MY HEART IN STONE

(A direct continuation of the Cort storyline

  from Lost in the Empire)

Sharon Ferguson writing Rachel

Jo Anzalone writing Cort

The dark form had pushed Rachel into the shrub near the entrance to the tunnel. Cort felt something jump inside himself, sharp and startling, at the sight of her fall. No, his mind said. No, this isn't what's supposed to be happening, and he tried to reach for her hand. Then he began to come apart. The feeling of his cells separating from each other was nearly unbearable. It was not something humans were ever meant to experience. There were no words to describe it, even if his mind had been capable of forming such a thing as words.

His cells simply began to...flow. He saw his own hand, its fingers straining toward hers, and then...like just the slightest passing of a breeze...he felt her hand move through his. He yearned toward her with all that he was. RACHEL! His soul called it to her but his mouth was no longer solid enough for the word to find substance.

He was tearing into little bits and the pain of it was that his spirit didn't know where it was supposed to cling and so it, too, felt ripped, shredded. Then she was gone. Or he was gone. He didn't know. He was scattered across some turquoise universe with a desperate need to grasp the parts of himself but no hands to put to the task of it.

His awareness seemed to come from a thousand points at once and he thought he might go mad unless he were regathered. Each cell of him whirled and orbited around some inner dark core that sucked him along and each of those cells carried his individual awareness. The aqua light clung to all the bits of him, the sensation being like a covering of biting ants. He was devoured, dying with it and yet...not. It took him to the end of his endurance and yet he endured; it pushed him beyond all bearing and yet he bore. There was an...endlessness...to it, a strange and demanding endlessness that would not let him go, would not let him be extinguished.

Nothing about it was similar to Sid's way of warping. There was no nausea, no headache...none of that. There was only the aqua engulfing him, taking him, forcing him to go with it. There was only the helplessness of being everywhere and, therefore, nowhere. He was not himself despite being thousands of himself. He both was...and was not. Death had not been like this. Before, when his heart had stopped, he had simply walked through a door, his essence whole, intact. There had been an ease, a flow to death. He wished he could die now. But this was something worse, completely unnatural, and he realized that death was a part of life but this was a part of...nothing.

Then the whirling began to slow, the ants left, replaced by some even more hideous feeling that moss was growing on his cells. It was then he knew he was mad. He had to be mad. Nothing else would explain it. Yes, that was it. But soon his cells crashed into something that stopped them violently, two engines smashing on the same track. There was a sense of...compaction...and then only darkness, solid, tangible darkness with no memory nor dream.

He was quite tall, well-built, strong, with smooth pale blond hair and paler blue eyes and in a gesture the perfect reflection of Sid's, he reached out a well-manicured hand and rested it lightly on Cort's chest, feeling the rise and fall of his soft breathing.
 

"I see you finally have your...prize, Mikol," a female voice said from the doorway.

"Close the door, Gerta," he said, his voice low, deep, not taking his eyes off Cort's face.
 

The small woman did as she was told. Everyone in the old castle of Neviditelny Kamen did as they were told. It was why Mikol permitted them to live.

She shuffled off down a stone corridor in the deep underground warren of chambers toward the elevator that would take her back up to the outwardly visible portion of the castle. Leaning forward, she let her left eye be scanned then the doors opened and she stepped inside. For 10 years now she had been one of Mikol's assistants in what the world called Grovensky Construction. She smiled grimly to herself as she felt the elevator's smooth, quick rise. In the small town of Hromada at the base of the hill, yes, there were several huge warehouses filled with construction supplies and even a large office that, to all intents and purposes, gave full appearance of being what it claimed to be.

Leaving the elevator behind, she walked toward a small door on one side of the castle, a door that led to a tiny balcony overlooking the sheer drop to the wide curve of the river far below. It was her spot, her place she went to... breathe, to think.
 

Gerta was 45 now, the bloom of her youth long gone, stripped from her not only by the passing years but by the struggles of her life. Always it had been harsh. Always it had been lonely. Except for that one summer. Except for Palan.

Then...he was killed. It was the way of things. Expecting good, expecting love got one no where. Her mind turned to the young man lying on the cot in the depths of the castle. Had he had an expectation of love? She pressed her lips tightly together, turning to stare up the high stone wall looming behind her. Well, if he had, it would do him no good. Not now.

