The Persistence of Memories - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (34 page)

“Have a seat,” Dolan said.

Matthew twitched again and jumped sideways.
“Damn it all, don’t
do
that!” he said, glaring at the man.
He was dressed differently than his usual robes on Trisanda. Here,
he wore a simple tunic and loose pants with sandals. He stood a few
yards away, actually, much farther than he’d expected him to be. He
stared at him for a few moments, wondering why he was here and why
he’d brought him up here. He’d never expected edha Usara to ever
leave Trisanda or emha Eprysia’s side. Warily, he walked over to
one of the chairs and sat sideways, keeping an eye on him.

“Okay, so talk,” he said.

Dolan flashed him a crooked smile and hunched
his shoulders in a quick laugh. “I do apologize, Matthew,” he said.
“I meant no harm, but obviously you have very nearly worn yourself
down to the nub. I know you’re exhausted, so I will keep this
short. To borrow your well-used motto, the playing fields are being
leveled. Extraneous players are being taken safely off the field.
You, my friend, are one of them, whether you like it or not.”

Matthew glared at him. “What the hells is
that supposed to mean? If you’re trying to shut down Vigil, good
fucking luck.”

“Oh, far from it,” he said quickly, eyebrows
raised. “The kiralla would not dream of doing such a thing,
especially when they’ve become such a valuable asset. No, you are
correct in your own earlier judgement; you have become much too
close to your subject. In order to save your sanity, not to mention
your health, I am offering to help you refocus. Do you know where
you are?”

Matthew’s head spun, and not just from the
recent zero-g experience. “Does it really matter, Dolan?” he
snapped. “You said the kiralla. I thought they were impartial. Are
you saying they’ve been behind everything all this time?”

Dolan laughed. “No, no! That is not what I
meant, my friend. They are certainly watching, ensuring events
don’t spiral out of control — much like your team, I should add —
but they are most definitely
not
influencing any actions. As
I said: they are taking the extraneous players out of the picture
for now, for their safety, and for everyone else’s. Let’s start
with you: why are the kiralla wishing to pull you? Any
thoughts?”

He shrugged and waved at him. “You tell me,
Dolan.”

“Balance,” he said. “Think about it. Have you
noticed how things have been aligning the last few weeks? Natianos
Lehanna and Nehalé Usarai. Governor Rieflin and emha Eprysia.
Denysia Shalei and Saisshalé. The motives of each individual have
become the reactive opposite of whatever their respective analogues
have done. You and I are more alike than you know, Matthew. We both
act by reacting to events at hand, never instigating them. And if
we keep doing so, we’ve all fallen back into the same ridiculous,
persistent cycle again. One of us has to make the first move to
make that change in path, break the cycle. Denni has done so by
Awakening Gharra. The Governor has done so by withholding the
military troops. Natianos has done so by stopping the Ascension.
It’s a completely new history, my sehnadha.”

As angry as he felt at that moment, Dolan had
a point. Vigil had always been about enforcing balances, and he’d
been aware of these analogues. They were the main reason he’d been
able to control as much of the Sprawl’s recent actions as he had.
It was only recently that he’d lost that ability, and he’d
mistakenly blamed it on exhaustion and loss of focus.

“So where do we go from here?” he asked.
“Goddess knows I’d love to take a week or a month or a season or a
year off and regain my sanity…but I’m not completely out of the
game yet, am I?”

“You are only being reassigned,” he said.
“Again, to ask: do you know where you are?”

To placate him, he took a look around and
thought about it. “Obviously we’re on a sat station,” he said.
“That would explain the cold and the change in gravity. This is a
comm room, by the looks of it. Couldn’t tell you what it’s
monitoring, as the screens are dead. We’re on Tigua, aren’t
we?”

Dolan nodded. “Obvious, once you stop to
think about it, Matthew. I bring you here because why?”

“Well…” he started. “Either you brought me to
a decommissioned area, or Tigua’s been unmanned for a hell of a
long time.” He stopped, looking around again. “I’ve seen the specs,
a long time ago…” he muttered, and pushed himself up with a groan.
Muscles screamed in agony, desperately needing rest, but he
couldn’t, not just yet. He walked over to the far wall and reached
out, touching the vidmat screens with his fingertips. He felt a
small jolt of electricity as the screen woke up from its long
slumber. Blurred images came into view, unrecognizable.

