Vacation VII (The Word That Ends The World)

((CHAPTER 16, THE WORD THAT ENDS THE WORLD))

Very often, Alyssa had asked Jacob questions only to have him reply with a mysterious smile. She knew now, thanks to Richard, that her mentor had been trying to get her to think of these strange things on her own. She felt like she'd been a slow learner, but recent events seemed to indicate that Jacob's technique was paying off.

The best part, she'd decided, was finally confounding him.

As he'd done so often in the past, now Alyssa walked away with a faint grin on her face, and Jacob shook his head and laughed before following her. He took up a position in front of her, insisting that he'd see (so to speak) threats before she would.

Close up, the shack was in even further disrepair than it had initially appeared. Briefly, Alyssa found herself wondering if Yael might not have sent them somewhere else. She didn't think the councilwoman would feel so much against their task that she would take such steps without simply vetoing the idea in council. It wasn't as though they were doing this without blessing.

Jacob opened the door and Alyssa peered in. The interior of the shack was empty, as small and cramped as it appeared to the outside world. A hatch was on the floor and even before Jacob opened it, she knew what it would reveal.

Stairs, made of rough stone and unlit, faded a few feet into the darkness. The walls of the stairwell appeared to be made of the same stone it consisted of. This was also, Alyssa found herself noting, the same stone that the further reaches of the chamber were built out of. Places like this, she could sense, and the chamber, she realized now, were closer to Chaos than the ordinary world. It was a careful balance – on the one hand, they were more flexible when it came to protection, but on the other it allowed easier access to the creatures which would besiege them.

She said none of this. Instead she gestured gallantly to Jacob and said “After you.”

Jacob made no noise of objection as, blindfolded – Alyssa was constantly forgetting – he led the way down the stairs. Alyssa followed and, within a few steps, was encased in near total darkness. As a child, she vaguely remembered the dark had scared her. Now,even darkness was calm compared to the seas of chaos she'd swam in.

The dim light from the entrance fled them quickly, despite the fact that they were being quite careful in their descent. Silence greeted them again, only their footfalls sounding and even them seeming somewhat muffled.

She didn't know how long they walked. Initially, she'd attempted to keep track of the number of stairs, but the information wouldn't stay within her mind, as though part of the chaos she'd immersed herself in remained with her. All she knew was that, after an interminable amount of time, she started to hear the noise of water running. At first it was so faint she thought herself imagining it, but as they continued and it did not relent, she finally realized they were heading somewhere. The stairs, though consisting of stone, were man-made, so she supposed the chances of the water being naturally occurring were similarly low. Truthfully, though, she knew nothing about the geology that might form such a place. It could be the stairs just led to otherwise natural caves.

This turned out to not be the case. A warm orange light slowly suffused the rock which surrounded them, and she could see the source of the light below. She restrained the urge to go faster, though it was more because Jacob was in front of her and he hadn't done so than for her own sake.

They emerged in a large room, filled with the warm light they'd seen from above. It didn't seem to come from any particular source, but illuminated everything softly. A man was seated, lotus-style, at the bottom of the stairs. He was seated against the wall next to the opening, and he stood up as soon as they'd entered the room.

“Greetings, and welcome to our home. It has been some time since we have had emissaries from the Gifted. Our pleasure.” he bowed.

Jacob returned the bow formally. “We wish to see one who came to this place nearly thirty years ago. We knew him as Craig, though he may have adopted another name upon arriving.”

The greeter frowned. “I will have to speak to the leader of our order. Please, make yourself comfortable.” He gestured to a number of chairs off to the side, there apparently specifically for guests' needs. After being sure they sat down and had no objections to waiting, he hurried off.

“You get the idea that maybe we should have called ahead?” Alyssa asked Jacob.

He shrugged. “Apparently so. I don't think anyone back home has their number, though.”

They sat in silence for a while. Alyssa's chair was not all that comfortable, but it felt like the most relaxing thing she'd ever known. She was more than willing for the monks to speak among themselves while she relaxed.

They quieted as their greeter returned, leading another, elder monk along with him.

“Emissaries of Yael,” the elder spoke. The greeter took his place back by the door. “If you wish, I can take you to brother Craig. I think you will find him indisposed, however.”

“We would still see him.” Jacob spoke up, coming to his feet. Alyssa followed his lead.

The elder frowned, gazing hard at Jacob. “Your kind have no sight, abberation. Only the mad whispers of the Unknown.” he turned to Alyssa. “Why have you brought this onto my doorstep?”

Alyssa resisted the urge to bite back. Keeping her tone calm, she said “He is not a Sightless. His name is Jacob Keynes , and I count him as my closest friend.”

The elder seemed to think for a moment. “Who are you, to vouch for him?”

“My name is Alyssa D'Eldess.”

This seemed to get a reaction out of the inscrutable man. “Ah, are you a relative of our silent friend?”

“Relative? No.”

“It is no matter.” The elder waved the issue away. “On your honor, we will allow your friend passage. Should he in any way act his nature, however, both of you will be evicted.” Warning given, he started walking back to the hallway.

Jacob followed Alyssa, now, and was careful not to say anything that could be construed as evil. The elder, after giving Jacob a careful look, began to speak again.

“You may, upon your return, tell Yael all the details of your visit, we do not wish to keep secrets from her.” the way he said this made Alyssa think there had been some sort of tension between the monastery and the chamber.

“When Craig came to us, it was the first time in a very long time that a Gifted had been sent to study here. We always welcome the opportunity, for there is much we can learn from them, and we like to believe that there is much they can learn from us as well.” he paused, cleared his throat, “He was not prepared to share his knowledge with us, but I feel satisfied we have reached him.”

Something nagged at Alyssa. Craig hadn't been very talkative when he'd been at the chamber. “You said earlier he was silent?”

The elder nodded. “Understandably, this is why we were unable to learn of his gifts or teaching. He took a vow of silence upon arrival, his last words he spoke here were the words of his oath.”

Alyssa was unsurprised. Given his neurosis for silence, it seems like something he'd have thought to do early.

She hadn't been keeping track of their movements, concentrating more on what the elder had been saying – or rather, what he was omitting. There was a subtext there, a history between the monastery and the chamber, that she wasn't privy to. So it took Jacob's sudden intake of air to catch her attention.

“Something's strange here.” he said simply. He shut up suddenly as the elder glared at him.

The elder turned back to Alyssa, gesturing to a man sitting in the center of the room. “Here is Craig D'Eldess, your silent castaway.”

Craig was dressed in a simple robe, like the other monks, and as he stood up Alyssa was relieved to see that there were, apparently, no familial resemblances. For one, she was taller than he and her hair was lighter. For another, she wasn't about to erupt in rage.

“You!” he yelled. His voice was weak but it certainly had an impact. The other monks in the room gasped, came to their feet. Some dashed from the room, others stayed to watch. The elder himself seemed at a loss for words.

Craig's voice returned to him, rusty from disuse. “What are you doing here?” he croaked. “Or rather, I should ask, why haven't you come here long before?”

“Brother Craig, your vow!” The elder reminded him.

“I shall take penance, as required.” his eyes seemed aflame in eagerness. “But I have to speak to her.”

“You're not related to me.” Alyssa stated, voice sounding more confident than she actually was.

He shook his head. “Not to my knowledge. Still, there is much we must speak of, before we return to silence.”

More monks were slowly filing into the room, ostensibly with the reverence and grace of their order, but it was obvious that whatever Craig was about to say was something they wanted to hear.

“Return to silence? I'm sure my partner would like that.” Alyssa spoke up, her voice feeling inadequate from the task. That Craig had spent years saying nothing only to start a conversation immediately upon seeing her gave everything they said a strange weight, and she didn't feel like what she was saying measured up. “But no, I speak all the time.”

Craig's brow furrowed as he glared toward Jacob. “I don't care if they know what we speak of, we shall speak freely here.” That cryptic remark made, he turned his attention back to Alyssa. “You speak at all times, but you know the word? How do manage? I took my oath because I feared that I would accidentally speak it, that it would slip out and end us all.”

“The word?”

His eyes widened. “I recognized you because you're like me, I can tell. You're Gifted beyond that of even those who have gifts. You have power over order in your claws, and you've gained power over chaos.” Her claws had not been out since she'd battled the Soldiers above, how he knew of them was beyond her. “But you're telling me that you do not know the word?”

She could only shake her head.

“It is important. There is a word that, if spoken, can end the world. Only those with mastery like ours can speak it. Others, they could say it a thousand times with no reaction.” he leaned forward to her. “I know this word. I'm not exactly like you – I have my own minor mastery over order, but have not tested myself against chaos. I do not do this because, if I did, then I would know for certain that I was one of the people who could speak the word with meaning. If I speak the word that ends the world, even by mistake, everything ends. Everything remains in my memory, for me to forget or remember, for me to destroy or immortalize.” He turned to Jacob, smiling and speaking much less harshly than he had before. “This, of course, is why I do not fear your eavesdropper. I know the word, and if the agents of the Unknown and Unknowable come to fight me, I will speak it. Neither side will win, and they cannot stand that. They must be victorious. Ending of everything, as appealing as that would seem to be to agents of Chaos, would leave its agents nothing to rule. There is order, and there is chaos – there is constant change and there is constant stability. In both cases, there is something. This is a third thing – it is simply, nothing. An epitome of both Order – in that nothing shall ever change – and Chaos, in that it would claim all and fill everything with madness. This is what I hold within me.”

