Part III - Hopes
the dreams that have escaped you
Earthday, Autumn 6, 557 at Sunearth School, Terra
"When will Sister Cassandra be coming back to this school, Headmistress Uldane?" Viyar asked on a cool morning in the garden.
"She's not expected to," came the reply as the headmistress plucked a tiny weed from between the cabbages. She turned to look up at Viyar. "And that disappoints you."
Viyar hastily checked her shields. They were strong and in order, woven with all the emotions, just as Sister Xioq had taught them.
The headmistress pulled another weed. "And it surprises you that I know that."
"I'm shielded," Viyar protested.
"Your emotions are shielded, and very well, too. I've never seen such a vibrant plaid display before." Headmistress Uldane sat back on her heels. "Your face, however, is open."
Viyar felt a sudden flush and then a flood of heat in her cheeks. Anyone—even prosaics—could read her now: embarrassment followed by shame at her lack of control. She bowed her head, both to apologize and to hide. "I will practice more, Headmistress."
"Good." She waved a hand at the garden bed that stretched along the path, and Viyar joined in helping the crop plants to grow. "Why do you ask about Sister Cassandra?" the headmistress asked as they removed the weeds.
"I had some questions about that dream-vision a year ago."
"Are you remembering it?" Headmistress asked immediately with a vermillion flash of concern.
"No. That is, I remember just enough to know I don't want to remember more." Viyar didn't mention her more recent dreams. "I'm wondering how it happened, and how she erased it. Would you tell me where Sister Cassandra is, so that I might write to her?"
Headmistress Uldane stood then brushed off her hands. "You may give me a message, and I'll see that it's sent."
That evening, Viyar wrote to the woman whose face glimmered in smoke and fire in dreams. The next morning, Headmistress Uldane sent the message; Viyar didn't know where.
When a month passed and no response came, Viyar set out to find the answers herself. But she found nothing, and the dreams became less frequent and she was busy with school and her first love, so she put thoughts of Sister Cassandra away.
But in the spring, when the senior novices went to tour ancient sites in the Mediterranean, a woman came up beside Viyar at the Temple of Artemis and asked quietly, "How can I help, Viyar?"
It took Viyar a moment to recognize the woman, who wore the loose trousers and long tunic one might find in any town, boldly striped instead of the drab colors Sister Cassandra had always worn. The lusciously long hair, which Viyar had always coveted, was gone, clipped to just above the nape of the neck and darkened to brown. But the voice was Sister Cassandra's, and the wide green eyes were the same.
"Are you troubled?" Sister Cassandra asked. "Has that dream returned?"
Teachers always fussed like mother ducks. "No. But I've had other dreams, and you're in them."
"Prophecies of the future?" She sounded hopeful.
"I think they're echoes of the past." Viyar watched with interest as Sister Cassandra's barriers, smooth as an egg shell but with iridescent glimmers, leaked smears of dismay but not surprise.
"Ah," was all Sister Cassandra said. She sat down upon a bench and patted it in invitation, so Viyar joined her there. "Tell me?" Sister Cassandra asked.
"It's dark. Something's chasing me, and I'm trying to escape. I don't know from what. No one ever speaks." Viyar didn't mention the other sounds in the dark: the sobbing gasps, the ragged whimpers ... the screams. "I do see horses and people in the distance. The clothes seem old-style, long ago. Sometimes, I see your face through flames. Why are you in my dreams?"
Sister Cassandra laid her hands flat atop her thighs and looked out over the ruins of the temple on the hill. "I think the question is: why are you in mine?"
"You see my face through flames, too?"
"No. But I've had chase dreams like that for a very long time. As you said, they're echoes of the past."
Viyar knew how that happened. "From an ancestress."
Cassandra turned to her. "Do you dream from your ancestresses?"
"Of course, they're in me, down through the ages. I thought at first that you and I shared a bloodline—that your dream-ancestress was my ancestress, too—but you're not in the family tree. Though you do have the sight."
"I'm a sport," Sister Cassandra explained.
Wild talents, Viyar's biogenesis teacher had called them. Often unrepeatable and unpredictable, and so seldom included in the breeding program. She understood now why Sister Cassandra was childless. Viyar could sense Sister Cassandra's reluctance, but she asked anyway, "In the dreams, do you know what's chasing us?"
