Allie's War Season One (161 page)

“No one’s heard from him?” I said, unnecessarily.

“Since yesterday?” Vash said gently. “No, Alyson.”

“And you’re sure he got out of the United States before they closed the borders?”

“Quite certain, yes,” Vash said.

He looked at me, and I saw concern in those dark eyes, a near worry, for the first time since I’d known him.

“Now that he is whole,” he added. “…he cannot hide his light so easily behind the Barrier, Alyson. He is a beacon now...much more visible than even he probably knows.” Vash shrugged with one hand. “He’ll learn to compensate for this, I’m sure. Until then...we can monitor him, at least. Attempt to discern the progress of his reintegration, and its possible effects…”

I nodded, only half hearing him.

I wasn’t up to asking again, why no one had told me...or told Revik...who he really was. I could hear their reasons a hundred million times, and they still wouldn’t make any sense to me.

Nor would they change anything.

“It is dangerous,” Vash said softly. “What you are doing.”

I didn’t bother to ask him what he meant.

“I haven’t done anything yet,” I said.

“You must be firm in your mind, Alyson. You cannot compromise on this. You cannot...you must see how dangerous such a fiction is.”

I nodded to that too. But I didn’t feel it.

Sometimes I think the whole of human...and seer...thought is nothing but a story about things we would have done anyway, explaining it all to ourselves and anyone who will listen, and always in retrospect.

“Alyson,” Vash said softly. “The man you knew as Dehgoies Revik...he is dead. You must accept this. You must feel it as true.”

He paused, likely waiting for me to look over.

I didn’t.

“...The other two personality configurations were always dominant,” he said. “At least since he was a child, since Menlim broke his mind...”

When I didn’t look over that time, he sighed, clicking softly in consternation.

Sadness whispered from his light, more of that worry that felt so different from how I normally perceived him. I felt guilt there, too, I realized. I closed my own light in response, squeezing my knees against my body, as if to block out everything else.

Vash clicked again, softly.

“We are running out of time, Alyson,” he said. “...Once he integrates the different sides more fully, he will be even more dangerous. There will be aspects of him that remind you of your mate, but he will not be your mate. He will never be again, Alyson. Never. You need to understand this...”

He sounded almost afraid now.

“Sooner would be good,” he added. “Tarsi said she told you. She warned you in the cave. You may have to kill him, Allie...it may be necessary.”

“It would be suicide,” I said, feeling my jaw harden.

He laid a hand on my knee. I don’t think he’d ever been so gentle with me.

“Perhaps not,” he said. “You did not fall in love with the other personalities, Alyson. I do not think his death means yours anymore...if it ever did. You married someone else. Someone who no longer exists.”

Sliding my fingers into my hair, I held my head in both hands, staring at the fire, trying not to think about his words.

He let the silence stretch...longer than I could.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” I said. “I can’t, Vash. Not now. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. He hasn’t come near me…”

“You cannot afford to wait,” he warned. “You have seen how dangerous he is. You must know, having seen who he was then…from spending time with the boy. He will only grow more dangerous, Allie. He is not a child anymore...but his mind still operates as one, in many ways. It may always, given what he was forced to endure...”

I let my eyes scale the wall once more, taking in the high mural of images. I focused on the painting of the boy, and my eyes blurred. The depictions looked just exactly as they had in my dreams, only the paint had faded.

There was probably some kind of metaphor in there somewhere, but I didn’t want to think about what it was.

Instead I climbed to my feet.

One nice thing about seers, you didn’t have to make up some kind of reason to leave.

You could just go.

I walked down a narrow passage that twisted between Vash’s cave and the wider structure. Reaching another turning, I veered right, taking the middle passage to make my way back to my own room...or whatever one called a part of a cave that looked like a room and had carpet and power.

It was furnished. It had a desk, a bed, a bookshelf, a lamp…even a comfy chair. The electricity came from organic generators, so didn’t tend to flicker or brown out like it had in India. The section of the caverns that I’d chosen for myself was closer to the outside entrance than any of my friends, a fact which drove Balidor crazy for security reasons.

And yet, the decision hadn’t been carelessness on my part.

Vash was right. I was being stupid.

And anyway, he wouldn’t be crazy enough to come here. Thousands of years old, the construct inside the caves made what I’d felt in the White House seem like a child’s toy. I’d nowhere-near figured out all of the complexities residing within it, either in functionality or in terms of the information stored in its folds; the construct contained more rooms and realities than the cave structures themselves. It housed places and memories that stretched back to the time of Elaerian...my people, or so Tarsi claimed.

Our people, I supposed.

The thought made my chest hurt all over again.

I’d already been warned that it might get pretty cold in the winter, if I didn’t find a way to shield myself from the wind through the openings to the outside mountain walls. That was in spite of the significant number of windbreakers and shields housed outside. Winters in the Pamir, so I’d been told over the past few weeks, put a whole new spin to the concept of “seasons.” Everything died outside the caves...everything that wasn’t artificially sustained in some way. In this part of the world, everything living was reborn every year, starting over again from nothing, from death itself.

But I’d already made up my mind.

