A Dream of Ice (32 page)

Of course
. Washington Square Park itself had been built upon a former potter's field. Tens of thousands of bodies, mostly dead from yellow fever, still lay below its diagonal paths and shrouding trees.

There was pain here, the agony of the forgotten dead. It clung like smoke. And there was running water here as well, not just in the central fountain but also Minetta Brook, which flowed through a series of culverts beneath the park and regularly flooded the basement of
NYU's law school library. Though it wasn't big water, she had a fond association with the brook: it was the subject of one of the first little stories Ben had told her the day he spilled coffee in her lap and they became friends.

“ ‘Minetta,' ” he'd explained, “is a corruption of a Lenape word, ‘Manetta,' which means ‘dangerous spirit' or”—Caitlin shuddered suddenly, remembering the other meaning—“ ‘snake water.' ”

She looked around, suddenly frightened by the place . . . and by the task, which wasn't clearly defined. She was going to power up with the ascended souls of this place, hope that the boost was strong enough,
and
hopefully ride that wave to a vague destination.

This is not very wise
, she told herself. But as her father often lamented, there was no one else in the batter's box.

Was there anything else she hadn't considered? The lateness of the hour was a concern; the last thing she needed was to be interrupted by a well-meaning police officer. Caitlin would have to remain standing upright and hope that the gestures she used would just look like Tai Chi to an outsider.

She chose the southeast corner, which seemed less populated than other sections of the park. A thicket of trees, a small patch of evergreens, and a blessedly burned-out park lamp provided some measure of privacy. Caitlin squeezed between the trees and oriented herself toward the unseen harbor. There weren't many cars traveling around the park, especially at night, which was good because the headlights would be a distraction even through the tree branches. Caitlin had decided that while she was concealed she needed to layer images, if she could, to keep an eye on the park. Yokane's unexplained death demanded extra precaution.

She raised her hands. Before they were halfway elevated, a soul was there—but not outside her as Azha had been. He was within her. The figure was bearded, his flesh lined with age, but the eyes and mouth were vital . . . sinister.

Ny!
she told him.
No!

He did not reply. Perhaps he did not understand.

“You don't have permission to be inside my head!” she said aloud.

I do not require it
, he replied. In English.

You speak my language.

There is no need to use very much of it
, he replied.
I am Pao. You destroyed a great
cazh
. You will atone by helping me.

You will get out of my head and stand before me
, she replied.

A second image materialized, that of a woman. Rensat. Caitlin wanted to surprise the Galderkhaani woman, acknowledge her by name, but that would inform the woman that she was prepared at least a little.

Rensat spoke next.
I see a sleeping boy and I see a woman not far from him
, she said.
You will obey.

I see two dead Galderkhaani who can do no physical damage to anyone
, Caitlin replied, finding courage in indignation.

The boy dreams of flight, of our great airships
, the woman said.
I can burn his mind.

Caitlin felt her resistance drain with her courage. The thought of her sweet little man having his inquisitive, creative mind assaulted was as great a violation as she could conceive. She knew she would not allow his innocence to be brutalized that way. She had one secret, just one, but it was not time to bring it out.

Caitlin forced herself to put fear aside and concentrate as she never had in her life, bringing to bear what she had experienced in Galderkhaan, on the subway, with Odilon, in her visions, and most recently with the stone. She needed that Galderkhaani artifact.

Caitlin extended a hand to the north, to the Group's headquarters . . . to the slumbering stone. She was going to try to harness its energy and blast these souls out of their immaterial existence.

In an instant, the power she felt was stronger than ever before. She had plugged into
two
stones, Caitlin realized too late . . . the one belonging to the Group and the one belonging to Yokane. They were
together
, somehow, in the same place. There was no time to consider
how or why they were together: it was all Caitlin could do to manage the power flowing into her left arm. She needed to balance that and extended her right arm—

A burst seemed to explode through Caitlin's hand, her arm, her body. The trail of energy continued inward and slammed into Caitlin's soul. She began to shake so hard she was sure she would collapse—but there was no body to fall. She was suddenly outside of it, pulled free by stones somewhere else in the world . . . or time, she couldn't be sure. Her right hand rose as the power continued to course through her, seeking the other tiles in the south. It found them, nearly wrenching Caitlin's immaterial arms from their sockets; the stress pulled at her soul, causing it to cry out.

For one instant, Caitlin saw Ben's face.

Ben saw her too and his expression flashed a look of madness.

“
Cai!
” he cried.

Then his face disappeared, lost in the electric conflagration that followed. Caitlin saw walls of olivine tiles flare to blinding life, burning out her vision but only for a moment—

They were hovering in a well wider and deeper than any she had ever seen; it was almost the size of a small lake. Caitlin's arms were in a different position now. They were extended up, toward a ring of tiles that lined the high roof of the well. The tiles glowed lime green and pulsed in time with her heartbeat. She felt their energy coursing through her arms, throbbing in her chest. She no longer felt the stones at the Group mansion; it was as if they didn't exist.

The psychiatrist in Caitlin saw this as the archetypical well in which so many hypnotherapy patients said they were trapped. But Caitlin's increasing understanding of Galderkhaan told her something different: this was part of the Source. The well was the inside of one of the great columns she had seen when she stopped the
cazh
. She surmised that they were in the past, inside the hollow column, almost certainly before the Source was activated. They seemed to be
vents for the magma that flowed underground, throughout the ancient state.

Pao and Rensat stood across from her, near but at what she judged to be a respectful distance. It was almost as if they were in awe of her . . . or of her power. At least, they didn't charge her. She understood, then, that they hadn't pulled her here: she had brought them. She and the powerful arc she had created between the stones in New York . . . and here.

