Chapter 10 - Like Stars in the Heavens

The commander was clearly used to being obeyed. Pars and Rosemarie found themselves unable to mount an effective defense, and in Pars' case he was not all that motivated to do so. Not having Myria's presence as a constant reminder for a few hours would ease his mind.

They did argue that Jessica should remain behind, and Vimes agreed.

Jessica argued halfheartedly against this, and loathed herself the entire time. She knew if she really fought for it, she could have gotten in on the trip. But the truth was, Jessica was terrified of that place. The mere thought of stepping within a hundred feet of that building made her go cold inside. She was afraid that if she went there with Myria, she would look at her friend and see that coldness in Myria's eyes, that emotionless face looking at her again.

"I'm sorry, Myria." She hugged her tightly as they exited the bakery.

"There is nothing you need apologize for, Jessica. I believe everything will be fine. And if I am incorrect, you would be unable to help."

Jessica pulled back and gave Myria a long look. "Well thanks for that."

"I am sorry?"

Jessica sighed[1]. "Sometimes the truth is not what you want when you're upset and feeling guilty." She gave Myria a friendly push. "Now go ahead. But be safe and come back soon. Okay?"

Had it been just Vimes and his men, they would probably have walked, but due to the sense of urgency and a need for more privacy, Vimes felt a coach was the better option. At his order, one of the constables flagged one down and Jessica watched them climb aboard with a sick feeling in her stomach.

It took less than a half hour to make their way to the abandoned cafe just off Attic Bee Street. Myria had to continuously fight the creeping, gnawing fear and dread that accompanied repeating that ride. The commander for his part did not make things easier. He was generally not good at small talk for one thing, and for another he was still not sure where Myria fit in to his city.

You, Myria LeJean, are an oddity. An interesting puzzle. Vimes like puzzles, as long as they could be solved. Little bit of an outsider, it seems. I bet Rust would hate you. Well, I'm sure he already does because of the gold, but even without that complication he'd hate you.

Vimes' shameless appraising of her did little to help her comfort levels.

It was a long ride.

When they arrived at the building, Myria saw that boards had been nailed across the opening and someone had painted in bright yellow letters:

Cryme Seen

Below that they had started to write:

No Admi[squiggle]

Which had been crossed through and replaced with:

Stay Out

Vimes looked slightly embarrassed and mumbled something about "Colon," before turning to one of the men who had accompanied him and gesturing at the door. "Tear that down."

"Yessir."

As the watchmen pried off the boards, Myria's feeling of dread ramped up with each one removed. Finally they stepped back from the opening.

The dark opening.

In her mind's eye, she began to see images from before, to again feel the coldness that had washed over her. I cannot do this. Why can I not do this? She imagined she could hear the slight whimpering sounds that Jessica had made as she knelt in that place. All the terrors of her first nights in the body were embodied in that doorway. It was a yawning pit before her feet, trying to draw her in and swallow her up.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and flinched. Turning to the commander, she realized that she was not remembering sounds Jessica had made, it was her throat making those noises of fear and distress.

Vimes face shown sympathy. "Lady LeJean, there is nothing left in there that can hurt you. Nothing in there that I will let hurt you."

Myria swallowed. "I cannot… I cannot enter that place alone."

"Wasn't expecting you to." He appraised the three other men with him. "Anyone comes near this building, give a yell. No one else comes near this doorway. Understood?"

"Yessir." Two immediately flanked the door and the third, armed with a crossbow, walked across the street to stand in a doorway.

Vimes nodded in satisfaction, before turning back to Myria and offering his arm. "Shall we?"

Protocol. The contrast here helped. They were entering a place of fear, but his manner and form was that of a gentleman escorting a lady into a ballroom. Falling on protocol made the fear manageable. Taking a deep breath, she looped her hand around his steady arm, and they walked up the steps and into the gloom.

Just inside the doorway, Vimes paused and let his eyes adjust to the reduced light. It was still afternoon, and there was enough sunlight filtering in through windows and the open doorway that, given a minute to acclimate, you could see fairly well. Provided you were not dumb enough to look directly at a window or the doorway.

