Chapter 10

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She had lost her ability to see before she even touched the floor. Her eyes were simply too tiny a source of information, like a candle flame in a flooded spotlight, too small to be discerned. Her renewed mind was filled with the icy glow of knowledge. Like a blindingly bright flash that repeated over and over again millions of times every moment, in each of these flashes was everything - the state of the whole world was instantly highlighted in her mind, only to be immediately erased by another flash and another version of the world that burned itself out in the Taer's mind. More and more, The flashes of awareness did not stop. The icy stream of consciousness consisted of them, and it only intensified. It was immeasurably larger than she was, and there was less and less room for her. She felt like a vortex through which the ocean of time was pumping. She was drowning:

This is me. Taer thought. It was as if she were in a convertible, accelerating and accelerating, and the icy wind that she liked so much was becoming so much that it was hard to breathe. She felt she was beginning to suffocate, but it was not scary at all. She was calm - she did not need to breathe.

She didn't know at what point the flashes of awareness finally dissolved her mind. Time simply made no sense to her. There was too much of it, so much that there was no room left for her body, for her eyes, for her breath, and her consciousness. Only a blindingly bright stream in which only a tiny thought remained of her:

I'm back.

When Taer regained her ability to see, she saw a light. Not blindingly bright, but a calm, even milky white light, it was everywhere, and it bled.

Blood was everywhere, too. She was covered in blood, bright scarlet streams of blood wrapped around her in scarlet lace, and there was no other garment she wore. Blood gathered in a scarlet hem at her feet and poured into the crimson puddles that surrounded the mutilated bodies. They were her bodies. She was standing over her own body in a huge pool of blood. Her empty eyes on her bloodshot face stared unseeingly upward through her. Her own body lay before her, slashed from the shoulder obliquely, and behind it was another with a torn throat, and another, and another. Everywhere in this white field were her own mutilated bodies in pools of blood. Thousands, hundreds of thousands.

Scarlet streams of blood stretched from puddle to puddle, connecting all these bodies into a giant scarlet web:

That's all me.

The body closest to her was suddenly in motion, abruptly, as if an invisible hand had grabbed it, pulling it upward. Taer reflexively recoiled, and the body hovered in front of her, literally sucking blood through its wounds. It was like a tape being played backward - a bloody scarlet splash flew into the wound, and it rapidly fused as if it had never existed. Very quickly, just a few moments later, there she was, standing in front of Taer - like a mirror, but the reflection was very different. That Taer looked at her with calm confidence in her superiority, that Taer was strong and confident. That Taer was better at everything:

Is this what could have been? Or is it what it was?

Her copy, which stood opposite, hesitated for a moment as if it were a visual recording with interference, and when the interference ceased, instead of the fingers of her right palm she had curved sharp claws that shone with metal.

Taer looked at her right hand. Instead of fingers, it had the same claws, only all covered in blood. She knew what was about to happen:

She's going to kill me. Taer realized. She's much stronger. I don't belong here at all. I'm too weak.

She looked around - there was only light, blood, and bodies - it was pointless to run.

She can't, and there's nowhere to run.

The other moved toward her, and Taer reflexively raised her arms in defense:

"Please." She whispered miserably, looking pleadingly at her looming self. But the woman looked at her with the weary indifference of someone who'd done it a thousand times, ready to repeat it over and over again as long as it was necessary.

Taer did not notice the blow, so swift it was, only the blood spattering and the gurgling wheeze in her own torn throat, and the world was divided. She was simultaneously slowly settling, covering her own torn throat, and looking at her dying self at the same time:

It's all me - at the same time. She realized, and it also became clear that the real her died a long time ago. She was one of the first to die. I'm really dead.

The thought gave her back her ability to feel emotion, and she was bitter, bitter that she had been dead a long time and that she could not change it. She was in pain. It hurt from being alone because there was only her, and there was too much of her.

Something happened in her divided world. Something noticed her, something huge. She felt the attention as if she were a tiny insect that the giant was paying close attention to. The white light that filled everything around her moved. It began to crumble around her, to pull her in like a swamp, to dissolve her.

