Chapter 16
Epyon's Currents
"This is ridiculous." Gabriel spat at his brother. I stood away from the heated argument in the office. It had been raging for some time now. An hour before, Treize's younger brother had pranced into the office full of charm and smiles. Just like Treize before the madness of clarity had taken him and transformed him into a self-styled Jesus. I had an inexplicable and instantaneous affection for Gabriel Khushrenada. The swagger and half smile he presented to the household covered the parts of him that were artless and imperfect. They reminded me of simpler times before things that could not be undone had occurred/
The pleasantries had not lasted. Gabriel had recently completed two semesters at Lake Victoria and was expecting to find a generous appointment in the Specials. The expected preferential treatment that all his classmates grudgingly assumed would be his on graduating had not dismayed him at all. Gabriel was eager to use any clout his brother could provide him and his colleagues be damned. He was without pride that way, an antithesis to Zechs Marquise; and as I had no great feeling for Zechs I was instantly warmed to his opposite.
Gabriel's appointment wasn't to be. The death of their mother had made Treize suddenly very conscious of his relations. This rush of patronage fitted well with his need to play savior. He received his brother with a calm fatherly manner. I stood by him as a symbol of his power more than anything. By this time my reputation as a capable assassin with no remorse was wide spread. I was known as the woman you didn't fuck with. Gabriel recognized nothing when he looked at me but saw only what the rest of his classmates would see, the right hand and fist of his powerful brother. During Treize's refusal, Gabriel glanced at me several times, possibly unsure of how angry he could allow himself to become in front of his brother's deadly aid. Yet as always with Gabriel, his lack of restraint won out and he threw his chair aside and bellowed that his brother had no right to keep him out of the war.
Treize had decided since his mother's death that upon graduation that Gabriel should receive a generous living and perhaps stay on as a teacher at Lake Victoria or another base. He would also consider sending Gabriel to a top university in the country of his choice to pursue whatever passion he currently harbored. The family could use a man outside the military, an artist or musician, though Gabriel showed little interest in either area.
"He can be a damn playboy and seduce all my friends' wives if he likes. But he isn't for the Specials or any other outfit" he had said to me the night before. Not a hard situation for Treize considering that in reality he had no friends, just leagues admirers and enemies. It was not that Gabriel was a poor soldier. Just the opposite. But Treize already had his right hand and his perfect knight to move around a chessboard world. He wouldn't use his brother. All others were apparently expendable.
As expected, Gabriel did not take it well. When the chair overturned, Treize sighed and indicated that I leave the room. I took up position just outside the door. A torrent of obscenity rushed from that doorway as Gabriel swore all manner of oaths at his brother and spared no expense in his vocabulary. Zechs was mentioned several times as a reason for keeping him out of the loop and Gabriel was bold enough to suggest a romance between Zechs and Treize. Treize did not take that easily and within minutes the yelling and vulgarity was being played out from both sides of the table. Soon enough they reached an impasse.
"I won't be sent away! Not to some school or base or country estate. You think you are Father suddenly and that you can rule me?" He shouted.
"That I can rule you is certain. You'll do what I tell you to do because it is I who tells you."
"Why? Why would you keep me out? I can be of great use. I'm as good as your damned pet Zechs. Better! You know I am! You know it!"
"Whatever you choose to do, Gabriel, you will always have my blessing. But you will not take part in this war." The note of finality in his voice ended Gabriel's arguments. There was no getting past Treize's resolve, ever. I heard silence and then sounds of Gabriel approaching the door.
"Before you go, have a care to stay in the Earth Sphere. Don't take any visits to the colonies." Treize added. There was a very pregnant pause.
"I imagine that a Khushrenada wouldn't be very welcome in Outer Space, especially after last time." Gabriel huffed. I never knew the full story behind those words. I can only imagine it had to do with Leah. Treize had no answer to that. In a moment Gabriel stormed out and slammed the door. He stopped when he saw me laying in wait by the threshold. We stared each other down a moment.