Myria found herself trembling slightly, and willed her body, unsuccessfully, to stop. Vimes placed his hand over the one she gripped him with, and gave a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "I should have realized how hard this was going to be for you."

They stood there for a minute longer, Vimes waiting patiently for Myria to come to terms with being in that room again. She understood now, better than she could have before they had left, why Jessica should not and could not come with them. If she was affected this strongly, how would Jessica, who had truly suffered, have been impacted?

Focusing on someone else's worries and cares seemed to help drag her outside her own. "I believe I can move forward now." She took a step to illustrate this, removing her hand from Vimes arm.

Vimes took the opportunity to survey the room, his keen eyes taking in details. The inches of gray dust still present throughout the room, with clear footprints leading to and from the back of the room near another doorway. There, based on the reports he'd read, Jessica had been bound and that constable on loan from Bonk… Step-something, had found her. He stayed still, his copper instincts telling him that disturbing the dust further would not help matters.

Myria continued forward a few more steps, finally halting and pointing at a spot just in front of her. "Here," her voice was barely above a whisper. "I stood here, and I negotiated with the leader." Her voice shook. "But he was not to be trusted."

"No. Snakes was a real piece of work."

"He did not tell me his name."

"We found out from Jessica afterward." Vimes gave her a look. "You saved her life, you know. They let her hear their names, and both of you saw their faces. There was no way they were going to let you leave that building still breathing."

"I did not."

What the hells was that supposed to mean? And why was the room suddenly slightly chill. He shivered. "Lady LeJean?"

She hugged herself and shook her head slightly. "I am sorry. The memories are not pleasant." She surveyed the room again, trying to look at it analytically. "The one you call Snakes stood there," she pointed to a slightly mounded area of dust. "So the gold would have the highest concentration there as well."

Vimes noted that the spot where Snakes had… well died for lack of a better term, was almost four feet in front of where Myria had indicated she had stood. He also realized the watchman in his head was jumping up and down, ringing an alarm bell. Look at what you don't see! It kept yelling at him.

There was where Snakes had stood. Myria had stood there. Jessica in the back. Tracks leading to and from Jessica…

No tracks leading from where Myria had stood to the door, yet he could clearly see she was leaving footprints now.

What exactly are you, Lady Myria LeJean? He mused yet again.

"Yes. This is where it should be," startled him out of his thoughts. He looked at where Myria pointed.

"I don't see anything there."

"It was significantly heavier than the other elements, Sir Samuel. It would have settled more quickly, and likely spread across a wide area as well."

"Still, shouldn't I see something? Flecks of yellow?"

Myria spoke without thinking. "No. It would be individual atoms, Sir Samuel. No single particle would be large enough to see." She saw the surprise on his face. Vimes, for his part, watched her face slide from casual response, to realization of what she had just said, through horror, and then resignation. "I am afraid I have provided you information I should not have."

Vimes grunted. "Bit late for that, isn't it?"

"Yes. I believe that to be a correct statement." She turned back to assessing the floor, and spoke quietly without looking at him. "Sir Samuel, would you be terribly insulted if I requested to be alone?"

"Insulted? No. But I'm not sure I want to miss this."

"Surely you have already ascertained what is to occur?"

"I have a rough idea. But that's not the same as seeing it with my own eyes." Vimes saw Myria's shoulders sag slightly.

It was one thing for him to suspect, or even know. It was another for a human to see her perform the task at hand, to see what she was not. So be it. "Very well. If I had the right, I would ask you to withhold judgment on me. To have… mercy is perhaps not the right word. But I do not believe I have any justification for asking you to do so."

Vimes frowned. "That remains to be seen, LeJean."

Was it no longer 'Lady' LeJean? How soon before it was not even that? Stifling the ache in her chest, Myria closed her eyes, stretched out her hands, and withdrew into the darkness. There, she pictured the room as it was, and then, with glacial slowness, what she desired to it to be.

For several seconds, Vimes' eyes flicked from Myria, to the floor, and back repeatedly, wondering what the first noticeable change would be. At first nothing, then he thought he saw...