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Vacation VI (The Fight Out of Chaos)

(( CHAPTER 15: THE FIGHT OUT OF CHAOS ))

The desert air struck her – colder than she'd have thought it, but parchingly dry. The sun indicated it was late afternoon, though that information really meant nothing – they could have been transported anywhere on earth, and she had no way of knowing the time difference.

She didn't have time to think about it, though. Jacob was standing a few feet in front of her, gun drawn, aimed at her. She didn't even have time to speak before he fired.

Reflexes took over. She'd been faster than anything she'd ever known, and every encounter with chaos had left her stronger than when she'd started, but now her reflexes failed her. Her mind was confused – which way should she duck? She'd never had this sort of confusion before.

Jacob was moving, firing again, and it was then that Alyssa realized she couldn't think of where to dodge because the first bullet hadn't been aimed at her to begin with. Neither had the second, for that matter.

Something struck her in the back, and she twisted away, all the adrenaline she'd put into the initial dodge going into her current action. Something scratched against her back, the bite of pain flaring up and then suddenly vanishing, numbness taking its place. She rolled to her feet to see their attacker.

His body was shadow, his eyes flame, his outlines angular and yet vague, and he carried a blade of shifting chaos.

“Fuck!” Jacob yelled, firing another shot. He almost never swore, but she supposed she could grant him some leeway, given current events.

Jacob's aim was as true as ever – she saw the bullet pierce the Soldier's body, but other than roiling up the already stormy interior it didn't seem to be having an effect. It wasn't paying attention to him, though. Jacob obviously was trying to distract it, to give Alyssa an opening the same way he had in their very first battle together against a Sightless, what felt like ages ago. It wasn't falling for it.

The blade of chaos came to her again, and her claws met it. The numbness that it had caused over her back was fading, and the pain was beginning to creep in, but she allowed neither the feeling nor its absence to distract her. Doubtless the blade induced the numbness. It was a blade of chaos, though, and she'd already proven she had mastery over it.

She concentrated, focusing on the blade in the Soldier's hand. There was a strange twisting noise, that of tortured steel, and the blade flung itself to the ground, embedding itself.

“You are no longer in Chaos, child.” the Soldier darted forward, ignoring its fallen blade, taking advantage of Alyssa's concentration elsewhere to wrap its cold hand around her neck. “Though soon all will become so.”

Her claws sprang up, her arm guiding it through the smoky membranes of the thing's arm. She felt resistance, and its grasp on her windpipe weakened. It did not let go, however, and her blades did not seem to part it.

“Let... me... go!” she gasped, striking again and again with her claws. She could feel them tearing, and she could tell each time she connected that the thing which held her was reacting, but it was too little. Its grasp would not release her, and its blazing eyes kept growing closer.

She grit her teeth, opened her mouth, and screamed. “THESE ARE ORDER!” she shouted, thrusting her blades forward, pouring every bit of her concentration into them. Order, dammit. If she could not use her mastery of chaos now that she was away, she would use her mastery of order.

The creature let go immediately, shrieking backwards. Alyssa's eyes widened as she saw her claws still in the midsection of the thing, glowing brighter as she watched.

“What on earth?” Jacob said, looking around wildly.

There was a soundless rush of air, and the Soldier dissipated as suddenly as it had appeared. Alyssa looked down to see the claws back on her hands, as if they'd never left. She hadn't even thought it possible.

Jacob struggled to her side. “For a second there, I couldn't hear it. Whatever you did to the Soldier, it blocked out even the Voice for a bit.” he shook his head. “What happened?”

“I don't know.” she whispered, truthfully. “I thought as hard as I could.... I escaped from the Chaos by forming order within it, here... well, my claws are symbols of order. They just weren't strong enough until I made them that way.”

“Mastery of order and chaos.” Jacob replied. “Savant was right on, there.”

“It will not be enough.” another voice spoke.

Alyssa turned, tensing. Another Soldier stood before them, so identical to the first that she found herself wondering if she had dispatched it after all. The second creature made no move to advance on them, but he stood directly between them and the shack which was apparently their destination.

“Your mastery is new and weak. You attempted to wield your skill against the blade of one of us, and failed to end it. Now look.” he gestured behind them, to where the previous fight had taken place. Alyssa moved to the side, keeping one eye on the Soldier, so that she could see where it was gesturing.

The sword had embedded itself in the ground when Alyssa had tried to will it out of nonexistence. Now it seemed less chaotic, in itself, but the swirl of nothingness and everything which made it up had seemingly seeped into the ground. The sands were fused into glass, which then ran as though melted. Only a circle a foot in diameter had seemingly been affected but the chaos was slowly spreading, leaking from the blade that had until recently contained it.

“Your skill is not to be trifled with, but it has no direction. You have defeated two Soldiers, one here and one within the very heart of our defenses. Were I to attempt to stand against you, I would be defeated.” Its voice was as smoky as the others, seemingly identical to theirs. Whatever they were, the Soldiers did not seem to have a great many individual features.

There was a sudden blurring of their vision. A twisting noise like the one she'd heard before when she'd attempted to destroy the blade echoed out, and the very world around her swam, seeming to briefly to become the twisting landscape she had been caught in when the storm took her.

Then, order reasserted itself. Her vision returned to crisp normalcy, and the silence of the desert returned in force. Next to the Soldier which had addressed them stood another, identical in every way. Even its stance mirrored the first.

“Could two stand against you?” they said, their voices echoing in unison, seemingly from all directions.

“No.” she said bitterly. “I can stand against whatever is set before me, and emerge victorious.” she didn't really have this sort of confidence – truth be told, the first battle had drained her and she wasn't even sure that she could fight against another single one. She would not let them see her weak.

“We our many.” they replied. “Ask your half-breed Sightless friend.”

Jacob's face had been slowly growing pale, starting from his sighting of the second adversary and progressing through the appearance of the third. His face was resolute, though. “You speak truly, at least for one of your kind. They cannot come here easily, though. Pushing chaos into our world is not done easily, especially when it is not called.”

“We cannot allow you to enter this place and learn. You are not yet ready for the consequences. Come with us, and you will learn in time.”

Alyssa stared at them incredulously. Their previous emissaries had tried to kill her! Their suggestion that they and their masters could be better teachers was insane on the face of it, and further inspection revealed it to be even worse than that. “No, thanks.” she managed.

“Very well.” they replied. “We shall pay the price for bringing the chaos here. Your half-breed underestimates our resolve. We do not underestimate yours.”

The twisting happened again, her sight blurring and that terrible sound echoing. The sound was louder this time, and her vision was nearly gone completely. Whatever they were bringing through, it was far larger a host than had been brought before. They would stop her, she realized. They would slaughter Jacob, who had no real defenses against them, and they would wear her down until she, too, fell in the battle.

Vertigo took over as she looked into the endless churning abyss of chaos, nothing and everything mixing together. She felt as though she was seeing from the edge of a pit, getting a glimpse of that which took her before, that which was now bringing forth an army of the Unknowable.

She took hold of it then, in her desperation. She'd been in the chaos once before, and she found she could direct and shape it. Though somewhere she knew her physical body was back in the world of order, her mind was already falling into nothingness, her identity under assault. The soldiers wouldn't even need to come forth, chaos would strip her of her defenses here.

It felt that way, at first – the chaos was seemingly prepared for her attempts to wrest control, and for a horrifying moment she thought she might fail, that the swirling ether would swallow her whole. She knew in this place thoughts could be potent, though, and so she squelched the specter of failing from her mind and concentrated.

A bath. How long had it been since she'd even got to do something as simple as bathe? Her thoughts were wandering, there was a reason she had thought of the bath.

Shower. Sink. Drain. Doorway, gutter, sluice, portal, archway. The thoughts came and went, her strained mind reaching to encompass them, to find the truth of them. There was a reason behind them.

The thought came, then, of her brief trip through the door of a nameless building in the city the storm which had almost claimed her had ravaged. There had been a dizzying moment of vertigo as she stepped through, and she knew now that was because she hadn't been entirely certain it would work. That moment of vertigo had been like this chaos, and the thought crossed her mind that her world of order was only a thin shell over an underpinning of constant change.

No, she must not allow thoughts like that. Remember the drains, remember the door.

She visualized it then, and it appeared. A door of wood, a door like that which had lead her to the lobby of the chamber in the past hung suspended in the whirling everything around her.

She concentrated. She visualized the desert, Jacob where he stood, the door through which they'd entered the first time. This door, though, would be where the shadows were, where the Soldiers had brought themselves through. She even envisioned them, as they were integral to the scene.

Then, she opened the door and stepped in.

She could feel the transition, standing on the wooden threshold of the door. Behind her was chaos, and she could feel it leaking through the door into the world of order, the world where Soldiers and Jacob stood suspended. She could sense more than see other Soldiers, hosts upon hosts at her back. She didn't know how long it would take them to pass through, and she didn't want to find out. She stepped through into the deformed world which was quickly becoming her own.

The suspension broke. Jacob seemed only then to notice she'd suddenly moved – she'd previously been at his side, and now she was next to the Soldiers. They were as surprised as she was. Before she dealt with them, though, she had one more thing to do.

She closed the door.

The twisting noise stopped, the blurring she'd initially attributed to her own sight vanished, and her world sprung into clarity again. There were no additional soldiers – she'd very literally closed the way to them.

The two which flanked her didn't speak, they simply raised their blades in unison to attack. They were simple to dodge, she saw now. Why shouldn't they be? Her more recent foray into chaos had even further attuned her senses. They were beings of chaos which could survive in order, and their shadowy appearances were appropriate – they were shadows of chaos, projected into the world. She could feel their presence, knew what movement they would take even as they decided to do so. They moved and she was already clear of them.

