(Author's Note: Whee-hee! Didn't think I could do it, huh? Get two chapters out in a row like that! Well I did it, and this is a damn long 'un, too. And I think it's one of the best chapters so far. A lot will be covered, and someone dies. It's pretty damn dark and bloody too, so if you're of weak constitution, you've been warned. Anyhoo, read and review! Yay!)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN—Defining Moment
Lyra couldn't sleep.
All night she had sat up, awake, in her dormitory bed, staring out the window at the dark school ground. She didn't usually have trouble like this, but for some reason sleep was eluding her altogether. Maybe it was because of the fact that midsummer's day was a mere three sunrises away and that she had been thinking even more about Will than usual. Or maybe it was because exams were soon, and she hadn't been studying much lately. Or perhaps it was because of the fact that she was beginning to learn more and more with the alethiometer every day, and spent more time on improving her sketchy skills than studying.
Most likely, however, it was an undefined combination of all three, although mostly it had to be because in just a few days, it would be her and Will's two-year anniversary of being apart. School was letting out soon, right after exams, and of course she'd be right there on the bench in the botanical garden of Oxford at noon on midsummer's day. In fact, she wouldn't miss it for the world.
Not much had happened to Lyra in the nearly two years that she and Will had been apart. She had simply gone to school, had been compliant, for the most part forgetting her once wild ways. Being quiet and studious, she had done quite well in school and had devoted a large portion of her time to studying the alethiometer. She wanted more than anything to learn to use it with ease once more. She wanted so badly to ask it how Will was doing, and to keep up with him daily. She had ventured to ask it once, and it had replied…but she had been unable to read it very well and had been worried ever since.
"Lyra? What's the matter?"
Pantalaimon flowed over her bed like red-gold liquid fur and leapt lightly upon her shoulder, nuzzling the ear of her human. "Nothing, Pan. Nothing, and everything."
She gazed out of the window into the dark, star-studded sky. It was nearly morning already; she couldn't believe it. She hadn't slept a wink, having been going through her alethiometer book all night. Her eyes were heavy and red-rimmed, but sleep still evaded her like smoke on the wind. She had to learn how to use it again. As mysterious and haunting as the feeling seemed, she almost knew that something was wrong. She had to figure out what it was, or it'd drive her insane.
"You need to get some sleep."
Sitting on the edge of her bed, Lyra glanced over her shoulder at the rowed beds against the wall beside her own, each with its own sleeping girl and her dæmon. Lyra shared her dormitory with several other girls; she was a friend to all of them but close friends with none. She hadn't been complete ever since parting with her Will. She knew that she'd have to move on, and every once in a while she'd go a whole day without thinking about him, but every night his face danced in her memories, and the reminiscent feeling of his touch tingled her hands, and a deep, painful nostalgia filled her soul.
She sighed heavily and fiddled absent-mindedly with the black velvet bag that housed her alethiometer. She pulled it out and stared at the face in the dim grey light, thinking about asking it once more of Will, but afraid to for the answer she knew she'd not be able to decipher. Pantalaimon placed his small golden paws on her arm, whispering, "Lyra, this is getting ridiculous. It's almost morning…"
Lyra shrugged. "Doesn't matter. We don't have classes tomorrow; it's Sunday."
Pantalaimon saw that Lyra obviously didn't realize how much her own dæmon needed rest, and he was getting slightly miffed. "Lyra, please. You seriously need to put forth effort to moving on. It hurts me to see you like this…"
Lyra turned to stare at her beloved dæmon in the semi darkness. "You miss Kirjava, don't you?"
"Lyra, you know that I do. But that doesn't matter…regardless of how well they're doing, or how well they're not, you can't see Will again, and I cannot see Kir. That's the way it is. We promised each other that we'd move on. It's been almost two years now, Lyra."
She ignored him, slowly withdrawing the heavy golden instrument from its bag and turned it over and over in her hands, staring at the dim reflection that flickered back at her. A thin pale face, dominated by intense blue bespectacled eyes and framed by soft golden hair. She briefly reflected upon the fact that hadn't changed a whole lot in the last few years, other than getting a bit taller and acquiring her glasses. As soon as Lyra thought this, glumly, Pan felt her thoughts and replied, "That isn't true, Lyra. You might not have noticed it, but I have, and you've changed more than you know."
Lyra looked away. She knew what was coming.
"That look of mischievous curiosity that once defined you as you is almost entirely gone, Lyra. The quirkiness and spontaneity that I loved so much in you is fading…you're giving up, aren't you? Fading."