Everything was gone. Only the light was left.

As the light receded, Taer realized she was lying there looking up at the sky, a bright, calm, pale blue sky. A light breeze was blowing over her. It was cool but not cold, and the wind brought the tangy smell of tree resin and pine needles.

A pine? The smell was strange, distinctly woody, but also very fresh and bright. Somehow she knew it was called a pine. It seemed perfectly natural to her.

She lifted herself on one arm and saw that she was lying on a smooth, springy carpet of soft red needles, which tickled rather than stung and adhered to her blood-covered body in great numbers. She reflexively touched her throat - it was all right - and rose to her feet, gingerly, with the help of her hands, her body not listening very well, and looked around.

She was in a small forest, or grove, surrounded by tall strange trees, with a bare trunk without branches, covered with large red bark scales, branches were only at the very top, and instead of leaves on them were these same needles that covered everything around. It was not red but pale green. It was from them that the smell of tree resin and this other aroma of "pine" came.

The Pines.

The trees were sparse and barely obscured the sky, and she had no sense that she was in the woods, so bright and clear and very peaceful.

She looked around, at the same time mechanically trying to remove the clinging needles from her bloody hands. The grove, the sky, the red carpet of needles, ahead of her was a small building, a small two-story house in a very bourgeois style - with chopped rectangular shapes, without any decorations, with huge windows. The first floor was of large unworked blocks, and the second was of dark red wooden planks. It somewhat resembled the country house of the Marquise of Turang, where they had recently been together with Lord...

Recently? Some part of her was sure that she had been lying here forever, staring up at the sky, simply forgetting that she could do anything else, she could exist and think. And another part remembered, remembered that she had only been in the capital for a few days, remembered her visit to the Marquess of Turang a few decades ago.

Taer realized she was asleep. Her memory was coming back to her. She remembered the Fenote she had taken and everything else.

I almost always have nightmares after I activate the guider. So I'm just having a nightmare? Taer thought, wrapping her arms tightly around herself and looking around confusedly. The dream was frighteningly realistic. Like the time with the fire sphere. Besides, I took a Fenote. Could there be hallucinations in a dream?

But that was not important. The important thing was that she realized that she was asleep, which meant she could control her sleep. At least try to:

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I want to find the source of my nightmares. Mentally she concentrated. I want to find the source of my bloodlust.

She did not know how long she concentrated like that, but soon a dog barked nearby:

As in the manual! The fabric of the dream obeyed! Taer rejoiced, trying to find the source of the sound with her eyes.

A dog jumped out into the clearing where she was, unnaturally huge. Its head must have been at Taer's hip level, almost the size of an adult vorskl. And fluffy - covered in long golden hair, it wagged its tail happily, holding a healthy, dry stick in its teeth, and despite its size, it gave no impression of being a dangerous creature at all, quite the contrary.

The dog ran happily toward her but, at about ten paces, stopped abruptly, literally sitting on its hind legs. Her ears flattened against her head, she yelped uncertainly, started to back away, and turned around and ran away toward the house.

Was she scared of me? Taer was surprised, but she looked at herself again and remembered that she was completely naked and covered in blood from head to toe. No wonder.

Taer tried to imagine wearing clothes or at least just cleaning up the blood, but it didn't work:

It must be one of those dreams where you walk around naked.

Unsure of her footing on the carpet of soft needles, Taer walked toward the house that was visible at the edge of the grove. Perhaps the dog is the guide that leads to the root of the problem.

From up close, the house made an even more laconic but very solid impression. There were no decorations, only measured lines, stone, and wood. It was surrounded by a small lawn of trimmed dark green grass, and a path lined with a few large flat stones led up to the front door.

The entrance door of dark lacquered wood, with a simple straight handle gleaming with chrome, was closed, but there was a huge window in the wall nearby. It stretched from the floor to the ceiling of the first floor and was ajar, pushed aside to form a narrow passageway in which the wind was fluttering the edges of the thick blue curtains, and the floor outside the window showed the wet footprints of a dog's paw.

