The Last Rite

Chapter Sixteen: Nevertheless, You'll Do

Chapter Sixteen: Nevertheless, You'll Do

In the first moments of his trial, the world turned on its side and Jason realized he had lost all his senses.

Slowly, he came to feel pressure on his body, surrounding him. He was aware neither of being able to breath nor of needing to. Every part of him was being held softly but firmly, nothing imposing.

He tried to move and found himself immobile. He tried to remember everything Maggie had told him. The Dreamworld was a place of games and tests. The Burnt Man wanted her strong and scared, she had said. Her trial had been in an alternate, alien Toronto where the city was real and not real at the same time, and where she could change her circumstances with her will.

Nothing, of course, said that his experience would be the same. Strength and fear. Was that all he had to remember? He tried to shift.

There was a smell now, something he couldn't really identify. His eyes were closed, but he couldn't move the eyelids. Even his muscles were quiet, no spasms from the strain of trying to translate signal from his mind into action.

The smell in his nostrils was pulling shards out of his memory, nothing concrete enough to grasp. Being a kid, hiding, playing with his sister, the farm where his cousins lived when he was ten - and then he had it.

Earth. Warm dirt, surrounding him, packed tight.

He could feel the texture of the dirt now, clods and grittiness. He was buried alive.

This, then, was his testing ground. Jason, if he could have opened his mouth, would have screamed.

*

Damon received the summons fast asleep.

Bring Her To Me. A simple, emphatic command to his sleeping mind.

Barely awake, Damon struggled into his clothes and down the dimness of his room into the brilliance of the main hall. There was no real night in the catacombs; Char had banished it with his own brand of artificial day.

Maybe because he had been in the middle of a dream, maybe because he was having trouble waking up, Damon's thoughts turned only slowly to Maggie and their last two meetings. Often since, he had held his hands out in front of him, daring himself to see her distress, to see her shackles clenched in his fists, to see her twisted discomfort, and below that, a glimpse of the same calm kindness he had seen in the Dreamworld.

She had been surprised at his identity, that it was separate from his father's. Quite an irony, considering the lack of any real connection between father and son in any way you cared to name. She couldn't have known, of course.

She was asleep too, her sleep patterns maybe having settled into a routine not far off his own. If I had some kind word, Damon thought, something gentle to say to wake her - But what was the point? Speaking with generosity of intention didn't automatically engender a kind response.

What could he want from her anyway that he shouldn't be looking for instead from his family?

At least you have a father, she'd said. At least she'd had a mother.

And Damon had had a hand in taking her away from Maggie forever. He had left her mother to die, all the family Maggie had left. Damon felt inside himself for some response, and came up with nothing but a spacious coldness.

No, no kind words. But Char should realize - this girl, on her own, would solve nothing. He unlocked the shackles, waking her slowly as he did so. Without waiting to acknowledge her, or letting her orient herself, he dragged her off the rock shelf and pushed her ahead of him into the corridor.