The Path to Loss (Approaching Infinity Book 4) (12 page)

He’d never been this numb before. The Root Palace was his main source of sensory input and it was now a dead mass of unfeeling metal. For the sake of the Empire, with
The Place with Many Doors
and its promise of real freedom so close, he could not afford not to hope.

“May we have some time before sortieing, Minister?” Hilene said timidly.

Witchlan was hesitant. He stared at Hilene inscrutably for a time then looked to Jav. “It is up to you, Mr. Holson. Though we are eager to see an end to this condition, the logic I have put forth would tend to indicate that time is either immaterial or our ally. Do as you see fit, but do not disappoint us.”

“Yes, Minister,” Jav said.

High, high up the length of the Vine, where the effects of the gold and the planet’s atmosphere failed to reach, Jav and Hilene sat upon an improvised gravity block. Witchlan had arranged for a shifting and altering of the Vine fibers to create a sizable compartment with artificial gravity. Far away from the facilities designed for human habitation and with no fragile machinery nearby to succumb to its affects, the gravity, though not precise, was greater than what even Jav was used to, but this Hilene had requested.

She had explained to Jav what had happened when the gold dragon—Toth Talpas, he’d informed her—had turned its beam upon her, how, though she remained intangible, she was unable to control her division and how the beam had disoriented her.

“I remember Raus talking once about his first assignment,” she said. “He said that you were able to tear ghosts apart with your bare hands. Well, with Approaching Infinity and your bare hands.”

Jav nodded.

“I want you to see if you can reach me with Approaching Infinity and then I want to see if I can put more
distance
between us.” She broke into a grin and looked down to the rough, resin floor, poking a finger absently at her right foot. “If you can reach me, though, I won’t have any advantage over you, and you’ll have no reason at all to fear me. In fact, you’ll be able to do whatever you want with me.” She said this as she looked up to meet his eyes, realizing too late exactly what she was saying. The flush spread out across her cheeks instantly.

“Here,” Jav said, reaching for her chin and gently drawing her closer to him with his fingers. “This is what I want to do with you right now.” And he kissed her softly on the lips.

When he pulled away her eyes were still closed, and her lips were still slightly parted. He placed his hands upon her shoulders and helped her rise to her feet under the crushing gravity conditions.

“Go hollow,” he told her. “And I’ll try that again.”

Hilene’s speculation that Jav could, through rigorous and constant exertion of AI, reach her in her intangible state proved to be accurate. At the end of the day, he succeeded in brushing her lips with his own, a feat which both shocked and excited her. No one had ever been able to touch her if she didn’t want to be touched. Even purely mental assaults were largely ineffectual against her because of the nature of her power, and those that
were
able to “pinpoint” her were significantly reduced because of her already high Raw Mental Power of 4,500.

She flinched reflexively when he reached her. He immediately stopped his efforts and backed away, but then she broke out into a wide grin and was so excited that she couldn’t control her breathing. She told him to do it again, and for several minutes she simply let him, reveling in the contact she’d been seeking for so long. She had asked for this training, though, knew that there was an appropriate time and place for everything, and was possessed of enough self-discipline to continue the exercise. That Jav had reached her was significant, but only the first step. Now she must retreat further into the places that were not places, to make herself even less accessible to the physical than were ghosts.

They started fresh the next day, exactly where they had left off. Hilene pushed her power, flexed it like a muscle, or tried to, for training one’s involuntary muscles is no mean task. She was aware of the mechanism inside her which made her intangible, but it was more like a switch, one which she had never really taken the time to examine beyond
on
and
off
. Her time at the Locsard Psychic Academy had mostly been spent becoming comfortable with the switch and learning basic and advanced defense techniques to supplement her RMP. Now, however, she looked inward, examined that switch, the way it responded to various kinds of mental stimulation, and found that she
could
push it, that she could recede further into whatever nether realm it was that received her.