Taer froze in indecision, not quite sure what to do, but she heard a woman's voice from behind the window:

"Don't be shy."

The speaker was out of sight, and Taer, shaking with a little doubt, decided that it would be foolish to be embarrassed about her own dream. She wiped her hands and feet on the grass as best she could and, with a sigh, grasped the doorknob.

With a quiet click, the door opened, and she stepped inside. In the spacious hallway that transitioned into the corridor, there was a semi-darkness and the same geometric and laconic decorations that matched the whole house. Then there was an even more spacious living room, full of light thanks to the giant window with the curtains pulled back, where on a white sofa facing the window a woman was sitting with her back to Taer and a dog swirling around with her.

The woman's face was invisible - only a mop of straw-like blond, brittle hair tied with a silver ribbon. She sat with her arms spread wide across the back of the sofa and literally radiated anticipation, not anxious or patient anticipation, but calm and peaceful when something good was bound to happen, and all that was left was to wait for it. And it wasn't Taer she was waiting for.

"Have a seat." Without turning around, the woman suggested, pointing to the chair next to her couch.

Taer hesitantly looked around, no one else in the house to be seen, and walked to the offered chair, leaving bloody footprints behind her on the dark floors of tightly fitted, flat polished planks.

When she entered the living room, it became clear the huge window through which the woman looked out opened onto a small balcony without a railing, and below it stretched a gentle but very large hill, on top of which stood this house, at the foot of it and partly on the hill itself, lay to the horizon - the city. A city that had been destroyed. And it was not an ancient ruin, no. Here and there, bluish clouds of stone dust rose from the crumbled walls, icy placers of broken glass glittered around the empty windows, and pockmarks blackened the holes in the walls. It seemed as if some force had been tearing the city apart just a moment ago, and then it stopped, and the silence and the distant chirping of birds covered everything.

Taer approached the offered chair and hesitantly stopped - the chair had snow-white fabric upholstery, and she was still covered in blood.

"Don't be shy." The woman repeated, smiling absently and stroking the dog.

Taer sank silently into the chair and looked around, trying not to notice the casing sticking to her skin.

The living room was also austere and laconic - smooth lines, geometric shapes, light walls of rough yellowish stone, dark floors with a single white spot of fluffy carpet lying in front of the couch. On the rug stood a low, broad table of dark wood. And that was it, two armchairs, a sofa table - no decorations, no accessories, just a small white stand on the table, with some pictures of it standing sideways to Taer, and it was hard to tell what was on it - some people.

Photo. Another strange word popped into Taer's head.

The hostess sprawled out on the couch, was just like the place. She has Taer's face, but she looked commanding and somehow older. She was wearing a pale mauve pantsuit, an unfamiliar cut, with no embellishments or embroidery. Because of the wide trousers, it could easily have been mistaken for a strict floor-length dress. Dark blue pointy-toed shoes with high heels, long fingernails with varnish to match the shoes, and a very simple necklace, made of polished metal plates with a copper sheen.

And Taer also noticed that the hostess always looked to the side and never saw her eyes, which was strange because the angle of view was quite allowed.

A dream has its own logic. Taer thought, sensing that this place was starting to give her a kind of numbness.

"You must want some tea?" The hostess suggested. She was still playing with the dog, and she liked it, smiling. Even though the dog was clearly nervous, and was squinting warily at Taer, trying to hide behind its mistress's legs.

Someone put a white cup of tea in front of Taer. Taer turned around reflexively, but there was no one else in the living room, and the hostess was still playing with the dog.

Well, I'm dreaming. She wasn't surprised, though, as she took the cup in her hands, feeling the heat from it warm her hands.

The tea was hot, and for some reason, it was dark in color. She took a cautious sip. The taste was unfamiliar - tart, and rich, but pleasant and somehow completely natural. Some part of her was sure this was what tea was supposed to be.

"Do you like dogs?" The hostess suddenly asked, looking somewhere behind Taer's back.

