(Author's Note: Sorry, once again, that this has taken me so long. I have a serious disorder, though. I think it's a disease. It's called "Terribly Incurable Laziness" (TIL) and I have a massive case of it, and for that I apologize. Anyway...this chapter is very...very...strange. And slightly disturbing. Yeah, it's pretty screwed up, but I wrote it at five thirty in the morning on no sleep, okay?! Oh, if it really sucks THAT bad let me know, and I will take it down and fix it, okay? Anyway...erm...enjoy. Or try to, anyway. Or lie in your review and pretend to have. Thankies! ^_^)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN--Taste Insanity
When Will stood up, he was immediately overwhelmed by a dizzy, sick feeling that spread upward through his body like a disease, finding refuge as a dull, throbbing beat in his brain. He had killed a man, and it wasn't his first time. He hadn't gotten used to the feeling.
He was tired from the fight, having eaten very little and having run quite a bit. Spots danced before his eyes and the blood rushed to his head. He stared at his hands, covered in Breyman's blood, as if totally confused and perplexed. He had death on his hands, and although he knew that he had saved his friend's life, it wasn't a good feeling. He wiped his blood on Breyman's trench coat and shuddered fitfully. After pushing his sweaty hair from his face and taking one last grim look at the dead body of the Sniper, he turned toward the limp, seemingly comatose figure of Tobias Bergen, crumpled carelessly on a bed of pine needles beneath a conifer.
Will did not know what to do. Regardless of any efforts he put forth, he could not get Tobias to do so much as flicker an eyelid. He could feel his pulse, could hear his shallow breathing--and even more comforting, could see his fox daemon, curled in a tight red ball at his shoulder--but had no idea how to get the boy to awaken.
Panic rose within Will. He knew that Breyman had done something to him, and carelessly--stupidly--Will had killed him before he knew what to do. Hopeless frustration pushed aside the panic. He was many miles from the window, now--how could he hope to drag Tobias all that way before he was found by others of the Sniper's kind? He could never carry him--though Tobias was slim, he probably weighed at least as much as Will did.
Finally Will forced himself to push aside his lingering thoughts of death and desperation, allowing the more rational side of his brain to take control. Breyman had had a rations pack--perhaps there was something that could revive Tobias in there.
There wasn't much at all in the pack--only a single empty syringe and enough victuals, perhaps, to last the man another day or so, which told Will, to his anxiety, that they must be very close to Breyman's intended destination. However, there was nothing of seeming use in Breyman's bag other than the food. Will turned and cast an eye toward the prone, motionless form of the man. Perhaps there was something in his pockets that could be used.
Will shrugged the black trench coat from the dead man and proceeded to search the rather voluminous pockets. Jackpot--the first one he searched contained a tiny vial of a murky-looking amber liquid. It was, however, unmarked.
The young boy found himself in quite a dilemma--this mystery serum was the only thing that he could find, and yet it might be terribly fatal, for all he knew. Kirjava, sensing the terrible doubt in his mind, nuzzled her human and said, "I wouldn't, Will. What if it kills him? We have no idea what's in that concoction."
Will furrowed his brow, gazing at the empty syringe, then at the amber fluid. "I don't know, Kirjava..." The black cat's head suddenly snapped up, her ears swiveling like tiny satellite dishes. "What's the matter, Kir?" Will inquired softly, listening intently.
"I'm not sure...I hear something, carried on the breeze."
Will's gaze was drawn inexorably up the mighty hill at which he was at the foot of. To his ultimate and abject horror, there stood a man, at the summit of the rise, shading his eyes against the sun and wearing the same uniform as Breyman had been.
Fear and loathing rose within Will, and he drew the syringe forth with a single, quick movement. "Will!" He suddenly found a silky black paw on his wrist, but shrugged it off. "I have to, Kir. It's our only hope."
His daemon saw the man, now, too. She flattened her ears against her head and said, "Will, if it kills him..." But her human shook his head. "It won't. Why else would he have only been carrying this one serum if it weren't to counteract the sleeping one? He didn't intend for Tobias to be in a coma forever, did he?"
