The Persistence of Memories - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (51 page)

Poe checked his watch once more. It read
twenty past one. He was heading towards Caren's apartment at this
time that night. Now he was going out for smokes and a snack. There
was something oddly comforting about that.

“Want me to let you go?” he asked.

“Sure. I've got an early morning tomorrow.
Listen, Alec. Think this stuff over and give me a call when you
can. I want to figure this out as much as you do.”

He agreed fully and told her so before ending
the conversation and disconnecting. Stuffing his phone back in one
jacket pocket, he pulled the dwindling pack of cigarettes out of
another and lit one up. This was the third one in an hour, which
was not a good sign. He would quit soon enough, hopefully before he
grew into a full-blown addict. The ARU didn't frown on smoking, as
long as it was done outside the office and within the social
decrees of the area. But one thing they did not tolerate was a
nicotine addict, especially one who made no attempt to recover. Poe
didn't want to fall that far.

You'll quit soon enough.

He tossed the cigarette aside and whipped
around in the direction of the female voice, pulling his hands up
towards his chest, palms out. “Show yourself,” he growled.

The young woman stepped out from beyond the
dim shadows and into the cone of the streetlight, hands open at her
sides, showing no threat. She was probably in her early twenties,
wearing a black, form-fitting body suit with a wide-shouldered,
amber colored coat over it. She wore her hair in an intricate
triple ponytail with tiny jangling baubles at the ends that made
little
tik-tik
noises when she moved.

Goddess,
he thought, catching his
breath. An Elder! He immediately dropped his defensive stance and
approached the Elder slowly, wondering how long she'd been there.
Finding him on Ormand Street this late in the evening, heading to a
convenience store? Definitely not a coincidence. Warily, he gave
her a quick bow.

“Peace, Love and Light to you, Madame Elder,”
he said as evenly as he could.

“Peace, Love and Light to you, edha Poe,” she
said, returning the gesture. “I am Elder Crittiqila Nayélha. I wish
to speak with you about what you'd just said to emha Gorecki.”

Elders rarely, if ever, wasted time getting
someone's attention, and she certainly had his now. She was the
sehndayen-ne who had been training Caren in the finer points of the
Mendaihu arts for the last two weeks. Caren had only described her
as 'brutal but sincere about it.' Instantly his guard went up, and
he knew she must have sensed it.

“I wasn't aware you were listening,” he said.
“About high level info about Seasons of Embodiment, you mean?”

Elder Nayélha nodded. “There is something we,
as a council, would like you, as a cho-nyhndah and as a reality
seer, to know beforehand.”

He cleared his throat and bowed again. “I am
willing to listen, Elder Nayélha.”

She flashed him a quick grin. “You don't
sound very convincing.”

He laughed nervously. “No, I don't suppose I
do.”

She nodded down at the ground. “Please
properly dispose of that cigarette you just threw, edha Poe, and
come with me.”

He did as she asked and tossed it into the
nearest incinerator. The Elder chose to stay where she was rather
than follow. She merely kept an eye on him as he walked back,
either sizing him up or observing his manner. Either way, Poe found
it hard not to blush. It wasn't often that an Elder took interest
in him.

“Come,” Elder Nayélha said, and reached out a
hand. “We must go now.”

“Okay,” he said, grasping it. “But where
—”

He blinked, and all was Light.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Proclamation

Nick didn't trust himself. He distrusted
Saisshalé even more, and what he’d made him see at Headquarters. It
was too unreal, too unbelievable. Saisshalé had offered his side of
the story, of why he was here and what he had planned. Despite his
misgivings, he'd listened, and now he wished he hadn't.

“So tell me again why we're here so damn
late,” he said to Sheila. He leaned against the passenger door of
the cruiser as they drove down the empty streets of Nulltech Alley,
hardly paying attention to their surroundings. “Are we expecting
something to happen?”

“Saisshalé is here, all right,” she grumbled.
“I can't sense him, but I know he's here.”

He nodded and slowly turned towards her,
knowing well enough not to push further. “Okay,” he said. “I can't
say I sense him either, but if it's any consolation, you're not
alone.”

“Oh?” she said, glancing at him with a
teasing grin. “You talk to him lately?”