“No.” she said to them. They turned to face her in unison, making no move to chase her, as they were still between her and the shack which was her goal. She'd moved to be next to Jacob, so that they could not hold him hostage.

“Clever.” they said, voices calm and featureless. “You will not have to face a host now, but you will not always be at a place to stop our entry. You will still have to face us. Your trip could not have been easy.”

Strangely enough, it had been. She felt re-energized after her victory over the forces of primeval chaos as though, like them, she could draw energy from it.

“I will face you.” she said, and concentrated. The horrible thought which had occurred to her in the maelstrom was, in a sense, true. It was not a thin shell which divided the sea of chaos from order, but the same sort of bubble which had surrounded her during her first foray into the abyss. The world, her world, was afloat within the same sea, the bubble which contained it simply a great deal larger than the one which had sustained her.

Knowing this, she knew she still had the power over chaos, even without being there. She reached into it and found the core of the two Soldiers which stood before her. They were shadows of the real thing, the army of the Unknowable which lay within chaos. Shadows, though, that could not exist without their backing.

With a thought, she formed Order in their midst. The Soldiers vanished, utterly.

“You know, the idea behind me coming along was that, using this all-knowing but evil voice in my head, we could gain valuable insights.” Jacob finally spoke up.

Alyssa nodded, the stress and exhaustion of her situation catching up to her. “Yes?”

“Then why is it I don't know what the hell just happened here?”


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Vacation V (The Final Gathering)

(( CHAPTER 14: THE FINAL GATHERING ))

She remembered the rest dimly. She'd carried the unconscious body of her friend to the doorway at the top of the stairs, then somehow gathered the concentration necessary to have it send them back to the chamber. Richard had taken Jacob from her then, and carried him to the infirmary. She'd followed, shouting something (she didn't remember what), and Savant had taken her aside at that point, injected her with something, and given one of the infirmary beds to her.

When she came to and saw that every bed was in use and others which needed one weren't getting it, her first resolution was to find Savant and punch him in the face. The infirmary was packed with the wounded – the armies of the Unknowable having apparently been successful in even their decoy attacks. She got up and her bed was quickly taken by another. She searched the beds and, eventually, found Jacob in one. The one that had been Chad's, for that matter. Richard was standing, hands on the railing, much as he had been earlier that very day.

“Is he okay?” she asked, her voice weak.

Richard looked up from his reverie. “Alyssa, glad you're up.” he turned his gaze back to Jacob, who appeared to be sleeping peacefully. There was a blindfold over his eyes, but other than the ritual mutilation, he appeared to be in perfect health. “He's been out of it this whole time. Savant says he's not hurt too bad, besides the obvious. He's not sure how it'll end up, though.”

Richard himself appeared much the worse for the wear. He had a number of bruises and unhealed cuts, and when he moved she could tell he did so with a limp. The sling he ought to have his arm in still hung at his neck. Even so, Alyssa had the feeling he'd gotten off lightly.

“What's the plan now?” she asked the councilman.

Richard shrugged, though he had to do so slowly to prevent further injuries from occurring. “Not everyone's back. As soon as Yael gets in we'll probably have another council meeting to figure a course of action.” Unspoken was the idea that she might not return at all.

Alyssa frowned and started walking out of the infirmary.

“What's your plan?” Richard asked after her.

“I'm getting some answers.” she replied.

It took her a while to remember the way; it'd been a long time since she'd been there, after all. She followed the new senses that her attunement had granted her, though, and so found her way faster than she might have otherwise.

The room was as she remembered it, though slightly dustier from disuse. Since the harpy, the glass cubes hadn't hosted any prisoners. That had changed, though – just as she had commanded, John had locked himself up. He seemed to be alternately fuming and laughing hysterically. Alyssa had time to wonder if she'd get any useful information out of him, and then he took notice of her.

“Ah, slaver, you return. What petty deed will you have me accomplish next? Do you need the lawn mowed, or perhaps dishes cleaned?” His grotesque tongue lolled out.

“I'll have answers. I got Jacob back, what did your people want with him?”

He laughed. “I do not know! How it delights me not to know, to be able to stymie your efforts, bound to you though I am! The Voice has said nothing to me of him, and It wouldn't, either, because it knows of your hold over me.”

“His eyes are missing.” she spat back at him. “Why?”

His laughter died, replaced with annoyance that he had to answer something. “It sounds as though he were undergoing the process of becoming one of us. Was he marked? Did they score his skin?” he rubbed his cracked hands together in glee at the prospect of harm coming to her friends.

“No. Just his eyes.”

“The ritual is incomplete, then.” he said soberly, then giggled. “When he was robbed of his sight, though, he was given the Voice. It will speak to him of everything imaginable, and it will drive him mad. The ritual is just that, slaver, it is the Voice which does the actual work of making us what we are.” he was smiling, what rotten teeth remained sticking out at all angles from his diseased gums.

“How do I stop it?” she demanded.

He laughed again, a noise which was becoming more grating each time she heard it, and he seemed to be getting much to revel in from this news. “It cannot be stopped! Remember that I am bound to tell you the truth, and I tell you now: The Voice of the Unknown will corrupt him, and he shall become a soldier in the Army of the Unknowable. It is inevitable and unavoidable.”

“It is avoidable.” she grated her teeth. “I can go into that infirmary and end it now.” She tried to stop tears from forming in her eyes, unwilling to concede to the monster how much the idea horrified her.

John got quiet, apparently waging some sort of inner conflict. Finally, he whispered: “You would do such a thing? You are quick to waste your gifts, slaver.”

Her eyes narrowed. He hadn't had to say that, she knew. He'd volunteered the information. “What do you mean?” she said finally.

“You do not trust me, and you are wise to.” he replied. “But I hear the Voice. If so commanded, I would tell you what it said, and it cannot keep from me any secrets, as it must speak to all of us. This would be invaluable to you, but coming from me you would not trust it. It would nag at you, cause you to doubt.

“Imagine, then, that such advice came from one you trust? Jacob you have known for years, you do not doubt his devotion to you. His conversion is incomplete, and he did not go voluntarily – it will take him time to turn on you. In the meantime, you will have valuable information.” John smiled.

“How can I trust him, though? He'll become one of you, after all.” she said angrily.

“Why,” the abberation replied, cackling, “do you think I'm laughing?”

She left, then, the abrasive laughter of her mad thrall echoing behind her. She couldn't concentrate – her options were to use her closest friend as a spy and then kill him when he inevitably betrayed her, or to simply kill him now and put him out of his misery.

“Alyssa, that you?” the croak came from Jacob's bed. His bandaged head was facing her, though, and a weak smile was on his face. “It's so nice to see you again. Well, not see, but you're here.”

Alyssa nearly teared up again as he spoke to her. He was okay! Something terrible was going to happen to him, there was nothing she could do to help, but right now he was alive and all right. “Yeah, Jacob, it's me.”

“What's the doctor say?” he said. Savant pretended to a lot of roles in the chamber.

“Other than the eyes, you're all right.” she tried to sound cheerful, tried to sound upbeat for him, but her heart was shattering.

“And what's our resident wacko say?”

She frowned. “Sorry, that was Savant who said you'd be all right.”

He shook his head. “Not Savant. Richard tells me we have that limbless friend of yours trapped back there somewhere. What'd he say?”

She sighed. “Do you hear the Voice?” she asked quietly.

He regarded her with silence. Before, when they drove together, silence was a comfortable thing. Now it was cold and seemed to speak of the greater hopelessness they found themselves in.

Finally: “Yeah. I wasn't sure at first what it was, but yeah, it's the Voice the sightless say they hear. It's real. I don't hear much yet, but it told me when you came in the room. Tells me where you are, too. Tells me what color shirt you're wearing... everything I can't see, it's constantly telling me about. There's more, too, a lot more. That damn hymn they're always singing is in the background, for one. If I knew how to listen I'd know more, but I'm afraid to.”

“His name's John Slayton.” she started. “My claws absorbed his blood, and I knew his true name as a result. I don't pretend to understand it, but I certainly wasn't going to ask questions.”

“I take it his prognosis was not quite so glowing?”

Alyssa shook her head. “He claimed it was inevitable, that you'll become one of them.”

Jacob's tone hardened. “That's not going to happen. I wouldn't let it happen. Even if it did, you wouldn't let it get that far. I'm thinking it should even have a chance to start, personally.”

He'd known what she'd been thinking, somehow. “I'm not going to kill you.” she said with finality. “I can't.”

“Alyssa, the person you knew... the person I think I am for who knows how much longer, that person is doomed. The Voice is pressing on me. It has goals I don't understand, and I play a part in it. I can shut it out, but it won't let up, not ever. How long do I have?”

Alyssa paused, debating with herself. Finally: “John said there was another option. He can hear the Voice, but he knows I'd never trust him. You, though... I know you, Jacob. I trust you.”

Jacob slowly smiled. “A spy. You want me to be a spy?” he nearly laughed. “I love it. Using their own insane plans against them. You get Savant's permission, and I'm in.” He thought for a moment, then appended “Actually, I don't care if we get approval. I'm still in.”

Savant himself came back into the room, then, writing furiously in the same book Alyssa had seen him with previously. He didn't seem to be paying attention to them, but he'd probably come into the infirmary for a reason.

“When can I get up?” Jacob asked him, startling him from his reverie.

