Chapter 266. Unmoored (Patreon)

[ hi. might not be another chapter today for this past week, since i'm trying to finish up lots of stuff in preparation for a long flight to hawaii tomorrow morning for work. will be working on the plane though and plan to get chapters hammered out. thanks! ]

Entering the soul of another was unlike anything Maria had experienced, even as formerly foggy memories of Ian’s previous intrusion into her soul swam in crisp definition to the forefront. Many months ago she’d experienced his coming like a goddess welcoming a vanquisher into her temple. She hadn’t existed as a person with an individual sense of self; she was everywhere and everything in her own micro-universe of existence.

Now their positions were swapped. Maria felt like an intrepid mortal as she peered into the inky, absolute darkness, seeing without eyes, feeling without skin. She didn’t know up from down, had no sense of space or time. There was, however, a fluctuating tone in the background, like crinkling static, though it sounded far off.

Ian?

Maria, a voice replied, reverberating around her. Suddenly, a cage of golden arrows materialized. Only when they flapped one, extending to their impossible limits, and curled toward her did she realize that they were wings. As she gazed into the fathomless darkness, she spotted a dark smudge where the wings joined together.

As soon as she recognized Ian, the distance fell away like an illusion. There is no distance here, she realized. He was in front of her, she in front of him.

He was made of rainbow arrows, save for the golden wings and the ring of bent, red arrows that hovered above his head. It looked like a crown of barbed wire drenched in blood.

But as she inspected him, grim shackles of midnight blue came into being as though summoned by her gaze, binding his wrists and ankles. A blindfold–a square of cloth formed by orange arrow shafts wickered on top of one another–materialized next, tying behind his head, the spare cloth draping down his back over an arrow-studded spine.

The bindings and blindfold visibly constricted, straining against Ian’s body. He shuddered, then went limp.

Ian! Maria bellowed.

He didn’t respond, and even began to drift off aimlessly in another direction, as though adrift on a slow river.

Maria looked down at her own body and wondered what it meant for her to shout. She was made of arrows; she didn’t have lungs. This place isn’t real. It’s the concept of things that matters, the idea. Ian was shackled, and a cloth covered both his eyes and ears. With his practice, such things would never be an impediment, but here, in the space of his soul…

Maria reached up hesitantly and grabbed at the blindfold, pinching it carefully between arrow-tip fingers. Ian’s body went rigid and Maria’s vision shifted to an unfamiliar scene.

Teen Ian was in a school uniform, a tie fastened immaculately around his neck. Maria considered that to most, the setting would be completely ordinary. However, outside of filmed programs, she’d never seen a classroom. That everything in the chamber was in Swellish–rather than her native Luxish–made it feel even more alien.

Maria could feel Ian’s emotions as her own as he sat in his chair. An irrepressible gloom hung over him like a blanket. Dread. Loneliness. Fear. Denial. Hopelessness. A heavy patchwork of negativity that signaled to others that they should stay away. Ian wasn’t concentrating on the others in the room chatting amongst themselves. His eyes were fixed on the clock in the cornel, an ancient analog model with hands powered by a gear mechanism. It was incongruous–nobody used old relics like that anymore. Every tick of its hands accompanied a beat of Ian’s heart. It was a countdown to the arrival of the teacher and the end of the day.

The students in the room flickered and wavered like a desert mirage. Suddenly Ian was out of the classroom, returning home. Maria had seen pictures of Ian’s humble family residence, but seeing it like this–in Ian’s soul–was a powerful experience. She viscerally felt the dingy oppressiveness as Ian’s loafers squeaked on worn steps, a light flickering behind him. He arrived at his door and fumbled with a keychain, holding up a bronze key and bringing it forward with a sigh. It barely fit the keyhole, and only after fifteen seconds of practiced jimmying caused the lock to disarm.

Ian slunk inside with the same skittish demeanor of the white house cat that groomed itself under the dining room table. His back brushed up against the wall as he skirted the cramped space–reaching down to stroke the cat as he passed by–and entered his room.

There, he found a card waiting for him. On the cover was Germaine and Ian sketched in great detail, the two of them smiling. Maria could feel Ian’s emotions as he held up the card. To her surprise, anger was strongest.

He opened the card and silently read its contents.

Suddenly Maria was in his head, seeing from his point of view, no longer a spectator.

Ian, his mental inner voice narrated. It was dark, sarcastic. I hope you can be excited for me, going to Gent and getting away. It’s an opportunity at achieving independence, a way for me to escape the Dunai shadow.

Ian’s bitter thoughts surged forth: You can never escape Father’s shadow. But as he kept reading, his eyes misted over. The page became harder to read.

You know I’ll miss you. Please don’t be angry. Sorry to leave you with Mother, I know it’s hard, but when it’s time for you to leave...maybe you can come to Gent, too.

Ian grit his teeth. As if Gent is far enough. It’s merely a few hours’ hovergloss ride away from Jupiter. He threw the card onto the bed, looking away. But then he peeked back to read the final words.

I’ll always be on Team Ian, no matter what. Please don’t shut me out. Love you forever. Yours, Germaine.

“Ian!” a waspish voice snapped, muffled by the door. Maria, still embodied in Ian’s skin, felt the instinctive dread and simmering anger that rose in his chest as he flinched.

He didn’t answer, his throat thick with emotion.

“Where is your sister?”

He rubbed at his face with his palms, his face ashen. “Gone to Gent.”

“What do you mean, ‘gone to Gent’?”

Ian’s body felt so, impossibly heavy, but he managed to woodenly move his legs and shuffle to the door. His face relaxed, his expression turning frigid. He cracked it open, beholding the stern, impatient gaze of his mother.