“This afternoon,” he said unevenly. He hadn’t
told anyone yet, and dreaded the reaction. “After that altercation
with Matthew.”

She screeched the car to a halt in the middle
of the street. “What!”

“Calm down!” he said, bracing himself against
the dash. “He was civil, believe it or not. He showed up when I
went out into the hallway for some air. He just wanted to
talk.”

“Talk!” she barked. She pulled the car to the
side of the road and shifted it into park. “What the hell does he
have to talk about, Nick?”

“Fate,” he said quietly. “He's awakening
himself, just as edha Usarai woke the One of All Sacred. I don't
know how or where or when, but that's what's going to happen, and
it's going to happen soon.”

Sheila took an uneasy breath, all the anger
quickly dropping away. “Fate, huh?” she sneered. “Well, that’s just
dumb fucking luck, isn’t it?”

Nick frowned. “How so?”

“You're the Sleeper,” she said. “And I'm the
Messenger. The only reason either of us have gotten this far.”

“Wait,” he said, waving a hand at her. “How
do you know about —”

“The Sleeper?” she said, and flashed a weak
smile at him. “Deduction, really. You're the only one who hasn't
been assigned a role. Caren's the Mendaihu Protector, Poe's the
cho-nyhndah Protector. Kai and Ashan are the Watchers. Which makes
you and I the people behind the scenes. I'm the Messenger. Matthew
said so himself.”

“In the Questioning Room,” he said.

“Exactly,” she said. “And you say that you
ran into Saisshalé soon after. And he called you the Sleeper,
didn't he?”

He nodded, shifting uncomfortably in his
seat. “Yes, he did.”

Sheila nodded herself with a lopsided grin
that didn't look genuine. “I was afraid of that. Christine told me
to keep an eye out for a Sleeper. Called me right about the time
you were in sick bay, I think. Told me she managed to finish off
her research.” She paused, looked down the street, then into the
back mirror, then back at him. “Right. Come on.” She turned off the
ignition and climbed out of the car. “This is going to take some
explaining.”

Curious but wary, he followed. A cool and
unexpected late night breeze gently pushed at him from the hills of
West Brandenville, muting any strange noises that would have
otherwise been present on a calm night. It was an autumn breeze
that signaled a future change he wasn't looking forward to.

It bothered him that they were here, on
Dahlajyiné Boulevard, one of the main thoroughfares leading to
Nulltech Alley. He hadn't been in this sector at this time of night
since he was a beat cop for the BMPD, and was surprised this
section of South City could be so utterly devoid of people.
Normally, this strip never slept, it was so full of life and
commerce. Tonight it was a ghost town. Sheila said nothing for a
long while as they headed west up the street, towards the
Alley.

“Twenty-five years ago there were two
people,” Sheila started, after they'd reached the first
intersection. “The Sleeper and the Messenger. The Sleeper is the
one to watch everything but not get involved, no matter how hard he
or she tries. The Messenger is the one who takes what the Sleeper
witnesses, and hands it off to the next person, twenty-five years
later.”

“Christine’s research?” Nick asked.

Sheila nodded quickly. “But this was just a
small piece of what she found out. Matthew passing on the thankless
title of Messenger to me only confirmed it. Which is why we're down
here. It's not a coincidence. None of it is.”

He stopped cold, glaring at her. “What the
hell is really going on, Sheila?”

“Nick—” she started.

“No!” he spat, waving his arms in front of
him. “Just…stop. I’m about fucking sick of this
game
,
Sheila. It’s not a damned game! Sleeper, Messenger…they’re all just
labels! Okay, maybe you really do have your role to play, maybe
you've even done it in a past life or something, I really don’t
care right now. The last thing I need to do is sit around and
fucking wait for something bad to happen.”

“But—”

“No, I said!” He exhaled long and hard.
“Look…I'm exhausted and pissed off, and I really don't want to have
to wait around, waiting for Saisshalé to do whatever the hell he
wants to do. He says I can't judge because I don't know how? He's a
man with superhuman psychic strengths, but he's still human, and he
has no damn right to pigeonhole me!”

Sheila was on the verge of saying something
again, but stopped herself. By now she was only looking at him with
a sense of pity.

“Don't,” he growled. “Don't look at me that
way. It'll only just piss me off even more.”