“Huh? How should I know? I'm not a doctor.” Savant's reply seemed about as well reasoned as anything he usually said. “Can you walk? If so, great.” he turned back to his book.

Alyssa laughed lightly, and Jacob propped himself up by the rails. He put a hand out to where she stood, and she pulled as he climbed out of bed.

“Well?” she asked, “how are you?”

He frowned. “I'm not dizzy. I thought I would be – hell, I should be. Everything's fine, though.” He took a few steps forward, weakly at first but rapidly gaining in confidence. He put a hand out to touch the wall. “Right where it said it would be.” he mumbled.

He turned to Alyssa. “I can't see, but that damn Voice I'm listening in on is telling me everything anyway. Bed's right there, “ he pointed back to his former resting place, “you're there, our struggling author is over there” each gesture he made was dead-on accurate, though Savant seemed somewhat offended by his new title. He turned to Alyssa. “Throw something at me.”

Alyssa stopped the retort which came to her lips. Throw something at him, was he crazy? Of course, she knew why he wanted this. His new sense was telling him the layout of things, but was it fast enough to respond to something moving? Specifically, something moving toward him? So instead of saying something, she took an empty paper cup, crumpled it, and threw it hard toward his head.

He dodged it. If anything, he was faster than he'd been before. His head turned back to her and he smiled. “Not bad, huh?” He nodded in answer to himself. “Okay, you've got me convinced. You're my partner again.”

It was a ridiculous statement, but Jacob had been the only partner Alyssa had ever known, and so he was entitled to say such things. She smiled. “Nice of you to let me tag along.”

“My pleasure.”

Savant had left, scribbling in his book the entire time and not paying them any attention whatsoever. Gideon had taken his place at some point, glaring at them impatiently. Both Alyssa and Jacob were so used to ignoring his gruff manner that they hadn't even realized he'd entered.

“The Council is meeting again.” he said, as unfriendly as ever. “Now that you're walking and talking, they'll want to see you, too.” he nodded in Jacob's direction. “And you're the toast of the meeting.” he frowned toward Alyssa, obviously grouchy with anything that disturbed the normal operation of things. He couldn't have been happy at all lately.

“We'll be there at once.” Jacob's voice betrayed no hint of offense or weakness, and he headed out of the infirmary. Alyssa darted after him, afraid that he'd trip over something or get lost despite the previous evidence to the contrary. He walked with confidence, with surety. Before, when he'd led her through the twisting maze of passages that made up the chamber, he'd always known where to go, had never hesitated. She thought his injury would have changed him, but even without his sight he had never been more sure-footed.

The sense of wrongness she had used to find the Sightless that had captured him to begin with, which had led her to the cages which kept John, that same sense twinged slightly now whenever she was near Jacob. Something was not exactly right, it said. She knew. He heard the Voice of the Unknown, and some day it would claim him.

That day wasn't today, though, judging from his strength in the wake of what he'd been through. It wasn't even soon. The Voice would have to work for years, perhaps decades, to break him down. Though it would happen, in the meantime he'd do everything possible to fight it.

Jacob entered the lobby which featured Savant's increasingly disorderly book pile and table full of unreadable notes. Its keeper was nowhere to be found, but Jacob didn't hesitate. Behind him, Alyssa couldn't help but marvel at his rapidity. It was the same as ever, of course, he'd always been prompt in answering the Council's summons, but he should have been slowed a little!

Behind her, she could hear Gideon trying to catch up to them. Perhaps Jacob didn't want to look weak in front of him. That, certainly, was understandable. Or maybe he, like her, was keeping ahead to just avoid him. The thought made her grin.

Jacob hadn't missed a step – he'd pushed open the door to the council's chambers, presented himself within. Alyssa stood next to him as she so often had in the past. Gideon, grumbling something under his breath, walked forward to his seat on the council and took it. The rest of them were already there – Yael was talking animately with Katherine, Richard had placed his wounded arm back in its sling, and Gideon was glaring at everyone impatiently. Only Chad was missing. She frowned as she thought back to her time in the infirmary. It had been filled to capacity and then some, and she hadn't looked around closely, but the bed Jacob had been using was the one she'd seen Chad confined to what felt like ages ago. Chad hadn't been anywhere, at least that she'd seen. She hadn't given it much thought at the time, her worry being reserved more for her closer friend, but now it gnawed at her. She supposed she'd thought he'd recovered. That he was still missing from the assembly, though, seemed to bode worse.

Savant walked in and took a seat which he himself had brought in with him. This appeared to satisfy Yael that everyone who needed to be was there. She said a few more words to Katherine, then raised her voice to address them all.

“Councilmen, thank you for coming.” she said. “Savant, your input is valued as well. Alyssa, we are overwhelmed with gladness to see your return, and Jacob we are glad to see you at all. I feared we might never speak again.”

She didn't stop to allow anyone a response, and Alyssa could guess why; though she'd mentioned the positives, there were many many bad things which had befallen all of them. She was either unwilling to dwell on them, or was about to start the dwelling with her next sentence.

“Our troubles are far from over, I regret to say.”

The latter, it would appear, Alyssa found herself thinking.

“I don't know how many storms were spawned in the latest attack. Too many for us. Though our chamber held against attack, many of the cities we sought to rescue failed in the face of such an onslaught. There are many of our people who are still unaccounted for, and sadly it seems that everyone who is going to return has done so.

“Even those of us who have survived have not done so easily. We have all of us been wounded in some way, some forced to endure terrible trials merely to remain in our world,” with this she glanced at Alyssa. News traveled fast, she found herself thinking. Likely their limbless friend in the cages had been shouting to anyone who would come near. If Yael noticed her uncomfortable reaction, she made no sign but instead continued speaking. “And some of us have endured torture and mutilation at the hands of our enemy, and yet still survived.”

Jacob did not react, and Alyssa was beginning to realize that he didn't seem to think his ordeal had actually been that overwhelming. There had been pain, but Jacob was no stranger to pain. He had lost his sight and gained as its replacement a very dangerous sense which he couldn't fully rely on, and which would – given time – drive him mad and force him to slay his former friends if they didn't do it first. This, too, he took with stoicism. He didn't want to be seen as different, she realized. He had a job to do, and he wanted to do it while he still could.

“We've lost many we counted as friends. Councilman Chad passed on while we left – the machines which sustained him failed during the power outage at the peak of the attack. Countless other Gifted are missing. The assault seems to have been broken, but there will be more. Savant's prophecy seems to be coming to a head.” she nodded toward him. “You had words to say on that matter, I seem to recall?”

Savant stood up and, for the first time in what Alyssa judged was quite a while, set his book aside. “I believe I have misinterpreted part of our prophecy.”

Alyssa fought the urge to roll her eyes. Though Savant's advice had allowed them to stop this most recent bout of storms, he kept continually changing his mind when it came to who, exactly, was the chosen one of the prophecy.

“Do you recall, perhaps thirty years ago, one who came to us claiming to know a terrible secret? He was gifted himself, though he didn't seem to be willing to show us much.”

Yael and Gideon nodded, for the rest this event had apparently been before their time. Yael spoke up. “I don't recall his name, but yes, I think I know who you're talking about. He left for a monastery, didn't he?”

Savant nodded. “Yes. I believe now that the prophecy may have been speaking of him. His gifts were unconventional, and he knew many things he should not have. I do not know that he had such control over order and chaos as I've indicated, but it is a lead I feel we must follow.”

“Yes.” Yael said, apparently pondering.

Gideon frowned. “I must object! We are too soon from our last encounter to weaken ourselves further by sending others out. Savant, you told us that Yael was the topic of your prophecy, did you not?”

“Well, yes, but -”

“And now you're telling us it's someone else, someone we don't even have contact with anymore?”

“It could be! I'm not saying I'm certain, I'm merely claiming it's a lead which we should investigate!” Savant seemed somewhat frustrated by his colleague's inability to understand. Alyssa had never actually seen him angry, the closest Savant ever came was frustration when whoever he was talking to failed to either understand or appreciate the topic.

Alyssa neglected to mention that Savant had said she was the chosen one at some point as well. Whenever Jacob was about to say something unkind about the man, he always prefaced it with “I know Savant's a good friend of yours” or something along those lines, and it was true. Though she'd known him her entire career here and he'd proved invaluable in the past, even she had to admit that lately his prophetic power seemed somewhat lacking. Of course, that was the nature of prophecy – especially those he'd cooked up.

Gideon appeared to be on the verge of another outburst, but Yael finally raised her hand to put an end to the spat. “This is, “she said, “to be expected, I suppose. Gideon, Savant's words have allowed us to survive the storm. I am not, myself, a strong believer in that which is foreseen – for even the most practiced seer can be mislead or misunderstand the signs. Yet, Savant has been correct. We cannot afford to start doubting now. Savant, choose those who would go to the monastery to speak to our wayward Gifted.”

Savant nodded. “I would like Alyssa and Jacob to investigate this.”

Gideon, apparently unhappy with not haven spoken for longer than a minute, voiced his objection. “I insist to be brought along.” there was a pause while he specifically did not say why.

It took more than a carefully worded silence to fool Yael, though. “Gideon, Jacob and Alyssa are more than adequate to the task. They can easily protect themselves, as they have shown numerous times in the past.”

There had been an edge to Yael's voice, but the other councilman had either not heard it or chosen to ignore it. “I have no doubt over Alyssa's ability to keep herself safe. But once before has Jacob fallen into the hands of our enemies. It would not be wise to allow him to return so easily.”