Lyra frowned and continued looking away, refusing to meet her dæmon's eyes. "I'm your soul, Lyra…" Pan continued, "And I feel like slowly but surely, you're losing touch with me."
She turned on him now, her blue eyes ablaze with indignation. "That's preposterous! You're all I have left, silly. We're no more apart than we ever have been." Lyra could see that her perpetual pain was hurting him, too, and that he thought part of her pain was his fault. "Pantalaimon, don't be ridiculous. I almost feel like part of me is missing, though. I loved him, Pan. Ever since that moment when he touched you and I touched Kirjava, I knew that I'd never feel the same about anyone…"
Pan softened at these words and curled up around her neck, trying her beading tears with his soft flank. "I know exactly what you mean. But listen to me, Lyra. You're missing out on life because of this. We've been through so much for such a young age, you know. Lighten up and enjoy life; it's what we're here for."
Lyra nodded slowly. "You're right, Pan. It's just so hard…I worry about him all the time…it's like he's part of my soul, too…like a second dæmon that was separated from me forever and will never be reunited with me." For a moment Lyra felt that Pan would be extremely miffed by these words, but he said nothing.
"If I could just see him once more…"
Pantalaimon blinked in the darkness, and said, "If you aren't sleepy, what are you going to do?"
Lyra held her head in both hands. "I dunno, Pan. I want to get out of here…just get out…"
Pan nuzzled her hand. "Then let's get out. It's been ages since we were outside at night…we can be back by dawn, can't we?" There was a hint of excitement in his voice. He wanted so badly to have a bit of the old Lyra back. She noticed his eagerness and smiled wanly. "Alright, Pan. Let's go play on the rooftops again, shall we? Just like old times."
*
Just several kilometers away, and yet an entire world apart, Mary Malone and Iris stood outside the window that had been torn through the worlds.
Mary couldn't believe what had just happened. It was ridiculous. Preposterous. She had just created a window through the worlds using materials she had found lying around her lab, together with her computer programs…and that equation. It was a physicist's dream. She couldn't wait to meet Tobias…if he was still alive, that is. He had to be brilliant to come up that, and in such a small amount of time, as well. It was incredible.
"Mary? Are you coming?"
The physicist briefly snapped out of her reverie and nodded to Iris. "Yeah, just a moment…I'm thinking…"
Mary was torn; she wanted more than anything to venture through to Lyra's world (if that was, indeed, what it was) and to find her as soon as possible, but also she wanted to analyze this machine, and this equation especially, even more. She wanted to figure out exactly what it was, and what it did.
As for the machine, it wasn't much at all, really. It consisted of an incredibly powerful electromagnetic device and a mass of virtually indefinable wires, connected via USB to her processor. The electromagnetic had been so incredibly and inadvertently powerful that it had created a prodigious gravitational force and a vast magnetic field that had somehow (she wasn't yet sure how…) contained the massive gravity. All she knew was that somehow, inexplicably, this arrangement had been so powerful that it had created a sort of 'wormhole', a rip in the very fabric of space. But it was much more complicated than that—it wasn't like a black hole at all, but rather like a simple passage—and as a hole ripped open by the Forthsight worked, there was no space between the edges for Dust to escape and for Specters to materialize. Mary knew that the way it worked had something to do with the radiation emission, though—she figured they were X-rays but had no way of measuring it at the moment—but she was totally baffled over the apparent gravity issue. In fact, she was baffled over quite a bit of it. It all worked perfectly, and she had no idea how, but it had worked, and there, hanging like a jagged wound in the fabric of space before her, was the proof.
Mary was completely lost in thought. Her mind drifted to dozens of possible explanations for this phenomenon, each more crazy than the last. Had it something to do with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle? Wave mechanics were most certainly involved in this somehow; there was no other explanation. Perhaps the machine had somehow, inexplicably, created a scenario where the outcome of a random, 50/50 chance event was completely arbitrary until an observer analyzed the situation, and here she was, with Iris, two observers analyzing the situation and therefore forcing an outcome, breaking down the wave function by observing. Had it something to do with infinities? Singularities? Quantum indeterminacy?
Or was this a phenomenon that could better be explained by the principles of relativity? She pondered another moment, briefly coming up with some nonsense about spherical systems and observational coordinates before the logic side of her brain nixed that, and she reached another conclusion. She knew that because of the vast gravitational force involved, it had to have relativistic implicated laws involved somehow, and yet because of the fact that wave functions and Planck's constant were obviously involved in Tobias's equations, it had to side with quantum mechanics, as well. But…but…that was impossible…
Mary's blood ran cold at the thought. Could it be? Could this little fifteen-year-old boy have come up with the principle of an equation that could lead to the unification of physics? It had to be possible! Mary didn't think that she'd see it in her lifetime, but this was startling evidence, and at the moment, anyway, there was no other explanation. Was the superstring theory correct? She paused in her thoughts. Did this even have anything to do with string theory? Quantum gravity?
