Guardian (30 page)

“
How interesting,” the Other said, with his broad and straight-toothed smile. “This is how you see yourself, if it?”

“
How I see myself?” I lifted a hand, ran fingers through short and well-behaved hair, and noticed the suit band shining brightly on my wrist.

The Other
’s eyes widened. They were blue, I realised, so light they could have been grey. He leaned forward, peered at my wrist. “What is that?”

“
This is my suit,” I whispered. Our voices sounded strange, here. They seemed to echo on into eternity. “It’s—” I paused. “A long story.”

“
It has code on it.” He frowned. “But it doesn’t make sense.”

I lowered my arm and shook my sleeve over the suit band.
“I know.” Not to us, anyway. The symbols that rose and died in apparently random order made snippets of words, partial commands. But the puppet men had used them to work a powerful reprogramming, one that had stumped the programmers and Specialist too. Just because it did not make sense to us, did not mean it was nonsense. Not by any means.

“
Come,” the Other said. He looked off into the distance, where the shadows of shapes were resolving themselves faintly against the light. “The veil can feel timeless, but do not let that fool you. We should hurry.” He flashed me another smile. I couldn’t read him, not the way I had with his Shard-bound presence. Was there sincerity in that smile, or the same smug arrogance? The same madness that he had wreaked upon my world?

Remember not to trust him, Tan
. Lad’s voice sounded in my ear, and my heart made a small, hopeful flip.
He might look like a man but he doesn’t think like one, not any more. He hasn’t been alive for a very long time
.

The shock must have shown on my face, as the Other
’s expression turned worried. “Tanyana? What is it?”

Good, he can
’t hear me. We need to keep it that way. Don’t give me away
.

I shook myself, and rubbed my unreal cheeks until I could control my expression. The left side of my face was scarred again, where Tsana
’s glass had cut me. How strange, that I had done that to myself here. “I just—” The shakiness in my voice, the unsteadiness of this new, though old, body, was not an act. “This is just so strange.”

The Other leaned back and nodded, indulgent.
“Oh, I know. But wonderful too. Follow me, and I will show you.”

Good, keep that up
.

He gestured towards my feet.
“Don’t you want to take that?”

I glanced down.

It was nothing but a ball of light. It glowed softly. I bent, found that I could pick it up. It was gentle, warm, not quite real but still here. Touching me.

“
What is it?”

The Other laughed.
“Don’t you know? That is your child, Tanyana. The one you were so desperate to save.”

I gasped, and my grip tightened. It beamed through my fingers, as bright as our Flare.
“But why does he look like that?”

He lifted eyebrows.
“The veil has the power to give us form, but only the form we give ourselves. Thus I will always look the way I did, on that fateful day, when we tore reality. You, it seems, think of yourself like that. With your patched jacket and your suit. But your child does not think of himself as anything, not yet. So that is how he will remain.” He strode ahead. “Now hurry.”

I clutched my son to my chest and followed.

“Lad?” I breathed, softly. “How is this possible?”

The terminal is connected to the Shard, and the Shard is holding the Other, so we can follow you. A little. It
’s not much, but at least you’re not alone. At least I can look after you. Like Bro told me to. Like you asked.

“
Are you alright? The Drones—”

Meta is stronger than you give her credit for, and that bag held more than just guns. Put your faith in us, and stop worrying. Concentrate on the Other. Find us a way out of this
.

We did not have to walk far before the shadows began to solidify. The formless glow gave way to buildings, impossibly tall and riddled with lights. Bitumen stretched out around our feet. Street lamps sprang up like trees, growing. And I realised, with a sudden dip in my stomach, that I knew this place. Well, I knew its future.

“This is Crust, isn’t it?”

People, ghost-like and insubstantial, walked past us. Pods whirred by. I looked up, beyond the towering buildings linked by bridges of thin steel and full of movement, of light, to the sky. It was a clear night. Words and images scrawled their way over a moon, hanging low and large. And in the distance, faint beside a world of so much light, stars glittered.

“Before it was known as Crust, yes. This is my world, as I knew it.”

“
But how? How can this exist in a tear between two worlds?” How could it exist at all?

“
Because the veil is so much more than that.” The Other stopped, and stood among his impossible world. He lifted his arms, as people walked past him and pods sped through him, and rapture lit his face. “You wanted the truth? This, here, is your truth. The veil is not a membrane between broken worlds, and it was not created accidently by the programmers. The veil was always here, waiting for someone strong enough to find it. The veil is a god!”

A
what
? He really is mad
.

Silence settled around us, and I realised how wrong that felt, for a world as apparently busy as the one we stood in.

“What?”