Richard stood up then, glaring at Gideon fiercely. “You imply betrayal?” he spoke simply, his tongue acid.

“I am simply saying that the enemy might not be content to simply let Jacob go.” Gideon's voice had turned sweet and reasonable, which was far more frightening than his usual belligerent tone. “It would be in our interest and his for him to be here, where he can be... watched.”

Katherine typically backed Gideon's assertions in the council, as they both tended to agree that aggressive action against their enemy was needed to keep it off-balance. This time, though, she looked thoughtful.

“Alyssa,” she asked. “do you trust your partner, even in his current state?”

“Yes.” Alyssa answered immediately. “I trust him with my life.”

“I do not!” Gideon roared. “I do not wish to inflate your ego, Alyssa, but you are too valuable to risk. There are fewer of us, now that the storms have taken their fill, and we need the experienced and talented to help regroup. To put you not only in danger's way, but with someone whose loyalty is in question is sheer lunacy!”

Richard spoke up again, never having sat down. “Jacob's loyalty is not in question!”

“You know damn well it is!” Gideon yelled back. The council had had their arguments before, but rarely had they become shouting matches. Even Gideon's fame temper had been less explosive in the past.

“Alyssa,” Katherine spoke again as though her line of questioning had not been interrupted. “if our worst fears should be true – and even you, Richard, must admit somewhere that you fear this – and Jacob should not be trustworthy, are you prepared to end his life?”

The shouting evaporated. Gideon glanced toward Katherine, eyebrows raised, as a newfound respect for her questioning found its way into his face. Richard, on the other hand, was making a very visible effort not to shout a retort. Yael was sitting forward, an intense look on her face.

It was not Alyssa who spoke, then, but Jacob. He stepped forward. “I am trustworthy. You can believe this because I say it is the case, and I am still Jacob Keynes, a man you all know. When I am no longer Jacob, you will also know then, because no matter how good a chameleon the impostor who wears my body is, you will know the difference. Alyssa will likely be the first to know. And I have no doubt that, when that time comes, she will have no hesitation. She will kill the thing pretending to be me. Until then, I ask to be included. If I prove untrustworthy, it is better to know this sooner than later. If, instead, I can fight this transformation, then every moment I remain myself it allows me to thwart the designs of those who seek to subvert me. I ask that you allow me that chance.”

The council seemed to be considering this when Katherine spoke up. “Thank you, Jacob. Your words are heartfelt, and none of us here doubt that you – at least at this moment – remain yourself. My question, though, was directed at Alyssa. Alyssa, your partner believes you have it within you to slay him. I ask you if this is the case.” her gaze was hard.

She took a deep breath. “Jacob speaks correctly. If he is no longer himself, then I have no qualms about ending his life.”

Katherine nodded. “There is none more qualified to do so than you. Very well, with these caveats, you have my support.”

Yael finally spoke up. “Have everyone's objections been addressed?”

Gideon, at who the question was actually directed, nodded. “I still don't think it's wise, but I have no doubt of your capabilities. Very well.”

Yael nodded again, weariness heavy upon her. “All right then, Savant, lead the way. You are dismissed.”

Savant left the room, taking his book and gesturing impatiently toward Alyssa and Jacob as he did so. Apparently Jacob knew when people were making vague gestures at him as well, as he followed without Alyssa's prompting. She left the council room last, unwilling to look back.

Savant didn't have them stop at his impromptu bookpile, instead insisting that they meet in the library. He did this insisting while filling his arms with as many books as he could carry, though, and so did not particularly bolster his case for their needing to meet in the library.

He was the only one who knew where they needed to go, though, so Jacob and Alyssa followed him without comment. Each time she went to the library, she seemed to take a different path, and she found herself wondering if the library wasn't like the Chamber as a whole, and the only reason you ever found it was that you expected it to be around the corner when you turned.

They turned the corner, the library was there. Savant put the books down on another table, a few errant ones falling to the floor unremarked. He carefully looked through the remaining pile until he found the one he'd been writing in. Pulling it out, he opened it, rifled through its pages, and stopped at a particular passage.

“I'm almost done with this.” he said absently. “I've been writing about our lost Gifted friend, Craig I think his name was. For what it's worth, I still think you're the chosen one.” he gestured to Alyssa.

Jacob laughed lightly. “See Alyssa? I told you so. Glad to see that someone with authority agrees with me.”

Alyssa frowned. “So what was all that in the council chamber about us needing to talk to this guy?”

Savant nodded as though it had been her idea. “I think it's important for you and Craig to talk. He's important in the prophecy too. He knew something, when he came through here. Something he was afraid to say, even to me, and I'm a great keeper of secrets since I'm likely to forget them.” Savant frowned, consulted his notes, then looked back up. “He kept getting quieter and quieter toward the end, almost as though he were afraid he'd accidentally say it. It sounds irrational, but whatever it was he knew, it was that important that he not reveal it.”

“So you lied to the council.” Alyssa followed up, frowning. All that arguing and bitter feelings were things they could ill-afford at this point, and Savant had stirred them up?

Savant seemed to be reading her mind again. “They wouldn't have approved if I just said I wanted you two to talk. Did you hear Gideon speak about you in the council there? He knows something is strange about you, I think they all do, but they don't want to believe it. Especially not Gideon – he's Yael's right-hand man, especially when it comes to tactical planning against the Unknown and Unknowable. The prophecy of someone who can immortalize or end the world is one that is distasteful to him. It means he doesn't matter, unless he's that one, and there's nothing he can really do about it.”

Jacob shrugged. “Sounds like a self-confidence issue. I know I matter, else I wouldn't be missing these.” he gestured to the blindfold. “As far as methods of increasing your self-esteem go, I don't recommend it. Gideon's got to learn to let go.”

“His feelings are valid, and he is unlikely to understand your perspective.” Savant noted astutely. “Thus, I had to lie, as you put it. If I can prevent our world from slipping into chaos, I'll manage to sleep at night.” he turned from them, then, and started looking over the book which had become his constant companion.

Alyssa spoke the question before prudence could make her reconsider. “What is that book?”

Savant pondered as though that were a very complex question. Finally, “It's the prophecy book. The one I found my initial prophecy in – I've been adding on to it since then. Noting things which have happened, keeping records, and writing what I think is going to happen.” he paused. “It's more than that, I know it. But I get the feeling I won't really have a good idea what it's about until it's done.”

“But you're writing it.” Jacob pointed out.

“I know! Sometimes I know what I'm going to put down – for instance, Alyssa, you'll be glad to know that I'm confessing that I lied to the council in this book. At some point I'll be giving it to them, so they'll know. Other times, especially when I'm doing prophecy, I have no idea what I'm going to put next. To be honest...” his voice lowered, as though he were afraid of being overheard, “sometimes I just write nonsense here. I kill time. When this is done, it'll change things, and I'm not sure for the better. It's like the prophecy at the very beginning, the world will be saved or damned. This book feels a lot like that.”

“Immortalized.” Jacob corrected.

Savant nodded. “Right. That's important. I don't know why.”

“Because if the chosen picked Order, nothing would ever change, and if she picked Chaos, everything would change. At least, that's my reading.”

Savant shrugged. “Sounds good to me.” he turned back to his book.

There was a distinct pause until Alyssa spoke up. “Where is this monastery?” she finally volunteered.

“Good question!” Savant glanced back up from his work. “I've never actually been there, so I can't have the door take us. Jacob's car is still broken. Alyssa, can you fly yet?”

Alyssa didn't answer the question at first, failing to see how it could be in any way serious. When he didn't look away, she finally added, “No, Savant, I can't fly.”

He nodded, as though this were regretful but expected. “Ask Yael, then. She's the one who told Craig about the alternatives to this place, presumably she knows. Failing that, Richard's still technically a Road Man, he'll have a car he'll either let you use or drive you.”

“A Road Man, let someone else drive for him?” Jacob spoke up, smiling. “I may no longer technically be able to have a driver's license, but it'll take more than that until I let someone chauffeur me around.”

“You can have my car.” Richard said. “I'm ashamed to say that, until Yael asked me to, I hadn't driven it in over a year.” he looked chagrined, partially by his admission and partially by the fact that he'd been listening in.

Jacob smiled. “You know, there's a lot I miss, but now at least nobody can sneak up on me.”

Alyssa raised an eyebrow. “Thanks for letting me know, guys, I appreciate the way I'm kept in the loop.”

Richard walked into the room, taking a seat across from Savant, who was already writing furiously in his book again. “Sorry Alyssa, I just got here, thought I'd surprise you by loaning the car. Where are you headed to?”

Jacob didn't look toward him, but the smile remained on his face. “monastery for people who decide we're not cool enough to hang around with. Know of it?”

“Beyond what Savant mentioned to us, no. If you need a ride you've got mine, but as far as directions...?” Richard shrugged. “I'm a man, I don't need to stop for directions.”

Jacob smirked. He'd once told Alyssa this was the reason the Road Men had their rather gender-specific title; there'd been female Road Men in the past, but long ago one of their order had made the same observation Richard had, and it'd stuck. Most of the time, she'd found, Jacob was all business, and people who didn't know him tended to think he, and by extension the others, had no sense of humor. It was stupid running gags like that which had made her think otherwise.

“I guess we're talking to Yael, then.” Jacob said, with a note of finality that seemed to indicate he was tired of standing around. He'd been acting so normally that she kept forgetting he'd been injured more than just physically. She couldn't decide whether his tone meant he was already tired, or that he wanted to get moving quickly so he wouldn't wear out whatever reserves of strength he had.