Reaching out a hand she rested it firmly on a rough-hewn block. Neviditelny Kamen. Hidden Stone. Yes, it came by its name rightly. The stone of it, a deceptively mild cream in color, rose above the thick forest surround, completely encircled by a high, crenellated wall. A single, cylindrical tower pointed skyward at the western end, while the main keep, a rather blocky chunk of a building, dominated the eastern. Built in the early 1300's, it had largely fallen into ruin until Mikol purchased it and began his extensive renovations. She smiled. And that's where the "hidden" part of the name came in. The castle rested atop a stone ridge and Mikol had made an extensive underground area of rooms and passages that dwarfed the visible section. She had come to think of the whole complex simply as "Kamen"...stone. Like Mikol's soul.
 

Turning again, she leaned her forearms on the rail, looking down at Hromada, its red-roofed buildings gleaming and bright in the late afternoon light. It had been built on a double meander of the river, the tightly twisting curves of it dividing the town into two halves, each an almost perfect semi-circle. Not far to the west lay a large, now-wooded mound from which the town had gotten its name. She supposed it had been the burial mound for some ancient tribe. Kamen, looming behind her, had, she mused, become her own burial mound. She thought again of the young man. Would it be that for him as well?

Mikol studied Cort's quiet face. The tan he had in his movie had been deepened by the many days spent on horseback, the long time in Northern Africa. Had he changed? Was he different now than he'd been in Redemption, before Redemption? Perhaps the dissection of his soul would be even more interesting now? He was eager to get on with. But it would take Cort a while to recover from Mikol's form of warping. The technology of it was harder on those unprepared, but it was very effective in getting one to one's destination. Cort would be unconscious for quite a few more hours he knew.
 

He reached into his breast pocket, pulling out a small communicator. "Vaclav, get in here now."

Immediately the door to the chamber opened and a small, wiry man in his late 50's entered, his eyes fixed on the floor. Mikol waved a hand toward Cort. "He is dressed in Roman garb. I want him attired as he was in his movie. See to it."

Mikol watched briefly as Vaclav opened a drawer in a tall cabinet and began to withdraw the clothing. "I'll be back shortly. Have him ready."
 

He walked into the corridor, putting out a palm to stop the automatic closing of the heavy, metal door so he could look back at the cot. He licked his lips. Cort was here in Neviditelny Kamen. Despite Dimetri's bungling and Brianna's incompetence, he was here. He smiled. The deconstruction of a brain, a soul... why he felt almost like a kid on Christmas morning.

Almost.

This was better.

Rachel lay still. So this was Hell. She was alone and
the universe was on fire. It had to be Hell. She
didn't even care as the liquid flames consumed her
body inside and out. The pain in her soul was greater
than anything her mere flesh could experience. She let
herself fall into the pit of it all.
 

In previous warps, there had always been a satisfying thump to an ‘arrival,’ when the warp was sucked back into the aether-zone of the metallic and silicone chambers of the computer that generated the miraculous transport; rather like stepping off a fast falling elevator that had come to a stop, only a thousand times more disorienting, a thousand times more noisy as the normal atmosphere rushed in like thunder to fill deprived lungs, a thousand times more unnerving that one had gone from pure light and speed back into cumbersome, slow, ghastly flesh.

Normally, it was such a glad relief for Rachel to step away, to be human again, to know that all that had made her was in its correct alignment.  Not this time. The instant she knew she had ‘thumped,’ she wanted to crawl back into the lurid electric fire.  She didn’t belong here now, not without Cort…

Her first draw of breath exhaled as a long agonizing keen.  The warp chamber rang with it.

“Shut her up!”  Sid snapped to no one in particular.

She drew another one, flattened as she was against the warp room floor, and it rang out like the first, filling the void where horrible fire had been.

Terry and Deidre grunted when they ‘thumped,’ falling forward on their faces, Terry clutching Dee, Dee’s fingers biting into Rachel’s ankle.  Rachel only vaguely became aware of the flat metallic floor beneath her, cool and without searing electric elements coiling around her skin.  The void was now absent of Cort’s voice.  She heard the others, but didn’t care.  Cort was not here.

“Dear God, that hurt,” Brianna moaned.

“Oh!”  Deidre gasped as she and Terry sat up, releasing Rachel’s ankle to stare in shock at her arm. “I was sure it had burned away,” she whispered.  “I had nothing left,” she rattled on, holding up her arm for Terry to see.  He was already climbing to his feet, trying to corner Sid.

