MY HEART IN STONE

PART SIX:

Mikol pushed the panel, sliding the door open to Cort's room.  When his head cleared the floorboards, he looked across the room, pausing where he was on the stone steps.  Cort still sat against the wall by the little window, his face buried in his hands.  Mikol inhaled a long, hissing breath over his teeth then pressed his lips in a tight, white line as he entered the room, closing the panel below him.  Not again.  He would not have this happen again.

He moved soundlessly, like a large cat, across the chamber, squatting in front of the priest.  The man was rocking slightly.  Not a good sign. He reached out, gently touching Cort's knee and Cort jerked as though he'd been burned, his head snapping up out of his hands, his eyes large, almost round.  Mikol saw the pulse pounding wildly in Cort's neck.  He smiled, he hoped... disarmingly, and pulled his hand back, though he continued to squat, wanting to be on eye-level with the priest.

"Cort?" He tried to keep his voice pleasant.

Cort's lips had parted as he sucked in ragged gasps of air. For a moment there was no comprehension in his eyes, none whatsoever. Then Cort dropped his eyes, looking at his own hands.  He couldn't see them, but he could feel them...even hear the clank of them.  He was chained again. Lifting both his wrists, he held them out toward Mikol. "Take them off. Please...
take them off."

Intuitively, Mikol knew what Cort meant. Smiling, he reached into his breast pocket, removing a key that wasn't there, and with the utmost care, unlocked Cort's manacles, setting them on the floor.  Cort heaved a huge sigh, leaned his head back against the stone wall, and closed his eyes.

"Thank you," he breathed, keeping his eyes closed, his hands limp now in his
own lap.

"Cort?" Mikol attempted again. "Is everything all right now?"

Cort was silent a long time before he opened his lids half-way. "I don't think I saved her," he replied dully.

"Who, Cort? Who didn't you save?"

His chin quivered. "Ellen." He turned his right cheek toward the wall, the fall of his hair nearly obscuring his face.

"But you did, Cort."

He turned his head back, opening his eyes somewhat wider so that the unspoken question in them was clearly seen.

"I saw her, Cort. When it was all over, I saw her ride out of town."

"She...left?" he stammered.

"Yes, Cort. She left. She killed Herod and then she left."

He closed his eyes. "You saw her?"

"I did. She had a shoulder wound, but she rode out of town perfectly fine."

"He...Herod's...dead?"

"He is. You never have to worry about him again, Cort.  Ever."

Slowly he opened his eyes, fixing them on the man's face. "Do I know you?"

Mikol dipped his head, trying to stifle a grin. "No," he said, "no, you don't." He touched Cort's knee again, just briefly.  "But I know you."

"How...how is that?"

Mikol stood, proffering a hand to Cort. "Time enough for that when you are feeling stronger, Cort."

With a bit of hesitation, Cort took the hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.  He swayed and Mikol gripped his upper arm to steady him. "Easy there," he said, guiding Cort toward the bed. "Rest a bit. You've had a rough go of it."  He helped Cort settle back, a pile of pillows supporting him in a half-recline. "Perhaps some...food? Would you like something to eat?"

"Was it you?" Cort murmured tiredly.

"When?"

"Was it you who got me out from under the rubble?"

"Yes, Cort. I was the one who did that."

Cort studied Mikol as he stood beside the bed. "I don't...remember...you."

"No, you wouldn't. But that's all right.  No matter."

"There was another man. Before. In the room over the saloon."

"Ah, you mean Henri. He is a doctor. He was helping you after you were...injured."

"You know him?"

"Yes, Cort. I do. I imagine you will see him again. But now, what about some food?"

Despite the heaviness in his limbs and a pounding headache, Cort discovered he was, indeed, hungry. "I...I don't think I've eaten for a...while."

"Probably not. I will go get you something. Just rest now, all right?"

Cort closed his eyes and Mikol walked toward the hidden exit. Without opening his eyes, Cort asked, "You saw her...leave? With your own eyes, you saw her?"

"I saw her, Cort. Yes."  He didn't add how many times he'd seen Ellen ride out of town.

Mikol left and Cort lay there for a few minutes, then he opened his eyes and looked across the room toward the small window. With great effort, he got to his feet and taking one careful step at a time, made his way to it. He closed his eyes, feeling the late afternoon sun on his face. Then, in a way not unlike a man pulling back the shroud from the form of a dead loved one, he raised his lids.  "Oh, God," he breathed. "Oh, my God!"

