The Four Faces Of Rath

The Whitest Room

Chapter 69

LXIX

Liz opened her eyes slowly and noticed a light shining in her face from above. She seemed to be lying on something hard now, but she didn't think it was the floor. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious. Her first thought was to check herself over to see if anything had been removed… not clothes… but organs, tissue samples, or the like. After a quick appraisal, she decided, with some relief, that she had not been cut… at least not yet. Even her clothes were still intact. This was definitely a good sign! Another good sign was that she did not appear to be tied up, chained, manacled, or otherwise restrained. But where was everybody?

Liz looked around the room. It was even whiter than she remembered it… almost bleached white now… as though scoured of all color by some very powerful detergent or force. In fact, it was probably the "whitest" room she had ever seen in her life. And it appeared that she was the only person there. It was perplexing… and more than a little bit discomfiting. She would rather have her torturers where she could see them. Being all alone in the room made a cold shiver of anticipation go up her spine. What were they planning? And why had they left her here all alone and unrestrained?

She took a deep breath and told herself that it really didn't matter. They couldn't hurt her… well, not when she was awake and conscious anyway. She had the sphere of protection. All she had to do was call on it. She didn't know exactly what it would do to protect her, but she knew with absolute certainty that it would. Of this there wasn't the slightest doubt.

But where was everybody? And where was the man she had seen on the gurney before? Had that been Rahn? She never got close enough to be sure. One thing she did know for sure, though, was that she wasn't going to just lie here like a lamb on the altar of some FBI or army rejects' paranoia and just wait for them to return and have their way with her.

Liz leapt from the gurney with a bounce and headed for the door. She knew that she could call the portal and it would take her straight back home… or anywhere else she wanted to go. But that wouldn't save Rahn, and she was determined to return the favor Rahn had shown them in the other dimension by saving him now… or his double… in this one. Carefully, Liz opened the door just a crack and peeked out. At first, her mind refused to accept what she was seeing, and she shook her head and looked again. Then she opened the door all the way.

There was nothing outside the room… just the blackness of space… the twinkling of distant stars… the vastness of the cosmos.

"What the…"

Liz leaned forward carefully, holding onto both sides of the doorway with her hands, and looked down. There was nothing below the room, either, as far as she could see, except space. And yet… there was breathable atmosphere in the room… even with the door wide open.

"What happened," Liz asked rhetorically, knowing that there was no one there to answer. In her place, most people would have been terrified, but Liz was calm… perplexed and confused… but calm. She knew that she could get home anytime by calling the portal; she wasn't stuck here. But then again… after the events of the last seven months… through various alternate dimensions… who could be sure of anything? Liz suddenly began to sweat, as fear crept up her spine. Just to be sure, she called out, and the portal appeared. She breathed a deep sigh of relief and relaxed again.

"It's alright. I don't need you yet. I… I'll call you again when I'm ready… soon."

The portal disappeared as it had come, leaving Liz alone with her thoughts. She looked out the door again. Nothing. Just stars twinkling in the distant vast darkness of space.

"Maybe I'm hallucinating. Maybe I'm not really awake. They gave me something and I'm hallucinating." Liz looked at her hands and decided that it was really her, not a hallucination.

"Where is Rahn?" she asked, again knowing that no answer would be forthcoming.

She looked around and then called for the sphere of visions…

"Please show me Rahn… right now."

A mist appeared in the room, and as it smoothed out and became calm, a vision appeared in its midst. But the vision was almost as much a riddle as what was going on here. In the mist, Liz saw only the room she was in… and the gurney. There was no Rahn.

"I… I guess I wasn't clear," Liz said, almost apologetically, "I said 'Rahn,' not 'room.'"

Liz waited, but there was no change in the vision. Exasperated, she sighed and waved her hand dismissively…

"You may go. Thank you."

The mist disappeared, and Liz rubbed her hands together nervously. "That never happened before. The sphere never made mistakes… not like that." Liz looked at the gurney. The vision had shown her the gurney. Could Rahn be hiding under it maybe? Liz picked up the sheet that hung down from the side of the gurney, but there was nothing underneath. She looked around the room again then leaned back on the gurney and put both hands behind herself to boost herself up onto it… The gurney moved.

Believing that she had moved the gurney with her weight, Liz pushed it up against the wall then tried to sit on it again. It moved again.

"Okay, that's not normal," Liz mused out loud. "Rahn, if that's you, turn yourself back into… something I can recognize NOW!"

As she said this, the gurney stretched and contorted, but it all happened so fast that Liz was unable to follow the motions until it was too late. The "gurney" had become a snake… a very large snake… perhaps a python or an anaconda from the look of it, though Liz wasn't trying to identify it; she just wanted to get it off of her. Unable to move her arms, as the huge serpent coiled and tightened against them, Liz let go with a very "un-Liz-like" string of epithets, disparaging everything that slithered on the ground and even some snake mamas.

This seemed to have an unexpected effect. The huge snake relaxed its grip, if only slightly, and turned its head to look directly into Liz's eyes, its forked tongue flicking only inches from her face.

"I know you've got a crush on me, but if we're going to get all warm and cozy," Liz said feistily, turning her face to one side, "Can we at least skip the tongue?"