“The tower of the
motu-varkas
,” Pao said. “The most powerful tiles . . . and we are in time. It is not yet destroyed.” His features took on an angry, hawkish cast. “You will stop the bloody Galderkhaani traitor who killed us all!”

Without turning from them, Caitlin saw a sea of seething red ooze below, flames dancing across its surface, rock walls flickering from red to brown shadow to red again. All along the granite, reaching up to the tiles, were carved figures that moved and danced as the light changed. She understood, in a moment of epiphany, that these figures, like the carvings on the stones she had seen in New York, were not just representations of the arm and hand motions during the
cazh
; they were the entire ceremony but without the verbal component. The Technologists meant for the Source to do the heavy lifting; all the Galderkhaani had to do was gather around.

You bloody idiots
, she thought angrily. The Priests and the Technologists believed the same damn thing, used the same basic idea of bonding. Only the Priests did it through what amounted to prayer and the Technologists' method was, in effect, automated and impersonal.

But it is the same!

Smoke rose in hundreds of hellish plumes, twining like vines and reaching up into whiteness beyond the glowing stones. Caitlin wasn't sure what to do next. She continued to watch her opponents, waiting for them to attack.

Instead, they were very still. “We are here,” Rensat said in triumph.

Caitlin understood, then, that she had done exactly what Pao and Rensat wanted. She had used the power of the stones to go back, just as she had done by tapping into them at the UN.

“You will save us,” Rensat continued. “You must.” The Galderkhaani specter moved a hand. The smoke moved sinuously and began to form a face.

Jacob's face. His sleeping face.

It quickly gained clarity, texture, personality. Caitlin felt pain in her soul. Even if she could throw all the energy in her body at these two, Rensat still had a grip on her boy.

Another face formed, this one brought forth by Pao. It was a middle-aged man, his features rugged but tired looking, almost drawn.

“You will find Vol,” Rensat said. “You will stop him from activating this column.”

“If I do that,” Caitlin said, “my son will die. My world will no longer exist.”

“You will cease to exist with it,” Pao assured her. “There will be no sorrow.”

The casual, almost dismissive quality of his voice caused Caitlin to tremble. She had intended to continue trying to reason with them, to reveal what Azha had told her—but anger possessed her.

Caitlin swept her arms up, bringing heat from the magma to tear through the image Pao had created. The smoke flew apart and almost at once Caitlin brought her arms back down. The tester of smoke swept down, hot and thick, and the souls of the two Galderkhaani were caught in it. The draft pulled them down, dull shapes of light that were thrust into the boiling mud—

But only for a moment. The lava bulged and surged as the burning liquid filled the souls of Pao and Rensat, like molds, creating distorted demons in red with fiery eyes and gaping mouths. Then, very slowly, the lava fell away and the radiant spirits glowed even more brightly as they returned to their previous positions . . . hovering, drifting closer.

Rensat came nearer and shrieked at Caitlin, a cry of pain that had been building for millennia. The scream knocked Caitlin back, drove her into the stone. She did not feel the concussion but she could not move from the inside of the column.

“You will do this!” Rensat cried. “You will do this or you will never leave here!”

Caitlin was no longer thinking. She cut off her vision, allowed her mind to go free, blank, and was suddenly floating outside the column, hovering in the night, a strange world below her. But there was no time to get her bearings. Pao and Rensat came out almost immediately, charged through the column, the constituent stones glowing orange from the heat that came with them. Caitlin raised her arms again and cried out her own suppressed rage—not as ancient but no less feral . . . and protective.

“
You will not have him!
” she roared, pushing the heat back at her attackers. She closed her eyes again and powered herself through the ether, until she was once more inside the column, the two devilish souls beside her.

Pao tried to grab Caitlin. His mouth was rabid, fingers clawing helplessly.

He has to know it's useless
, Caitlin thought.

But it wasn't useless: it was a distraction, Caitlin realized.

As Pao lashed out, Rensat rose, working to draw the flames with her, directing them to the hovering cloud of smoke where there were still vestiges of the face of a small boy . . . all the while uttering words that were becoming too familiar.

Aytah fera-cazh grymat—

That will be the instrument of death!
Caitlin realized. They would burn Jacob by the
cazh.
He would not be bonded to them . . . he would simply die, his soul ascended and alone.

Caitlin screamed, flung one arm up, and threw the woman up through the smoke. With the other arm, Caitlin quieted the rising flames.

“You cannot do this forever!” Pao said as he repeated the same process Rensat had begun.

Caitlin released Rensat and turned on Pao.

“You will not get my son,” Caitlin vowed. Yet even as she spoke, Caitlin knew that her grip on the past was growing tenuous, that she had to finish this now if she were to save Jacob. If she left, he would be defenseless.

She had to use the only weapon that remained, one that would require conviction—strength of a very different sort than she had been using. As a psychiatrist, she could not be sure how this would play out. It could backfire, join Pao more closely to Rensat. But there was no other play.

Caitlin turned to Rensat. “You cannot have my boy any more than you can have Pao,” Caitlin charged. This was the time to hit her, not with energy—but with truth. “Does he know your plan to betray him?”

Caitlin felt Rensat shudder. She also saw Pao's expression change slightly, subtly.

Pao did not turn to his companion but asked, “What is she talking about?”

Rensat did not answer him; she could not. No words could possibly submerge the rage that was building inside of her. In that moment, Caitlin reached up with her right hand, beyond the tiles, beyond the cone, sending her fingers outward as she had done when they were still in the park, stretching, seeking a familiar sensation—

“Rensat,
what
is this woman saying?” Pao demanded.

“It is a lie to protect her son!” Rensat replied.

“There is no reason to lie when the truth will stop you,” Caitlin assured him. “Pao, hear me. Rensat is working with an acolyte named Enzo. They have their
own
plan.”