The cactus prickles were suddenly back, completely covering him, and he felt the pieces
of his mind starting to scatter. "NO!" he cried, folding his arms tightly around his head,
trying to keep himself together. Aqua lights were swirling around him. He fell to his
knees, then onto his side, pulling his legs up to his chest, his arms still wrapped about
his head. "Nooooo," he moaned. "I...can't...do...this." But then as he started to tumble
over and over into some bottomless aqua well, his last conscious thought was that he had
no idea what it was he could not do.

Mikol's comlink buzzed. "What?" he snapped, irritated, halfway up the stone steps with
a tray of food.

"He's in trouble. Hurry! I'm coming, too."

Quickly Mikol pressed the panel, scooting the tray on the floor as he hurried up through
the entry. "DAMN!" Cort was practically in a ball over by the window again. Kneeling
beside him, he pressed his fingers on his neck pulse. It was so fast he couldn't count it.

Scooping Cort up, he plopped him on the bed just as Henri flew through the entry.

"What happened to him?" he snarled at the doctor.

"Window. He went to the window again."

 
"Well, DO something. His heart is about to explode."

Henri gave Cort two shots and within moments his heart rate slowed. "I don't think you
should leave him alone again, Mikol. What you were saying to him...that was good. You
were leading him where he needs to go. But with this one, I think you need to finish it.
Tell him all of it." He looked at Cort's pale form and shrugged. "And if he survives, he

survives. He's hung in limbo too long."

"That may be true," Mikol nodded, "but I think the warp is affecting him, too. He doesn't
seem like he's recovered from that."

"Not surprising," Henri agreed. "Between two of Sid's warps and then yours, it's likely
his cellular structure has become unstable."

"Can you do anything about that?"

"As I said, he is a unique case. We have no data, nothing to go by." He shrugged again,
looking at Cort with real pity.  "He's pretty much on his on as far as that's concerned."

Mikol frowned, then leaned over the bed, pressing a palm on each of Cort's shoulders.
"You will not die on me, Cortland Wells! Do you hear me! You will NOT die!" He released
his grip with a rather violent shake of Cort's body.

"That's not helping anything," Henri muttered.

Mikol spun, striking the French doctor across the face with the back of his hand, sending
the slender man staggering against the small table. "Stay with him," he ordered. "And if
he dies...." He turned on his heel, practically slamming through the entry.

Dimetri's dying scream still rang in Henri's ears.  Mikol had made him watch. Gerta, too. It

was nothing less than an execution. It  reminded him of old pirate movies, especially with the general shape of the castle.  Walking the plank. Very like that. Only over solid rock a couple

of hundred feet below.  It was to be an object lesson to his employees.  Failure was not an option.  Brianna was lucky she had not come back to Kamen.

Henri had pulled one of the small, straight-backed wooden chairs close beside the large bed.

His bony fingers encircled Cort's left wrist, keeping track of his pulse. Much steadier now. Another minute or two and Cort would have had a heart attack. No, he should definitely not

be left alone for the time being.

He yawned. It had been a long day. The days, though, always seemed long inside Kamen.

How many years had he been here now? He couldn't quite remember. How many had died?

He couldn't remember that, either. Many. That was it. Many had died. And always his own

life was on the line. Like now.

Letting go of Cort's wrist, he moved his hand to the quiet brow. "How much can you handle, young man? It better be a lot. For all our sakes, it better be one hell of a lot."

As the years passed with one unsuccessful retrieval after another, Mikol was growing ever more dangerous. If Cort died, this time...he knew it with no doubt at all...this time he himself would not survive it.  He studied Cort's face, wishing he had some definitive way of knowing what
lingering effects Mikol's warp was having on him.  "It makes it all harder, I know," he said softly to the unhearing ears.  "Not only is your universe shaking to its core, it's doing it while you are still feeling so broken apart by the warp." He sighed, burying his face in his thin hands. "God help me," he moaned. "God help us all."

He kept his hands to his face a while, trying to calm the trembling he felt in his core. When he let them slide limply to his sides, he was startled by the seagreen eyes staring at him.

"You...you were...praying?" Cort croaked, his voice hoarse.

Henri smiled wanly. "I guess I was," he admitted.

"You are the doctor?"

"Yes, Henri."

"Will you pray for me, too, Doctor?"

Henri's eyes widened. Never in his life had anyone ever asked that he pray for them.

"For you? Pray for you?"

Cort closed his eyes. "Yes...for me. I think I've gotten...lost." A tear almost welled through a closed lid, but not quite. "Very, very lost."

