27Had a Great Fall
Series: The Anchor's Chain
Summary: The big Vision-Storm brings answers. Sort of. Patience, people, the final chapter is up tomorrow.
Warnings: You know you love this story –now gimme some love!
There is a flaw in the power of Seeing, a lack of balance unseen in any other aspect of generation magic.
Irrevocably, the Doomed one will see only what is before him, where the waves part to let his mind See. It is random and the child is without control, without direction and without hope. Alone, his mind will be as a rudderless ship in a stormy sea, crashing with the waves, part of them and needing to survive –yet always slowly, slowly drowning.
To Awaken, to remain above the storm, he must have his Anchor. The Anchor is a one who forces the waves to his will. For the Anchor is the wind, the orchestrator of the rising crescendo preceding a distant cacophony, and who returns the calm. He brings Vision; sight into the beyond. It is he who holds fast; to keep the Doomed one safe from all the tempests of the vision-storms.
Awakened, they balance. But if they be one without the other then their power will lie useless. One with too much and no control, the other with all the control yet no power at all.
"I'm calling my mother," Marcus said sternly while Vane ducked out the door.
"We don't know anything," Nicholas protested desperately, leaping to his feet, elation and denial warring in his heart. "It's just a superstition!" Imrad got a two-handed hold on Nicholas' upper arm and gave him a warning look. Nicholas froze.
The disruption settled, Marcus pulled out his phone and hit a speed dial number. "Mom. Got some news about Nicky." Thankfully, he ducked into the bathroom to relay Elliott's suspicions –and not force Nicholas to listen to the entire ridiculousness of it.
Nicholas slumped and after a moment, Imrad released him. "He's not part of our world," he murmured. "He doesn't want to be. And he himself said he hasn't got much magic. It's just… too weird anyway." He glared at Elliott, "An Anchor is a superstition."
"Might not be." Elliott returned the hard look, "Better to be certain."
"It does align rather nicely," Imrad observed, "After seeing him you have the 'rising crescendo' and there always follows a 'distant cacophony' before a 'vision-storm' hits. The persistent headaches and more usual Seeing are probably symptoms. The entire idea isn't improbable."
"It's impossible," Nicholas desperately corrected, loudly and near panicked.
Imrad gave him an understanding look but remained silent.
There was a long silence until Elliott said slowly, "It's okay to hope, Nicky."
Nicholas hated that he did have hope. But hope was the thing that got him into messes and brought nothing but disappointment. Hope was what would have kept him researching and hunting, wasting his life away instead of living it out here where being normal made him happy; he stared helplessly, "Isn't this just too …convenient or something?"
"And if it is what we think it is," said Elliot quietly, brows furrowed with concern. His gaze turned intense, "It could keep you alive."
Nicholas wanted to scream.
Vane slipped back in, "Mirror's ready in Marcus' room." He nodded to Marcus, who'd just stepped out of the bathroom, phone snapping shut in his hand. They stepped out into the hall, quickly making their way for Marcus' room. Meanwhile, Elliot grabbed hold of Nicholas' right arm, Imrad his left, and they marched him out the door.
"This is ridiculous!" Nicholas hissed, shaking at their holds, "Guys, let go. People are staring!"
"You're going," Elliot stated on a low voice, eyes dark and intent.
"Where the hell would I go now?" he snapped, jerking his arms free when the holds loosened. Pissed off and exasperated, he marched down the hall after his disappearing cousins, Elliot and Imrad trailing silently behind him. He could barely see straight, he was so angry. And he could hear next to nothing beyond the furious thumping of his heartbeat.
It quickened when he got into Marcus' room to find Vane waiting, holding the curtain over the mirror aside to show its shimmering surface. Scowling, Nicholas stepped through.
"This is absurd," he growled, first thing, speaking before his Aunt Beth could talk first. "Pure suspicion and no evidence whatsoever—"
"Shut it, Nicky," commanded a familiar voice.