"Me?" Taer asked again, looking around involuntarily; there was no one behind her. "I don't know." She answered honestly.

"Do you want to pet him?" The hostess suggested, hugging the dog by the neck so it wouldn't fidget. "I'll hold it."

Taer hesitantly reached out to it. The dog shook its head and squinted frightened at the outstretched, bloody hand:

"Probably better not." She smiled crookedly, hiding her hand.

The hostess let the dog go, and it immediately snuck behind the couch, away from Taer.

"He's a coward." The hostess commented with a smile as she looked at the dog.

Taer sipped her tea in silence. She felt more and more numb, like she'd been drinking tea for ages, and didn't dare to do anything:

"Why don't you ever look me in the eye?" At last, she dared to ask. "Are you afraid of me?"

"I can't be afraid." Calmly the hostess objected, turning to her.

For a moment, their gazes crossed, and everything vanished, leaving only the gaze of the hostess. She had huge, pale, almost whitish eyes that resembled those of a bird of prey. Motionless, with a thin, pale gray iris and the same unnaturally large, opaque black pupils. And her gaze radiated terror. Taer felt a wave of clammy, animal horror begin to sweep over her, and an abominable pull began to grow in the depths of her chest, reaching up to her heart. And worst of all, she was unable to look away, to clasp her eyes, or even to scream - she was paralyzed with fear. Just like that time with the orb.

But the hostess averted her gaze, and everything stopped:

"It's just uncomfortable. Isn't it?" Asked the hostess, smiling, while Taer wheezed and tried to learn to breathe again.

Taer was struck by a crazy idea. She remembered her ramblings under the Fenote, how she'd said she couldn't be afraid because she was the scariest, and remembered she'd tried to direct the dream toward the source of the fear. And I woke up in the forest, well, almost.

"Are you the scariest beast in the woods?" Taer muttered.

These words genuinely amused the hostess. She laughed, her laughter very melodious and so infectious that Taer herself, despite her condition, began to smile.

"Yes." She nodded, laughing. "That's me. I am the scariest beast in the woods." And after laughing, she added, with jocular condemnation. "How did you ever catch on?"

Taer didn't answer. She did not know what to do. She was at the source of her fear, as she wanted to be, but what to do about it?

"You must have wanted to ask me something?" Her hostess helped her with a leading question. "You didn't just come to me for nothing, did you?"

"I wanted to find the source of my fear and challenge it," Taer answered honestly, realizing how stupid that sounded now.

"Am I your fear?" The hostess shook her head. "Gee. But you know better." She added with a smile. "And what are you so afraid of?"

"I?" hesitantly interrogated Taer, looking out the window at the ruined city. "That you would drive me mad, that I would turn into a mad, bloodthirsty monster." Quietly she muttered.

"Funny." The hostess smiled, spreading her arms out again on the back of the couch, and turning her gaze to the city, too. "'I'm not strong on humor,' but I think it's ironic. Why don't you think you're a bloodthirsty monster, to begin with? And now you're just going back to normal?"

"Why am I a monster?" Taer swallowed. "I was normal before."

"Was you, or do you think you were?" The hostess asked back with a sly smile.

"What do you mean thinking? I remember how I acted and..."

"Do you remember, or do you think you remember?" The hostess continued to smile.

"What do you mean, I think I remember?" Taer was confused, she didn't know what was going on, the dream was getting weirder and weirder. Her whole "fear challenge" was obviously going nowhere.

She turned her gaze away from her contemplation of the city to Taer. The world was gone again, leaving only the heavy, piercing look in her icy eyes and the horror that oozed from them:

"Maybe there is no such thing as a girl?" Asked the hostess and each word of hers came crashing down on Taer like the blow of a giant hammer. "How long have you been dead Taer?"

And the horror that radiated from those eyes was nothing compared to her inner fear - somewhere inside, she knew, she always knew, that she had died a long time ago.

I'm alive! She wanted to scream, but she couldn't. Her lungs wouldn't obey, she was choking, and everything was fading around her. Darkness overtook everything.

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