Will withdrew the vial of amber fluid, and plunged the syringe into the top of it, drawing a full dosage. "I have to make a decision, Kir; there isn't much time. If I'm wrong, he would die anyway, so it's worth a shot, right? My heart says one thing, my mind says another--I'm just going to ignore them both and go with my instinct, this time."
For a moment Will thought that his daemon would disagree with him to the point of causing him bodily harm to get him to come to his senses, but to his surprise, Kirjava closed her eyes and nodded, placing both paws on his arm. "I stand by your decision, Will." And that was all she would say.
---
At the top of the hill, Second-In-Command Sniper Westing caught sight of the trio at the foot. He shaded his eyes against the evening sun and smiled to himself. He could see a promotion on the horizon. Especially since Breyman, from his vantage point, at least, appeared to be dead. His daemon, an incredibly scrawny-looking leopard, purred deeply in the back of her throat, and Westing scratched her ears. "Look, my precious--fresh meat." The daemon licked her lips in delight at the prospect, and murmured, "Shall we fetch the others, or take this one for ourselves?" Westing smirked and unshouldered his gun. "Come on now, Perrith, you know me better than that."
Light as a shadow and slithery as a snake, Westing and his daemon prowled their way to the foot of the hill.
---
Will leaned over Tobias's head, closed his eyes, and emptied the serum into his neck without another thought. He quickly withdrew it and cast it away, then anxiously watched his friend, hoping for positive results. Tobias did not stir.
Kirjava's head snapped up once more, and she murmured, "Will...the man at the top of the hill is gone." Will knew that from the sound of the words, he should have been glad--but for some inexplicable reason, dread rose again within his soul. He looked around him, far more paranoid than what was classic Will, noticing the ever-increasing darkness and lengthening shadows on the hills. The sky was a faint russet-pinkish color, characterized by streaks of amber and gold where the sunlight had receded. In the sparse forestry regions that populated the hilly landscape, darkness was deepening in the trees and the wind was rustling through the pine needles--or was it only the wind? Twilight was approaching, and an ominous sense of foreboding enveloped Will's mind, causing him to shudder internally.
"Kirjava--stay close," he murmured. She needed no second bidding.
Feeling a cold breeze ruffle his dark hair, Will turned back to the prostrate form of his friend. He was still unmoving, looking as still as death. He hardly even appeared to be breathing, now, and Will would have almost thought that he was indeed dead, if it wasn't for Aerotsierma, of course. Will stared at him, having no idea of what to do, his usually resolute facade replaced by a look of pleading hope.
Finally, to his mixed surprise and joy, Tobias stirred: he jerked almost unnaturally, twitching frantically. Finally he began coughing, harder and harder until blood splattered the grass before him. Will helped him upright to a sitting position, then steadied him as he finished coughing and began shivering violently. At last his eyes opened and he stared up at his temporary savior. His daemon uncurled and flowed onto to her human's lap, pressing herself as close to Tobias as a daemon could possibly get.
"Will..." he rasped painfully. "Am I...am I alive?"
Will was flooded with hope and relief. "Yes, Tobias, you're alive. You're safe, too, at least for the time being--Breyman is dead."
Will noticed the way that Tobias's head had been bandaged rather well, and was blood-soaked nonetheless. It took him a moment, with the terror and anxiety of the day distorting his short-term memory, to remember why--he had been shot in the head by Breyman's gun. Will felt a momentary spasm of nausea rising in him once more, but he quickly suppressed it and put it behind him. At least he was alive.
"Breyman? He's...he's dead? How? What happened? And how'd I get here? What's going on?"
For some reason, Will found himself reluctant to tell his friend what had happened, but he made himself tell him anyway. "Breyman shot you; I'm not sure if you remember or not, but that's what happened. You almost died--I'm sure of it, because we saw your daemon flickering--but you didn't; Breyman injected you with this stuff, apparently, that kept you alive and put you in a sort of coma. He took you through the worlds, all this way, and I followed him, determined to help you. When you had...that...that dream, the one about...Dune, trying to kill you...it filled me with such passionate rage that it allowed me the energy to catch up with Breyman and kill him."
Tobias closed his eyes. "Wow. You...you killed him? All by yourself?" Will, red-eyed and immensely tired, merely nodded. Tobias opened his eyes and smiled wryly. "Damn...that...that must've been some fight." Will shuddered, not responding.