He started then turned, "Nix?" Arms opening automatically; how had he not sensed her?
She jumped into his embrace, her arms tightening around him. "Hey," she whispered raggedly into his shoulder.
"Missed you," he murmured back, closing his eyes. His magic tingled at her presence, a skittering awareness across his skin like every time they were near each other.
"Well," Aunt Beth said quietly, "Now that your temper's been distracted, I'd like to reintroduce you to Sarah Stamford."
In his arms, Nix gave him an extra squeeze and whispered so very softly, "I'm so glad. You have no idea how glad." He knew what she meant. Returning the hug just as fiercely for a moment, Nicholas finally sighed then reluctantly released his sister, and turned to face the music.
The next few hours were a mad flurry of people cross-verifying information and background, arguing and discussing, and –most importantly- refusing Council entry into the Four Towers.
The Towers' lands had been removed from the Council's jurisdiction as part of the exile; a land no longer encompassed by the Hidden World's rule. Therefore, no Council member or any representative or associate of which could step upon Four Tower soil without express invitation. It had taken a full generation of the Four Towers' clans to put the spells together to bar the Council, should they revoke the self-exile for their own purposes; brothers, sisters, spouses, friends. The combined diverse power and personal investment at the time amounted to a much more concentrated mix of emotions infused into the spelling; not even the Council could remove it.
While Aunt Beth and his uncles coordinated the information flow, his mother and other aunts faced off with Councillors and representatives in various communication devices, magical and non. The women's tempers made the entire stalling plan a perfect success, by Aunt Beth's estimation –before she turned understanding eyes on poor Nicholas, sitting in a corner chair, head in his hands and going silently insane, and told him he might do better to get away from the noise until they 'sorted things out.'
Nicholas lay in his room on his side, Nix curled up with him, awaiting the verdict and enjoying a mother-load of a headache and distant noises.
Fuck them, he thought nastily, gripping tighter onto her hand. "Fuck them," he whispered and closed his eyes at a particularly nasty throb at his left temple.
"I'm sorry," she whispered back, understanding at least something of what he was thinking and feeling.
"I don't want to see him," he hissed, a little petulantly and a little fearfully.
"I'm sorry," she whispered again, because there was no way she would pass up the chance to find out if Stephen was really his Anchor, apologising because it was her selfishness that made her go against his very wishes.
A soft knock on the door preceded Vane sticking his head in, "He's here."
Nicholas' heart gave a leap even as his stomach twisted. He impotently snarled, "He can go away."
Vane opened his mouth and drew a breath, obviously about to deliver a stern reprimand but a shake of Nix's head stopped him. Nix sat up then pulled on his arm, a silent 'come on' and he resisted at first but followed anyway. What was it going to mean if this all meant nothing? If it didn't work? He could not bear to watch his family—
And what if it did? What if Stephen, concise and full of leadership on the ice but turned ridiculous and cowardly when faced with the chance of a relationship, was his Anchor…?
Fuck. Them.
Nicholas seethed as he followed down the hallway, pulled along by his twin. He trailed her and Vane down the stairs to the front foyer where, through the propped-open doors, he could see into the front parlour. There, miserable but paying rapt attention to Aunt Beth, sat Stephen.
Fuck them.
As though sensing Nicholas' stare or maybe the venom in his mind, Stephen looked up and their gazes met.
Fuck them, Nicholas snarled in his head and scowled. Fuck them, fuck them fuckthemfuckthemfuckthem—
"No!" he gasped in horror, tensing as he pulled his hand from Nix's and slapped them over his face, a sensation of cold washing over him, his head snapping back as he fell to his knees, his vision whiting out—
His throat opened, as though there was no catch, no restriction against the passage of air, as the pressure in his body forced it all out too much and too quickly. It was as though from his belly to his mouth, his body opened into a huge tube-shaped cavity to get the sound out. He'd been told it sounded horrible but he had never heard his own screams in this state; did not hear them now.