I couldn’t stay here.

I put them all at risk if I stayed. And anyway, I’d already decided that I couldn’t just hide with the other seers. It was time for me to go back, to do something. I’d have to leave quietly of course; Balidor would have a fit if he knew I was even contemplating leaving the Pamir.

But that was a detail, really. I wasn’t someone who could just hole up in the mountains, waiting for Armageddon. I would go to the Chinese seers, maybe. See if they would talk to me.

I was still mulling this over in my mind, nearing my segment of the caves, when I pulled up short.

Stopping, I listened.

Feeling my heart tighten in my chest, I stared up through the darkness, sure suddenly I wasn’t alone. I looked back from where I’d come, towards the torches lighting the mouth of the cave.

Nerves rippled through, but I couldn’t pinpoint their source.

“Cass?” I said. “Hey, this isn’t funny.”

No one answered.

Most of the other seers were asleep by then, and not many lived on that side of the settlement anyway. Generally, my only visitors were Cass and Jon, and occasionally Balidor. I missed my friends, but I understood, too.

I wasn’t much fun these days, not for any of them.

The truth was, I’d been mostly alone since we got back from Salinse’s stronghold, which was probably why Vash had asked to see me.

My friends tried their best...for the first few weeks, at least...but eventually I wore them down. It was exhausting being around other seers, too. I affected them, and I hated the look on their faces when they wondered about me, about what I would do now, given my options.

I took another step.

Holding my breath, I listened.

Before I could resume breathing, pain slid through my light, so powerful I couldn’t move, couldn’t see past the light that flared in my eyes. Maybe it was for all the reasons everyone told me it would get worse...the phase we’d left things, the fact that we’d both been alone for far too long, the fact that I still felt him sometimes, watching me, wondering about me...

I stood there, half-crouched, fighting past the flood of emotions that tried to sort themselves out behind my eyes, when he appeared beside me.

Shock flooded my light. I was sure I was dreaming...

Before I could make a sound, he laid a hand over my mouth, pressing into me, holding me against the wall of stone.

I didn’t fight him, but I didn’t relax either.

“Shhh,” he murmured. “Come with me.” His pain worsened, turning so raw I found myself closing my eyes. “Come with me…please, Allie…”

I stared up at his face, trying to think past it, to see him as real.

“Don’t scream,” he said. He pressed against me. “Promise you won’t?”

I barely hesitated before I nodded.

“How did you get in?” I said, when he took his hand away.

“Come with me. Please, Allie...please...”

Pain flooded his light in another surge, so much that I could barely see him. I felt him pulling on me. My knees buckled when he pulled harder, winding into me, much the way I had him, at the cabin.

For a long moment, I couldn’t breathe.

“Forgive me,” he murmured. Tears filled his eyes, right before he kissed my face. “Gods, Allie...forgive me...please. I love you. I’ll do anything...”

Images tried to rise in my mind, fragments of what I walked in on that night in the White House. I closed my eyes, forcing them away.

“Where?” I managed. “Where could we even go?”

He pressed against me again, kissing my face. “Please, love...just come. Let me make everything up to you. Come with me...”

I felt the boy in him...and the other, the one who frightened me. I stared up at his face though, and I saw Revik, too. He felt me wavering. He maybe even felt my decision, or maybe, like me, knew what it would be before I made it.

“Come with me,” he said. He kissed me again, his voice low, cajoling. “Please, love...please...I’ll do anything you want...anything...”

“I can’t.”

“Yes...you can. You’re my wife. You’ll always be my wife, Allie...”

Pain hit my heart that time, made it impossible to speak. I faltered again.

“I won’t be able to stay,” I said.

He smiled. It was the smile that broke my heart the first time I saw it on the boy. I couldn’t look at it now, not on that face.

“One day you will,” he promised, kissing my mouth. “I’ll wait. I’ll wait for you...however long it takes. You’ll love me again. You’ll see, Allie...”

I felt my throat close. “I
do
love you. More than anything.”

He smiled sadly, touching my cheek. “No,” he said. “...But you will.”

Tugging on my fingers, he put my hand between his legs and kissed me, harder when I returned it, sliding his other hand under the loose shirt I wore, caressing my skin until I was gasping against his mouth. His light turned more invasive...pulling on mine until I felt my limbs lose all resistance, until I started touching him in return. He started to push the shirt up my body but I stopped him, clutching his hand, looking around as I tried to pull my light back from his, fighting to think.

I stared at his face, unable to look away. The light in my eyes turned his face a pale green, and I felt my chest clench.

“We can’t,” I said, fighting for resolve. “Not here. They’ll bring you in, Revik...they won’t listen to me, not about this...”

“Then come with me,” he said, soft. “Please...”

“Where?”

He smiled again...and I saw the pictures perfectly in his head. I stood there with him again, watching a yellowing field turn red in dying sunlight. Clouds turned gold on the horizon over jagged mountains in the distance. I patted a horse with a white face while he pointed towards a house nestled in a valley under the mountains, food rotting in a small refrigerator powered by wind and solar, horses huddled against the snow under the trees, broken glass and food and towels molding on the floor.