"Death." Sister Cassandra intertwined her fingers, making a tight cage of her hands. "Or perhaps just our own fears."
Viyar wondered if those fears were truly her own or Sister Cassandra's. "When I had that dream-vision a year and a half ago, did that connect us then?" Viyar asked. "Or would the connection have happened anyway?"
"I don't know." She looked sidelong at Viyar. "But the connection goes both ways, for though I haven't seen you in the flames or a chase dream, I have recently dreamt of you."
Viyar saw no reason to shield her fascination. "Doing what?"
"Holding a newborn child."
"A baby?" she asked in delight. Viyar wasn't ready to be a parent, not for a few more years, but she was certainly looking forward to the day. Her gene chart contained the names of six males approved to father her children. Her mother had introduced two of them to her, another three were dead and preserved in the spermbank, and the last was a boy of five. "Is the baby mine?" she asked. "Is it a girl?"
"I don't know. But it feels like a prophecy."
That was truth; Viyar—though she knew not to trespass in a mind—could sense the honesty within the older woman. "Can we link, so that I may see the dream?" Viyar asked. Sister Cassandra hesitated, so Viyar pointed out, "We're already connected, and we won't need to go deep."
"Viyar," Sister Cassandra began, "I hold secrets that are not mine to share. With your talents, I fear—"
"You could lead," Viyar suggested, eager to see the baby, and she offered Sister Cassandra her hand.
After a moment Sister Cassandra nodded. She laid two fingertips across Viyar's wrist, a cool and delicate touch. Viyar closed her eyes, the better to see in the mind. After a swirl of mist or smoke, she saw/sensed herself, holding a baby who peered up at her with blue-dark eyes. A dream-Sister Cassandra hovered nearby. Other children circled her, singing and holding hands, a play-yard game. She couldn't quite make out the words or see their faces. The song hummed along her nerves. She knew it, though she had never heard it before. The baby smiled, and Viyar smiled in return. The blue-dark eyes held her, deep pools with velvet black depths, an endless entry into time.
Sharp tugs at her fingers made her blink, and when the mists cleared, she saw Sister Cassandra, looking concerned. Viyar quickly grounded herself in the now-world. "Thank you," she said. "That was incredibly precise. You went right to it."
"I've been doing a lot of memory work lately," Sister Cassandra explained; then she looked down the hill. "The others are gathering. You should go."
At the base of the hill, the novices were assembling into their flock, and Viyar could see the urgent beckoning from the tour leader. She got up from the bench. "Thank you, Sister Cassandra, for everything."
"Certainly. And, Viyar...," she called.
Viyar immediately stopped on the path and turned back. "Yes?"
"No one else need know of this prophecy."
"I will never tell anyone," Viyar agreed.
"Someday," Sister Cassandra said, "you will come find me."
At those words, Viyar felt a strange thrill along her spine, an echo in her mind. "Yes, of course," she agreed, and she knew it would be so. It was exciting; she had never been part of a prophecy before. Sister Cassandra was pleased and excited, too; Viyar caught a trace of that through the shields, like a plume of smoke on a windy day. "We are linked."
Sister Cassandra smiled. "We are indeed."
When the tour group returned to the school, Viyar was summoned to the headmistress's office. She stole glances at the marvelous pictures of the birds on the walls as she traveled the long walk from the door to the desk. Headmistress Uldane sat behind it, and the chair in front of the desk was occupied by a woman Viyar didn't recognize.
The stranger's green jumpsuit didn't fit her very well, and her short, dark hair was uncombed. Her emotions were a blur of weariness and placid acceptance, a flat and uninformative gray. The insignia at her lapel was one Viyar had never seen before: a silver rod interwoven in a black circle that had eleven small silver dots all along its rim.
Viyar bowed to Headmistress Uldane and then to the unknown visitor, but said nothing. The headmistress had only a plain framework of shields established, and her irritation was washing over Viyar in waves. "Sister Giorgis has requested to speak to you, Viyar," Headmistress said.
Viyar could tell that the request had been more of a command, and that Headmistress had to obey. Sister Giorgis didn't look old enough to outrank a headmistress, so probably she was an emissary for someone else. Viyar bowed to Sister Giorgis and waited with a polite expression on her face and an opaque rainbow shield around her mind, just as she practiced.