“Hey, Gideon knows where the place is too, if you'd rather talk to him. Because I know he's definitely more approachable.” Richard offered. The observation was greeted with silence. Richard frowned, turned to Jacob, then asked “He's not lurking around the corner like I was, is he?”

“No, he's not.” Jacob tried to keep a straight face, but was clearly finding the task difficult. “I just wanted to make you think so. Come on, time's wasting.” With that, he was out the door.

Alyssa started to follow him, but Richard took hold of her shoulder. “He's trying to be strong for you.” he said quietly. “He's always thought of himself as somewhat of a role model to you. Wanted you to not only know how to do the job, but think of aspects of it on your own. The whole door trick – most of us, we tell our partners after the first few times. It could come in handy, after all, to be able to get back here quickly. He wanted you to realize it, though. He figured if you could come to that conclusion, you might be able to figure out things that the rest of us couldn't.” he shrugged. “He's proud of you. He doesn't want you to see him weak.”

“He's not weak.” she replied, as quietly as Richard had been.

“We both know that. If he was weak, he wouldn't have survived what the Sightless did to him. He would never have woken up out of that bed. He's wounded, though. If he needs your help, help him. Otherwise, I'd let him lead the way.”

She smiled to him. “I always do.” With that final thought, she left the library to follow Jacob down the hallways.

Yael was in the lobby. In the council's chambers, she'd looked merely tired. Under the harsh florescent light Alyssa could see that the councilwoman had been nearly run ragged. She'd always had an aura of youth around her, but recent events had taken a horrible toll. Alyssa found herself wondering the last time Yael had slept.

“I have a bad feeling about this.” she was saying to Jacob. “I know I approved Savant's idea, and I still do. I just want to add my voice to those advising caution. You're wounded, Jacob, you're not as strong as you once were. Your senses have been replaced, true, but with an even more dangerous sense. You must be careful.”

“Hello Alyssa.” Jacob offered, still looking toward Yael.

“I didn't mean to interrupt.”

Yael brushed this off. “Don't worry, you haven't, I hadn't yet come to my main point.” she looked toward both of them now, apparently stopping to think of how best to phrase her speech.

“Alyssa, Jacob, I want you to be very gentle in how you speak to him. When I last saw Craig he wouldn't even speak to me. He'd lost weight, he was pale and weakening. He knew a terrible secret, he'd confided in me some time before. One he couldn't speak of to anyone. I think the very act of speaking it may have dire consequences, and this is why he feared to even open his mouth toward the end. I've told nobody of this insight, not even Savant. So yes, go see him, speak to him, but tread lightly. It would not do for him to accidentally utter a spell which slays all within hearing range, especially after having refrained from this long.”

The words sounded like nonsense, but Alyssa could tell that she was serious. Whatever Craig knew, Yael was absolutely certain that his revealing it would have dire consequences. So Alyssa simply nodded her understanding.

Yael scrutinized the two of them, then sighed. “Good luck. It's all I can offer you.” With that, she walked to the wooden lobby door and opened it for them.

When Alyssa had heard them refer to a 'monastery', she'd been envisioning a building hidden deep within a jungle, or perhaps on top of a mountain. What she hadn't expected was a small shack in the middle of a desert somewhere. Peering through the doorway, she saw no sign of life, no sign other than the shack itself that anyone had been there to begin with.

Jacob frowned. “That's the place, but something's not right about it.”

“It is not too late.” Yael said then. “You do not need to proceed immediately, or even at all. If you wish to stay here and help us plan the recuperation, we would value your counsel.”

When she'd seen Yael whispering cautions to Jacob, Alyssa had initially thought the woman was simply looking out for his well-being. She was slowly coming to realize that, her words as leader of the Council notwithstanding, she was becoming more and more opposed to the journey. However, if even such a stalwart opponent of splitting their forces as Katherine had endorsed the idea, it was likely to be done.

Jacob shook his head. “I appreciate your worry.” as usual, he'd seen directly to the heart of the matter and eschewed tact in doing so. “But this is something that has to be done.”

Saying no more, he walked calmly through the door. Alyssa followed.

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Vacation IV (The Shattered Lights)

(( CHAPTER 13, THE SHATTERED LIGHTS ))

The car was there, just as she remembered it. She walked from the doorway of what turned out to be an abandoned gas station toward it. Nobody was inside it, she could tell, and she cursed inwardly. It wasn't going to be that easy, of course.


As she got closer to it, she could tell some sort of struggle had occurred. Generally, nobody but Jacob or another Road Man would even be able to start the car, but the Sightless were themselves very powerful and had likely found a way to do so anyway. Jacob hadn't let his car be stolen without a fight. Scratches decorated the car, ichor still dripped from the bumpers where he'd ran some over, and dents were all over the place. The rear window had several cracks, and the trunk was ajar.

Jacob was no longer there, though judging from the bloodstains he had been, and it had taken quite an effort to put him there. She began moving to the front of the car, hands tracing over the metal. She could feel that a great deal of chaos had come up against the car, and lost. Had it, too, been caught up when the storm exploded? It had probably saved its inhabitant only to lose him later. The driver's side window had been broken in.

She moved to the front of the car, sighing, and closed her eyes to concentrate again. She'd been able to sense John, and she was hoping her new attunement would pick up any creatures of chaos, not just ones bound to her.

It did. She felt it as a wrongness behind her about a block, a concentration a lot like a storm, though not so powerful. She turned, and her heart leapt into her throat.

The headlights of the car had been smashed in.

She ran toward the building where she felt the wrongness – it was a run-down house, probably abandoned, without lights or any sign that anyone lived there. She knew there was someone there, though, they ached in her mind. Pain like a rotten tooth seemed to emanate from the place, so she didn't hesitate at all when she rammed her shoulder into the door, knocking it from its hinges.

Harpies. They made some inhuman noise as she entered, probably an alarm, and though she dispatched them with terrifying reflexive ease she couldn't cut them off quickly enough.

A Sightless slid from one of the doors, opened its mouth, and began to cry out something in a language she dared not try to comprehend. She silenced it, too. They were fast, she knew, but when she moved everything else stopped. She closed the distance and ended what remained of the monster's life without even a thought.

She felt the others converging on her location and thought angrily to herself: Let them! There were perhaps a half dozen in the house, and she slaughtered them with ease. She'd destroyed untold numbers of them earlier that day and beaten a Soldier, these were nothing to her. They seemed to realize this, at least those who got there after she'd made corpses of the others, and tried to flee. She wouldn't allow it, though, and she was faster than they.

Six corpses, leaking ichor and less identifiable liquids, were on the floor. Less than a second had passed.

She felt one more presence, one that hadn't moved. She walked cautiously down the stairs, to a bare and broken basement, and saw the something she'd felt lying in a pool of blood on the concrete floor. It was Jacob.

He wasn't dead, she could tell that from where she stood. She rushed down, the whole while feeling that something was wrong, something was horribly horribly wrong with the situation. There weren't any other Sightless, she knew, but something persisted, the feeling of wrongness about the place had not dissipated with the deaths of its keepers. Then she got to Jacob and turned him over, and found out why.

His eyes were missing.


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Vacation III (The Aftermath)

(( CHAPTER 12: THE AFTERMATH ))

The city was a disaster, but not an unmitigated one. The archway through which she'd forged her passage had vanished behind her; thankfully she hadn't opened up a permanent passage between order and chaos.

It wasn't exactly as she'd pictured it. For one, there were no cars on the street anymore, not even Jacob's. The Sightless had vanished along with him, seemingly. Nobody at all was there, and the silence was overwhelming.

The traffic light in the intersection a block from her suddenly turned on and began blinking red, a sign that, hopefully, things were over. She looked upward and saw that what had previously been malevolent storm clouds were now ordinary, and beginning to dissolve. She found herself wondering how long she'd been gone.

“Why?” she heard a familiar terrible voice say. She turned to see the limbless monstrosity, John to his friends, on his knees railing against the sky. “Take me back, damn you!”

“Bad day?” Alyssa offered.

John was on his feet in a flash, hissing at her. “You! It took even you, but they will not have me back. I wish you had stayed in that place!” He spat at the ground.

“Wasn't to my liking.” she replied, and started walking down the street. Jacob couldn't be far, assuming he hadn't also been claimed by the storm.

“You dare turn your back to me, your greatest enemy!” the Sightless practically screamed at her. “I could strike you down where you stand!”

Alyssa nearly laughed at this. “If you think you're my greatest enemy, John Slayton, then you haven't been paying much attention to your bosses. They're not too fond of me.”

He cursed in some language she didn't understand. “Do not speak my true name!”

She made an impromptu song involving his true name and where he could stick it, walking all the while.

He followed her, and she frowned and stopped, facing him. “Are you going to try to kill me or what? Because I'll level with you, I've had one long goddamn day and I'm just not in the mood. So either try your best or let me go.”

John leered. “I follow you because I must, and for no other reason. Were I to bow to my own will, I would gladly welcome death in an attempt to harm you.”

“Well knock it off, okay? I've got a chamber to get back to.”

He stood still for a moment, gritting his teeth. “I would if I were allowed.”

She stared back at him. “What, you want my permission to get lost? Why can't you just stay here or go somewhere else?”

She could tell this question infuriated him. His teeth ground, he stomped his feet and seemed to struggle for a moment with answering. “You have bound me! You took my name from those to whom I pledged, and thus I am now stuck with you.”

She stared. “You're in an awful talkative mood. Why?”