The Other lowered his arms, grinning.
“The veil is full,” he said, “the veil is rich. See everything it has given me? I have been blessed by a god, because I earned it. Through sacrifice, through strength. I’m home.”

I took a shaking step back.

He lowered his arms. “So you see, the veil will give me what I want. And now you have returned me, it will do the same for you. If I wish it. If I ask.” His blue eyes glinted. “Should I ask, Tanyana? Do you trust me, really? Or do you still believe the lies that fucking programmer told you? I believe that the power of a god should only be given to those who deserve it. I always have believed that. Is that you? Think hard. Is it really you?”

Careful, Tan
.

I swallowed.
“But Hero, I do not understand.” I needed to ease that glint in his eyes, the hard line of his clenching jaw. I needed an Other smiling in rapture, not judging in his wrath. “I thought the veil was a semi-something-reality-something, a side effect of the experiment that brought our worlds so close together. How can it be a god?”

That soothed him, slightly. I had the feeling he liked dispensing truth in small bites, like tossing morsels of food to a starving man.

“A wave function semi-reality. That’s what the programmers think it is, yes. But they are wrong. You should know that by now, Tanyana. They are wrong about a lot of things.”

Wait, something
’s wrong. I felt a surge. Not from him though, and not from you
.

I nodded.
“Yes, they are.”

What
is
that
?

“
They did not create the veil, all they did was open a path to it.”

“
Actually,” a familiar voice said, behind me. “
Trapped
would be a more accurate description.”

I spun. Kichlan walked out of the city heat and the haze of busy light. And for a second I couldn
’t breathe, couldn’t think, because Kichlan was there, right there. I took a shaky step towards him, hope and a heady sense of relief making the shadowy world spin.

That
’s impossible
! Lad’s voice crackled and wavered.
Bro
?

I blinked, forced my feet to slow. It couldn
’t be. Lad was right, it was impossible.

“
They trapped me here,” Kichlan said. His left arm was whole, and his eyes glowed a steady silver. The Other’s world froze in his footsteps. “When these so-called
programmers
tried to bend space to their will, they caught me in the middle, between their world and yours.”

But that meant—
”Are you the veil?” I asked.

Kichlan shrugged.
“That’s what they call me, yes. I find it strange. Even after so long, I am not accustomed to having a name.” He looked down at himself and smiled with Kichlan’s mouth. “I don’t have a body you can see, of course, so I have to borrow his. The image of this man has passed through me so many times, thanks to you. I almost feel like I know him.” It lifted Kichlan’s arms. “But still, I’m sorry about this.”

I nodded, swallowed hard. It was difficult to look at the Veil like this. To see Kichlan standing so close and know it wasn
’t him.

Not Bro? The Veil? Tan, I don
’t understand. What’s happening
?

I shook my head. I had no idea.

I glanced over my shoulder. The Other was as frozen as his city, mouth open, hands half outstretched toward me, face a mask of cruel amusement.

The Veil, in Kichlan
’s skin, stopped a few yards away. “I’ve been pinned here, between worlds, for longer than you could even comprehend.” His shining eyes met mine. “All I have been doing, ever since, is fighting for my freedom. And now, when it looks like I might actually escape, you arrive. Have you come to argue that your life is more important than my freedom, Tanyana? Are you here to doom me, again?”

“
I—I don’t understand,” I whispered, and wondered if I should bow. Or kneel. Or do something. What does one do in the face of a god?

The Veil tipped Kichlan
’s head to the side. “What’s wrong, Tanyana? Is it this world?”

The Other
’s world dissolved, starting at the Veil’s feet and spreading out, in a great circle, like ripples in a pond. Bitumen and buildings returned to shapeless light. The Other was swept away with them, which was something of a relief, despite the strangeness of it.

New shadows formed and solidified around us, but these were shapes I knew well. Movoc-under-Keeper spread out like a sunrise, starting behind the Veil and opening up to the very sky. Like the Other
’s world, mine was a Movoc-under-Keeper of the past. It was whole, alive and unscarred. The Keeper Mountain reared above me. The sky was a clear, hard blue, and an icy wind funnelled down the streets to tug at my patched coat. I breathed in its crispness. I hadn’t realised how much I missed the cold.

“
Is that better?” the Veil asked.

A deep, unreal breath.
“A little,” I said. “Thank you. It’s just…difficult. Because you look like Kichlan. And I—” why was this sticking in my throat? “—can you understand that?”

“
Of course.” Such sympathy in those eyes, even though they were purely light. I could feel it all around me, thick on the fog. The Veil felt for me. It really did.

“
Then maybe, you will help me.” I glanced around. “The Other said he would petition you to help me. He said you would listen to him, like you have done in the past. But he is gone.”