"You met with Sister Cassandra a nine-day ago," Sister Giorgis began.
Viyar hadn't spoken of the meeting to anyone, but people had eyes. Many had seen her speaking to Sister Cassandra that day. "Yes."
"What did you talk about?"
"Dreams." Viyar carefully spoke only truth. Headmistress was skilled and Sister Giorgis might have talents, too. She was definitely observant; Viyar had seldom felt so watched before.
"Nothing else?"Sister Giorgis asked.
"Me having a baby. Her being a sport."
Sister Giorgis flickered with black-purple surprise. "What kind of sport?"
"It's a term we psychics use," Headmistress explained, with a slow ooze of green condescension. "For someone with talent who's not from the breeding lines."
So, Sister Giorgis was a prosaic, ignorant of the psi-world. Viyar relaxed a little and dared to ask a question of her own. "Is Sister Cassandra all right?"
"You just saw her," Sister Giorgis said. "Sensed her. You tell me."
"She was fine."
"Anything different?"
"She's cut her hair, and she had new clothes. I didn't recognize her at first. But no, she hadn't changed." Viyar didn't like being confused. "Why are you asking these questions?"
Sister Giorgis's sharp look wasn't as piercing as a thought probe, but Viyar stood straighter under it. After a moment, Sister Giorgis nodded abruptly then spoke. "Sister Cassandra has been in seclusion for the past five seasons, ever since she left here. She hasn't spoken to anyone. Until she met with you."
"I asked her to meet."
"Two seasons ago," Sister Giorgis pointed out.
"You read our mail?" Headmistress asked, and anyone could see the flare of anger in her eyes. Viyar didn't like being spied on, either.
"We were reading hers." Sister Giorgis bristled with tiny yellow spikes of impatience. "Sister Cassandra wasn't. Not then."
That explained why Sister Cassandra had taken so long to respond. Viyar had meant to ask.
"We were worried about her," Sister Giorgis finished.
"The memory-work she was doing here went badly," Headmistress said, equally prickly. "She needed time to recover."
"And she has," Viyar said. "She was fine."
"I'm truly glad to hear that," Sister Giorgis, broadcasting sincerity and relief. "Because right after she talked to you, she disappeared."
"You lost Cassandra?" Headmistress asked. She seemed weirdly pleased.
"We'll find her." Those confident words didn't match the emotions. Sister Giorgis's yellow prickles rippled with concern.
Viyar wasn't worried. She knew she would see Sister Cassandra again.
Someday.
Turnday, Spring 9, 558 at Mountain Haven, Terra
"Another file from the Tribunal?" Methos asked as he came into the room. Amanda was in her usual position for reading those: lying on her stomach on the thick rug in front of the fire, her upper body propped up on her elbows, her knees bent so that her feet were up in the air, ankles neatly crossed. Paper lay in piles all about her on the floor.
"Mmm," she murmured but didn't look up. Methos briskly rubbed his hands together to warm them then began massaging her feet. "Mmmmm," she said, a much longer and lower note. "Ah..." The papers were being ignored.
"Anyone we know?" Methos asked as he applied pressure with his thumb to her instep. Her toes curled in but she didn't complain. "Or know of?"
"I don't," she said. "You might. Goes by Ruten, born in Ecuadoria, about three hundred years old."
It took Methos a moment to place the name from a grove of trees a few years back. Ruten had been decent swordsman but a nasty fellow, taunting his young fool of an opponent with threats to the wife during a duel.
Methos sat down on the floor, the better to see Amanda's face, and she rolled over so that they could talk. Her feet, however, were quite prominently positioned on his thigh. He obligingly went back to the massage, working on the toes now. "What's your verdict on Ruten?"
"The Tribunal should take his head."
Amanda was seldom that definite. "What's he done?" Methos asked.
"According to his chronicle, he's always been an ass, pompous and arrogant, and he's challenged almost as many women as men. But lately he's taken to abducting mortals."
"Do they survive?" He doubted the wife of that immortal had.