He was too busy being in the inescapable grip of a great and impossible force that had seemed to grab each of the cells that made up his body and pull him through a tunnel of Too Much.
It crashed. It seemed to expand in his head down into his body, the sounds, tastes, smells, touches and emotions, a wave so big he felt he ought to go beyond passing out and just die under the pressure. It must be what it felt like to have a skyscraper collapse atop you, the blocks and pillars all a great weight falling and smashing but not stopping because there was no death coming and you could do nothing but accept it as it all just kept coming and coming and coming…
Bright white flashed across his vision, everything went cold down to his very bones and he could hear voices in the distance –they sounded sharply loud and whispering at impossibly quick intervals. There flashed and flowed blue cloth –a robe! Long, quick strides, the robe hanging from slender shoulders and covering an arm down to a hand which clutched a red leather bound book. Candles burned in a hallway of stone, half-illuminating a long and dark corridor… a cellar, was it a dungeon? There was the scent of hyacinths in the air but that meant nothing because the figure kept walking and—
No! Don't go there! It's a trap! Nicholas wanted to reach out and explain… explain… something! He didn't know what it was but he knew it was wrong—
The blue flapped in some ghostly wind, turned dark and stained with blood. Voices here and there, beside him and far away, why were they making so much noise? The flickering torches seemed ominous now; the flickering flame of one of them froze, colours blinding, crossed with a book and overlaid with the circle with outward-facing points of what looked like a crown—
The emblem of the Council.
The voices screamed and whispered, argued and pleaded, some in sly tones and others in plaintive ones –they made so much sense, held so many conversations, yet in some places they meant nothing at all—
With a gasp of breath he was suddenly released, collapsing limply onto his chest and cheek on the cold stone floor. His vision swam so he couldn't see, and his ears rang so he couldn't hear. His skin gripped him too tightly, he didn't know which way was up or down, and the world was just some fuzzy, hazy place that sounded too much like being underwater. Panting, all he knew was the white buzz of relief.
He'd forgotten where he was and he didn't care. But he could tell there were voices and why the hell would there be voices when he normally hid himself far away from people if he was having a vision…? Anyway, he couldn't discern anything, the sounds were muffled and distant. Someone tried to move him, only just hard enough to lift his shoulder from the floor and the resulting pain made him groan hoarsely.
"Get away from me…" he knew he spoke the words with a heavy tongue and he couldn't even understand himself but please God, let that have been enough. He moaned at the mere thought that someone would try to move him again.
You're safe. There spoke a soft voice in his head that sounded awfully familiar. Marcus won't let them touch you again, he felt you when they tried to... Worry and concern flooded his 'voice' when he broke off to ask, Are you in much pain?
Imrad? Nicholas reached out mentally, finding it only a little difficult to speak back along the connection in his mind but then the connection suddenly cut out, washed out under a tumble of other voices—
"Murder," he whispered mindlessly, his mouth moving of its own accord… like it was someone else speaking. "They murdered for the book. It spoke the truth which they wished to know. They thought it would bring them power. But they betrayed their own morality in this quest; the blood stained their hands and it would never be forgiven." He could see in his mind, like a long-forgotten memory, of a handsome face which bore a striking resemblance to Elliott, twisted in pain and fear. "They despaired to know the whole truth. And when they learned it, they recognised its power and would not anyone else know of it. Would not leave a chance another could harness it." He panted, awed by the truth he suddenly knew, without words to describe the horrors perpetrated to see a flimsy goal accomplished.
"Who was murdered, darling?" Aunt Beth asked quietly, fingertips just brushing over strands of his hair, careful not to touch him where he still lay on the floor.
"We were," Nicholas said, suddenly conscious of a wide awareness flooding into him, something not just him, but a Voice of many others. "We were the Council and they killed us. They did not realise we could See. They did not realise that this was why others, younger or foreign, were asked to join our Circle before others of the order. It was not a question of trust or politics but of inherent ability."
