even important. Just the where.”
         Brown returned the stare for what felt like a long time. Somewhere away from the room there was a scraping noise. Glancing away from Valreck briefly, he met the man’s eyes and said slowly, “We don’t have them. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
         A flash of anger intruded into Valreck’s gaze. “Please, if you are going to answer my question with evasion then let me know so I do not waste my time any-“
         ”I wasn’t evading,” Brown interrupted, his voice a blunt instrument. “My second answer is the same as my first answer. I. Don’t. Know. And if I don’t know, that means it probably didn’t happen that way.”
         “But how can you be sure-“ Valreck began.
         “Listen, okay, the secret’s out so I might as well admit it . . . I’m in charge of the Time Patrol, okay?” Brown said, speaking faster than he meant to, his words tumbling out. He was channeling, he knew, all the anger he had been feeling over the past few days, the frustration at his helplessness, the rage at what was going to happen to him, it was all coming out here, out now. “And that means I know just about everything that goes on . . . and yes, Mandras had some of the more unpleasant elements working with him for his ridiculous plan but I had to authorize everything else. And I never did. I have no reason to.” He realized he was standing up now and taken several steps closer to Valreck. Neither man seemed to notice until Brown stopped talking. Trying not to be self-conscious, Brown backed off, arms at his sides. “And you can claim that I’m lying, that I’m still screwing with you, but you know what, there’s no point, not now, not with the way things are going. It didn’t happen, I can almost guarantee it. It’s not the way we do things. It’s not the way I do things.”
         Valreck was absolutely silent. Brown turned away, using his arm to brush some hair out of his face. He wondered if the man was going to leave now. He wondered if the other man even believed him. For some reason, he wanted Valreck to understand what he was saying. He didn’t know why it meant that much to him. He understood the value of fear, of myth, but this wasn’t the way he wanted the Time Patrol to be perceived. Maybe the General, in his own time, had shaped that sort of vision, but the General was dead and Brown wasn’t. And now it was time to do things his way.
         “How did it happen?” he asked suddenly.
         “Hm, what?” came the response, the other man sounding like he was only half there. “What did you say?”
         Brown turned back around to face him. “You must be asking because it happened to someone you know. What happened? Do you know?”
         “I, ah . . .” Valreck ran a hand over the top of his balding head, the skin stretched tight, the veins and tendons all too prominent. “He walked into his tent. He never walked out. There was no one inside. That was it. That was how it happened. I . . . ah . . .” he stopped himself from continuing, from saying something else.
         “That wasn’t us, then, for certain,” Brown told him. Not giving the other man a chance to argue, he pressed forward, “We don’t have personal teleporters, we have vehicles and that’s it. And they make a lot of noise. Nor can we turn invisible either. So it wouldn’t be possibly happen the way you describe it. Not due to the Time Patrol. And like I said, we really have no interest in making people vanish. There’s enough of that already without us adding to it.” He tried to hold the man’s gaze but Valreck refused to look at him. What he could see in the man’s eyes, obliquely, was an emptiness so hollow that it threatened to collapse under its own dread weight. “Listen, I know you have no reason to believe me . . . I know, but I’m . . . I’m trying to be honest here, completely honest.” Part of him wondered when he became interested in emotional blackmail. But it wasn’t like that. “And there was some nutty stuff going on in that camp, we’re finding that out now, the last few months we’ve been seeing. And some elements of the Time Patrol, were involved in a lot of things that I didn’t know about, that I didn’t authorize. And it was my responsibility to know . . . and I didn’t. And a lot of people went through some needless suffering because I was blind to it.” What was he getting at? He didn’t know anymore. These walls were crushing him where he stood, in this place. If he stayed longer the world outside might crumble away and he would never get out. “And regardless of the crap you people have been putting me through, if I am in any way responsible for people disappearing, then I’ll try to help make it right. Because at the end of the day that’s what we’re supposed to do, stop the Universe from breaking down. And you have to start somewhere.” Why should he care? They would have killed him a dozen times over, had stated as much. The old woman would erase everything about him to achieve an impossible pipe dream. But that was the way it went. That was why he had to show them. Their way meant nothing. His way worked. He knew it did. Must be that good upbringing. Maybe if someone just hugged them more. “But I can almost assure you it wasn’t us. Not that. The people involved, it wasn’t their style.” He wished Valreck would say something. He wasn’t one for monologues. “I’m sorry,” he finished. “There’s nothing more I can tell you. I wish there was.”
