Rook (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #1): Bridge & Sword World by JC Andrijeski

Author:JC Andrijeski [Andrijeski, JC]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: White Sun Press
Published: 2017-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

27

REVELATIONS

BARRIER CLOUDS APPEAR, eclipsing the cabin.

A wolf runs across the tundra, tongue flicking over black lips in a blood-stained grin, body elongating…

But I don’t want to see that again. I fight to change my light, to resonate with something else. Slowly, the view around me alters.

Clouds hang bright and sharp, still against liquid black.

The Barrier enfolds me in dark and light waves. I can see it now, easily, whenever I close my eyes. More importantly, I can feel when I am inside it, not just looking at it from without, or glimpsing the places where the physical world and the Barrier world overlap.

I’m not supposed to be here.

Even without Revik’s warnings, my gut tells me so.

The construct should keep me safe, or so I tell myself. I’m in a big fishbowl of protected space, cut off from the Barrier proper. But even I know the construct’s not foolproof. I also suspect that what I’m doing right now might actually put some part of me outside of the construct’s protective shield.

The shiver of nerves that hits me isn’t enough to stop me, though.

Not now, and not the countless times I’ve done it before, when Revik wandered out of the room late at night or in the early morning. He thought I didn’t know he roamed the halls while I slept, but I did. I’d wait for him to leave, and then I’d sit like this. I’d even snuck in a few jumps after he’d passed out on the bed.

Those were a lot riskier though. He was a light sleeper.

I no longer need to pause at the edge of the sharp clouds. I’ve eliminated a lot of the preliminaries, and even the intermediary steps. I’ve learned to make my jumps economical, due to the time constraints.

Even though I have time now, I do the same.

I don’t screw around, or stop to look at the scenery. I don’t play in any of the currents that flow in swift rivers above or below where I float in the clouds. I don’t visit nebulae, or stare up at the multicolored stars like I did the first few times I came here on my own. I don’t bother with vortices, either.

I aim directly at the gray wall around the spot at the top of the Pyramid.

Images hit me at once.

Most center on the keys I turned to get this far. The faceless man is elusive, hiding behind door after door. Sometimes, I use Terian to try and get close to him.

This time, I have something closer than Terian.

I focus on the bearded man, the one I know as Haldren.

I don’t know how I know him, but I do. I also know what he is.

Haldren is the faceless man. He is the same man who approached Revik in that prison during World War II, offering him a job with the Rooks. He is the man who sits on top of the Pyramid now. He is the apex of that Pyramid, its mind––its Head.

In some sense, he is the Rooks.

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