At last he stood. "We have to get moving. Something's just over that hill, I know it, and I don't like it. We have a long way to go, so we best get started." Tobias nodded and got shakily to his feet. As soon as he did so, he stumbled awkwardly and fell, like a newborn colt just learning to walk. He lay in the grass for a moment, and then began giggling helplessly, unmoving. Will glared at him. "What the hell is the matter with you?"
Tobias rolled over, still smiling. "Nothing. This is just...so stupid. I can't believe the shit we're in." Will blinked. "What are you talking about?" Tobias crossed his arms behind his head. "Will, my friend, I really hate to disappoint you, and I hate to have made you come all this way to kill Breyman and rescue me, but I'm doomed; you know that, right? I can feel an evil mind not a hundred yards away. His name is Brian Westing and he has a leopard daemon; he's second in command to Breyman and he's hoping for a promotion when he brings me back to Sidney Dune."
Will stared wide-eyed at his friend. "Get up, damn you! We might be able to make it if we run!" Tobias, still lying in the grass, laughed once more. "You run for it, Will. You're fit. I have a hole in my head the size of a nickel and delayed reaction sensors in every nerve in my body. I can hardly stand, m'boy. I won't make it, nor do I wish to."
Raging frustration and frustrating rage spread through Will like wildfire. "What are you ON?! You can't...you can't DO this! I came all this way to help you, now I'll be damned if you're going to just lay down and die!"
Tobias shrugged. "Be damned, then."
Will flung himself to the ground and shook him by the shoulders violently, screaming into his face, "You were destined to save your world! You're the last remaining thing standing between your mortal enemy and the conquer of your world! I want to help you, but I can't help you if you won't help yourself!"
Quick as flash, the ironic humor fled from Tobias's eyes to be replaced by irrational indignance. "You don't want to help me. You just want to see your little friend that was left behind in another world."
Tobias could see how his insult stung Will, and almost regretted saying. But it didn't matter, anyway. Tobias was tired of the crap. He shouldn't have to put up with everything that was happening to him. Be easier, he decided, to just let the enemy take him. Will's eyes blazed down at Tobias, and he gritted through his teeth, "That isn't true." He remembered his conversation with Kirjava, and he KNEW it wasn't true, but there was no way to convince Tobias of that. Except that he knew that Tobias could see into his mind. Hadn't he promised not to look, though? Or was that just another cheap trick?
Will sat down on the grass next to the prone Tobias. "What the hell are you doing, Will? You can still run for it, you know." Will's voice betrayed his anger. "If you're not going to get your sorry ass up and come with me, then you're going to have to contend with the fact that I, too, am going to sit here like an ignoramus until the Sniper comes and kills us both."
Tobias propped himself up on one elbow. The grass was deliciously cool and he didn't want to leave it. "Don't do this, Will. You're throwing your life away by doing that."
Will's eyes blazed again at his friend. "Not much different from what you're doing, huh?" Tobias smirked. "This is different. You're a good person, and you've got someone waiting for you back at home who loves you. I have no one, and I deserve to die."
Will felt an uncharacteristic wave of pity flow through him, but he shook the emotion away and retorted, "Since nothing that you have done you did willingly or purposely, there's no way that you even come close to deserving to die. Now if you can do "anything" with that mind of yours, then I daresay you'll find a way to get us out of whatever trouble is coming to find us, won't you?" Tobias's head lolled back, grinning, and Will was certain that he saw a spark of insanity in the chosen one's eyes. "I'm far too tired, Will. Have you any idea how much blood I lost? There's no hope for me, now. None at all. That's why you have to run for it. Either way, I'm...I'm done for."
Will shook his head and whispered, "No. I won't let you die."
Tobias smiled at him. "There's nothing you can do." Will's eyes blazed anew. "We can take this guy. He's just one guy."
Tobias closed his eyes, laying his bloody head back in the grass. "Yeah, and he'll appear to your left in about thirty seconds."