"They were right at the academy. You are frightening, Lady. Like sudden winter in my blood." He murmured.
"Cold chill? Afraid I will kill you where you stand?"
Gabriel flashed his well inherited smile and smoothed back his hair. "I'm not afraid of dying. We never live far away from death. The very act of living speaks well of us, I suppose."
Then he was gone from the house. After three week, Treize finally confessed to me that his brother had gone missing. I was not instructed to find him, which I could have done easily in those days. The matter was left up to others as it was now time for us to make our move. I was soon to leave for the colonies to kill Vice Foreign Minister Darlan and his daughter, a mission I fortunately left incomplete. Treize carried the weight of Gabriel's disappearance with lines around his eyes and an increased tiredness. But he spoke nothing of his brother to me.
He couldn't keep it up long. The journey exhausted him completely. A few moments in that strange inner space where he could see through the shades of another's eyes was enough to lay him out on Epyon's cockpit floor in exhaustion. But it was essential that he learn the mind of his enemies despite the wetness on his eyes now burning down his cheeks and choking him. Gabriel reprimanded himself sharply with a smack to the face. Zechs and Heero, those were the minds he needed to focus on. It was cloudy when it came to the other two who shared Epyon's gift. Instead, he had succumbed to temptation and pushed through the surging eddies and waves of Anne's mind. It was like looking through a view finder of her eyes. The images blinked back and forth, but he surely heard the words of his brother on the last day they saw each other.
His brother Treize, his brother, his brother.
Whatever else he lost, pushed out his mind or let sink to ruin in the gray matter, whatever else he forgot Gabriel made sure he would not forget that man, his brother, his brother, his brother.
Gone how many years? Gone how long? How long from that last day they fought? Gone where?
He lurched himself back up into the chair and concentrated as Epyon had shown him. It had been complete weakness to give way to the heady excitement of touching Anne's mind and finding himself as he no longer remembered being. The flashiness, the smile, the anger, the resolution, all these things seemed out of place for him. Was he ever such a man, such a boy, as Anne remembered him? Was he ever anything but what was now?
There is nothing but now and now is the enemy. Zero whispered a static charge, a rush of atoms through his cortex, like an electric breath, blue and airy. Lightning between his ears and behind his eyes.
Heero was dim in Gabriel's mind. He flickered back in the corners of the light, fading steadily from view. He was dying, Gabriel could feel it. It didn't concern him much. Heero's death would remove another obstacle from his path. Zechs was more troubling. Gabriel could feel a sudden elation from Zechs. Gabriel could sense Zechs' excitement over Anne. If he didn't remember his hatred for Zechs, he might pity him. The woman was going to die when she awoke. Gabriel could see it as clear as calm water. A current of forking blue that Zero exhaled into the thin film covering his irises played the scene for him as if on a movie screen.
She looks down at us. We stand on the hill on the eastern side of the house. The cliff is nearby and the sea below it is ravenous. A gentle pale hand on a window pane, the rain slightly obscuring the details of her face, and then a sudden explosion of red on the glass, sliding like ink down the glass, her body jolting and slowly turning, then she slides down and falls out of sight.
This would make Zechs easy to defeat. When the woman was dead, Zechs would lose all interest in winning. He would already be defeated. But then why did Zechs feel so sure of himself now? He flipped off the Zero system. Gabriel stretched out in the chair he sat in, contemplating. The light in the cockpit was low and it relaxed him. He rolled the cuffs of his white shirt and put his hands behind his head nonchalantly. Zero was the new power in this conflict and it made Aria afraid. He could feel it, even without the system engaged. In fact, Gabriel was starting to feel everything. He sensed the desperation of Relena Peacecraft coming from the other side of the complex; the dread of the raped girl Okami who was there with her, Aria's anxiety, Kateline's plotting and Mariemia's anger. He thought perhaps that these things should mean something to him, but he was cold to all of it. Zero breath echoed constantly behind his eyes that only the advantage mattered, the coming battle was all important. There was no longer any attachment and so memories were expelled.