"So far. But..." Amanda glanced at the scattered papers, where pictures showed a bloody foot, a burned hand, a black eye. She shuddered, and Methos felt the quiver all the way in her toes. "The Tribunal should bring him in now," she declared then got up and went to make tea.
Methos leaned over and snagged the papers, skimming through them to get a sense of the man. Ruten was a bully with an increasing taste for torture and domination, particularly of women. Like many immortals, he had no family and no friends. He'd amassed a tidy fortune, and his head count was only twelve.
Perfect.
Methos stacked the papers neatly and joined Amanda at the stove. "How's our little project doing?" he asked her.
Amanda flashed him a conspiratorial grin as she poured boiling water into the pot. "Getting bigger all the time."
"That'll make an impression at the reunion."
"It should."
Amanda sounded smug. But then, she had done most of the work. "How many of the women are coming?" he asked.
"Fifteen so far. Three haven't replied, and three said no, Evann among them."
Methos shrugged. "I never expected her to come." She'd always been a solitary creature. "But I'll let her know." He would have told her earlier, but she would have wanted proof.
Just as he had.
They took their cups back to the fireplace to watch wood burn. In all these millennia, Methos had never tired of watching flame.
"Cassandra wants to see the progress we've made," Amanda said. "She's coming here soon."
Methos knew how that worked. "Then I'm leaving sooner."
"Must you?" Amanda asked. "Cassandra said she's better now."
"I'd like her to stay better." His presence couldn't help but it might very well hurt. "Besides, I need to take care of a few things before we ship out."
"Shopping?" Amanda asked with predictable interest.
"Selling, actually." Though what Methos really needed to take care of didn't involve money at all.
"Methos left?" Cassandra asked when she arrived at Mountain Haven and saw the empty room.
"Four days ago," Amanda replied. "He said he needed to take care of some things before our voyage."
Cassandra had immense experience with truth left unspoken. "And he was avoiding me."
"Yes," Amanda answered easily.
Irritation streaked through Cassandra's appreciation for his thoughtfulness and caution. As she followed Amanda down the hall, Cassandra examined the roots of that emotion. Buried—not very deep—she found frustration with her own weakness and discomfort at his deep understanding. Cassandra set them aside for now, and focused on the relief that she wouldn't have to deal with him today. "Smart man," she commented
"Very," Amanda agreed. "Karla came yesterday, but she's out running now. We can have dinner together tonight."
"Good." Cassandra hadn't seen her friend since they had parted on Isle Haven.
Amanda grandly opened the door to another room. "Here's 'the project'."
Cassandra gazed in admiration. "Beautiful."
"Thank you." Amanda seemed content to gaze in admiration, too.
"You have the video record?" Cassandra asked. She'd been eager to see that ever since Methos and Amanda had declared success.
"Of course. Karla said she'd like to watch it with you."
Cassandra sent her curiosity and impatience to wait with her earlier frustration. "Before dinner then."
"Certainly." After a few moments, Amanda shut the door then they crossed the hallway to the parlor. Cassandra headed for the welcome warmth of the fire. Old castles were drafty places, and spring had come late to the mountains. Snow still covered many of the valleys. Without the extensive network of tunnels and caves for access, she would probably still be urging a donkey up the trail. Cassandra held out her hands to the fire and tried to stifle a yawn.
"Tired?" Amanda asked
"A little. Traveling's always wearying."
But Amanda herself was no novice at the lie, the half-truth, and the evasion. "So are dreams," she observed. "And nightmares."
Cassandra shrugged. "I'm managing."
Amanda took Cassandra's right hand in both of her own. "Wouldn't you rather be healed?"
Cassandra resisted the urge to pull away. "It's not that simple."
"It is with the orb."
She seemed very certain, and not just about the orb. Amanda seemed confident in her power and serene in herself. She carried herself like a priestess. Like Rebecca. "You have learned a lot this past year," Cassandra observed.
Amanda lifted her head, her expression intense, her gaze compelling. "You have no idea." Then she grinned mischievously, her invitation to come play. "Yet."
"Amanda—"
"All you'll need to do is touch the orb with your fingertips and relax. I'll do the work, and Karla will monitor." Her grip tightened. "We can stop the nightmares, Cassandra. And the flashbacks."