“This isn’t a part of Tigua that the PGC
knows about, is it?” he said, tapping another vidmat, a third, a
fourth. “This tech’s not recent at all. I don’t recognize it.”

“Nor does the CNF,” Dolan said. “It’s been at
least a hundred years or so since anyone’s used this part of the
station for anything other than storage.”

Matthew continued tapping the vidmats until
nearly all of them were awake and attempting to focus on a
destination. “Topside,” he said, more to himself than to Dolan, and
began to understand. He turned to him, eyes wide. He felt giddy and
afraid at the same time. “Goddess, you brought me to the original,
didn’t you?”

“Because you needed to know,” Dolan said.
“This is where it all began, and where it will all end, peacefully
and with finality.”

“’…
and when we all are awake, we shall all
understand.’
Kelley James knew? He knew how to break the cycle,
didn’t he?”

He nodded. “But he had no analogue. He, like
Alec Poe and Caren Johnson, has no way of breaking the cycle
because the cycle is within.”

“The kiralla…” Matthew said, slumping onto a
nearby chair. “They’re cho-nyhndah, aren’t they? No — the other way
around. True cho-nyhndah are the kiralla. Am I correct?”

Dolan walked over to Matthew and laid a hand
on his shoulder. A light, brotherly touch. Not a soulhealing, just
a gesture of empathy. “Only when they have completely awakened and
ascended,” he said. “Only then have they truly regained their
ancestral memories. Now do you understand?”

“I think so,” he said. “What do I do
now?”

“You face your fear,” Dolan said. “You face
the one last thing you’re afraid to face in order to move
forward.”

Matthew frowned. “I don’t understand.”

But Dolan only bowed his head and squeezed
his shoulder before letting his hand drop. “You are strong and
resourceful,” he said. “I know you will eventually understand.”

“But —”

Dolan lifted a finger to his lips and shushed
him, and then prodded him again, much lighter but with equal force,
and sent him reeling backwards into Light…

…and onto Ormand Street.

“What the —”

“Hello, Matthew.”

The low, rumbling voice hit him squarely in
the stomach and he lurched forward, slamming against a parked car.
His knees went weak and he fought to keep himself from falling to
the ground. That voice...he knew that voice! A disturbing, ominous
voice of distant and painful memories he’d hidden away ages ago. It
had
to be him…no one else had a spirit signature so
cold
. He’d been the one —

“Shit...” His knees buckled again and he
slumped down, catching himself against the car’s hood. Goddess,
what had happened? He’d been completely tapped of what little
energy he had left, and Dolan hadn’t dropped him back in his
apartment. Dolan wasn’t to blame here…he hadn’t sensed this man. No
one could. This was something, someone else. Someone was willingly
draining the energy from him, sapping his spirit away from —

“Saisshalé,” he growled.

“So you finally hear me,” the voice said,
somewhere off to his right. “No longer hiding behind your toys, are
you? It’s about time we faced each other again.”

“Show yourself, you bastard,” Matthew called
out between clenched teeth and pushed himself up. This bastard
would not drain him, not now. “Damn it, show yourself!”

You are not one I choose to kill,
Matthew.

Saisshalé's voice hit him squarely in the
chest, a knife-pain searing through his heart, and he nearly
blacked out. He lost his grip and slid down the front of the car,
rolling pathetically off the hood and landing hard against the left
side of his face.
No, damn it all, not like this
. He
struggled to push himself back up, but his arms could no longer
support him. He lay there on the cold pavement, the smell of
tarcrete and exhaust and decades of grime choking him. He pushed
again, just slightly, enough to roll over. He could feel
Saisshalé’s presence somehow, somewhere down the street, yet he
could not. The man was nowhere to be seen or sensed, yet he knew
him to be there. He was the one siphoning the life out of him.

And he’d done the same, years ago, to his
father.

This wasn't the same kind of attack against
the Mendaihu that he'd been pulling over the last few weeks. He had
assaulted many of them, leaving many with injuries just this side
of fatal, but he had never
killed
anyone.