         Brown didn’t know what kind of reaction to expect. Disbelief, perhaps. Denial, maybe. Even a grudging, reluctant acceptance was within the boundaries of possibility. If any of those emotions passed through Valreck’s mind, there was no sign of it. The man merely stood there, staring at Brown but mostly staring at an empty space near and beyond him, maybe replaying whatever events had transpired on that day. His breathing was a fluttering rattle in the opaque silence. There was nothing to see. There was nothing there.
         Certainly, there was no need for Brown to speak. He couldn’t stop himself. “Listen . . . maybe someone else did it, maybe someone else had a good reason. Who was he? Was he causing trouble?” He didn’t have to care anymore. But he couldn’t escape a mystery. And this place was bursting with them. Even for a man who didn’t die, there simply wasn’t enough time.
         Valreck blinked robotically, focused on Brown as if the man was some kind of crippled phantom, brought into existence merely to mock him. “Who was he?” he repeated, testing the words out for himself. “No one. Just a man, just someone . . . just . . .” he exhaled with a jagged rush of breath, taking a step back that might not have been voluntary. “He . . . he was my friend,” Valreck said in a tiny voice, his lips barely moving. “No, he just was my . . . friend.”
         “I’m sorry,” Brown said again, uselessly.
         “I suppose,” was all Valreck said. Maybe it was to someone else. Behind him the door began to open, the creak barely creasing the quiet.
         “Thank you for your time,” Valreck told him, his voice wrapped in cotton. “You’ve given me much to think about.”
         Brown didn’t know what to say. His words were all wasted and gone. The deceitful part of him suggested this might be a good time to jump the man and escape. The smart portion of him knew what a terrible idea it really was.
         He had to try something though. This might be his last chance to end this. If he saw Valreck again, they would be at each other’s throats. That kind of certainty always chilled him. “Listen, don’t you see, we don’t have to-“
         But Valreck had already turned away as the door finished opening. It revealed one of Maleth’s servants standing in the hallway, her face impassively innocent. There was nothing in her hands. Nothing but illusion.
         Valreck stopped, looked at her with a gaze that Brown could only feel. “I know you can hear me,” he said to the woman with the detached gaze. “I do not wish to come back to this place. Do not give me a reason. I want you to understand that.”
         The woman had no reply, didn’t even blink.
         He cast a sharp glance back at Brown, who watched the whole display without comment. “They’ll be coming for us. Soon.” Something in his voice had been worn almost completely away.
         Then, before Brown could do anything else, Valreck stepped through the door, forcing the servant to step aside. A moment later, it closed and the two of them were gone from view.

* * * * *

         “. . . and I have to . . . are you listening?”
         Remembering to breathe, Maleth looked up sharply, letting her eyes readjust to the surroundings. Tolin had not moved from the seat he had been occupying before, although there was no sign of his plate or meal. Glancing down, Maleth noticed that her own had been taken away as well. There was no sign of Ranos’ no doubt still untouched meal, or Ranos.
         “He left the room just now,” Tolin said, apparently following the track of her gaze. “He didn’t say why, all of a sudden he just got up and left.” Twisting in his chair to look around, he added, “I think Valreck is gone as well, I felt a teleport not too long ago. For some reason, his always leave a metallic aftertaste in my mouth.” Wetting his lips, he took a quick sip from a tall glass of water sitting nearby.
         “That’s . . . good,” she said, startled at the sound of her own voice. For a second, she had forgotten what it had sounded like. Away too long, too deep, she thought, her bones strangely cold. “Thank you for letting me know, Tolin.”
         “Sure, fine,” Tolin replied brusquely, sliding the glass between one hand and the other. His fingers left jagged marks in the condensation on the cup, not unlike claw marks. “Listen,” he said, still staring at the wavery surface of the liquid, “is anyone else coming, or can I skip out now? I have a lot of things that need to get done.” His eyes darted around, looking at everything but her. There was a taut, enclosed energy to his posture, like he might vibrate out of existence at any moment.
         “Yes, I suppose you do,” Maleth said, for lack of anything better to say. “You and Rathas are still looking for those other intruders, correct?”
         “I am,” Tolin spat out simply. “I lost track of all of them. But I’ll find them. It’s just a matter of knowing where to search.” One hand was absently massaging his shoulder, although his face didn’t reflect the action. “After that, it’s just a matter of following through.” With that statement, he stood up to leave. “Thanks for the meal, though. When you’re ready to go ahead and kill Ranos, let me know. That’s definitely something I want to be involved in. It’ll be one for the records books, I think. It’ll be soon, I take it?”