Mary's brain clicked. Of course! A twisted form of string theory indeed, but string theory nonetheless. Dimensions wrapped within other dimensions…dozens, hundreds, millions of them? Impossible to tell. Calabi-Yau units…everything all wrapped up inside of everything else…twisted space-time…quantum gravity…infinities…singularities…
Ugh. Mary's brain suddenly began to ache, and her thoughts turned to another mystery of the whole situation.
The weirdest thing of all was that she had no idea what had compelled her to take these particular materials, as well as how to put them together, for she had practically no idea what she was doing. Her mind had been completely elsewhere, still analyzing that mysterious, brilliant equation. She had neither the time nor the knowledge to collect the materials needed. So how had she done it? What had made her do what she did?
"Mary? We don't have time! You can figure this all out when we get back…but right now, we have to find this Lyra you speak of! Tobias and Will may be in grave danger!" Iris stood right next to the window, about to go through, apprehension in her eyes.
The physicist snapped out of once again, saying, "I'm sorry; I was totally lost in thought. I'm coming; let me just set up the machine to hide the window until we return in case anyone stops by."
How had she known? What had caused her to choose exactly the right materials out of all the thousands of electrical thingies in her lab? …Suddenly, she knew.
She smiled quietly to herself and whispered, "Thanks, Tobias," into the air before following Iris into Lyra's world.
*
Tobias, at the moment, was in need of far more than thanks. He was completely paralyzed, nearly dead, totally unconscious, and dreaming like never before. The flashbacks were haunting him worse than ever, this time of the day that he had escaped from Dunestone…something he had wanted to block from his mind forever, and yet was obviously determined to never let him forget.
*
"Dad! No!"
It was too late, of course. Tobias couldn't even look this time. Blood and tears streaked his face, and he couldn't even stand to witness the shadow dancing on the cell wall of his father arching his back in pain as the bullet was fired with an ear-splitting crack. Blood splattered the wall. His father screamed in agony like nothing ever fit for human ears.
They had stopped dragging the prisoners to the execution room long ago, becoming far too lax and lazy for that. Instead, they'd march to each cell with their rifles and pump them full of lead before the pleading eyes of their own families, and then force them to drag their loved one's body to the incinerator.
Tobias crawled into as small of a ball as his chains would allow, nestling into the blood-soaked straw. Aerotsierma, shaking and bloody as well, pressed her small warm body against his as hard as she could. Tobias's father gurgled once and then laid still. His son watched his flickering shadow on the wall, sobbing soundlessly, and yet nonetheless listening to his father's last words inside his head.
"Tobias…my son…it wasn't your fault…please find a way to get out alive…avenge your mother…and your sister…kill Dune…"
"Daddy, no! Don't die! Please! I'll not be able to get out alive…I'd be the last one…please, take me with you, let me die too…"
"No! You won't die, my son. I have faith in you. Use the power of your Forthsight…you can do it…escape, find the window, build an army. The key is in the fastness, my son. The fastness!"
Then he died.
"No!" Tobias screamed and snarled like a rabid beast, straining at his chains as his father's dog dæmon began to slowly dematerialize and float away like dandelion seeds on a breeze. Breyman kicked his father's carcass and smiled maliciously at the young boy as his two henchmen jumped up to subdue him. The head sniper brought his face close to Tobias's, breathing rancid breath at the boy as he rasped, "I'd kill you myself, you little fuck, but since you're the last one left, Dune wants to have a little fun wit yer before he lets ya go."
Quick as a flash, Breyman snapped his key out and unlocked Tobias's shackles, dragging him along the stony, dimly lit hallway, his mighty black wolf carefully carrying Aerotsierma's desperately struggling form by the nape of her neck. Tobias screamed, kicked, bit, punched and wept all the way to Dune's chamber. Breyman paused here, knocked upon the thick metal door once, and stood to attention.
A quick, metallic voice echoed from within. "Bring him in!"
Breyman pulled the heavy door open and kicked Tobias's limp form to the floor within the room. His wolf dæmon threw Aerotsierma in after him; she landed on the back of his prostrate form. The Sniper stood to attention for a moment before scuttling off to the Tyrant's shout of, "Dismissed!"
The door slammed behind him.
