Labyrinth: The Circle Turns
Time passed, moving the world outside, while he watched as changed as it, his spring falling to a winter. Every day the same: silence from his captors in the day, the drugs and half-remembered interrogations by night. And every day different: the light shifting as summer passed and autumn closed in. Every now and then he would re-format the computer's hard drive and wait until they gave him a new one, taking the old one away to investigate what was so important that he should wipe the drive, slowly coming to realise that there was no reason. He just did it to give himself something to do . Because it was one of the few things he *could* do that had any impact on his jailers. And to screw up their tightass military brains, he acknowledged, wickedly grinning as he did it again.
Another long, boring day. He had finished his reading, and now waited patiently for the evening. Another journey, tonight. He could feel the burn in his bones, calling him, telling him this was the day. Something in the air was different. Possibly, it was he that was different, tasting the recycled air as though every element had an individual flavour, each one bright and electric, feeling the soft movement as it swirled through the room. He smiled out at the sunset, watching the shadows dimming the valleys long before the light faded from the peaks.
He wondered what they planned next. It worried him, sometimes, what he had done and said in the hours that he was not allowed to remember. Only the pain and the needle tracks, the stink of his skin, the metallic tang on his tongue had ever hinted at what they did. It was, he considered remotely, a control issue. He could not control what they did, so he did not try. It was his own failure, and he tried not to let it rankle, but of course it did, more jagged and painful for each night that he lost in the unequal war.
He must have done something right though. They hadn't beaten him for a while, and the last few days the guard who brought his meals had responded to his questions. He had a name, a rank, a location. He even knew who had won the playoffs - still not the Jags though. Perhaps if he talked he could find out more from the stooge than they would from him. A tainted victory. He held no illusions that the friendly guard was anything other than a plant. The small pleasure of human speech was enticing though. The thought of a friendly smile, a voice that demanded nothing, and freely offered small talk and commonplaces... So tempting to chat incautiously, and forget the game that was being played out here.
Perhaps today would be a day for change. Or perhaps he would just remain by the window, seated in the comfortable depths of his armchair, watching the sky, losing himself in its chaos.
A shudder ran through him, and he shivered, suddenly aware of the cold of his darkening room. Outside, the sun slowly drifted behind clouds that swelled and filled the universe with grey and yellow swirls, purple shading into black, bruising the sky with threat of storms. The tension grew, straining the air, pulling ferociously in a tug of war between earth and sky. He leaned forward, riveted to the drama of the building storm, feeling the air pressures, the power coiling, ready to strike as though it roiled through his own body, as if were he that wielded it... He wriggled to ease the tension --
-- there was a crack of sound, brilliant white light streaked across the landscape, accompanied by a devastating roar of thunder. The lightning struck again, illuminating the world into harsh black and white. Between the streaks of white fire, inside them, Blair could almost see other realities, staring through a window ripped into the sky, revealing the past, the present... the future...
"Welcome, Shaman." The man returned, perhaps he could see his face this time... Blair strained, but the light was insufficient, and the features remained in shadow. Rain pounded down on them both. He slid a little and staggered before regaining his balance. His feet were bare, mud oozing between his toes, soft clay clinging to his feet.
"Where are we?" Blair asked involuntarily, staring at the mud slicked landscape. He could have kicked himself. Any question he asked would form the way the encounter developed. He didn't need to know where they were. He needed to help Jim, to enhance his abilities, take control, escape...
"No, little brother." The spirit guide contradicted his thoughts. "It is a good question. The right question in this time and place."
Blair sighed with relief, a smile breaking through. He looked around them more closely. The thunder continued, ringing in his head, the lightning somehow behind him, strobing the land with white streaks that held and faded. Each streak revealed a little more. Bare trees, some blasted by the storm, others blown down, the place desolate and dying. Ridges and ditches, laced with barbed wire and gun emplacements. The rain slashing across the sky, ramming down onto his skull, plastering his hair into wet, lank locks. The ground lightened briefly an orange glow filling the horizon.
"What was--"
"That? A reflection of reality."
Blair watched in silence as another dull glow lit the muddy fields and woods. "A bomb? Weapons of some sort?" He asked, turning his head to look back at his guide.
"What do you see?"
"A nightmare. Death and destruction..." Another streak of white seared across the sky in tiny dotted lines, and he knew what it was. "Machine gun fire. A war zone."
"As you said, Shaman. Death and destruction."
Blair shivered, cold right through to the heart. "Is Jim here?"
"Is he?" The spirit offered no assistance.
"My Sentinel..." Blair whispered longingly.
"Chief?" Jim's voice, startled and clear as a bell in his ear.
Blair jerked awake again.
The storm had passed, and just the clouds hanging greyly on the mountain tops lingered. Water trickled down the window panes, leaving little streaks behind. Blair stretched and stood, tugging the duvet off the bed and wrapping it around his chilled body. He walked over to the window, gazing out at the wide open space that so deceived him.