He hissed. “I must answer you truthfully and in full.”

She pondered. “So if I told you to go climb the tallest building in this city and fling yourself off, you'd have no problems with it?”

He stomped his feet. “You mock me! You steal a disciple of chaos from the Unknowable, and you would throw it away! If you gave such an order I would follow it with a happy heart indeed.”

She shrugged. “I hate to make you happy, but you really don't have a use and to be perfectly frank I can't stand to be near you.”

He laughed, a brittle cackling that would have sent shivers down her spine had she been the same person she was earlier that day. She'd seen too much, though: A single Sightless was no match for her now.

“If you honestly believe me to be of no value then do as you have suggested and release me from this wretched life”.

There was something he was trying to not tell her, she could tell. “What are you hiding?” she asked.

He spat. “Your accursed questions! Falter but a moment and I shall rip out your throat!” He ground his teeth again, as though to force the answers she sought to stay inside, but failed. “Our kind have taken your friend and partner.” he answered simply and starkly.

She blinked. She felt too weary to react, but she knew the feelings were welling up behind her facade of shock. Let them build up, she thought. At least then she'd be feeling something again when they finally burst.

“Where is he?” she asked.

John laughed. “I am of use, you see! I do not know where he is, but I can lead you to him.”

It was her turn to feel the need to spit on the ground in front of him. “I'd rather not follow you. Anywhere.”

“Your choice, slaver.” he replied. “Lead me to my death, then, for I care not.”

A thought had occurred to her. “As much as I hate it, you're going to follow me for now. I know some people who would be very interested in talking to you.”

The abomination cursed again, and Alyssa found herself cruelly happy that it was angry again. She hadn't liked the tone of its laughter. She started walking, trying to get her orientation.

The city she'd but hours ago traveled was unfamiliar to her. Jacob, with his infallible sense of direction, was gone. She wasn't sure it was a good idea to lead a Sightless back to the chamber, but it seemed to be truly bound to her. There was a lot, she suspected, that someone like Savant could learn from it. Plus it could be of use finding Jacob, if it came down to that. First, though, she had to figure out how to get back there.

The city did not increase in familiarity, and she felt her frustration begin to mount. She knew that her thrall was likely to pick up on it soon, if he already hadn't. She thought she'd heard subdued chuckling from him, though there was the insanity factor which could have contributed to his outbursts.

Why hadn't Jacob just told her where the entrance really was? They'd always gone some sort of bizarre way. Occasionally the door would be in an alleyway, other times in a garage. Though she'd be able to recognize the old courthouse through which they'd entered last time, she didn't know how to get to it. She certainly didn't want to ask her pet monster for directions. Not only was he unlikely to know, but it would have meant she'd tipped her hand to him.

She stopped for a moment, realization hitting her. All this time, she'd assumed that because they'd gone through different routes once inside the chamber to reach the lobby, that the parking structure and the alleyway and the courthouse were all in the same spot. But what if they weren't? She thought back to the way Jacob had smirked at her when she'd objected to the courthouse as a location. It made sense for a place like the chamber to not be accessible through mundane means like an ordinary door. Perhaps, then, it wasn't. Maybe it was certain doors, then?

She slowed her pace, trying to concentrate. Ever since coming back from the world of chaos, she'd found herself attuned to the mostly orderly world around her. She could feel the presence of John behind her, which was part of the reason she hadn't feared to turn her back on him. She couldn't feel any doors that seemed out of place or different, though.

Maybe that wasn't it at all. Maybe she already knew how to get into the chamber, she thought with sudden inspiration. She walked purposely toward a building with a wooden door and stopped in front of it, tagging along an alternately muttering and giggling John.

She closed her eyes, and pictured the lobby of the chamber, to which the courthouse had led. She remembered the florescent lights, the other doors, Savant's table and books piled in a typically disorderly fashion. Committing every minute detail to mind, she opened her eyes, opened the door, and stepped through.

Disorientation. For a moment she felt like she was back inside the storm, as though she'd never escaped. Her sense of direction was lost, her sense of self suddenly uncertain.

Then she was there. The lobby, buzzing lights and all. Behind her, John fell unceremoniously to the floor, cursing incoherently at Alyssa as he picked himself up.

“Alyssa!” Savant stood up suddenly from the messy table he'd claimed as his own. He'd spotted the Sightless and was already bringing his arms up in a warding gesture, but with a pause he dropped them, shaking his head. “Wow. We send you into what ends up being the lion's mouth, and you walk out with a cub. How did you bind him?” He walked up to her, pushing the Sightless roughly to the side as though it were inconsequential. Alyssa nearly laughed, then.

“I learned his name, somehow that swapped his alliance. Though not his feelings.”

John spat again.

Alyssa paused for a moment. “I figured the operation shouldn't be a total loss – do we still have those cells I saw when I first came on?”

Savant nodded. “Yes, they're still working. What do you mean, not a total loss? You saved that whole city!”

She turned to John. “Go lock yourself up.” she ordered. Cursing her name and swearing a very bloody and gruesome revenge, he stomped off.

Finally, she could let her guard down. She sat abruptly in the nearest chair, sighing deeply. “They got Jacob. I didn't see it happen, but blindey apparently knows about it.”

Savant shook his head. “I'm so sorry, Alyssa. The other sites we thought would be hit were, but nowhere as bad as yours. They were after you, and everything else was a diversion.”

“I gathered as much. The Soldier mentioned something like that.”

Savant's eyes widened. “They sent a Soldier against you? You're very lucky to have survived.”

She shook her head. “I beat it. Savant, is something wrong with me? Yesterday I was normal. Gifted, sure, but among you guys I was normal. Then I discover I can take down a few dozen Sightless, bind another to my will, and to top it all off kill the worse the Unknowable has to offer, all in a matter of a half hour or so.”

Savant hugged her in a very paternal fashion. “You're fine. You're just the chosen one of prophecy, is all.”

She laughed. “I thought that was Yael.”

Savant shook his head. “Yael's a wonderful person and a good leader, but I don't think she's the one. For you to have defeated a Soldier you'd have to have mastery over both order and chaos.”

“You just decided this now? I thought you wrote the prophecy.”

He shrugged. “I leave things vague for that reason, so I can change my mind and still be claimed a visionary. Also, nice to see you found your own way in. When I last talked to Jacob, he was beginning to think you'd never catch on.”

She smiled weakly at the mention of her missing mentor. “I just needed the right motivation.”

She stood up then. “I've got to find him. If I don't get some rest soon, I'm going to just pass out the next chance I get, but I've got to get to him first.”

Savant nodded. “Shouldn't be too hard. Was his car left behind in the city?”

She shook her head. “No, at least not that I saw.”

“Good, it means they took it. They'd probably have to if they wanted to have any sort of chance against him at all. As long as his car was undamaged, he could stand up to pretty much limitless punishment. That'll work for us, because all you'll need is a mental image of the car and the door will take you right to it.”

She nodded and turned toward the door to the lobby. Even here, it didn't seem out of place. “Who made this thing, anyway?”

Savant shrugged. “Nobody knows, so that probably means I did it and didn't mention it to anyone, then forgot. Though Jacob always liked the theory that there's nothing special about the door, that all doors work like that. Ordinary doors just seem ordinary because you expect them to go to what you see through them.”

She smiled. “Jacob, I'm going to get you back.”

Image of the car firmly in mind, she opened the door and stepped through.

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Vacation II (Chaos)

(( CHAPTER 11: CHAOS ))

There was nothing.

Then, everything. The world rushed toward her, but not the one she knew – the world she witnessed was one full of nothingness and everything, impossible to comprehend. Chaos surrounded her, and she could feel its tendrils sink into her mind.

This isn't the first time it's happened. I'll just be here a while longer. It's comfortable and warm.

Pain, heat, pleasure, cold, fear and love and hatred and fury and forgetfulness. They washed over her, through her, around her. Her identity clung desperately to her consciousness. Nothing availed her; the roiling nothing/everything which surrounded battered her on every side.

You are it. The Chaos encompasses you, absorbs you. There is no more you.

“No”, she would have whispered if she still possessed a body with which to do so. She heard it, though. Her voice was torn to shreds, refracted and reflected back to her, mocking her defiance.

There is no more you, your voice is our voice, you speak only what we speak.

“No!” she screamed it, and heard it come back to her again, clearer.

The defiance of Chaos seemed to become even more defined as she did so. Do not struggle! There is no point to it! You are nothing!

“I am Alyssa D'Eldess.” she spoke clearly, her voice ringing around her, and the Chaos which had imbued itself in her shrank suddenly, cringed from her.

Sensation returned to her, she took a deep breath; though there was no air in this place, her lungs were there. Her body was returned to her. This place was pure chaos, which could destroy anything - but anything could be created from it. She could bring order to it.

She sat, cross-legged, in her small bubble of calm, and concentrated. I am sitting on the grass, she thought. Her eyes closed and she moved her hand, feeling with all her concentration for the blades it should be intersecting. It was there – the nothingness she had been floating in was replaced with a small plain, and she was seated upon it.

It was a very small shell of order, outside which Chaos raged. The storm hadn't been an expression of chaos, she'd come to realize, it had been chaos itself made manifest in an ordered world. This place was the true storm, and she was within an eye of her own creation.

She concentrated, and her shell grew bigger, though each additional bit cost her more and more willpower to maintain. Chaos was hungry, and she was taking directly from it to do what she was doing, but she wouldn't allow herself to fail. Failure meant she would be absorbed by the chaos, and she somehow knew that this fate would be one worse than simple death. It would mean the end of her, of her memories and everything she'd experienced.