Is that why he could no longer remember anything of the sleeping woman or the child downstairs besides what was necessary?
If ever I learned anything dynamic from Treize; if ever I shared anything in common with Zechs Marquise, it was and is being a person of choice (as much as a slave might be). This of course means an ability to decide for oneself what will be believed and neglected, tolerated or renounced, loved or hated. Though it is true that the three of us are by nature children of passion and compulsion, we tempered it with conscious choices through out our adult lives. In the days before the Eve Wars when the OZ had overthrown the Alliance and we sat at the height of our glory, I made a choice to hate the colonies.
I had long held a kind of resentment for the plight of the colonies, more or less because the simpering disadvantaged and oppressed colonists seem to always overshadow the plight of earthly nations. Having respect for those who cannot help themselves has always been difficult for me. Of course, I had little perspective on life in Space. What I saw of it during my trips with Treize and as a lone OZ operative showed me the caved nature of colonists. They lived so long in turmoil that peace was out of the question despite what they claimed to be working toward. Peace is a bloody thing, always. People can't be trusted to hold it themselves. Inevitably, the sword catches the nape of uprising. Peace starts and ends with the loss of life. The Colonists never understood this and I had always felt it would be better to be rid of them before they complicated the New Era.
Treize of course, disagreed. I was reprimanded soundly for my threats on the colonies. Treize felt it would be better to manipulate Outer Space and make it an ally rather than reduce it to rubble. Economically he was right, yet now I can't help feeling he would be alive today if I had been allowed to fire some missiles into some choice floating targets at LaGrange Pointe. Everyone would have understood how serious we were then. Happiness might not have been immediate but public order eventually provides its own contentment. All such things are earned with time.
Prior to my journey into Space, I was deep in rivalry with Zechs. It was important to Treize that I make Zechs dislike me as much as possible. For me, that was only too easy, for in no short time I found him threatening to me and to my master. I disliked the accolades he received from Treize, the attention, the merit. Zechs could do no wrong in most cases and there were even times where Zechs was given credit for my own efforts. When Zechs was near, I felt Treize pull away. My anchor was being stolen by a masked threat. Ah, but I knew who and what he was under that metal helmet he wore and the time was soon coming where he would have to discard it. But as I said before, Zechs was and is a man of choice and that is difficult to get around. I often mocked him in public and made example of him during operations, whatever I could do to display the chinks in his armor or any rancor in his calm exterior. But most often, I turned to Noin who proved to be far easier to humiliate. She constantly set herself up for it. I also have unending contempt for any woman that would downplay her own skills to make a man look better. Pathetic. The only coin I held over Zechs was a superior rank, and the quiet knowledge that no matter what may come, with Treize in power, I was all but untouchable.
It was more than clear by the end of the Alliance that Treize would never let me go and that I couldn't escape him. So, I made the best use of that position. Treize was a man who never let go of his toys but never broke them either. In light of this, I can only conclude that it was guilt that made him release me to my own devices in Space.
It came in late May at dusk. Treize was brooding in one of the gardens he favored during times of deep reflection. It was a trellised rose garden that was dotted with white lilac trees, now in full bloom. The enclosure had colored glass tiles hanging in from the trellises. They caught the light at sunset and created a speckled spiral of prisms when the wind spun them. I assumed at the time he was contemplating the Gundam Pilots. They were becoming an increasing obsession, something patriotic that he couldn't quite wrap his mind around, admiration and resentment coughing through his soul and mixing in his blood. I found him leaning on his knees. He was out of uniform, or rather dressed down from it. His jacket was missing and his white linen shirt was unbuttoned at the collar. The sleeves were rolled to the elbows. His black boots where scrapping the ground, mashing petals from the lilac into the stone. Nearby, a black cat he called Augustus was chasing the swaying reflected light on the ground. I watched him in his repose for a few moments. Treize was sullen, troubled. Every now and again he would look over at the cat and make an encouraging remark about its tenacity. Then he would concentrate again on mashing petals with his boot.
