The Rising - Ennead 1

Scene 4 - The Trial of August; Act 3

August Gaines

The cell smells a bit musty. There are only a few things in it: a hard slab like cot, a single wooden chair and table and, oddly, a Bible and Qur’an on a simple shelf set into the wall.

I take down the Qur’an, sit at the table and begin to read it. I’ve never been able to read it before, and this is as good a chance as any. One can never have too much knowledge after all.

I pointedly avoid looking at the single camera set in the corner. As my eyes flit across the pages of the Muslim holy book. I consider my options. I could stay here, but my gut tells me I have to leave.

Regardless of my value and the information I possessed I had a feeling it would take a long time before I was let out.

I try to think from the perspective of the Lord First and the Inner Chamber.

My novelty would wear off soon. I could act coy for a while and resist, but eventually I’d be worn down.

Not overt torture or questioning, never that; just little hints of promises and threats, setting the lights in this windowless room so my days would be longer and my nights shorter.

March always says I’m a seriously tough cookie, but when the Summoners want information, they usually get it.

For the First Lord of course, I represented different value.

Aunt Priya had spent years forming her tiny circle of people who wanted the 4th Society to change, to loosen up. He would definitely use my ‘detainment’ as a weapon to discredit her.

My ‘diplomatic’ value to earn cooperation from the 1st Society had to be taken into account as well. I wouldn’t be getting out of here till my hairs turned grey.

A sort of dark dread settles in my heart. There is something off about the Lord First. My throat clenches a bit and I get goosebumps on my arms.

Even though I have no proof, I feel as if my life is in danger. Some part of me doesn’t want to risk it, trying to break out, but the more I think about it, the more subdued that part of me becomes.

Finally, I make up my mind and touch the dark pink crystal on my necklace; thankful they haven’t taken away my personal effects yet.

I had been honest and told the Inner Chamber what I had been working on. I technically this was not my project, it was Issah’s. Like mine it was close to anathema.

I focused as I clenched the crystal, even though my mind was muzzy from the guarding lines set into all the walls. It was like trying to see through a fog. A fog that swallowed all other senses as well. I pushed at it mentally and it refused to yield. I pushed harder and yet again I failed.

Desperate, I began to batter against the fog again and again and again.

I was just about to take a break when, as sharp as whip blade, a familiar sending made it through.

“August?”

Even in a sending, Tes’s pronunciation of my name seemed exotic, or maybe that was just my imagination.

I almost cried in relief. The tiny, cheap looking crystal was an idea of Issah’s; a blood crystal.

It was a known fact that physical contact was needed before a dream shifter could move a living thing. Non-living things they could sometimes shift simply by looking at them (When they had been the only Society, aeons ago, that particular skill had been used offensively)

Issah had the idea of using blood as a substitute for physical connection. Stored in vials, fresh blood had worked, but when it congealed and blackened it became useless.