The roiling chaos outside her increasingly fragile shell seemed to become even more agitated, though she suspected even the winds of chaos were changed by its very nature. She saw, dimly, a shadow take shape and begin to move. Unlike everything else, it did not writhe and change. It remained coherent, and growing.

At first, she had throught it to be a long distance away, but there was no perspective within the twisting outside world, so she could not tell. As it approached, though, she could see its details more clearly. She tried to remove her suspicions from her mind, knowing on some level that in this place more than any other, her fears could become real. Try as she might, though, she could not dislodge the truth. She knew what that thing was.

It stopped just outside her sphere of influence. It stood perhaps six feet tall, shaped and proportioned as a human, though far more angular. She couldn't tell where exactly it left off and the chaos began, as the edges seemed blurry and half-chaos themselves. Everything about it suggested smoke; its eyes were smoldering embers and his body was hazy and translucent, churning slowly as though caught in a permanent updraft.

“Soldier.” she spoke to it, her voice clear and distinct.

“Your name is Alyssa D'Eldess. Your recognition of the body and identity you inhabit has given you strength against us. That you would so soon come to fruition was unexpected.” She had to strain to hear it; she couldn't even tell how it was speaking in the first place, as no element of its facade that was not already changing had changed during its speech. Its voice was as ephemeral and fading as its shape. “Regardless, you have failed. Give yourself over to our care, and be re-made.”

“I'll pass.” she replied.

“Look around yourself, child.” the thing gestured. “You own a universe barely long enough for you to pace. Outside is the universe my masters own. Chaos expands, chaos consumes, chaos takes all and only in it can you survive. You have accomplished something in your defiance, and we recognize this, but you cannot stand against us in your current state.”

“I guess I'll just have to wait until I can, then.” she said. She was still seated, but was ready to jump at a moment's notice.

The thing may have shaken its head, she couldn't tell clearly. “The Unknown and Unknowable are patient, true. They waited for you to come around, but they will not wait forever. You create order from the forces of chaos, and this makes you rare, but your little world is but a plaything to them, to crush at their whim.”

“Then why haven't they?”

She could have sworn she saw a smile in the thing's nonexistent face, but if it had appeared it vanished a second later. “Child, why do you think I have come?”

It stepped forward, then, into her world, and she sprang to her feet. Its outline was more distinct here, she saw, and the smokiness inside it less chaotic. As its arm passed through the border from the chaos world into her island of order, part of the swarming madness came with it. A blade, she saw. The smoke-thing carried with it a blade of pure chaos.

Her claws were order, she remembered saying to herself long ago. Did that make her a solider as well? She certainly felt like it. Her body in this place was not real, she realized on some level, it was simply an extension of her will, a projection of her identity, formed in the same way she'd formed her reality from the chaos outside. She was incapable of feeling fatigue in the traditional sense, but she did. She'd fought all day yesterday, and what felt like the entire day. Moreover, it seemed like she'd been struggling as long as she could remember. Though her body couldn't feel tired, her mind certainly did. Her claws were order, she thought. In this place, that made them the only weapon which could stand against the thing before her.

“Your kind has been defeated by my kind before.” it reminded her, “Often, by far less. Do you really believe yourself so much stronger than your peers?”

Something about its tone struck her. Belief, she thought. Here, all that mattered was that she believe herself strong enough. It was trying to sow doubt, she could see.

“You'll have to see for yourself.” she said, claws extended.

“You are a creature of order, and my nature is apparent.” it said, slowly advancing on her. “I find it ironic that reason has failed to sway you, that you leap to violence so quickly. Consider that there is more to you than you think.”

Though it told her to consider it, it certainly didn't give her enough time to do so. As it was speaking the last word, it leaped forward in a burst of speed. The sword was slicing toward her before she even realized the creature was done speaking. Her reflexes were good, but acute awareness that her world was not really big enough for this sort of fighting clouded her ability to fight. The claws barely intercepted the weapon in time, and she felt a horrible recoil as they collided. The claws were ethereal, she rarely felt feedback from them, but this time it was as though she'd tried to use her fingernails instead. Intense pain, as though they were being torn from her, suffused her. The creature did not back off, it struck again and she was forced to parry or die – the pain was not yet such that she would prefer the more terminal alternative.

It would be, though. She knew that if the battle dragged on, she'd falter before the tireless assault of the creature. It attacked over and over, and each time she was pressed further and further to the edge of her universe.

She shook her head rapidly at her own stupidity. Her own universe! In a figurative sense, and now literal that she'd realized it, it revolved around her. She was no longer pressed against the edge, instead she was in the center. No matter how she moved, her world would move with her.

The sudden shift of surroundings did not disorient the beast at all – in order to survive in chaos, she supposed, it had to be adaptable. Its swing wasn't even off, and she barely parried it. The creature was every bit as fast as she was, as evidenced by the fact she couldn't dodge it and thus far hadn't even been able to get an attack of her own in.

He was on her turf, though. Her thought about it surviving in chaos gave her an idea – it was no longer in chaos, it was in a world, however small, of order. A world she had created and still, it seemed, had control over.

The next time the creature swung, there was a wall in its way. The blade it held sliced through it effortlessly, but despite its appearance the monster itself was solid. Alyssa used the advantage she'd created herself to put some distance between her and it.

There was a tortured creaking sound as the wall buckled and collapsed, and the creature came on. She did it again, this time surrounding it with a cage of steel, and it fought its way out. She willed knives into her hands and flung them at her adversary. It deflected them with the blade and advanced, but she could tell it was far more wary. It hadn't been counting on this sort of resistance.

Taking a page from saturday morning cartoons, she created a weight above the thing. Its blade could cut through it, but it was simply a large mass, so the creature – moving even more slowly – was forced to dodge out of the way. She flung more knives, then, and some struck it. It howled, then, backing more toward the edge of the world in retreat.

She didn't want that, she found herself thinking. If it escaped, it would go to its masters and let them know of its failure, and they would redouble their efforts. Destroying it would buy time, and every time she struck it with something she'd created it slowed down. Her knives, which should have just been ordinary matter, injured it.

She put another wall, this one spiked, between the creature and the border of chaos. It turned from her, then, trying to run around, and Alyssa created another wall of swords directly in its path. It could not stop – and it struck the wall at full speed. It screamed again, its cry of pain echoing the raging chaos outside. It flailed wildly with its blade, trying to hack apart the wall that it might escape. Alyssa concentrated harder on the blade – she'd driven back chaos once before to create this world, there was no reason she couldn't do so again.

The creature became silent when its blade vanished. It turned to face her again.

Not willing to give up the initiative to hear whatever it had to say, she quickly created more walls, surrounding and trapping the creature. Then, with only a bare moment of hesitation, she sent them crashing together.

The noise was horrific. The steel bulged and split, spikes flew everywhere, and chaos threatened for a brief moment to overtake the world. Then, silence reigned again. Small wisps of smoke trailed up from the wreckage, but no other sign of the Soldier remained.

Order. She sat back down and concentrated, and the wreckage she'd created vanished. Her world began slowly expanding again. She kept an eye out for other Soldiers appearing within the maelstrom outside, but saw nothing.

She was still within the storm, but this island was hers. If she concentrated hard enough, could she make her way back from here? She hoped so; it certainly seemed like her only real option.

She looked forward and imagined an archway, and so it was. Then, concentrating, she began to picture the city. She had only a vague idea what it looked like, her contact with it necessarily made distant by her powers, but nonetheless she imagined it. Office buildings, traffic lights. The way the cars had seemed scattered throughout the streets. She purposely did not imagine the Sightless, though her strongest memories were of course of them. If possible she didn't want to come back to a part of the city they owned.

Billboards... windows... order and chaos in balance... Savant and Yael and Richard and Jacob... life.

It was there, then, she could see it through the archway she'd made. She jumped to her feet and leapt through before she could think better of it.


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Vacation I (The Endless Storm)

“John Slayton.” she whispered.

She didn't know how long she'd been on the roof of the car. The Sightless had finally begun fighting her and she had repulsed them, but she'd been at the top of her form then, and had to actively defend herself. Now she was surrounded again, and had apparently come out of her reverie moments before she was about to be dismembered.

It didn't happen, though. The Sightless who surrounded her gazed at her, slack jawed. Their sockets were burning with hatred, she could tell, but they made no move against her.

“What are you waiting for?” Limbless was screaming at the others, waving what remained of his arms frantically. “End her!”

Slowly, the monstrosities surrounding Alyssa backed off, clearing a path between her and her adversary, who was nearly frothing with rage. “Insubordinate traitors!” it spat. “Overpower her! She is not yet in the prime of her power, she can be captured!”

They weren't listening, and Alyssa wasn't about to turn down the opportunity she had been given. “What's the matter, John?” she smiled mirthlessly, “Buddies aren't backing you up anymore?”

It gasped then, hissing as it did so. “How!?” it demanded. “You dare speak the true name of a follower of the Unknowable!? You will be destroyed for your insolence!” he whirled from Alyssa and began the hymn anew, mutilated arms raised in praise to the even-now increasing column of hateful light. She could hear his voice trembling, though he was shouting his cursed language as loud as he could. The others had stopped speaking, had stopped even adding to the hymn, but the storm had not diminished. Still, there was only one to stop.

She took a step forward, and then the column exploded. Her reflexes were good, but the fury of the storm could not be matched. It expanded, devouring everything. She ran, but it was not enough. The storm had her.

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