The dust… began to move. Imperceptibly at first, then swirling as if stirred by a gentle breeze that left it roiling a few inches off the floor. A light gray mist, insubstantial as fog[2], boiled and bubbled gently against the floor. It erased the previous footsteps that were the aftermath of the kidnapping, and also their own more freshly made ones. Vimes suppressed the urge to step backward. Not that he was squeamish about the remains of several dead men being deposited on his shoes; it was just the unreality of the whole thing that did something unpleasant to his nerves.

Then he realized something else. The dust was beginning to… layer, somehow. He could see differences in color, what seemed to be the fine-ness of it, separating out. He held still, afraid even the act of stepping forward or back would stir it back up and foul whatever LeJean was doing.

Myria saw none of this, but she began to feel the first inkling of pressure inside her head. At first it was a resistance in her thoughts, but as she pushed against it, striving to enforce her will, she felt it change to a true physical pressure. First the back of her skull experienced the sensation, then as she pressed on, it began to migrate around to meet in her forehead and settle behind her eyes.

"You're separating it out. How the hells are you doing that?"

Her response was strained, "With much suffering," she let out a small gasp before continuing, "Sir Samuel."

Gradually Vimes realized that he could see hints of gold in the nebulous clouds of layered dust. As he stood dumbfounded, it coalesced into tenuous streams, the suggestion of gold turning into its clear evidence. The streams began, in a spiral pattern, merging into tiny rivers.

It was like watching a tiny, golden galaxy being born before his eyes. Agataean astronomers would have watched in rapt fascination, waiting for tiny golden suns to blaze into existence at its center.

Slowly before Vimes' eyes, the whirling rivers of gold coalesced into a tight spiral, which further contracted to become an almost but not quite flat disc of rotating particles of gold.

Until, with a cry, Myria pitched forward and fell to her knees, her hands pressed against her temples as if trying to hold her head together. She tried opening her eyes, to see if she had succeeded, but the attempt brought a red-hot shaft of pain.

Vimes managed to tear himself away from the sight of the small, quickly spinning disc of gold with a slight bulge at the center, gradually slowing its rotation in a small clear spot on the floor. He stirred the recently layered dust into whorls and funnels as he went to Myria and bent down in concern.

"Do you need a physicker?"

"No." She gasped again, and felt suddenly nauseous. It was like when she had 'thrown up' the previous day. She gulped air, and tried again. "I… it hurts but I do not believe I am physically injured."

Vimes brow furrowed. "Are you sure? I could call Doctor Lawn and-"

She tried to shake her head, and stopped before making that mistake. "Sir Samuel," she whispered so that he had to lean closer to hear her, "how would I explain this to a physicker?"

"Not the first clue."

She stayed kneeling, gradually feeling the throbbing decrease and her stomach settle. "The pain is becoming less. I believe I may be able to stand, with some assistance."

Vimes helped her to her feet, where she swayed slightly, eyes unfocused.

Still holding her by one arm to help steady her, Vimes asked quietly, "What are you, LeJean?"

He felt Myria flinch. "I am… unique Sir Samuel," she murmured. "Is that sufficient answer?"

Vimes pursed his lips. That was no explanation. Do I want to press for more now? The gold again caught his eye. First things first. Vimes leaned down, and hesitating as if it would bite him, picked up the now stilled disc.

Myria watched at him uncertainly. What will he do? Will he arrest me? Keep the gold?

What manner of man are you, Sir Samuel?

Keeping his eyes focused on Myria, Vimes deliberately slipped the disc of gold into an inside pocket, and she sagged.

So. It was all for nothing. She could have wept in frustration, if her head didn't hurt so much.

[1] Being around Myria, she was learning to perfect that sigh. The practice would be very useful when she had teenage kids.

[2] This is a bit of artistic license. Anyone who has been through a serious Ankh-Morpork fog will tell you it is anything but insubstantial. When it got really thick, they tended to use Detritus as a fog-plow to ease the way.

[A/N this chapter revised 2/14/13 to fix a few plot problems and expand a few scenes]