Eye of the Beholder (The Marks of Caine) by Jon Burrage

Author:Jon Burrage [Burrage, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-05-29T22:00:00+00:00

Epilogue

Allesia Caine groaned as she tried to shift the upturned furniture and piles of books from on top of her. She could see red emergency lights through small gaps in the rubble as she kicked away a comfy chair that had been blasted over.

As she wriggled free, she found Scáil standing above her, arms folded, looking disapproving.

“So, this is what the kids saw, huh?” she asked her shadow as it wavered, filtering red light through it. No wonder her students had always looked a little scared.

“It would be nice if you didn’t make a habit of aggravating the Archivists, Allesia,” Scáil replied. “I’m not entirely sure they’ve forgiven you for last time.”

Caine looked around at the mess she’d caused while trying to help Morrow when she needed it most. Two reading desks splintered, five comfortable armchairs with stuffing torn out of them, several broken table lamps, and a now-empty bookcase, broken in half. A hundred or more encyclopaedia-thickness books lay scattered between the mess.

“I better clean this up before—”

Her ears popped.

“—too late.”

<Is there a problem here?> an Archivist asked. Where one moment Caine had nothing in her memory, the next there were words that had not been spoken but communicated nonetheless. Its ‘voice’ was monotone, clinical. Either the Archivists had no emotions, or their weird method of communication simply didn’t allow for it.

“No, no problem,” she smiled as sweetly as she could at the squid-headed creature. Its mouth-tentacle-things squirmed at her. “I was just doing my job.”

I feel that may be stretching the definition a little, Scáil pointed out, though why she chose to do so directly to Caine’s mind was quite beyond her. If the Archivists could read Caine’s thoughts, couldn’t they hear Scáil too? Or was the Mantle’s shadow just being courteous? Questions for another time.

Unless either wanted to give her an answer now?

Apparently, they did not. In fact, spectre and Archivist floated away together, locked in silent conversation she wasn’t privy to. As they drifted further from the mess she’d made, Caine checked herself over. She’d got a few scrapes from the table clipping her, but nothing that wasn’t almost healed already. No, it was the feeling of wind on her skin that mesmerised her.

Two years she’d been in the Archives. She knew time was fluid here, that it didn’t always run parallel with Earth, but two years in one place was a lot to deal with.

The Archive could take on any form she required to further her understanding of the responsibilities with which she’d been entrusted. It was like a giant magical holodeck. Already she’d visited facsimiles of galaxies beyond human knowledge, had walked planes designed by mad deities, had travelled back to the creation of the universe and seen why the Elder Gods had been imprisoned—but not where; that information was TOP SECRET.

They were all fake, though. All illusions, sterile and intangible. When winds blew across a planet with three suns, whipping neon pink spores through the air, she couldn’t feel any of it.

So, feeling Earth air on her skin, if only for a moment, had been exhilarating.

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