“Put him down!”  Terry ordered, indicating the unconscious Maximus.  Sid banged on the warp room door, refusing to do so.  Terry shoved him backwards, almost on top of Brianna behind him.  “Who was that, Sid?  Was it Mikol?  Is that who you were meeting with all this time?”

A part of Rachel didn’t want to listen to them.  A part of her didn’t want to believe…. She felt Deidre pull up to her, try to lift her to her feet.  She had no more for another wail.  No sound she could make would express the shock, dismay, and despair. 

“You can’t stay there, Rachel,” Deidre huffed, getting rough with her, yanking on her arms to pull her into a sitting position.  “You haven’t time.  You can’t just stay there.”

“Open up!” Sid roared, banging on the wall of the warp room, and the doors to the warp room flew open.  The nanotech likewise slid out, Maximus still within his grasp and Brianna pulled along.  Terry was left standing with the women, expression livid with fury and frustration.

Rachel looked up at Deidre as she tottered on her knees, looked up past her shaking hands at the Southerner, Deidre’s face blurry from her tears, wanting nothing more than to die, right now.  “He’s gone.  He…he…Cort’s been taken,” Rachel whimpered and the words seemed to hit home now in a fresh wave.  She began shaking all over, hard.

“I know it, I know!”  Deidre cried.  She watched Sid shove Terry aside and flee the room, leaving them behind, leaving a very startled and astonished room of techs in his wake.  Terry launched himself after Sid, disappearing into the hall to chase him, while the techs rushed to the women to help them up.  “Rachel, if you don’t get up and do something about it, I’ll…I’ll slap you silly, so help me!”

Somehow, she found herself on her feet, found strength to stand alone, even though Dee continued to hold her by the arm.  The techs were rushing to check their vitals, ask questions, pull what few things they had brought back with them out of the warp room.  As if it were her only hope of seeing Cort again, Rachel stared back into the warp chamber, unable, unwilling to move away from it.  If she left it behind, if she walked away, she’d never find her way back to him…would she? 

“We’ve got to catch up to Sid, Rache,” Deidre was urging her.  “I don’t know where he’s taking Maximus, but we’ve got to catch up to him.  He may be the only chance we have to find out what happened to Cort.”

God…the abyss opening itself between her and Cort was growing wider and deeper by the second.  She felt cold, utterly bereft.  “Sid,” she repeated after Deidre, who was now pulling her into the hallway, away from the med-techs trying to attach blood-pressure pads and take her temperature from her ear. 

Rachel followed, holding Deidre’s hand like a small child led to the slaughter. “Sid saw what happened…he…he didn’t care.  He knew it was Mikol.  And he just…let him…”

“Sid can tell us where to look,” Deidre replied, almost impatiently.  She couldn’t fathom for the moment how Rachel felt, was too anxious about Terry to even fathom what it would be like if he had been snatched.  But she couldn’t let Rachel wallow in the devastation, couldn’t stand the thought of her collapsing like some wilting flower. 
 

Rachel let her drag her along, a new sensation making itself known as a tiny knot somewhere deep inside, a hard feeling, like a seed that had burst into germination and was now actively expanding.    She breathed in the canned air of Emerald City as they passed through the doors of the secluded Retrieval wing and into the atrium-domed corridors of the office complex.  It was  Saturday morning, every office shut down, empty of life.  Everyone was at home now.

Home.  Her home was taken from her.  She felt her entire body squeeze inwards, imploding.  Deidre rounded on her as they came upon one of the courtyard junctions in the angle between two separate sections of Emerald City.  Only security lights lit various spots between and behind the huge tropical plants that served to filter the air and provide a more natural atmosphere. She had no idea which direction Sid or Terry had gone.  She and Rachel were the only people in the huge building now.

“Rachel, what are you going to do?  Bud told me you practically screamed your head off when Cort was being operated on and now you just want to lay down and die?”  Deidre’s accent was very strong now.  “Is that what Cort would want you to do?”

That hit home.

“No!”  Rachel said, the seed that had begun to germinate growing in exponential form, a form with a name…a seed of… “I want to find him.  I need to find him.”

“Good.  But you’re gonna have to think, girl.  Sid knows who Mikol is.” Deidre place her hands on Rachel’s shoulders, locked eyes with her.  “And it's more than likely that Sid won’t cooperate.  So you’re gonna have to start thinking and if you don’t start thinking now, we’ll never find him.”