Will backed up frightfully, looking around him. He leapt over to Breyman's body and snatched up the dagger that he had killed the Sniper with. It was no Subtle Knife, but it would have to do. Several seconds later, Sniper Westing burst out of the forest, grinning wickedly and in the process of lifting his gun. Westing was a quite a bit different, both in appearance and demeanor, than his predecessing Sniper had been: while Breyman was large and powerful, strong and cunning, Westing was all guile, all insidious, slithering, conniving snakery--like a weasel. And yet, he had that same look of conquest that Breyman had possessed--wicked, evil, grinning cruelty.
Will's muscles were already coiled like a spring, and although he was deeply tired, he was not willing to go down without a fight. He knew that he didn't have that much of a chance, but by God, he would sell his life dearly.
He lunged at Westing, tucking into a roll just as the Sniper fired. The shot grazed Will's skull, not penetrating but drawing a long, thin line of blood through his dark hair. Will gasped at the stinging pain of it but made no other sound. His lunge having taken him at Westing's feet, he rolled over quickly and jabbed blindly up with the dagger. But Westing was quick, and Will's dagger found nothing but air.
Kirjava, meanwhile, was far quicker than the scrawny leopard, and what she lacked in power, she more than made up for in agility. The Sniper's daemon couldn't touch her.
Will, satisfied that his daemon would be safe, focused his attention on his adversary. The young boy was on his back, and found himself unable to get up in time before Westing had leapt into the air, both feet driving toward Will's chest. But the boy was quick; he rolled to the right and swung the dagger in a powerful arc, catching the Sniper in the calf. He howled in pain, and, by reflex more than anything, jabbed the barrel of his rifle into the side of Will's head.
Stars danced before Will's eyes, but he kept his cry of pain within his own head, where it reverberated and increased the blinding lacerations, if anything. Westing saw how effective his strike had been, and arced out again powerfully with the gun. Will ducked just in time, now, but he had neither the strength nor the energy to do anything more than avoid the blow. The rest was up to Westing.
The Sniper punched Will twice in the side of the head and then laid him out flat with a single blow to the knees. Will could hardly move. He knew that there was nothing more that he could do. Before he could blink the Sniper was over him, Breyman's old dagger raised in his fist, higher and higher. Then he brought it down in a gleaming flash of metal.
Will braced himself for the impact that would surely end his life, but it never came. Instead, there was an impossibly fast whoosh of motion to his left, and the next thing he knew, Tobias was there, the blade of the dagger clasped in his hand.
Tobias was under Westing as fast as lightning; he whacked out with both fists at once, catching him a glancing blow in the jaw. Then he was over him, under him, all around him at once. Impossibly fast. That was the only way to describe it.
Will finally allowed himself to breath again. He wasn't dead. He shakily picked himself up out of the grass, bleeding slightly but immensely tired, watching Tobias and Westing engaged in mortal combat.
He had never seen Tobias fight before; the spectacle reminded him somewhat of the daemon fight moments before, and Will compared his own fighting abilities to Tobias's. Will was strong, Will was powerful, but Tobias was fast. Nothing made up for that kind of agility. Everything about that boy, Will decided, was quick. Flick-flick-flick, he was everywhere at once, lightning-speed, changing position as fast as child's daemon could change form. But Westing was fast, too--almost too fast. Will couldn't do anything in this fight. Tobias had just saved his life; now it was up to him.
But finally power won, and Tobias found his achingly tired body pinned beneath Westing's, the rifle barrel at his neck. Will stood stock-still, too tired to do anything, his mind a whirl. Tobias was breathing heavily, and Will was just barely sane enough to wonder why Tobias didn't use any of his Forthsight powers to fight Westing. Back into Will's mind, from Tobias, the answer came almost immediately. I've been saving up, he said mysteriously.
Will only had a moment to wonder. Then everything disappeared.
---
Sidney Dune's inhuman, soulless figure paced menacingly back and forth in the dim light of his chamber, casting a ghoulish, flickering shadow on the dank, mossy stone walls. He had been waiting for far too long. Where was that snake of a Sniper? Dune was certain that he'd be executed if he didn't bring back his requested prize. Thinking of this, Dune let his wicked, serrated claws extend themselves, clutching at nothing. The blissful feeling of living flesh at the end of those wicked claws hadn't been felt in far too long, he decided. He needed meat..
But even more so, he needed the Chosen One.