Blinking, he opened them again, looking straight at Henri. "Please," he said. "Please, doctor?"

Henri was not a praying man, but the look on Cort's face pierced him completely. He cleared

his throat. Cort moved his hand across the covers, curving his fingers lightly over the doctor's, waiting.

Henri licked his lips.  Twice.  "God," he said, looking up at the ceiling, "grant this young man life." He squeezed his eyes tight. "Grant us all life." It was all he could think to say.

It seemed enough. Cort was almost smiling. "Amen," he said, releasing Henri's fingers with
a small pressure given first.  "Thank you, doctor."

Henri felt for Cort's pulse again. It was much slower. "You are feeling better?" he asked.

"Some, yes," Cort said. "Head still hurts pretty bad."

Henri knew that was due to the extraordinary rise in blood pressure Cort had just experienced.
"Lie quietly, my friend.  It will go away soon."

Cort turned his head again toward the doctor when Henri used the word 'friend.' "You are not
American?"

"French," Henri answered. "From a small place on the coast of Normandy."

"You are...far from home?"

"Oui. Very far."

Cort closed his eyes. "Am I?"

Henri paused, knowing Mikol was probably watching, but decided to plunge ahead. "Very," he
replied, resting his hand briefly atop Cort's.

Cort was silent for a while. "I thought so," he finally whispered. He turned his head back
in Henri's direction. "How far?"

Henri gulped. "Further than you can imagine, my friend, much further."

"What is this place, doctor? Where are we?"

"Kamen," Henri said softly. "A castle named Neviditelny Kamen."

It was Cort's turn to lick his lips. "Castle?"

"Yes, it is very old. Maybe almost 700 years."

Cort thought about that. "I don't expect it'd be in Arizona, now would it?"

"I don't expect it would," Henri agreed,  liking this young man more and more.

"Where?"

"Have you ever heard of...Bohemia?"

"Vaguely. Father Michael used to talk to me about places he'd been. I think he mentioned
something similar to that once."

"Father Michael?"

"A priest," Cort's face stiffened. "I killed him."

"You...oh," Henri blustered, trying to cover his startled reaction. He cleared his throat.
"This castle, it is there. We...are there...er, here."

Cort struggled a moment to regain his composure.  "How? How am I here?"

"You were brought here, Cort."

Cort propped himself slightly on one elbow, biting his lip to endure the dizziness that
resulted from raising his head.  "Why?"

Henri looked back at the ceiling. "It is not my place to answer that, my friend."

Cort lay his head back down. "The other man, the one who left...is it his place?"

"It is. I am sorry, but I cannot answer such things."

Cort thought for a while. "Would it not take a long time...a very long time...for me to come so far?"

"Usually," Henri stammered. "Usually it would, indeed. But there are...shortcuts. You were brought through one of those."

"And what would such a shortcut be...called?"

"A warp." There! He had said it.

The word, however, meant nothing to Cort. "Is that some sort of...vehicle?"

"No, not a vehicle.  More of a...path."

"I don't understand."

"I know. I know you don't, my friend. It is all very...complicated."

Cort's hand crossed the covers again, this time gripping Henri's fingers tightly. "Please," he said. "I need to know. I MUST know! Explain this warp thing to me."

Henri drew in a great breath. Was he signing his death warrant? He had no idea. But the desperation on the young man's face was more than he could bear. "It...it's like...like, well, almost like a tunnel." He was searching for words that Cort might be able to grasp. "A special tunnel made of...light. It takes you and sucks you through itself faster than you can imagine until you come out its other end."

"Would this light be...greenish blue?"

"You...you...remember?" Henri gasped.

"I remember turquoise," Cort said. "It hurt."

"Can you say how it hurt?" Henri really wanted to know. No one else had lived to tell him
and Mikol and his retrievers had an entirely different experience of the warp.

Cort did not really want to think about the blue.  "I was in...pieces," he tried to explain.
"And the blue came and stuck to them. It was horrible." His face twisted at the memory of it.

"No  more of that, then," Henri hastily added, seeing the distress it caused Cort, the rise in
his heart beat.  "No more of that. Shhhh! It's all right now.  No more of that."

Cort was breathing rapidly but gradually each breath became longer, deeper. "That...that is how I...got here?" he finally asked.

"Yes, but you are here now.  That is done with. You are safe now."

Cort looked at him. "AM I safe?"

Henri clenched his teeth, his eyes seeking the ceiling again. Shaking his head he murmured,
"May it be so, please God, may it be so."