"Sir?" I called very gently. I didn't want to disturb him and wished I could have just retreated on his repose and gone back to the house. Treize closed his eyes when he heard my voice, telling me that I was quite possibly the last person he wanted to see at the moment. He did not look up. I continued to report in an official tone. Inside, I felt a tinge of worry.
"You have messages piling up in your office." I listed for him the various officials who were calling him; among them was Duke Dermail, a person not to be put off even by Treize. It took all of two minutes to finish everything I had to say and to detect the almost smothering tension encapsulated in the rose garden. Treize wouldn't meet me in the eye. He looked beyond me, around me, at my feet, at his feet. His mouth was set in a thin line. Even his hands were fidgeting slightly. There was nothing serene or confident about him. Treize was nervous and now so was I. The ancient tide of my blood began to pulse harder and harder, anticipating a storm surge.
In those days, we did not break character in the light of day. I never spoke personally unless he initiated it. It was easiest to play our parts if we could maintain the illusion that there had never been any past between us. In order to make it through the days, it was best to forget I was ever Analicia and he never spoke to me as if I was anything more than Lady Une. We knew the dangers in reminding ourselves of the farce. However, he had not appeared before me so vulnerable since those quiet hours when he grieved for his mother. Now, I felt the heat surging in the back of my throat, pushing me to breach the barrier that separated us, speak in the familiar, offer a hand in whatever was troubling him and stop this pale fire pressing against my instincts.
He opened his mouth as if to speak, but stopped and put his eyes back on the ground. I took a step forward, spine relaxed and no longer rigid of shoulder. With each step I took, a piece of my formality dropped away; a little less Lady Une. Seven steps or so to him. He seemed to withdraw back with each step forward I took as if I was some vortex he was resisting.
He would always see me as Anne, his own creation, down on my knees somewhere between Analicia and Lady Une. It was as much as he could manage.
It was enough for me. I knelt forward in front of him and put a hand on his knee.
"What disaster is it?" I tried to sound poetic. He enjoyed poetry mixed in both conversation and rhetoric, making it chivalrous and classical. He loved to play the part of the stoic emperor and I would help convince him that he was just that. Treize licked his lips and still refused to look at me in the eye.
"The worst kind" he breathed. His voice had an unnatural pitch to it, almost shaky.
"I am losing . . . I will fail." Hands to temples, rubbing his eyes and forehead, exasperated.
"You can't possibly fail. You have already succeeded in gaining so much." I reassured. What had brought this on? What happened?
A silence ensued, long and oppressive, full of sharp intakes of air. My hand stayed on his knee and he finally put his own over mine.
"I would not repay your loyalty to me this way. You will be leaving me soon, going to Outer Space." He said. I nodded.
"Yes, it is all arranged. I will leave tomorrow for Moscow."
"I will not see you for a long time. But you will be safe. You know this?"
"Yes sir. I know what to do, who to rely on."
Treize nodded and took his hands away. I was embarrassed. It was an almost pathetic display of sentimentality. As his sometimes lover, I was partially flattered. But everything else in me shuddered at the unnaturalness of this situation. My darkest side was deeply suspicious. Treize waved his hand and I arose, not wanting to crowd him. I backed away. He stood up and finally, raised his eyes to me.
They were full of ill-concealed panic.
"I've had a report . . . From Zechs' outfit in Nairobi." He breathed and I realized it was not panic exactly, something more culpable. Guilt.
"There was a prison within the base. Most of the inmates will be released. They were enemies of the Alliance and so, most consider us an ally. Many have been there for years. I signed the individual release orders this morning. . ." A deafening silence.
"Aria Delizabane was on the list." He didn't move a muscle while he said it.
I couldn't even manage a 'what?' Instead, my jaw lay open and I began backing up further. Treize held my gaze strongly now.
"Your sister" Treize started to walk toward me. "Yes, your sister."
Within little time I found myself backed into the corner of the rose garden, wide-eyed and nonplussed. Treize nodded "Not dead. Being treated by OZ physicians and soon to be returning to her country." He was still walking toward me. Before he could not look me in the eye and now he would not look away. He watched me like a hunter anticipating its prey's flight. Now I could see clearly the guilt on his face and I understood.