Through the course of the day, she succeeded in drawing away from Jav once again so that he could not reach her, though by evening, he was successful once more in laying his lips upon hers. They were both exhausted by the continuous mental effort, but Hilene felt that there was more to be gained by further training. She asked for one more day and Jav consented without argument.

The third day had them pursuing the same course, but it appeared that Hilene had reached her limit. With time and supreme effort, Jav was able to reach her and she could retreat no further.

She shook her head and stared at the floor. “This isn’t right.”

“What do you mean?” Jav said. He hesitated to say what he was thinking, that she shouldn’t always expect her power to top others’.

“I feel like I’m on the verge of something, like I have been for most of this training.” She looked him in the eye. “I don’t feel that I need to be better than you, but you’ve opened my eyes and my mind to a potential I never even imagined.”

“Okay,” he said. An awkward silence filled the room, lasting for what seemed a long time. Finally Jav spoke again. “Did I ever tell you how I trained with Kimbal Furst to develop the Ghost Kaiser?”

“No,” she said.

He grinned uncomfortably, scratched his chin, and looked away. “Well, it wasn’t with kisses.”

“That’s encouraging, but on a different front.”

“This is for both of us,” he said.

She cocked her head in confusion then reeled at his approaching claw hand. His lips she welcomed; his hands, which in this case were death, she did not. She saw his hand grow closer and closer and time slow down as the distance between them was cut in half, then cut in half, then cut in half, opening an unlimited microcosm to him and enabling him to build up infinite momentum, infinite mass until he reached her, exceeded infinity, and obliterated her. She retreated as only she could. The challenge spurred an adrenalin rush, which commingled with the sudden lust she felt for him, giving rise to something she might only describe as an orgasm that reverberated through her entire being. She felt an explosion of liquid power/space/remove wash over her, taking her so far away from the physical that her perceptions changed—all of them—so that the physical world around her was utterly changed and she understood what it was to be a god.

Unable to move, Jav gaped at her, his claw hand buried in her shimmering, semi-transparent face. Sparkles danced all around her, winking in and out of existence. “It’s beautiful, Hilene,” he said, giving himself a chill by voicing his awe.

She seemed unaware of his words. She was looking all over the chamber,
through
the chamber walls, and finally her eyes returned to him where they went wide.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he said, withdrawing his hand.

“I can see them. I can see your Artifacts,” she said.

Jav swallowed hard. “Oh.”

“The Ritual Mask is dim, buried deep, but the Kaiser Bones are vivid. They’re all bunched up around your spine. If I wanted to, I could. . .” She started to reach forward and then stopped herself. She smiled a smile Jav had not yet seen on her. She closed her eyes briefly as she composed herself and returned to solidity.

She took his hands in hers, and both proceeded to lose themselves in each other’s eyes. Finally, she could not fight off a yawn any longer.

“I’m really tired,” she said. “Can we take a break?”

“Of course. Besides,” he said, leading her to a place against the resin wall where they sat down together, “who am I to argue with a girl who can reach in and tear out Artifacts?”

“You’re the man who made it so I could. You’re the man who’s skill, whose hands, whose…
everything
I respect above all others’.”

She sounded tired and more than a little punchy. She laid her head down upon his chest. When he looked down to her face, gently hooking the red curl that hung across it behind her ear, he saw that her eyes were closed in sleep.

A massive, corpse-pale shape broke the uniform stillness of the red sky. Its leathery wings, spreading a hundred meters tip to tip, struck thunder with each beat. Chan Fa had come as promised to Sera Fontessa’s castle, the appointed meeting place.

Though one might argue that the Everliving had nothing but time to think, the long flight with its change of scenery and lack of company, had cleared his head and allowed him to really think for the first time in what might have been centuries. He’d been undecided about whether or not he should allow Sera Fontessa and Kels Ansrath to live. It was better to forgive them, he concluded. Fontessa was beautiful, but Chan Fa, with all his years, understood that his lust was essentially non-specific and that it could be sated easily under his current living conditions. Her betrayal was understandable, too, when considering what she’d had to gain. Their theft of the Shields had not changed any essential truth about the forever-declining state of Thrax Palonis, and any future the world could have would lie more with them than with him. Also, if Peshil had spoken true, and the world was indeed threatened by aliens, then repelling them would be far easier to accomplish together than alone. The thought of suicide, perhaps his only escape from what had become an endless monotony, had occurred to him periodically over the years. He wasn’t ready just yet. Nor was there any guarantee that he could succeed.