         “Yes, very soon,” Maleth said, trying to figure out why she couldn’t get her voice above a whisper, or why her heart just wouldn’t stop rattling in her chest. But she was fine. She was perfectly fine. She kept hearing a voice that wasn’t hers, trapped in a groove of her own devising. “Tolin . . . if . . . if necessary . . .” and she had his attention now, something in her voice. Perhaps he thought she was going to die in front of him. But no, not yet. Not here. Certainly not now. It was improper. “If I asked you . . . could you take care of someone else as well.”
         “Depends on who . . .” he said, peering at her with a weirdly intent expression. She was about to tell him when his eyes suddenly widened and a muscle around his jaw tightened.
         “No,” he intoned abruptly, the word scraping the air with a dry rasp. “Not him. No.” He took several steps toward the door, stopping only a few feet from Maleth. “Not him. Only in self-defense and even then . . .” his stare was raw, contrasting with the measured tone of his speech. “We had an agreement, all of us. No taking sides.” He squeezed his shoulder, biting his lip briefly. “And maybe I’m the only who still goes by it but . . . I will. Especially him. He got us here. He got us safe. And nobody appreciates it. Well, I respect him. So whatever it is, keep it between the two of you. That’s all. Just do that. And may the best bastard win. But I’m staying out of it.”
         “That’s not what you said, once,” Maleth murmured, and it wasn’t clear if Tolin even heard her. Looking directly up at him, she said, “How do you even know who it is. How can you be so sure?”
         “Maleth,” Tolin said, and there was a barked laugh implied in his voice, “how could I not be? We’re mindreaders, remember?”
         “Yes, I suppose we are . . .” Maleth said slowly, but Tolin was already gone. Distantly there was the sound of a door clattering shut.
         Maleth sat alone in her dining room, the lengthening shadows of the day reaching for her, able to bridge the gap but not able to touch. She saw none of it. All she could hear was words. Heard through a filter that didn’t belong to her, from a machine with newer, better parts. There is nothing to replace or improve. It can only go down. But it can go down fighting.
         “You’re absolutely right,” she whispered, tugging aimlessly at the tablecloth, feeling the ridges of the tightly embroidered pattern. One of the servants had sewn it, once. She didn’t know who anymore. They were all blending together now. From the inside, it all looked the same. “You can’t come back here.”
         And squinting into the receding brightness of the day, she said, “But then, who are we going to get to kill you, Valreck? Who?”

* * * * *

         It was in the study that he found her.
         She was sitting on the floor, legs crossed, her body as compact as could be, looking so small in the battered expanse of the room. The minute he stepped through the still shattered door, she knew he was there. He was a pulse of placid warmth in her life, a sharp streak seen even through the snow. Never linked, they knew each other. In some way, they always would.
         Still, she didn’t react when he came up behind her, although he thought he caught the barest shiver traveling along her shoulders.
         “Do not feel that . . . what put you here is a . . . lack of willpower,” Ranos said, his hands folded in front of him. “I know that’s . . . what you feel. It’s the same for me.” He stepped around so that he was on the side of her. Her face was in her hands, her elbows braced on her knees. Her hair fell in such a way that it obscured her features. It didn’t matter. As always, she was transparent to him. “But you have to remember, we are not superhuman. We can become worn down . . . tired and exhausted. And when that happens, as it inevitably does, there are those who will . . . take advantage of that and shackle us.”
         Kara didn’t respond. Her mind was organized turbulence, the same as any teenager’s. But her chaos, given direction, could conceivably destroy them all.
         Sliding down to one knee, Ranos sat so he was directly in front of her. “Remember this though,” he said to her, his voice flatly insistent, “shackles and chains are finite. They rust and crumble and eventually go away. But we lose sight of that, trapped in our captivity. It is not something you should forget.”
         As if awakening from a dream, Kara brushed her hair out of her face and looked at him. He was surprised to see that she had not been crying. Her mind was an ocean swiftly outgrowing the container holding it in check. What was in her eyes from before was still there, lashing her in place, leashing her to a single path. But it could all go away.
         “It is not lack of willpower that got you here,” he said to her, meeting her gaze as much as she met his. “But it is willpower that will allow you to escape.”