“If you’d paid attention, it wouldn’t be a surprise,” he said simply, standing in the doorway.

“You knew?”

“She’s been packing the past week. Why do you think she went to the transit array station three times, each time with a large suitcase that she didn’t return with?”

Her expression matched his in iciness, her eyes shining. “Let me think.” She made a faux-contemplative gesture, tapping her chin. “Oh, right, as usual, I was working myself to the bone this entire week so we’d have something to eat.”

Not for us, Ian thought. For your revenge. He laughed inwardly. As usual.

“It doesn’t matter, she’s gone.”

“Do you have an address?” Mother asked, still maintaining an aloof air.

“No.”

“Useless,” she muttered. Then she slammed the door in his face, nearly breaking his nose.

Ian blinked, then began to chuckle. He walked over to his bed, then collapsed, his chest still wracked by bitter laughter. He glanced over at the glosscomp on his desk. Despair warred with fear as Ian debated getting up to get his work done.

His eyes once more fixed on the form of an old wall clock, the very same one from the classroom. The dread in Maria’s stomach was entirely her own–Ian didn’t find the clock’s reappearance odd. With each tick of its hands, he blinked, and his body soon fell limp, as though entranced to the dance of the clock’s hands.

Tick. Tick. Tick. The hands started moving faster, accelerating. Ian’s eyelashes fluttered like hummingbird wings, occluding his–and by extension, Maria’s–vision. When the hands became a blur, Ian’s eyes opened wide, unblinking. The hands had twisted, the minute hand strangling the hour hand.

“It’s broken,” Ian murmured, standing up. He walked over, took the clock off the wall, and began digging into its internals, exposing the gear mechanism. Frowning, he removed the largest gear and held it in front of him.

And the clock began to melt. Bubbles rose on its surface, forming the shapes of other old analog clocks, as it dissociated. Sighing with the same level of casual annoyance as if witnessing his cat barf on his desk, Ian reached his hand into the goopy clock and withdrew the minute and hour hands. He straightened out the minute hand and separated them. All he had now were the two hands and the large gear.

Suddenly, as though many minutes had passed in an instance, the melted clock’s liquid filled the room, coating every surface up to Ian’s waist. It was a thick, oily substance that evaporated rapidly like dry ice, releasing rainbow fumes.

A cat pawed at the door, begging to be let in, and the door swung open of its own accord. The liquid threatened to wash the white feline away, but like Ian, the cat responded with preternatural calm and acceptance and began paddling over.

When the cat arrived, Ian patted it on the head, then held out the large gear. The cat sniffed it, then grossly extended its jaw and swallowed the gear whole.

The cat turned translucent, ghostly, and rose from the melted clock fluid, standing on the surface.

Sorry, Zefur, Ian thought, though this wasn’t dream Ian, reliving a static memory–it was soul Ian. I couldn’t bring you back. Ian stabbed the two clock hands–which had suddenly enlarged into 6-inch spades–into his eyes, then everything went dark.

Maria gasped as the vision ended, arrow Ian once more in front of her, her hands upon the blindfold. She took a moment to collect herself. What was that with the clock? It felt like a memory had spiraled off the rails in psychedelia. There was symbolism there–she only needed to take the time to interpret it.

She removed her hands and the arrow-weave cloth fell from his face, the arrows unraveling and scattering into the darkness. Instead of eyes behind the blindfold, Maria saw two dark, circular pits, as though Ian’s eyes had been dug out.

Not a blindfold, but a bandage, Maria realized, freezing. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do next. Remove the bindings on his wrists and ankles? It almost seemed too literal, too obvious, like she was tackling the symptom of a greater problem rather than its cause.

Instead of toying with the arrows binding his limbs, she placed her arrow-tipped hands on his chest. When he didn’t react, she wrapped them awkwardly around his waist, avoiding the enormous wings that extended to the sides.

Still he didn’t react.

Frowning, she brought her lips forward and kissed him on the lips, but he didn’t kiss her back. He was as catatonic here as in the real world.

Maria tamped down on the kernel of panic that bloomed in her gut. He’s not brain dead–he said my name and I just saw one of his memories.

Frustrated, she acted on a whim and grabbed at the thorny crown floating above his head. It’s funny how you’re a king in here, she thought. You flee responsibility. She yanked it and placed it on her wrist. It shrank down to the size of a bangle.

A king, or a prisoner? A crown or a shackle? he asked, his voice echoing.

Maria ignored the question. Ian had already confided in her about his misgivings regarding power and how his responsibility felt like a shackle, forcing his hand. She wasn’t here in his soul to liberate him from his deep rooted fears and complexes. That would come with time and experience.

Do you understand what’s happened to you? she asked.

I...am severed. The vessel cannot hold my presence. I am leaving, drifting...untethering.

That didn’t sound good. That’s not possible, Maria replied. You’re in Eternity. You can’t die here.

Regardless, I am broken. I am drifting. I am leaving.

Like Germaine, Maria said.

I don’t want to be left behind, Ian murmured, his booming voice growing soft, weak.

I won’t leave you, Maria promised. You didn’t leave me. With arrow teeth reminiscent of shark fangs, she bit her lip. How can I help? What can I do?

If the vessel is unsuitable...it must change.

Maria blinked. You want Ash to change your body?

There was no response. The darkness began to close in on her. The golden wings flickered like defunct lights. Soon the only light left was the sanguine bangle around her wrist.

The bangle suddenly cut into her, severing her wrist arrows in one go. Maria cried out in pain, but the arrows melted back together, repairing the damage. The former-crown contorted and writhed. Right as Maria felt her soul yank back to reality, she saw its newest shape.

A knife–or a dagger.