At that moment, a frontal door banged open and slow footsteps could be heard. Dune listened intently, deciphering exactly who and what was coming to see him. It was Westing, he decided, from the slight slithering sound accompanied by step, but since the pace was uncharacteristically slow, the Tyrant reckoned that he was very tired. Something strange had happened on the hills this evening. The other Snipers had not even returned yet, and Breyman, Dune decided, was long lost.
At last the visitor reached the Tyrant's chamber door and knocked once, slowly. "Come in!" Dune hissed, and the door creaked open. It was Westing, all right, but he had another with him, and from the looks of it, it was exactly what he had been asked to retrieve.
In one swift, fluid motion, Sidney Dune was at the doorway, breathing into the Sniper's face, sending chills up and down his spine like nothing else could. Westing dared not even glance into those dancing pools of obsidian mercury; he merely handed the unconscious boy over to the Tyrant and stood to attention, awaiting orders. Dune took the boy and deposited him on the main table in his chamber. He then smiled hideously and extended his claws in his ecstasy. "Gooood Wessssting," he exhaled in a terribly insidious hiss. "Tell me what happened."
Westing dared not lie to the Tyrant. He knew that that would be a terrible, terrible mistake, regardless if Dune had any sure way of distinguishing lies from truth. "Sire, there were two of them, another boy like this one, but I'm pretty sure that he had no Gift of the Mind. He attacked me, and I tried to kill him, but he was a powerful fighter and then when I thought I had him beat, this one, the Number Thirteen, attacked me as well. I was outnumbered and overpowered, and then somehow, totally beyond me, the none-Gifted one just disappeared out of thin air. For a moment I thought that he had done it himself, but then this one, the Number Thirteen, fell unconscious immediately, so I'm pretty sure it was he that caused it."
Dune nodded and blinked, giving a disturbing smile. "Certainly, Wessssting. And what of Breyman?"
Westing stood a little taller. "Breyman is dead, sire. I don't know how it happened but I saw his daemon-less body with my own eyes. He is definitely dead, sire." Dune nodded slowly once more. "Well, that'ssss an unfortunate lossss, though not an irreplasssssible one. You will be promoted to hisss posssition, Wesssting. Do well in hisss plasssse." Westing, doing his best to ignore the chills that that insidious hissing gave him, nodded and stood to attention smartly, his small frame practically swelling with pride. "I will not let you down, sire."
Dune smiled another hideous, frightening smile. A single long, steely, serrated claw was brought up to hover in the air directly below Westing's chin. "You will mossst sssertainly not fail me, Ssssniper." He said, his tongue flicking out, not at all unlike that of a great lizard. His mysterious, mercurious eyes narrowed slightly, and the fire and ice within them swirled together into a dizzying pool of extremities. The gleaming claw touched Westing's chin. "Becaussse if you do..." he hissed again, bringing his distorted, inhuman face even closer to Westing's now-quaking body. "You will mossst ssssertainly regret ever being recruited into my army." With a quick, fluid motion, Dune struck upward and at an angle, drawing a thin line of blood from Westing's chin down to his collarbone. He gasped in pain and began shaking terribly as Dune finished. "Or ever being born, for that matter."
He nodded in dismissal and Westing fled, highly terrified, off to change his almost certainly soiled pants.
Dune watched him flee, hissing in laughter. "What a ssssnake," he murmured, stroking the claws of his right hand. "'Tisss a sssshame, really, about Breyman. He wasss a good sssoldier. This Wesssting, I don't know if I can trussst him. He's such a reptile, and there'ssss only room for one reptile in my army." He laughed again, hideously, and took the senseless Tobias off to his brand-new chamber. He had a little contraption that he was just dying to test out.
---
When Tobias finally came to, he was at first quite unsure where he was. It certainly didn't look like Dunestone, although he was certain it could be nowhere else--a white, sterile-looking, small, clean room. Metallic and new. Not as dark as he was used to Dunestone being, though still quite dim in its own right. But not as old, not as dank.
It couldn't be a good thing.