"Iron bars do not a prison make," he whispered lowly. He reached through the gap in the duvet and traced the path of a drop of rain on the other side of the glass. "Free to take your own path," he said whimsically.
"It's still controlled by forces it does not understand though."
The spirit guide was back again, dim and spectral in Blair's reality.
"It has no choice," Blair agreed. "But even when I did not have *many* choices, they were mine to make. I don't have the *ability* to chose in here."
"You do. If you did not, I could not come to you, nor you to me."
"I thought..." he hesitated, wondering if he woke or dreamed, and if they were recording his conversations.
"You do well to hesitate. They watch you all the time, waking and sleeping."
"Then it isn't safe."
"It never was."
Blair nodded regretfully. "I know. I didn't understand but I know now."
He turned his eyes back to the window and smiled. Light had broken through the clouds, reaching in long bright fingers for the ground, the last drops of the day's sun, limning the clouds in red and gold.
Another day, over.
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Dinner was brought. He absently ate the drugged food, and returned to his bed before it could send him to sleep where he stood. They would put him to bed again after taking him out of the room for more interrogation, but he preferred the illusion of control. Of acceptance.
If they had been watching him today, they might have difficult questions to answer.
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He woke. His body ached - they must have beaten him again. He sat up biting back a moan of pain.
He walked like an old, old man to the bathroom, and showered cautiously, gasping as shower gel and water sluiced through unexpected cuts on his legs and back. He stared at himself in the full length mirror for a long moment through the mist. He wiped at it and turned slowly, carefully. He took a deep breath, wincing as ribs and stomach protested.
He used the toilet, freezing at the sight of blood.
"I think you had better get a doctor," he said to the listening cameras. "I think I might be in a little trouble here."
His head spun, and the floor drifted away from him, only to reappear a moment later, pressed cool and hard against his chest and face. His cheek stung, He thought he might have hit it on the sink as he fell, but he couldn't remember. The room began hazing out, just as three people rushed in. He passed out as they turned him over, his eyes fixed on his guide.
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"Shaman, they want more than you can give."
"Tell me about it!" Blair snapped, pacing back and forth. His spirit was bruised as well, he flinched with each step, and his stomach burned and gurgled painfully. "They broke something in me."
"Yes. You could--"
"I could talk to them? But I don't even know what they ask me in these damn sessions of theirs. I'm drugged the whole time. If I knew, maybe I could control what is happening to me."
"You do know. You are awake during every session, but they take your memory away with drugs. You do not need to forget. It is just easier for you. You fear what you do not know."
"Yes! Of course I do. Wouldn't anyone?" He turned away, nails driving into his fisted palms. "What if I've betrayed him even more?"
"You have not."
"But maybe you're just my imagination. Maybe you're telling me what I want to believe."
"Perhaps. All this," he gestured at the summery meadow around them, "is your construct. But what do your injuries tell you?"
"That they're brutes? That they enjoy hurting me?" he cried out angrily.
"Perhaps. Think deeper though." The other was calm, gentle. Impersonal.
"They started with torture, then stopped, started drugging me..." he nodded, getting it. "Then they send people to be friendly... and now they attack me physically again." He lifted his eyes to his guide. "It's escalating."
The shadowed figure nodded, waiting patiently for the next step to be taken.
"I have given them nothing!" The ring of revelation echoed in his words. the spirit guide offered a small smile, and nodded.
"Yes. You have given them nothing."
A weight fell from Blair's soul. "I haven't betrayed him."
"No more than you already had."
Blair flinched at the brutal honesty. "We were at peace with that," he said defensively.
"Yes." He nodded again, his face pleased. "Yes, remember that."
Light faded.
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It was dark. Blair shifted from where he lay, and moaned out loud, something pulling horribly at his stomach. His hands discovered a heavy dressing across his abdomen. Pressing down he could feel softness, not the hard heat of internal bleeding, but a line of fire streaked pain from one side of his stomach to the other. Surgery.
Out of the darkness, a voice spoke.
"We apologise for the excessive violence you endured. It will not be repeated. It was not sanctioned."
"Oh, like I'm *so* going to believe you here."
"Believe what you want. It does us no good to kill you. What would we learn from your corpse that we don't already know?"
"I don't know. But maybe a damn sight more than I would ever willingly tell you."
"True." The figure moved out of the shadows. It was not the guide, an idea which Blair had briefly entertained and dismissed. The man was in uniform, pale skin and brown hair, greying out already. The features were unclear in the darkened room, but Blair could see well enough. "Perhaps truer than you would like to know."
Blair thought about that in silence.
"You could be right." He shrugged. "Why are you here?"
It was the other man's turn to hesitate. "Compassion?" he suggested.
Blair narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "Perhaps. Or guilt."
The other shrugged again.
"Or maybe you want me to feel I have a friend, so I confide in you in a hope of persuading you to help me escape."