“B-balance…” he coughed.
Goddess help
us
.

Yes.

He attempted to push himself up again. “What
do you want, Saisshalé.”

I merely wish to talk to you
,
Saisshalé said.

“Make it quick.”

Saisshalé laughed at him.
You understand
well, Matthew. I will not kill you. I have merely pulled you away
from your defenses. You are completely bare to the world, here and
now. And I know that is exactly what you fear most. I just wanted
to show you what I am able to do, my dear sehnadha. I have returned
to nullify the One of All Sacred, that is all...but I find that
there are certain obstacles that I have to eradicate first.

Matthew paled. Dolan had known. Had
orchestrated this moment. “You are so full of shit,” he
managed.

Not at all,
he countered.
As a
reality seer, Dolan knew I would be here, talking to you. I would
have made my presence known to you eventually. And a few minutes
from now, there will be a few Metro Police cruisers coming up
Ormand Street, and they will see you here, pathetic, lying on the
pavement like a drunkard, unable to defend yourself. They will know
who you are, Matthew. One of the officers will recognize you as the
jacker who infiltrated the Tower during the Ascension. He’ll be
pissing himself with excitement when he sees you.

He's Shenaihu, by the way. Just so you know.
Not that it really matters at this point.

Matthew swore and hoped Saisshalé was
bluffing, but it didn't seem possible that he was. He could not
escape, not in the shape he was in. Saisshalé would try to keep him
here until the officer arrived and Matthew would be out of the
picture. He had to make sure that didn't happen.

Let me tell you this, my friend,
Saisshalé said.
Your Vigil may be an anarchistic collective bent
on keeping politicians and businessmen in line, but on the
spiritual end of things, you're in way too deep. Did you really
think that you and your father could stop the Shenaihu nuhm'ndah,
or stop me? Did the both of you really believe that your little
pissant group could stop this war from happening? You should know
better than that!

No, what you need to know is that I
can't
be stopped, not in the ways you and your father have been
trying for so many years. You stop me, and I find another way. You
kill me, and I return. I am immortal, just like the One. You should
be wise to remember that, next time you try to start a crusade
against us.

“How very fucking noble of you,” he spat.

Saisshalé laughed again.
Yes! Very much
so!

“You know the One of All Sacred could make
the same claims, Saisshalé. You're no more immortal than she is.”
He managed to roll himself onto his knees and push himself up,
climbing up the side of the car again. He chuckled with delight and
surprise. “You're going to have to come up with something better
than that, Saisshalé. I'm sure you've heard the phrase 'studied
indifference.' It’s well used around here, especially within the
ARU. These people here, in this city? They know you're coming, but
they've chosen not to participate in your little revolution this
time.”

His words hit their mark a little too well.
That will change soon,
Saisshalé said gruffly.
One way or
another, they will become a part of this. Look at yourself,
Matthew. You’re hopeless. You were once the cynical bastard, now
you've become the Preacher. You've gone soft. Sold out. Which makes
it that much easier for me to ply you in whatever form I
wish.

“A lot of people would kill themselves than
give up free will,” Matthew said. “I hope you know that.”

Yes, I do. Gharra needs thinning out as it
is.

He shivered and hoped Saisshalé hadn't
noticed. He tried again to push himself up to a standing position,
and managed it with some effort. His knees were weak, barely strong
enough to walk even across the street and back to the apartment. He
had no commlinks on him. He couldn't call Jenn or anyone else on
the team for help.

Eyecam? He was too weak to turn it on and
ghost a call.

“Are you sure you can do that, Saisshalé?
Honestly. Do you think you can
eradicate
an entire
population on the grounds that you can't convert them?”

I've done worse.

“This is no longer your spacefaring era. I
think you’ll find it much harder this time out.”

Behind him, he heard the dual high-low tones
of a police siren. A cruiser was barreling up Grieves Street from
the north, and from the lights reflected off the buildings up the
street, a few were about to come down Jamison Street at Branden
Hill Park and head up from the south. There was no way he could
escape now, not without being seen. He took a few brief steps away
from the car, wavered, and found his balance. He stood still for a
few moments more to keep it.