Cassandra gently disengaged herself. Amanda meant well, but some memories had deep roots, and when dug out, they sprouted again in different ways. "I'm managing," she repeated then reminded Amanda, "I've done it before."
"But why do it again?" Amanda asked. "And again and again and again? Do you like being a victim? Or do you just like holding this over Methos?"
"No," Cassandra snapped. "I just—" But there was no "just", no clear simple reason. There was fear, reluctance, memories of past failures, lack of true confidence in Amanda, wariness of the orb, an age-old identity of pain, and familiarity with the devils she knew. "Thank you, Amanda. But no.
At dinner, however, Karla convinced Cassandra to try. "It works," Karla said simply. "Amanda's been doing it for months now. Mortals, mostly, and she did it for me."
"And the nightmares are gone?"
"They are. Flashbacks, too. It's ... relaxing, now that I don't have to worry about my own brain ambushing me."
Cassandra hadn't relaxed in a very long time.
"You should have it done," Karla said, and Amanda nodded.
"We can try," Cassandra ventured. "But I don't want to forget." Her experiences, horrible as they were, had made her who she was. "I just want to be the one in control of when and what I remember."
"The memories stay," Amanda reassured her. "It's the things growing out of the memories that need to go."
They finished the meal then formed a circle. It was warm and welcoming and familiar, for the three of them had worked together before, though seldom with Amanda in control.
She had a thief's touch, deft and sure and knowing, and Cassandra didn't flinch as Amanda moved silently through the deep crevices and dark corners of Cassandra's mind, gathering up treacherous spiderwebs of nightmare and following the lines to the nests of the creature that spun them.
Then Amanda brought them up and out of the circle, and Cassandra sat blinking in the golden light of the orb. She felt ... lighter. Empty. Free. "That's all?"
"I may have to go back in; some of that was pretty knotted and I probably missed some." Amanda wrinkled her nose. "All those eyes and teeth and claws..." She shuddered and made a gagging sound. Then she patted Cassandra's arm. "You poor thing. No wonder you're bitchy."
Cassandra decided not to ask Amanda what her own excuse was. That would be bitchy. Instead she asked, "How long did that take?"
"Seven minutes," Karla said.
Cassandra stopped herself from asking "That's all?" again. Millennia of terror swept up in minutes. Centuries of pain collected in a ball. "It can't be that simple."
"It's simple only because the orb is complicated." Amanda picked up the orb and cradled it in her hands. The golden glow danced in her eyes, a priestess of the flame. "It was designed to heal."
"And it did," Cassandra told Methos a moon-dark later, after he had returned from his errands and while he and Cassandra were walking on the parapet. "I haven't had any dreams or flashbacks or panic attacks since."
"Good." He was relieved for them both as well as happy for her.
"It's amazing what that orb can do, now that you unlocked it," Cassandra continued.
"And now that Amanda's learned how to use it." Methos strongly believed in giving credit where it was due. People liked that. And Amanda definitely deserved it.
"Yes, she's done wonderful work," Cassandra agreed. "She and I will be looking at the other talismans soon."
"Unlocking them, too?" Methos asked.
"Perhaps," she allowed.
Methos knew them better than that. If they could do it, they would. Just to see. "By 'soon,' you mean after the reunion. Yes?"
Cassandra paused a beat too long. "Yes."
"It's a delicate time," he reminded her. He'd have to remind Amanda, too, though he wouldn't need to be quite so circumspect about it. Cassandra didn't take orders well—at least not from him. But she wasn't stupid (usually) and she wasn't foolish (mostly).
"You're right," Cassandra told him. "It's not a good time to investigate the talismans."
Today, she was charmingly reasonable. Methos liked her that way.
A few days later, though, she mentioned the talismans again. "If we unlock them, what do you think they could do when linked?"
He'd been wondering the same thing. "Even more. And if we merge all nine, instead of just three..."
Her expression didn't change and her stride didn't falter, but Methos saw her hand tighten. They both liked power, and here it was, beckoning with its bloody fingers. "This is all to stop the Game, isn't it, Cassandra?"
Again, she waited a beat too long. "Of course," she agreed. Her smile was brilliantly charming. "It is for me."
Methos lied right back at her. "It is for me, too."
But what might they do, with the power of gods?