         All she could was stare at him, her eyes liquid, her lips parted slightly. What she wanted to say, they wouldn’t allow.
         Gently, he reached out and touched her face, the sand calloused texture of his fingers barely brushing the soft youth of her skin. “Child,” he said with a half smile, “I will not leave without you.”
         A smile briefly flashed across her face and she broke away, glancing at her knees. “I know,” she whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes. The smile returned, faded as she bit her lip nervously. “My father would kill you.”
         “Nay,” he said softly. “I would already be dead.”
         Kara looked away again, a pinched expression on her face. Then, abruptly, she reached out and hugged Ranos tightly, burying her face in the folds of his robe. “Oh God,” he heard her murmur, her head pressed against his chest. He responded a moment later by putting his arms around her, loosely but enveloping all the same. He said nothing for at least a minute.
         Against him, she shuddered violently, trying to shake the monsters gripping her with poisoned claws. “Oh God,” she said again. “Ranos, I . . . I can feel her all the time, she’s a . . . this, festering beast squatting in my head, staining everything.” Her voice was muffled by the cloth, giving it a hazy, faraway quality. “I don’t even feel like . . . like myself anymore. The things they make me do, it . . .” breaking away from him, she sat back, massaging her forehead. “They’re going to make me read his mind.” Her eyes were stark with a barely repressed panic. “I can do it, but it . . . it will kill him. His head it will . . . it’ll rewrite everything. There won’t be anything left.” Her hands gripped his wrist painfully. “I’m scared, Ranos. I don’t want to do it. But she won’t have to force me to make it happen.” In a quieter voice, she added, “I don’t know what to do. I just don’t.”
         “Hold off as long as you can,” Ranos told her simply. “Maleth has situated herself in a very advantageous position, but it is not insurmountable. She can be breached, it will just take time.”
         “You have a plan, don’t you?” Kara asked. Eyes wide, she said fervently, “Don’t tell me. She’ll know. However, she’s tapped into me, she knows. I don’t want her to find out.” The edge of her lips twitched. “At least, not until you do it.”
         Ranos returned her half smile with one of his own. “Very well, I will say nothing, for now. But when the time comes, I think you’ll know what to do.”
         “I hope so,” Kara admitted, the uncertain expression threatening to take over her face again. “I hope I will.”
         “Very good,” he told her, using his best teaching voice. She recognized the tone instantly and it somehow reassured her. He could see it in her eyes. “Are you going to be all right now, Kara?”
         “Yeah, I . . . I think I’ll be fine . . .” she said, rubbing her legs with her palms in an attempt to restore the circulation. “I just . . . I need to be alone for a bit, I think. To straighten my head out. Okay?”
         “As you wish,” Ranos said, his tone as formal as ever. Rising to his feet smoothly, he told her, “Do not fret. We are far from lost now,” even as he towered overhead, an obelisk casting a thin shadow like a loose black cloth.
         “Thanks, Ranos,” Kara replied, grinning weakly. They locked gazes for another second before Ranos nodded a farewell and stalked out of the room. His footsteps, steady and soft, faded all too quickly.
         Sighing roughly, Kara bowed her head again, placing her hands on the side of her face so her hair didn’t fall forward and obstruct her view again. She took a deep breath, holding it in, the fresh air seeming to expand her body, before letting it out slowly. She sat in that position for a while, not moving, not speaking. Gently she slid her hands through her hair.
         Then, she looked up, looked forward without seeing anything at all. “All right,” she said grimly and quite clearly, her voice sailing inwards, going nowhere. “Okay. I’m where you want me. But you remember . . . what you make me do to him, I can do to any of you.” Her eyes narrowed as she focused on her target, in a place that wasn’t here. “Remember that. I’m a very fast learner and you’ve got my complete attention now. I hope you know that. I hope you do.”
         A brief spasm of pain flared across her face, eliciting a sharp intake of breath and causing her to stiffen up. “Okay, okay,” she whispered quickly, rubbing her forehead. “I get the point.”
          It passed a moment later and Kara exhaled easily, blinking to clear her vision. Placing her hands on her knees, she craned her neck to look around, staring above and behind her.
         “Nice try,” she muttered, when she realized there was no one nearby. “Darn good try,” she said again. “I get it.”
         “But,” she added with a trace of sarcasm, a peculiar fire lighting in her eyes, “do you?”
         Then she grinned broadly and said nothing more, because there was nothing more that needed to be said.