"Or you could just use me to escape. Take me hostage. Knock me out and steal my security pass."
Blair nodded. "I could. But, I don't think I'll take you up on that. Thank you all the same," he added as an afterthought.
A faint laugh. "Merely a suggestion. I dislike maltreating and imprisoning those who have committed no crime."
"Thank you. That makes me feel infinitely better."
"As you wish then. We'll try not to injure you as badly again."
"I'm touched. Really. So, tell, Mr Concerned Citizen, what did you do to me?"
"One of your internal organs bled out into your peritoneal cavity. We thought we'd have to remove your spleen, but you're a quick healer." There was something in the voice, or perhaps in the words, that Blair hesitated over.
"Ah. Out of curiosity, can you tell me how quick," Blair said casually, shifting in the bed to straighten a fold of sheet that was pressing into his backside.
"Quick." The soldier hesitated. "You'd self-healed most of the bleeders by the time we opened you up. You were healing the incision site almost before we were finished."
"It still hurts though."
There was a long silence. "We..." The silence widened between them. "It was decided to investigate -- they, we wanted to see if it was coincidence. You were opened up again."
Blair paled. "How many times?"
"It's been a week."
"*How* *many* *times*?"
"I don't know." The voice sounded a little desperate. "At least twenty or more. They stopped it when you arrested and stopped healing."
"Ah." There was a long pause as Blair organised his thoughts. "So you're gonna try again, when I've gotten better again?"
"Perhaps." He seemed to sense Blair's horror - or maybe he felt it himself. "They have a lot of other data to work through first. Blood work ups. That sort of thing." It was almost offered as an apology.
Blair shivered and closed his eyes.
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When he re-opened them, it was light outside; someone had drawn the curtains back, and the mountains were clear and crisp in the sunshine. Fluffy white clouds had draped themselves about the shoulders of the ridges, and the grey rock was blossoming with spring into greenery.
"Spring. Then it's nearly a year now," he said quietly, thinking out loud. A year, mostly unconscious, utterly isolated except for the judas goat guard, apart from the midnight visit after the surgery. No contact with the outside, but inside... He smiled ominously. Inside he had travelled far and wide, had battled demons and beasts, had discovered far places and great treasures. Each victory was a triumph over a barrier, each treasure a new thing learned. They would regret ever taking him; regret ever separating him from his beloved Sentinel. And as yet they had no idea what they had created...
He sat up and swung his legs out of the bed. To his surprise there was little stiffness - they must have been using his sleep or unconsciousness for physio as well as interrogation and torture. How thoughtful of them. The robe was draped over the end of his bed, but he ignored it, walking to the window and resting hands and head against it. The glass was cool and smooth. At his feet, only an inch or two away on the other side of triple layered glass, the grass bent and relaxed in the grip of the mountain breezes that he could not feel. Chills ran down his spine, and he shivered as goosebumps rose down his skin.
"It takes almost no effort now," he murmured, and lost himself in the invisible movement of the winds.
"Shaman."
"Guide." They nodded to each other, almost equal in understanding now.
"What have you learned?"
"That I have a choice. That I have strengths they do not understand and cannot use. That my dreams can be real."
"Which ones?"
"All of them. The ones I hope for I can make real for myself, and the ones I experience sleeping are visions that I can learn in."
The face of the guide became clearer, sunlight showing a smile on the firm lips. "Yes. You do not have to leave here to save him."
"and I only have to stay here if I choose to do so," Blair whispered, understanding bright in his eyes.
"There is more, Shaman."
"If I choose, then there is."
"Even if you do not choose. It is not only you that must choose--"
"Jim..."
The other nodded. "And your sentinel has already made a choice. The consequences of that choice will follow you for the rest of your life, for good or ill."
"Is it time then?"
"Is it?"
"That's a really irritating habit of yours."
"I learned from a master," the guide teased, and for the first time his face came into full sunlight.
"You're beautiful."
"You chose the face that you most trusted, most longed for --"
"Most loved," Blair agreed. His eyes drank up the sight of Jim Ellison - outward form only, the soul inside belonging not to his Sentinel, but to the spirit that had chosen to accompany him through the last twelve months.
"Longer than that," the guide murmured, holding out his arms.
Blair stepped into the gentle embrace. "I know." The arms closed around him, gentle and secure.
"I will help you as long as you need me. I will always be here, if you call me. But Shaman, it *is* time."
"I know," Blair sighed, resting his head on the simulacrum's breast. "I know. But let me rest a little while."
"Of course, little brother." The arms moved, one hand, that seemed to be a paw some of the time, brushing across his back over and over, comforting and relaxing him. "Of course."
Blair woke again, curled up in his bed. He snugged his face deeper into the pillow, perfectly comfortable and content. It was time.
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The Labyrinth: Blair: The Circle Turns |
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Page last updated 18/09/2004.