The voices, the collection of persons in his head, they were not angry. They were so sad. So desolate in sadness and mourning; Nicholas' vision no longer blurred from the power he'd just channelled but with tears –the tears of a handful of souls still lingering at the Abyss' mouth, and which now spoke through him.
But the flow of energy seemed not to come from within him. It seemed to trail across into him from where he knew Stephen was kneeling –why was he kneeling with a hand to his own head? The flow slowed, and to Nicholas it felt like Stephen's magic was instinctively trying to shut down that flow; soon the voices would disappear completely.
The voices needed to Speak and Nicholas rushed the words out before the channel closed completely, "They killed us so they could be the Council. They did not realise until too late why we were who we were. They could not do what we could do. They could not control what they did not understand."
Voices around them broke into furious whispering until Aunt Beth shushed them. To Nicholas, she said softly, "They have sinned greatly, then."
"But they are all dead," Nicholas murmured, voice strengthening. He swallowed as more of his own awareness returned, displacing the Others. The channel between them was closing. "It happened so long ago. They've been trying to correct it ever since. But enough doubt surrounding the circumstances of their secret and bloody rise to power led to people keeping more truths from them. They could not restore what they destroyed. They could only pass on their regrets, and the goal."
"Not good enough," Anelle hissed. "Those lying bastards!"
"Enough, Anelle," her husband said gently.
"You Saw what happened?" Aunt Beth asked softly. "You know the truth?"
"Yes," Nicholas whispered as he slowly pushed up off the floor and sat back on his heels to finally look up at his family. They went quiet. He heard Stephen choke, startled.
"Nicky," Nix whispered, her eyes wide and her tone awestruck, "Your eyes…"
He looked at her and she gasped, hands covering her mouth. And when he looked at her face, her eyes, he saw other things; her reaching out to stroke fingertips over a glass of soda, dancing with friends, putting a foot into a pair of high heels –and all at once he knew what these visions meant, what they would change in her life. So many small things, so many little choices, all combined to write a future which could change at any moment if only you just knew what it would mean later on…
Nicholas realised people were quiet around him and he sensed Stephen nearby. He wanted to look around but he knew, inherently, that if he did, he would See the same things of all of them. He closed his eyes and covered them with his hands. He knew they were not just blue right then but glowing impossibly bright.
Closing his eyes, he quietly asked, "Can someone get me a blindfold?"
His relatives burst into quiet murmurings and arguments once more. He could still see them; the way they stood that distance away from him, away from the inner circle of his twin, Aunt Beth and an oddly silent Vane. He could feel Marcus' empathic reach toward him like a perimeter of light, flowing awareness. He sensed Imrad's bright and vivid energy, a tightly-coiled thrashing bound to his emotions. He could feel it; the many ways his family's magics coloured the air around them or weaved within their bodily shells.
And he could tell when Elliott returned with a suitable scrap of a scarf Nix had told him where to find, stepped through the circle brushing right past the steel-solid presence Stephen made in his Sight, and right toward him without any hesitation at all.
He sensed it all with his eyes closed. But he knew what he could See, knew that his senses had temporarily sharpened to a point he didn't need his physical eyes to take in what was going on around him, all the current physical happenings unfolding in his head like a memory replaying itself with crystal clarity.
Nicholas held out his hand to meet his friend's reach, closing his knowingly around the scarf because he knew exactly where it was. In thanks for the courage it took for Elliott to just walk by them all, he murmured, "Thank you, Eli."
Elliott paused.
"Yeah," he whispered, "I can still see. Really weird right now." He indicated the scarf, "Just need that until it goes away."
"Awesome," Nix breathed.
A grin began to bloom over Elliott's face and he said slowly, sounding rather impressed, "That is an awesome skill, mate."
Nicholas couldn't contain a chuckle as he accepted the scarf and wrapped it over his eyes. The chuckle was from relief he could count on his friends. But there still loomed a new fear: inevitable change was at hand.
TBC.