The Journey Man
The ground underneath him was damp and cold, and stones jabbed up into his belly as he slithered forwards, uncertain of what he would see over the ridge. In the darkness he could see almost nothing, and his hearing expanded until every motion he made sounded explosive, sure to attract attention. To his left was Jim, moving forward, a little ahead of him, using his elbows to drag himself towards the bluff. At the edge they both paused, silent. Jim didn't so much as glance at him, but that was okay, the big soldier - soldier?- needed to concentrate.
Blair reached a tentative hand to the black clad shoulder, letting it rest lightly across the strap of Jim's backpack. "Concentrate, big fellow. What can you hear? How many are they? How close?" //Where are we? What the hell is going on? What are we doing here?// some distant part of his mind gibbered, and was walled off from the present with ruthless strength. //we're together,// he thought, startled, and was surprised by his own bewilderment. He was so lost in his thoughts that the sound of Jim's voice was a shock in the still.
"Nine of them, Chief. Two here, three on the gate, four inside with the rest of them. I'll go in under the fence. It's easier than making a racket out the front. Wait here for me till I give the word, okay?"
"Keep your senses open - you can hear them - now see them? What are they doing?"
The larger man tensed, and frowned. "I almost thought you were there, Chief..." he sighed, "I thought I was over this.." The man sighed, and Blair looked at himself in bewilderment, and then in rising panic - he wasn't there. He could see the grass through his body. His t-shirt and jeans were too thin for the snowy ground, but he was warm as toast...
"Jim?"
He was ignored.
"Jim?" The big man glanced uneasily around.
"Sandburg? You -- nah." The sentinel dismissed the idea, with that rejection, Blair felt his grip on the scene waver, and it drifted away from him.
Instead there was a plain, high with sun browned grass, the distant ripple of water carving through the landscape.
"South is, as you know, the beginning."
"White, North, death."
Blair turned to see the speakers. The wolf and panther stood together, perhaps leaning on each other a little.
"You have marked your circle, Shaman."
"I have?"
"Use it. As the Sentinel has the earth, so you have the spirit." Now it was his own face that spoke to him, Jim Ellison standing a little behind his doppelganger, his wayab, a hand resting on the double's shoulder.
"Is he--"
"You already know the answer."
"Tell him what he needs to hear - what he already believes, and this will end."
Blair's face slackened in relief. "We can go home?" he asked, in a voice that sounded forlorn, even to himself.
"Perhaps," they said dubiously. Blair frowned, perhaps his eyes were off in the bright morning sunlight, but the two bodies seemed to have merged at the edges, siamese twinning, but the avatars smiled at him, and leaned closer to each other, arms closely around each others shoulders.
"Home," Blair felt bone deep joy welling up. Whatever it had been, it was over, or it would be. Soon, soon, and he would be free...
He couldn't hold onto it.
He woke, bruised and punctured, almost healed, flat on his back in his expressionless prison. The silent computer clock told him a week had passed, his only reliable marker. He sat and stared out of the wide windows for two days, turning over the dreams in his head. Something about them was too real to be only wishful thinking. Perhaps this was a sign to him. Perhaps, to regain his surety that Jim would come, he should go looking for him. So he began to meditate again. It worried him a little that they let him, not disturbing him for hours at a time, knocking politely with his food when he showed signs of moving, withdrawing again as he did, cross legged towards the setting sun, waiting patiently.
The pain had stretched him. Each time he woke from meditation he felt different. More powerful, as though what they did would not touch him, could only make him stronger. Cleaner, as though the filth of the place he was in was a physical stain that somehow he was washing away in the peace of his trances. He remembered the past, and dreamed the future - or dreamed the past, and remembered the future...
He filled his waking moments with games, anything to not think about that which he must not do. Playing with his captors, or perhaps they were playing with him, or perhaps it was a strange, infinite recursion of knowledge, both sides locked in the silent battle with no winner visible until long after the endgame had faded and all were dust. He had constructed a vast castle. A place of white knights and evil witches. Mighty princes and powerful wizards... He smiled at the young wizard with long brown hair, and provided a wand to escape from all locked places. All a game, only a game, and he always knew the ending. Depending on his mood he could string bannerets from the crenellations, or refine the dungeon into a more perfect killing ground.
As the time passed, the people in it took on personalities to him, and he imagined, silently, in his empty room, in his empty mirrors and smoke castle what they did, where they went, how the white knights rushed in to save the day, and if, perhaps, his day looked very like the one in the castle, well, that was his business.
And theirs of course. Sure enough, the castle was examined and analysed. He enjoyed that. He'd put hieroglyphs in the walls, and Mayan pictographs in the floors, and, high where only the illusory bats might go, he'd written in tiny Hebrew script. All words, quotes. The book of the Dead. Job. The Dresden codex.
//Buy a clue,// he thought, as he gently moved the pen across the tablet. The lines were heavy and clear, talking of the ancient peoples of America, who believed that the world was in the fourth cycle, and was due for a fire death this time around. //Maybe they think I'm making this all up. Death and fire, and animals that talk, and men that die and live again.// He considered this as fingers made accurate with practice swooped in another neat series of lines and curves. //They have no idea. None at all. Jim, man, you'd understand. I could make you understand. God, I hope you're safe.// He put the pen down and his head drooped wearily. The curves of the glyphs shifted and grew, strange and misshapen as he drifted once more into sleep...
The illusion was very complete. Blair smiled at the jungle around him, at the lush undergrowth, and chittering insects, at the bright blue sky and the warm sun, and the birds singing, clear bright voices filling the air.
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The Labyrinth: Blair: Journey Man |
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Page last updated 18/09/2004.