Rachel swallowed, somehow all her ability to hear and process flooding back.  Sid knew.  And Sid would never tell.  Because Sid had what he wanted, and they all were just used goods now.  But Sid knew.  And she would have to start with that.

The seed split open to its first leaves.  Anger, a sun-bursting, radioactive anger riveted her.  No spellwork of some flame-riddled demon would stop her. Deidre nodded as Rachel’s blue eyes grew darker, as her shoulders hardened and set themselves under Deidre’s hands.

“I’m going to find him,” Rachel said to her.  “And Sid will pay.”

When Mikol returned to the chamber, Vaclav was gone, but his handiwork was evident as Cort, still lying quiet, unmoving on the cot, was now attired exactly as he had been in The Quick and the Dead.  The tall, blond man stood in the doorway, just looking. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Cocking his head, his blue eyes glittering, he crossed the room and stood beside the cot.  Finally he reached out, fingering a fold of Cort's pastor's jacket. He smiled.  Even the dust, the tattering had been supplied, no detail of authenticity overlooked.

The door opened and another man entered.  This was Henri, the French medical doctor in Mikol's employ.  When he saw that Mikol was already in the room, he paused, running a finely-boned, lean hand through his greying hair.

"I need to examine him. You know that, Mikol. You know...."

Mikol turned icy eyes on him. "Do it then."

"You will stay?"

"I will stay."

Henri approached the cot. "I can ascertain the condition of his body after the warp.  That I can do.  His mind...well, that is another matter."

"You think I am not aware of that?"

Henri just cast a quick sideways glance at Mikol then moved to a metal cabinet and began to gather the equipment he would need.  An hour later, he stood quietly, his hands folded loosely in front of himself, and explained. "All his organs seem to be functioning as they should, but his blood pressure is extremely low. His brain scan indicates some sort of...shock...to his system." He stared meaningfully at Mikol, licked his lips, then continued.  "You will, of course,remember what happened when you retrieved  Judah Ben Hur from his movie?"

Mikol nodded impatiently.  "Of course," he replied curtly. How could he ever forget that... unfortunate...retrieval?  That character had been one of his primary targets to dissect, mind and soul.  But the man had not...traveled... well, had gone into a coma and died within the week. "You will not permit such a thing to happen with this one."  His voice was flat, firm.  It was an order, not a statement.

"It is not always in my hands, Mikol," Henri responded. "Sometimes the trauma of the transport is too much, the edema too great...the body cannot recover."

Mikol snapped, "THIS one will recover!" He glared at Henri. "I suggest, for your own well-being, my dear Henri, that he does."

Henri turned back to Cort, resting the fingertips of his right hand on the smooth forehead.  He was worried.  The man should be beginning to stir by now...if he were all right.  He looked at Mikol again, his hands still on Cort. Mikol's lips were pressed into a tight line and he read his own death in the man's cold eyes.
 

"I shall do my best," he murmured, dipping his head in a slight bow.

"See that you do."

Once again Henri looked at Cort.  The lashes lay long on his tanned cheeks, his lips were parted with the slackness of the deeply unconscious. He wished fervently there were some way he could...know...the state of the brain beneath his fingertips. He removed his hand, curling his fingers tightly into his palm.

Mikol watched him. "You may leave us now. Come back in an hour. Rerun your tests."

"Yes, Sir," Henri said, and left.  Once in the corridor, the metal door safely shut, he leaned against the stone wall and inhaled a long, deep, shuddering breath.  He was not sure, not sure at all, that Cort would recover from the transport.  In fact, he figured the odds were heavily against it and, therefore, heavily against his own continued good health.  It seemed the more sensitive the soul, the greater the chances of death for the character.  Why did Mikol not wish to dissect Hando? That one would come through unscathed. But, no, Mikol had some deep and unexplainable fascination with the good ones, the ones with spirits developed beyond the ordinary.  He had taken Francesco out of "Brother Sun, Sister Moon."  The character had died halfway through the warp journey.  But, still, Mikol tried.  What was it Mikol hoped to gain from retrieving such men? What did he want from them?

Mikol had moved next to the cot, his eyes boring down at Cort's quiet face. "You WILL recover." He touched Cort's temple.  "I insist."

ON TO PART TWO...

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