The Veil nodded.
“The one who calls himself a Hero and calls me a god. Yes, I know him quite well. And yes, I’ve helped him in the past. He brought you here, and I decided we did not need him to do anything more than that.”

“
What did you do to him?”

Fear must have shown on my face and through my voice. The Veil, looking worried,
made gentle calming motions with his hands. “Nothing but what he wanted. I have given him back his past. Like I have given you yours, here.”

“
You locked him in that pre-Crust world?”

The Veil nodded.

I wasn’t at all sure what to make of the Veil. Maybe it was Kichlan’s visage, colouring my perceptions, but the Veil was not what I had expected. It did not seem to act like an all-powerful god. Well, not the way I had imagined one would act.

“
You said the Other calls you a god,” I said, with a frown. “Does that mean you aren’t one?”

“
That is precisely the kind of thing he would not have wanted to hear.”

That was not really an answer.
“So, are you?”

The Veil shrugged.
“Not the way you would use that term, no.”

“
Then what are you?” I stared around the cobblestone streets of Movoc-under-Keeper. Ice hung from doorways and awnings, glinting in the sharp sunlight, and the shine made my heart leap. Because it was home. “Where are we, really? And how did you do this?”

“
I am—” It paused, frowning with concentration. Perhaps it was not the easiest question to answer. “A lot of what he said is true. I have always been here, yes, between your worlds. Between all worlds, actually. I, and my kind, travel the paths between realities. And it was the worst kind of luck, I suppose, that when the programmers decided to trespass on those paths I just happened to be here. Between your worlds. Of all the realities, the infinite and growing existences, I was right beside the one that tore.”

“
I don’t believe in luck,” I said. “Good or bad. Not any more.”

The Veil held my gaze.
“Well, I do.”

“
What about all this?” I waved at the world the Veil had created. “What is this?”

“
Me. All me.” I thought I saw a faint pride in its sad smile. “I am the Veil. Blood from your wounded world passes through me, as it does from the so-called-Hero’s world. But we are different, you and I. So different. If not for the images I create for you, the memories I plunder and this faux-reality, you would not be able to see me. To touch, smell…sense me in any way. This is for your benefit. To give you a frame of reference.”

I looked around.
“You are everything?” I asked. After the Keeper and the puppet men and the dark world, it wasn’t too hard to believe. I liked to think I had rather broadened my mind, since
Grandeur
’s fall.

“
Yes. And though it was the worst kind of luck for me, to be trapped here, it was the best for your worlds. Because I have, indeed, become a kind of membrane between you. I am my own reality, if you will, and I filter and alter both of yours. My presence has slowed the movement of particles between your worlds, and those particles that do make it through take a little of me with them. You see, I am a creator reality. I breed worlds. I fashion life, I shine light into darkness, change dry to wet, dead to alive. Some of that energy latches on to the particles as they pass through me, and it gives them power. You call it pions. The programmers call it Pionic energy. That’s all a part of me. My stunted, thwarted, reason to be.”

So the Veil is just what we thought it was,
Lad whispered.
Only—Keeper help me—it’s alive too. It’s conscious. It knows what we’ve done and it feels what we’re doing and, and hell—How could we have done this?

Slowly, I was beginning to understand what the Veil had meant by doom.
“But you want freedom,” I whispered.

“
Don’t all things, no matter which reality they come from?” It looked away, its silver-light gaze growing distant. “I have a journey to continue, a mate to find.”

“
A
mate
?” Perhaps I had not broadened my mind that much.

“
Does that surprise you? I told you, I’m a creative force. Surely you don’t think I manage that all on my own?” The Veil smiled softly. “My presence keeps your world alive, but do I not deserve a life of my own? Happiness? Destiny? Love? Do I not deserve freedom?”

A chill that had nothing to do with the artificial Movoc wind settled in my spine as I thought of the puppet men.
“You’ve been trying to free yourself, haven’t you?”

The Veil nodded.

“You gave life to the puppet men.”

“
I’m not the best judge of such things.” I could feel its guilt this time, permeating me. “At first, it was an accident. I had been so lonely, since Favian left me. Although he wasn’t very good company by the end, of course, but you take what you can get. Can you imagine what it’s like trapped here, all on my own? Only able to see snippets of the worlds through the programs and people and particles moving through me, but not able to touch them? I’m used to travel, but not to loneliness. The universes are so alive. There is always someone to talk to. I missed that.”

Damn it
.

“
So I just wanted someone to talk to, at first. They were dumped inside of me, in pieces, confused and hurting. I know what that felt like. I took pity on them! I threaded some of myself through their partial consciousnesses, tied them all together, then wrapped that around the particles as they moved through me, giving them solidity and making them whole.”