"You knew? You knew! All this time. All these years you've known she was alive. You . . . You let me believe . . ." My breath ran out and I couldn't finish. Treize had reached me and stood blocking me way, trapping me in the corner. I saw the panic. I felt the bottom dropping out. Every muscle seized and I knew I had just suffered a terrible wound. My eyes were moist. Was I actually going to cry for the first time since my mother died?
I tried to make a run for it. Get out of the rose garden, into the house, into my quarters, into some sanctuary. The wound was growing as the pieces began to fit. He had lied to me all this time. He let me walk about as a faithful disciple, knowing I followed his word like gospel and his ideal as true vision. All this time he held the secret that could have given me such relief of pain. Treize had denied me this single consolation that would have made existence so much more bearable and so less lonely.
Aria alive. I never had time to feel joy over the miracle.
"Why?" My voice was so choked it barely made it out of my throat. "Why would you keep this from me? Didn't I do enough for you?" I splayed my hands in front of me, exasperated. Treize grabbed them and spoke urgently.
"I told you I would do whatever I must to keep you." The way he said it made it sound as if I brought this on myself and had no right to feel the shattering I was experiencing. In a matter of minutes, my faith and absolute trust in Treize Khushrenada was obliterated. It made perfect sense. The spoiled brat had grown into a selfish and arrogant man. He had no shame over any of it.
But then why this guilt? Why the panic locked in the blue of his eyes? I am losing . . . I will fail.
Yes, Treize, you will fail, you will lose. My heart calcified quickly in defense. Sharply my mind scanned for something to strike out with. Treize's hands grew tighter on my arm and he brimmed with turmoil. His anxiety was deserved and I would offer no assuagement, no words of consolation. Nothing for him. I was utterly betrayed by the only person I had left to trust. I wouldn't tell him it was alright. My heart was no stomping ground for any man, least of all this one. All at once, the knife appeared in my mind, I transferred it to my mouth and slashed at him.
"You think you have kept me? Idiot! You've never had me. Never, not even when I came to you willingly. No, Treize Khushrenada, you've been deluding yourself. Someone was there having me long before you came skulking around my door."
It was working. He wasn't breathing, just looking down on me with unblinking eye. Now, go for the throat.
"Zechs, of course! I know! He doesn't seem like the type who would take up with me. But we've actually found much in common. Both of us two fugitives hiding in your ranks, seeking revenge against the Alliance, both abandoning our names and our pasts. Of yes, he knows everything about me and where I've come from. Unique situations aren't they. Lonely ones too. We decided to cure ourselves of that many times." I lied fluently to him. The only indication that it was taking any toll on him was the slow spread of white across his face as the blood ebbed. His lips parted slightly. When I finished my lie, Treize was pale like the lilac flowers behind him. His hands on my arms tightened started to shake. He barely breathed.
"One ill turn deserves another." I raised my chin as I said this.
He let go of me and suddenly his face was reddening. Wordlessly, he snatched the glasses off my face. I flinched a little, preparing to be struck. Treize just held them in his hand looking at them. With his thumb, he caressed the lens.
"You have never been a good liar, Anne." He breathed. "I will say this and then I will say no more on the subject. What I do concerning you is necessary and appropriate. It is beyond physical and emotional. I am barely concerned with either of those trifles. You have measure that only the future will properly calculate. In time, you will understand how essential it has all been." I started away from him unimpressed and hurt.
"You want me all to yourself, Khushrenada? You want me to forget everything I was and become an extension of your body? Very well, you will have it. I will forget everything I am." I turned before I left the garden to make sure he heard me. "And everything you are, and everything we have been. That will suit well." Then I was gone from his sight.
I was true to my word. I left that night for Moscow and being a person of choice, I chose to forget everything and become something new.
Author's note: So…. I said the updates would be more regular last time… well, I lied. But I haven't given up yet!