The serpent held its tongue momentarily, but apparently was unable to do so for long. Within seconds, the tongue flicked out again. Then the serpent relaxed its grip and began to change… this time into a man.

"Alright, Rahn, you've got some explaining to do," Liz said, clearly irritated, after the change was complete.

"You are the one who must explain," Rahn replied calmly. "I could change back into a serpent again and hold you that way… or swallow you if I wanted to. I only let you go because it seems that it is impossible to keep my tongue in my mouth as you demanded… to be a snake and not to be a snake. It just happens reflexively. And also, I let you go because we must talk."

"You don't want to eat me, Rahn. I'd give you indigestion."

"I do not believe that you would cause me any digestive upset," Rahn said, looking Liz over.

"Well, let's assume that I would," Liz insisted firmly and with finality.

"Who are you," Rahn asked. What did you do that made… this happen?" Rahn indicated the void beyond the door.

Liz looked at the gaping void… "I was kind of hoping you could tell me that. I don't know what happened. I came here to save you and take you home to Antar… to Ta'lan… but someone hit me from behind, and when I woke up, this is where I was. Well… actually… I was lying… on top of the gurney… on top of… you." Liz looked at Rahn.

"Yes, well, there is an explanation for that," Rahn said, "You know Ta'lan?"

Rahn appeared to be moved at the mention of Ta'lan's name.

"She's waiting for me to return with you. Now about that explanation…?"

Rahn smiled just slightly. "Well, at the exact moment you were hit on the head, it was like everything exploded in the room. When I could see again, you were lying on the floor unconscious. I needed to talk to you… to learn what had happened… but I assumed that you had caused it and might try to kill me like you killed the others… so I pushed the gurney out the door and took its place… to hide myself from you until I could be sure of your intent. I lifted you onto my back so that I would know when you woke up. Sometimes I… go to sleep."

"Wait… The explosion killed the other men…?" Liz asked, shocked.

Rahn nodded. "They were ejected from the room by some great force. They floated away in space, so I would say that it killed them, yes."

"The sphere of protection!" Liz exclaimed softly, realizing what must have happened. "It had to be the sphere of protection. I didn't call it, but it saved us once before when no one even knew that we were in danger. It must have thrown the whole white room into space and thrown them out to protect me."

"Why did it not also kill me?" Rahn asked.

"I guess it knew that you wouldn't harm me. I don't know how it knows, but it always seems to. If you had really intended to hurt me, you would have died when you pounced on me as a snake."

"Then I think it was a good thing that I did not try to eat you," Rahn said dryly. It was impossible for Liz to know if he was joking or serious. Rahn rarely displayed his true feelings openly, though his double had shown an amazing amount of emotion -for a shapeshifter- when he had seen his home valley again from the New Granolith's window for the first time in seventy years.

"Well, I guess there's nothing left to do but go home… to Antar," Liz said with a smile. "This room can just stay out here… wherever 'here' is. The men who were holding you can't hurt either of us anymore… or anyone else. You're a free man, Rahn… I mean, a free Ke'cje. Are you ready to go home?"

Rahn's face, not usually easily readable, became a jumbled mass of emotions, as the reality of his new situation actually began to dawn on him. He was free. He really could go home. Home!

"How long will it take to get there?"

"How long does it take to step through a portal?" Liz asked, smiling. "PORTAL!"

When Liz called, the portal appeared. It looked more like a large, borderless, free-floating mirror than a portal. Rahn touched it, and his touch sent ripples spreading from one side of the "mirror" to the other.

"Come on," Liz said, taking Rahn by the hand. Then she stepped into the "mirror," taking Rahn with her.

They stepped out in Ta'lan's living room.

Shapeshifters don't show emotion. It was almost an axiom on Antar. And oceans don't suddenly dry up and stone walls don't generally move… but they can crumble. Liz looked at Max and smiled, tears coming to her own eyes, as Ta'lan rushed forward to hold Rahn, and the two revealed a side of the Ke'cje shapeshifters that few, outside of their own people, had ever witnessed.

Rahn was the long-missing child, believed dead, returning home at last. Ta'lan was the "mother" he had always known… practically the only mother he had ever known. She had raised him after his own mother disappeared when he was barely more than a toddler. Rahn still remembered his real mother, but it was Ta'lan who had filled that position with so much love and affection for so many years of his life. And a shapeshifter's years were long. Rahn, who was over a hundred years old now, was barely out of adolescence, a young man just coming into his prime.

"Rahn what happened," Ta'lan asked, wiping tears from her eyes. "Where were you all this time?"

"On Eluymer… a place they call earth. I went there with the original scouts. It was supposed to be a quick trip. We were going to find a place for the pods and wait for the carekeepers then return home. It didn't work out that way."

"No, it didn't," Ta'lan said, giving Rahn yet another kiss on the cheek. Liz didn't even know that shapeshifters did that. "But then… why not," she asked herself. "They're basically human after all… more or less… kind of. Different but basically no different." Liz smiled and leaned on Max, and he pulled her closer into his arms. Maria leaned over unexpectedly and kissed Michael, who smiled and put his arm around her then kissed her back. Alex and Isabel leaned into each other and just sighed. It was a good moment… one of those wonderful, happy moments that are all too rare… and it brought a warm, abiding glow to all their hearts.

tbc

Coming up: Ta'lan honors the request made by her double from the other dimension.