“You believe what you want to believe,” she
said. “I can't stop you.”

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

She stared long and hard at him.

“What?”

“You really feel that way, then?”

“Sure, why the hell not?”

Sheila responded with a hard push at his
shoulders, much harder and stronger than he’d expected even from
her, and it sent him flying backwards. He lost his footing, tripped
over the curb, and went sprawling onto the grass. “What the hell!”
he cried.

Don't you get angry at me,
she growled
from deep within. He shuddered and widened his eyes, completely
surprised, and a little bit afraid.

“What the—?”

Before he could move away, her hands grabbed
at his ARU jacket lifted him back to his feet. She pulled him
close, too close. They were staring eye to eye, noses nearly
touching. A rage of fire welled behind those eyes, a rage he’d
never seen before.

Don't you ever say anything like that again,
Nick. You got that?

“I...” he stuttered.

This is
not
about you. This is
about a
ll
of us! Saisshalé will appear here, just
across this street, and he'll have his own Awakening. You
understand? How do I know this? Because I AM the Messenger! And you
ARE the Sleeper. You are here to watch it all unfold, regardless of
what you think you feel about it. Got that?

“I...” he started again. He placed unsure
hands over Sheila's and tried to pry them loose from his lapels.
“I...I got it, Sheila,” he said unevenly. “Okay?”

Roughly, she let go and pushed him away.
“Goddess, girl,” he exhaled. “Where the hell did that come
from?”

“Long story,” she said. “It happened at the
Warehouse. I'll tell you later.” She smirked while she adjusted her
own jacket. “You
can
hear me, you idiot,” she said. “You've
got the abilities, kid. You just have to learn how to harness
them.”

He exhaled again and shook his head. “Yeah,
maybe so. Or maybe I just choose not to use them.”

“Freak,” she said.

“You should talk,” he said with a grin. “How
do you know about this awakening, anyway?”

She shook her head. “I don't know how, I just
do. The Messenger's role, I guess.”

“Well, if we're going to alert anyone about
it,” he said. “I suggest we tell Caren and Poe and the others right
now.” He turned back, and was surprised to see that their patrol
car was nowhere in sight. “Damn! How far did we walk? Two
blocks?”

“Eight, it seems,” she said with a frown,
looking up at the nearest street sign. “We made it all the way up
to Hartford Street. I made sure we were within sight of the car. I
thought we were at Carlson.”

“Well, apparently we —”

I am Saisshalé. Listen to me.

Nick stopped dead in his tracks. “Oh.
Shit.”

I am the Vengeance of the Trisandi spirits,
and I have returned.

They turned and ran back to patrol car.

I am here to release you, my kinléshi. I am
here to bring you to a higher level of existence, a level you as
Gharné have never known.

The voice was purposely intrusive, and
positively inescapable. It was the sound of an angered spirit,
released after millennia and hungering for the closest morsel he
could latch himself onto. And it was the sound of a calm spirit,
fully under control. Nick heard it, as he'd heard Saisshalé's voice
in the Questioning Room hallway, and he did not trust it at all.
And with this intrusive voice, he was calling out to the thousands
of citizens in the Bridgetown area, just as Nehalé had done weeks
before.

The other half was about to assert
itself.

Please, hear me.

The inner rumbling gave way to a softer,
subdued hum within the spirits and minds of the thousands of his
affected listeners. His voice commanded their attention, and they
had no choice but to comply. Those who tried to ignore or block him
were met with a subtle ripple of pain directed squarely within
their left ear canal, next to the eardrum. Those who stubbornly
resisted despite the anguish found themselves reeling with a
sharper, heavier needle-pain at the base of their back, rendering
them helpless to move.

Nick and Sheila accepted the full brunt of
his words and managed to keep their wits by the time they reached
the car. They would accept it, and withhold all judgment until he'd
stopped.

I am here to ensure that your spirits awaken
to their truest extent as Shenaihu nuhm'ndah. You are lucky, my
brothers and sisters, because you have been chosen not only by the
great Saisshalé, but also by your esteemed leader, the Dahné
Shenaihu nuhm'ndah himself. He has chosen you because you are
strong-willed and active. He has chosen you because you are longing
to become more than just followers in this new Awakened life. He
has chosen you because you understand what it is to be
Shenaihu.