“
They were programs, offcuts, lines of unstable code.” Wrapped them around particles? “The crimson pions!” I gasped. “Vol told me the puppet men
were
the crimson pions, and that’s because you made them that way! Those are the particles you used to give the puppet men form.” No wonder they were so powerful, and so deep within the world. They were more that just pions. They were the puppet men, and the power of the Veil, all tied up together.

The puppet men have been systematically weakening the program we installed here, the one that slows down the movement of particles between the worlds.

I frowned. “But if you just wanted someone to talk to, why did you send them into my world? Why need those particles at all? You could have kept them here.” Slowly, it began to dawn on me.

Lad was way ahead of me.
Speeding up the movement of particles will destabilise both worlds, and ultimately destroy them.

“
You gave life to the puppet men and sent them out in search of a place to belong. The puppet men think that by upsetting the balance they will create a world for themselves, but they won’t create anything, will they? They will perish, just like the rest of us!”

Only when both worlds are gone, can the Veil be free
.

The Veil did not meet my gaze.
“It is not in my nature to destroy realities. I would rather create them.”

“
Other curse you—” I paused. Other? Oh hells. “It didn’t start with the puppet men, did it?”

The Hero?

“What did you call him? Favian. You said Favian kept you company, he told you what was happening in both worlds. But your relationship was more complicated than that, wasn’t it? He wasn’t a friend. He worshipped you as a god! Over the centuries he came to believe that you had blessed him, chosen him, given him the power to judge the worlds he protected.
My world
.”

“
Favian was the only thing that stopped me going mad!” the Veil cried. “You can’t understand what it was like. Suddenly, I couldn’t move, and these worlds were cutting through me. It hurt! I lost all contact with my kind, with all the universes I was so used to swimming through. I hated him, at first. He was
forced
into me. I had no say, I had no choice. But slowly, I came to know him.”

“
In the beginning,” I whispered. “He really was a hero. But his time in the Veil drove him mad.” I swallowed hard. “What did you do to him?”

The Veil
’s borrowed shoulders slumped, and he sat awkwardly on a chair that appeared suddenly beneath him. He pressed Kichlan’s hands against his glowing eyes. “He was my friend. He told me what he and his programmers had done. He explained the particles crossing through me, and the effect I was having on them. What would happen to both worlds, without my help. And I realised what it would take to escape. Pain. Sacrifice.”

“
So you changed him. You twisted him.”

The Other used the threat of the doors he was supposed to be guarding, and started testing the people under his protection. Every time he opened one, he weakened the Veil
.

Lad paused. I wished he really was here, beside me. I wished I could hold his hand.

No, that’s not quite right, is it. We have to change our thinking. Every time he opened one, it was actually weakening our worlds. Bleeding pure, opposite particles into each other, without the touch of the Veil to filter them. Two worlds, being undone. And now we know, that’s just what the Veil wanted him to do
.

“
He didn’t go mad,” I said. “The Veil drove him mad.”

“
Hardly!” The Veil jerked to its feet. “He didn’t need my help, he was already headed that way. You can’t keep a human locked in nothingness forever. Just like you can’t do that to me! Unable to touch anything, unable to talk to anyone, stationary, hurting, and always, always alone. This isn’t life, not in any world, any reality, any universe! Can you really blame Favian for his fate? And can you really blame me for what I did?”

“
You’re trying to destroy my world!”

“
I was trapped here through no fault of my own. Whose life matters more? Yours, or mine?”

I glanced down at the soft light that was all that remained of my son and keenly felt how unfair this all was. He had not asked for this either. He too was trapped—with me—through no fault of his own.

“You will not help me, will you?” I asked. My son fluttered against my fingers, like I was holding a bird. “You created the puppet men, why would you help me destroy them?”

“
Why am
I
the one who must help
you
?” The Veil scowled, casting Kichlan’s face in ugly shadows. “If this sacrifice is so noble, then why don’t you and your people make it? I’ve been doing this for millennia, and I’m sick of it! It’s your turn, it’s got to be! Go on, give up your worlds for my life because it’s the right thing to do.” The Veil panted, and looked away. “No, Tanyana, I will not help you. I—I’m sorry.”

Shit. Now what do we do
?

Had I really come this far for nothing? Had I really fought so long just for this?

“However, I can offer you an alternative.”

I glanced up, but did not trust myself to speak.

The Veil stepped closer. It held out Kichlan’s hands—those large, strong hands—above the ball of light that was my child. And it changed.

Just as the emptiness had turned into cities, a shadow-child formed between my palms. It solidified slowly. Bones and nerves at first, their outlines like foundations for a small but intricate building. Then arteries, veins and capillaries; organs and muscles. Finally, musculature and skin.