He descended to the gates, calling out as he did so, and resumed his human shape to touch ground on bare feet. Men saw him in and ushered him to Sera Fontessa’s receiving hall.

While waiting, he felt himself assaulted by the shakes and realized that he was nervous. He’d forgotten what it was to be nervous and didn’t understand the sensation or why he was suddenly afflicted with it. When Sera Fontessa emerged, escorted by Kels Ansrath, who Chan Fa could not help notice was missing one eye, his nerves exploded with a wash of heat that suffused his whole body.

It was one thing to know the right course, it was quite another to follow it when the pit of one’s emotional being cried out for satisfaction. Something inside him broke on seeing Sera Fontessa, more beautiful now as a noble Shield, made up and adorned with splendid metal finery that accentuated her curves—curves that had been meant for him—than ever as his humble serving girl. And yet he had wanted her then, had waited patiently for her transition to womanhood only to have her betray him and flee with the man who also stood now before him.

Seeing Chan Fa’s thoughts plainly play out upon his pale face, Kels Ansrath raised a hand and cried out, Chan Fa! Stay your hand!”

But Chan Fa had already summoned his Shield and the castle ceiling cracked and fell away to make room for him. With the exception of those crushed by debris from above, Fontessa’s men scattered immediately. Ansrath looked apologetically to Fontessa, and then quickly summoned his own Shield, taking up a space, as well as possible, between Chan Fa and Fontessa. His good eye fell upon his still-outstretched arm and a frown distorted his scaly features. He was still scaly, but his black color had none of its usual luster. Chan Fa wasted no time. His jaws shot for and latched onto Ansrath’s throat. Blood geysered from where several of Chan Fa’s teeth had penetrated, and bone gave way within the flesh of Ansrath’s neck. The great black head lifted up slightly as Chan Fa’s jaws closed and then, pinched off from its root, fell, crashing to the floor and shattering countless tiles.

Chan Fa turned his baleful gaze upon Sera Fontessa and seemed to smile. “Do you seek escape once again?” he said. “You shall not have it. Did he not tell you? That no Shield may exercise its power in my presence unless I allow it?”

Fontessa cowered upon the ground, shaking her head.

“We are going to be together for eternity, Sera Fontessa. Maybe not in the way that either of us had hoped or envisioned, but circumstances often dictate fates for which we are unprepared.”

Toth Talpas entered then, stopping suddenly his frenzied run, and crying out in surprise at the state of the chamber. “
What in all of Thrax Palonis is going on here
?”

At the sound of his voice, Chan Fa turned, opened his jaws slightly, and belched out a spray that doused Toth Talpas, froze his muscles, deadened his nerves, and set his mind to strange dreaming.

“A meal of three, then,” Chan Fa said, turning back to look down upon Fontessa. “But only you, Sera Fontessa, will be remembered and honored within my belly.”

After a few hours of sleep, Jav and Hilene took up their practice once again, confirming that Jav could no longer reach her when she went
beyond
, no matter how he exerted himself. Before, he’d been able to use her image as a point of reference for the AI calculations, but now, even though he could still see her, something interfered with his perceptions so that he could not isolate a reference point within or upon her. Hilene could now attain the desired state on demand though with supreme effort and so Jav’s role was reduced to that of spectator. She found that the longest she could maintain the altered state was seventy-six seconds before fatigue forced her to revert to her most basic level of intangibility. Both were certain that she would be able to improve this limit with practice, but even if she could not, there were very few circumstances either could imagine that would require such a degree of intangibility. She was already the potential bane of every Shade, and they could only speculate on what such fantastic subtlety might mean for future enemies.