Aerotsierma stirred at his neck and Tobias stood, rubbing his throbbing temple. His bandage was beginning to come undone, and flecks of blood dotted the otherwise immaculate gleaming metal floor. Tobias, actually, didn't care at all where he was. He had saved Will's life, and now that he was safe, he knew that it was hopeless for himself. He would die in this place. He felt an incredible surge of self-hatred well inside him. Whether or not it was his first taste of true insanity, he didn't care. Nothing mattered now. The only thing he cared about now was that he didn't want Dune or his men to have the pleasure of killing him or watching him die. If it had to be done, and he knew that it did, he would do it himself.
But he had to suffer. In his own fevered brain, it was the only way to gain repentance for what he believed were his own terrible, hideous sins. Tobias thought quickly. What was the one thing that he cared about the most, the one thing that he loved, the one thing that would hurt him the most if it were injured, maimed, tortured, destroyed?
He thought about his family. He thought about Iris. No. Not them. Too far away. Too material. Something deeper. Something far more painful. Something that would truly torture his soul.
His gaze inexorably fell on his own daemon.
A surge of pure hatred and insanity filled his soul. This was the last straw. Nothing more could be done. He'd never get out of here alive--he was far, far too weak to even use his Forthsight to mind-search, never mind cutting a hole through the worlds to escape.
Slowly but surely, he moved foreword to Aerotsierma. She sensed the perverse, disturbed, crazy look in his eyes even before he reached down to touch her. But he was her human, and she didn't think to back away. She was his soul, and he would never hurt her. Never.
Tobias moved like a robot as he reached down and picked the fox up by the scruff of her neck. Slowly but surely the terrible wrongness of the situation dawned on the daemon, but she had no idea how to express it in words. It simply didn't come natural. It simply wasn't right..
Tobias remembered, dimly, what Dune had done to his daemon long ago. He remembered how much it hurt. That is what he wanted now. That perverse, horrid pain. Pain and wrongness.
Everything was wrong now. Everything was pain.
With one swift, fluid motion, he hoisted the fox daemon from the ground and slammed her against the wall as hard as he could. In his fevered, buzzing mind, he could feel the pain of her bones crunching, could feel the material pain of her nerves grinding against metal. But to him, that didn't hurt at all. It was the mental pain, the emotional pain, that he savored so. This is what he felt he deserved. He had reached into his own soul, torn it out, and thrown it against a metal wall.
He picked the daemon off the floor and did it again. Aerotsierma did not fight back. Whatever it was that he was doing, whatever it was that had driven him to cause such pain as this, it was all her fault, and she deserved it. She had no way to even fathom what was going on. It was wrong on every level, every level possible, but that is what she told herself. It hurt because I deserved it..
Tobias had no weapon to draw her blood, but eventually the hard metallic wall did the work for him. He tortured his own daemon, his own soul, until he no longer had the energy to stand, and he collapsed in a head upon the floor next to the bloody smear of his once beautiful daemon Aerotsierma.
He was wasted. He could only wait, now, to die.
He was fading, once more. Fading out of consciousness. Aero wasn't dead yet, but once more, for what seemed like the hundredth time, she was flickering. And at last his distorted brain was at peace. He had caused sufficient pain to himself. His penance had been done. His heart was torn from his chest; his soul lie ravaged and self-destructed on the floor next to his head. But as twisted as he felt inside, he knew that now, he could die in peace. He had suffered enough, finally, for the deaths of his family and friends.
He was just about to black out again when suddenly the lights switched on in that little, sterile, metallic room. The lights were fluorescent, and since they reflected off of every metallic surface in the room, they were magnified to an almost unbearable brightness. Tobias blinked in the light, wanting to fade out, wanting it to end, but part of his brain, the fiercely logical side that he had totally been ignoring the last few hours, told him to focus on the contraption that was now visible before him.
It was a wicked silver blade, gleaming mysteriously, positioned in a high-tech piece of equipment in a sort of guillotine. On either side there was a thick, sturdy metal cage. Tobias didn't know how he knew it, but something in his Forthsight-inclined brain told him, this can't be for you. A machine to separate daemons would only work on children whose daemons were not yet in a fixed form.
But the answer came back to him, inexplicably, as it always did. Not this one, it told him. This one is special. This one can take the power generated from any human/daemon bond. It would work on children and adults alike.
Tobias didn't care. He was dead anyway.