Mikol was, indeed, watching, hearing every word. But he was pleased with how it was going,
pleased with how Cort seemed to be responding to Henri's mild manner. So he let it continue.

Cort lay so still for a while that Henri thought he must have gone back to sleep. His own head
began to nod, but he was startled into wakefulness when Cort asked, "Do you know Herod?"

"Wh...what? Herod? Oh...yes. I mean, no, I do not know the man, but I know who he is...was."

"You know he is dead, then?"

"Very, very dead," Henri nodded, remembering the strange shaft of sunlight shining through
Herod's body, then the second bullet to his head. "You do not remember seeing him die?"

"No," Cort replied, going as far as his memory allowed. "He was standing in the street near his
house. Then the explosions started. That's where it ends. All of it. Explosions."

"Ellen killed him," Henri supplied. "She came through the smoke and shot him."

"The man, the other man, he said she was wounded."

"Yes, but just her shoulder. She was all right. Rode out of town all by herself."

Cort looked at him unblinkingly. "How do you know all this? You talk as if you were there.
WERE you there? In Redemption? Were you in Redemption?"

"No," he said, barely audibly.

"Then...how?"

"I saw it," he replied, turning his head toward the wall.

Mikol held his breath.

Henri knew he was risking everything, knew by now that Mikol was letting him risk it.

"You were not there...yet you...saw it?"

"Yes," Henri nodded, slowly turning back toward the bed. "More than once."

Cort blinked now. Several times, running a hand over his mouth and chin. "You speak in riddles, doctor."

"I know it sounds that way. Have you...have you ever seen a photograph, Cort?"

Cort frowned. What did that have to do with anything? "A few," he said. "Father Michael had

a Matthew Brady one taken at Gettysburg." He frowned again, remembering the pile of twisted bodies in a peach orchard.

"Well, Cort, if you take a whole lot of photographs, a whole LOT, and put them all together and
flip them really, really fast...it looks like they are moving, that the people and things in the
photographs are moving."

"I'm sure that's fascinating, Doctor," Cort replied a bit testily, thinking Henri was avoiding
his question. "But how did YOU see Ellen riding out of town?"

"I saw her in pictures, Cort. Moving pictures."

"Someone was in Redemption with...with a camera?" Cort asked, incredulous.

"Yes, Cort, someone was. Only this was a very special camera, a...fast...camera, so fast that
it takes many pictures very, very quickly. So fast that it is called a 'movie' camera."

Mikol was nodding his head in approval as he watched the monitor. The good doctor might just
live a bit longer after all.

"I have never heard of that."

"I know," Henri smiled, "but you have been photographed by one."

"Me?"

"Yes, in Redemption. A movie camera filmed the whole time you were in Redemption."

"That can't be true," Cort spluttered. "I was there several days. Too much happened."

"Much did happen, Cort, that is right. You were hauled into the saloon, flung across the
floor into the bar, then strung up on a chair to be hung."

"You...you saw THAT?" Cort was amazed.

"I did, Cort, and I saw the fountain with the candles where you were chained and how you tried
so hard to reach that glass of water but couldn't. I saw how Foy's boys were hitting you, throwing things at you and how you warned Ellen that the clock would click right before it struck."

"No one heard me say that to her, Doctor, no one. How do you know about that? Pictures don't have words."

"Ah, Cort, but this kind does. I could hear you as well as see you move. And then there was the Bordello."

He was appalled. He felt invaded, exposed. "Not that! No one was in that room but Ellen and me. No one!"

"You were wet, Cort. She was wet. You put your chains over her head, down her back...."

"Enough!" Cort shouted, his face grim.

Mikol watched the monitors carefully. Cort's blood pressure was rising. Henri had better be careful.

Cort's eyes were closed and he was in a full sitting position on the bed. "Look, Doctor," he said when he was able to speak again, "I grant you that you know what was happening in Redemption, even my private business, but if there were these...movie...cameras, as you  say, how and where did you see the pictures they took?"

"On a big white square thing called a screen, Cort. The pictures are sent in a light through the air and people can see them on the screen."

"People? OTHER people saw what you saw?"

"Many," Henri nodded, "thousands."

Again Cort was appalled. "Why? Why would people want to watch other people doing private things?"

"Well, it is more than just private things, Cort. It is the whole, um, story of it. Like a book. It's
like seeing a book. You know...a play, a play on the stage. Like that."

"But it's NOT like that, Doctor! It's my LIFE we're talking about, not some story!"