Tobias, scratched, bruised and bloody from his struggling, labored to his knees and looked around him. The chamber was pitch black save for three wall torches, which dimly flickered a dusty orange glare against the almost overwhelming darkness. The room was terribly cold and dank, and Tobias could've sworn that he heard spiders scuttling in the corners. Other than that, the only sound within the room was a low, raspy breathing coming from the corner.
"Tobias Bergen."
The young boy whimpered in pain and fear.
A shuffling sound reached his ears, and slowly but surely, he heard the Tyrant coming closer. His voice, sounding harsh, grating and commanding from the outside, now sounded sinuous, low and breathy.
"You've never looked upon my face, have you, boy?"
Tobias shook his head. His whole body was quaking terribly.
The closer the Tyrant came, the more inhuman he sounded. His voice was like that of a snake…a twisted, hissing whisper. Like silk sliding over steel.
"Do you know why it is that I've destroyed all of your kind?"
Tobias was too frightened to answer. He had no need to, for the Tyrant continued talking in his low, hissing murmur. "Your kind made me like this. I don't sound human, do I? Foolish child; I'm not human at all."
Tobias flinched. The closer Dune came, the more he felt like a dark, cold shadow was enveloping his soul. He unconsciously tried to move away, but he found that he couldn't. The Tyrant's head had ventured just enough into the dim, flickering light that Tobias could see his eyes…almond shaped and the color of liquid mercury, dancing with a million highlights, russet and gold and fire and ice. Dune's eyes locked with the young boy's, and Tobias felt like he had been paralyzed. He couldn't make himself move even if he focused all his attention on doing so.
"I was attacked when I was very young. By your kind…your thieving, conniving, blood lusting brethren. They laughed at me. Tortured me. I wanted revenge more than anything. It was your kind that made me wry, Bergen. It was them that killed my soul."
Tobias then realized why it was that he felt like a cold shadow was enveloping his very soul as the Tyrant approached. Sidney Dune had no dæmon.
Suddenly, the inhuman beast lurched forward, grabbing Tobias's shoulders in a fierce, terrible grasp. Tobias screamed in pain as wicked, serrated reptilian claws pierced his flesh. He writhed and struggled, but nothing could free him of that horrendous grip. Aerotsierma barked and snarled, but dare not touch this soulless beast.
Startlingly powerful, the Tyrant threw the young boy into the wall; his head cracked against it with a sickening thud. The sinuous, snakelike voice of Dune hissed in victory. "You wonder why I'm so powerful, little boy? I may not have a soul, but I've become one with my own Death. He has made me strong, and now, I shall never die." He reared up to his full height, and Tobias could have sworn that his shadow had a shadow of its own.
Tobias wiped blood from his face and tried to stand, but he was too woozy from the injury and staggered painfully. He saw the dark form of his tormentor approaching him, but could still see no more than his terrible, terrible eyes. "I want to hurt you more than anything. No pleasure I shall derive in your death, little boy. I want to have your pain immortalized like mine was."
"Tobias!" Aerotsierma howled in fright as a scaly, clawed hand whipped out at her. She leapt onto her human's shoulders, but not quickly enough. Dune lurched forward, his all-consuming shadow causing Tobias to falter. The Tyrant snatched the fox dæmon by her tail and in one swift, powerful movement had her pinned against the wall, one three-fingered scaled claw pushing harder and harder at her heaving chest. Tobias doubled over in pain, but it wasn't just pain, either…it was the indescribably sickening feeling of a soulless being touching his very soul.
Still pinning Aero against the dark stone wall, he brought his other claw forward in fierce, gleaming metallic arc, plunging the serrated daggers into the flesh of Tobias's dæmon. The boy gave an unholy wail, clutching at his breast, and Aerotsierma was too horrified and violated to make a sound. The Tyrant laughed a wicked, hissing laugh and withdrew his metallic claws. They gleamed bright red in the flickering light.
Again and again he brought forth those claws, plunging them deeper and deeper each time, extricating a noise from Tobias each time that sounded like an animal dying. Aerotsierma's once beautiful, soft body was dripping and encrusted with blood, her pointed ears tattered, her white-tipped brush tail streaked with crimson.
And still the Tyrant plunged those claws. Deeper and deeper, twisting them around in intricate patterns, groping through her very flesh and veins.
Tobias was literally in hysterics. As all children, he and his dæmon had tried long ago to see how far they could separate without causing pain, always to reunite happily with a rush of joy within. Now, however, the hint of pain felt then was magnified an infinite number of times, as a soulless being was not only touching his soul, which would have been bad enough on its own, but was ravaging it as well. Destroying it.
