Chapter 15: The Scolding
“Confound you Marco!” says Bianca, her voice ringing across the wastes. “This is the lowest thing you've ever done—taking an innocent soul, new here, disoriented, and my own charge no less, and involving him in your … hopeless scheme. What are you trying to do to me? You know how delicate my situation has become.”
“Whoa, slow down,” says Sabonis. “I didn’t ask him to follow me. He’s tagging along on his own accord. It’s not my fault he didn’t buy your pitch.”
“Pitch? What pitch?” says Bianca. “I just told him the truth about the one, true path.”
“Whatever you said …” says Sabonis. “He didn’t buy it. Stop looking at me like that! I tell you it wasn’t my doing.”
“Oh no,” says Bianca. “You had nothing to do with it. I’ve watched you troll those shores, interrogating any poor soul that washes up. You told me yourself: the fresher they are, the more they remember.”
“Honestly, I didn’t push him,” says Sabonis. “He wanted to come. But go ahead, take him back.”
“Come along then,” says Bianca.
“Nuh-uh,” I say.
“What?”
“I’m not going,” I say.
“Why not?” says Bianca, hurt bending her voice.
“I don’t want to be clear,” I say. “I want to remember my life. And frankly, I’m not done yet.”
Bianca swings around to face Sabonis. “Look what you’ve done Marco! He’s brainwashed. And not only is he one of my charges, he’s one the Primentor herself has designs on.”
“What's a Primentor?” I ask. They both ignore me. Instead, Bianca’s gaping, pellucid eyes penetrate, absorb me.
“Daniel, are you telling me that for the vaguest opportunity to commit a blatantly perverse, decidedly unnatural act, you have given up any chance at Ascendance? Do you realize how this hurts you? How it hurts Marco? How it hurts all of us? We are dealing with eternity here. There will come a point when this mistake is not correctable.”
Apathy emboldens me. “I don’t care,” I say.
Her glowing chest heaves. She quivers, almost imperceptibly at first, then in a full blown tremor. I have the impression she is going to literally explode.
“I demand that you return to your stratum, immediately.”
“I … can't,” I say.
“Why can’t you?”
I gaze down at my borrowed feet. “I don’t belong there.”
“You think you’re better off, rotting on the beaches?”
“No, I mean, I wasn’t supposed to die. This is wrong. Me being here. A mistake. Just like my body is a mistake.”
“Who are you to decide such a thing?”
I shrug. “It’s … how I feel.”
“Doesn’t matter how you feel,” says Bianca. “You are dead. Souls once dead do not return. It is not meant to be. It is not right, and most importantly it is not allowed.”
“But it’s possible?” I say.
“What?”
“You’re implying that it’s possible.”
“I’ve said no such thing,” says Bianca.
“You implied it.”
“Listen, Daniel. There is an entity in Elysium, a relative of yours, someone of considerable influence and power, who is very interested in your prompt Ascension. This is no ordinary soul. Not by any means, oh no. This is a Primentor.”
“A pre-what?”
“Someone who can force her will upon you. Someone who speaks to Seraphim. I am simply trying to spare you the trauma of what that would entail. Now, take my hand and come along. We can go and re-establish your stratum before night falls.”
“She’s bluffing,” says Sabonis.
“Marco!”
“It’s true,” he says. “They got no power down in Lethe. They’re using bows and arrows for Chrissakes.”
“This … Primentor. You say he’s my relative,” I say. “What’s his name?”
“Her name …” says Bianca, “… is Paxson.”
I know that name. They are distant cousins on my mother’s side. Most of them live out in the Midwest somewhere. Iowa or Arkansas. They’re not particularly close to us.
Sabonis sidles up. “Dan, you want no part of this.”
“Marco, you have no right to interfere.”
“I’ve already decided,” I say. “I’m not going.”
Bianca took a deep breath, out of habit more than need, her glassine lungs having no use for oxygen.
“So you would rather pursue Hector with this rogue? As if defying a Primentor’s will were not bad enough? I’ve already warned Marco of danger of even being in Hector’s vicinity, never mind following in his footsteps.
“Somehow, your threats don’t impress me,” says Sabonis. “How long has Delgado been pulling his routine? And he's still going strong. They haven't touched a hair on his head. I don't think you've got the means anymore to take him out. I think you’ve all gone flabby up there.”
“You wait,” says Bianca. “You wait and see. If you were smart. If you cared for my feelings … you would stay away from him.”
“Bianca!”
The glow of her eyes intensified. “You’re taking him to Dilmun, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. So?” says Sabonis.
“It’s off limits. They won't tolerate your presence there much longer.”
“Fuck, if I care. I’m hardly ever there. And when I am, my being there don’t hurt nobody.”
“Don’t say I haven’t warned you.” She turns to me. “Daniel, are you coming?” Her eyes beckon like water in a deep well.
“No,” I say without thinking or blinking.
“Fine,” says Bianca. “But just to be clear. No one says no to a Primentor.” She lopes off back towards the massif, gliding as much as stepping away from us, her bare feet like moonstone against the dirty gravel. She tosses back a glance, her scowl sculpted in ice.