"No, Cort, we ARE talking about a story."

Cort was shaking his head. None of this was making any sense. None of it!

"Listen to me, Cort. This is going to be the hardest thing you've ever had to understand, but you
MUST understand it. Do you hear me? If you are going to survive, you MUST understand this?"

"This has to be a nightmare," Cort murmured, still shaking his head.

"Try, Cort. Listen to me and...try. There is a story that takes place in a tiny town called
Redemption. The story has a name...The Quick and the Dead. It's a play on the word 'quick'
in both its meaning as 'alive' and in its meaning as 'fast.'" He locked his eyes on Cort's.
"You have seen a performance, right? Tell me you have seen a performance on a stage."

"We put on little Christmas plays at the Mission school. Will that do?"

"That will do fine. You know how a boy would pretend to be Joseph and a girl would pretend
to be Mary. Other children would be shepherds or wise men?"

"Yes," Cort nodded, a deep crease furrowing his brow.

"What those children were doing was 'acting'. You are familiar with the word?"

Cort nodded again.

"Well, in the story of The Quick and the Dead, a woman, an actress named Sharon Stone, was
pretending to be Ellen."

Cort laughed. "That WAS Ellen!"

"To you, yes, she was. When she was being filmed, um, having her pictures taken, she simply seemed to BE Ellen. And in the context...the world, if you will...OF the movie, she IS Ellen." He smiled, trying to encourage the young man seated so close to him. "But there is more to it than that. Things that new technology...new science...is just now beginning to explore. When the pictures are done being taken, Cort, the actors are finished and go home...but the characters, the people IN the movie remain IN the movie. Nothing much was ever thought about that until the last dozen years or so. Then it was discovered that the reality OF the movie had an integrity...a life...of its own. A movie, Cort, can be seen over and over. It's...saved. It can be put in the...the...viewing machine, and it begins again. Like it never happened before. For the characters IN the movie, it is for them always new, always happening as if it were for the first time. Those in a movie are unaware that they are in this loop that comes to its ending and then begins again. For them, each time is the only time, is all they know."

"But...but...," Cort protested, "I...I'm not an...actor."

"No, Cort, you are not. You simply ARE Cortland Wells."

"And who...is...he?"

"He is the character of the priest in the movie called The Quick and the Dead.  He is...you."

"This...this...can't be right. It just...can't." He looked at Henri, his eyes sparkling with tears.
"I'm real. I KNOW I'm real. I...I...I've always been real. I remember things...before I was dragged into Redemption.  I remember my grandmother. She's not in the movie, but I remember her!"

"That's one of the stranger parts of all this," Henri nodded. "A character out of his movie seems to bring with him his whole life, all that has gone into making him the person he is as he appears on the screen. We have no idea why that it, how it works.  It just...is."

"How...how...does a character get 'out' of his movie?"

"He stays there, Cort, repeating the same story over and over and over unless someone from outside the movie comes into it and, well, 'retrieves' him.  That is the word that has come into usage for that and the people who do that sort of thing are called Retrievers."

"Did...did...you retrieve me?"

"No, Cort, that is not my line of work. I am a doctor who tends to them after they have been retrieved."

"Did that man...the other one...did he do it?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Henri was not at all inclined to explain about Gladiator. The Quick and the Dead was more than enough for Cort to deal with right now.

"But...," Cort spread his hands palms up, helplessly in front of him. "How can this be true? I'm just...me. I know I am."

"Of course you do, Cort. That is what you were made to know. That is what is right for you to know. And you ARE you. All that you know, all that you feel, all that you remember simply IS the reality of Cortland Wells." He smiled. "And who is to say that that's any less real than my boyhood in Normandy, eh?"

Cort was lost in thought. "Did it end there?"

"What?"

"My...movie. Did it end when the town exploded? You say you saw Ellen kill Herod and then ride out of town. Why don't I remember that?"

"I think it was the explosions, Cort. You were in the street, waiting. You remember that much, right?"

Cort nodded.

"Then the explosions started. You must have been injured. Then Ellen came while...while...you were under the rubble and killed Herod. Then she left."

"She left while I was still buried? Why would she do that?"

"Um, perhaps she thought you were dead? Yes! That must be it! She thought you were dead and there was nothing in the town for her any longer.  So she left."

"Doesn't sound like much of an ending," he mused. "For a story, I mean," he added with a slight grin.

Mikol let out the breath he'd been holding. This one was different. This one was going to make it.

ON TO PART 7

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