What would happen if a dæmon died before a human? Would the human flicker and dematerialize at death? Tobias wasn't going to find out. The pain, rage and grief rose to indescribable levels within him until it exploded. "No! I'll kill you!"
Tobias knew that this was it. This was the defining moment of all the anger and hate caused within him during his entire life.
Tobias's Forthsight powers exploded within his mind, causing bones to shatter inside the Tyrant's body. (Tobias, at the time, didn't know of his gift yet; he didn't know he was The One.) Dune's cries shattered the dim, flickering chamber, and he reeled back, dropping Aerotsierma in a bloody heap on the stone floor. But Tobias wasn't finished. He flung himself at the strange soulless beast, pummeling him with his fists, shattering him with his mind. Then he turned, streaked with blood and tears, and hobbled to Aerotsierma. He carefully picked her up, and then lurched at the door. The lock burst in his hand; he swung the door open and fled.
The sinuous hissing sounds from the Tyrant quite suddenly turned to piercing, dirge-like shrieks. "Breyman! Stop him! Stop him!"
The eerie cries reverberated inside the narrow chambers of Dunestone, as well as within Tobias's fevered mind as he ran blindly down the corridors, a half-dozen armed men on his heels.
*
Will awoke in a cold sweat. The dream had been in his head, as well.
*
It was warm and sunny when Breyman came to a halt that evening. Unaware that he was being followed, he took his time, whistling as he injected Tobias with a serum that would keep him alive until further notice, in a sort of coma. He then carelessly flung the limp form of the young boy near a tree and went about starting a small fire to take warmth by while rifling through his back for evening victuals. He was almost home to Dunestone, so he had naught to worry about.
It was then that Will struck like a thunderbolt.
The branch hit Breyman before he knew what was going on. Dazed and throbbing, he fell to his knees, blindly groping for his sniper rifle, but it was out of reach. He looked up, blinking in pain, to see a tall, grim-jawed, stone-eyed boy staring back at him, tears on his face.
"How could you and your kind do that to him? How? What sort of vile piece of shit would do that to another human being?"
He gave no time for the Sniper to respond. Whack! Whump! Crack! The heavy hornbeam branch fell again and again, each blow harder than the last, to the Breyman's skull. The lead Sniper's black wolf dæmon leapt up, snarling, only to be met in midair by a thick branch. The hornbeam connected solidly with her jaw, throwing her to the ground.
Fueled by grief and rage, Will fought with all he was worth. Eventually Breyman regained his orientation and leapt up at Will, brandishing a long, wicked dagger that he had drawn from within his trench coat. He skillfully thrust it at Will, but it was blocked by his makeshift stave. Thrust, parry, thrust thrust thrust, parry parry, the two highly adept combatants whirled around in a lethal dance of death, Will taking defense more than anything, having no real weapon, but Breyman's blade never tasting blood.
Finally, however, the Sniper's battle-hardened muscles propelled him upward at an advantageous angle and pinned Will against a tree. He ducked swiftly at the dagger blow, however, and jammed both feet hard into Breyman's knees. The Sniper went down with an "Ooomph!" but was up again in seconds, spinning in a perfect arc, disarming Will entirely. The hornbeam stave flew several feet and stood quivering upright in the loam, fully out of Will's reach.
Breyman grinned his characteristic wicked grin and positioned the long knife at Will's heart, clutching the hilt with both hands. But the Sniper had underestimated the grief and fury that the young boy was fueled by; Will spat in his face and grasped Breyman's clasped fists in a vision-defying swift movement. His grip was as tight as death, and slowly but surely he turned Breyman's hands until the dagger was pointed at his own heart.
Breyman's look of triumph vanished when he found that he could not break Will's grip regardless of what he did, and changed to a look of pleading submission. The Sniper had realized that the unthinkable had happened: he had lost. Bargaining was his only way out now. "I'm sorry, don't kill me, you can take him, have it all, take—Uugghhh."
But the young boy was not to be bargained with.
Will stepped back, allowing Breyman's body to fall forward and away from him. He tugged the dagger, which had been submerged up to its hilt, from the former Sniper's heart and wiped it contemptuously on his mangled black trench coat. He gave the body a final kick and stepped over it, quickly moving toward Tobias's prone form as the black wolf dæmon, in a mid-air leap at Kirjava, vanished and was carried away like smoke on the wind.
As Will bent to tend to his comatose friend, he was unaware that we was less than a league from Dunestone itself, and that a squad of a score of snipers was already on its way.
---
(Author's Note: Whew, that was long! Gah, it's almost one a.m. now. I'm off to bed. Hope you enjoyed that sucker; don't forget to review!)
