Gillian Anderson - A Dream of Ice

“Today, earlier,” she said.

“This one in particular?” Yokane asked, holding it nearer.

Caitlin could sense that it was vibrating silently in the woman’s hands. She didn’t recognize the pattern but the general use of crescents she knew very well.

“No, not that one,” Caitlin replied. “The design was different. What is it?”

Yokane regarded her precious item. “It’s from the Source of Galderkhaan,” she announced. “The kavar . A preferred design of the Technologists.”

“I thought you said you were with the Priests,” Caitlin said.

“I am,” Yokane replied. “This was entrusted to my family by the Obsidian Priest.”

Caitlin waited but the woman did not continue. Pressing would only meet with resistance but she suspected, as with her patients, that this woman wanted to say more.

“The stone,” Yokane went on, “has been passed down through my ancestors for millennia. The oral tradition has lost many details, but there is active danger in this object and others like it.”

“How many are there?”

“That I do not know,” she admitted. “But if it is active, others are active.”

“When you say ‘active,’ what exactly do you mean?”

Yokane fixed her eyes on Caitlin. “It is screaming.”

“You don’t mean that literally —?”

“I do,” Yokane said.

She had to mean it was vibrating, like a magnet trying to reach another magnet. Caitlin let the specific wording pass.

“Why? Why now?” Caitlin asked.

“For reasons that have forced me from concealment,” Yokane said. “Before they became obsessed with the transpersonal plane and beyond, the Technologists helped us achieve greatness. They linked a network of stones, a series of mosaics, to the Source. Powered by the planet itself—the magma layer that would one day become the Source—the stones were a record, if you will, access to the achievements and intellect of our race.”

“So… a living library?”

Yokane said with deep respect, “A means of unwinding time would be closer to it.”

Caitlin was barely hanging on to the concept. She tried to dumb it down for herself. “You’re saying that through that stone you can see the past?”

“Not through one , no.” Yokane smiled sadly. “It is a lost shavula . Separated from the flock, all it can do is attempt to link to the others. It is not just the stone but the pattern of stones and access to the Source that give it vitality.”

“In and of itself, then, it has no intelligence.”

“No,” Yokane said. “But it has access to so much. So very much. Finding that access has been our goal for millennia.”

“A database of Galderkhaani minds,” Caitlin said, awed, as the idea took hold.

Yokane cradled the stone and then laid it gently upon the table with an almost ritualistic reverence. It reminded Caitlin of the respectful quiet of a Japanese tea ceremony. The woman then turned from the stone as though wrenching herself from her beloved and paced to the hall. Caitlin followed quickly, maternal instincts on guard. But when Yokane stopped outside Jacob’s door and looked for Caitlin’s permission before entering, her fears subsided somewhat. Given a nod, the woman collected herself with a deep breath and silently let herself into Jacob’s room. The two women stood just within the doorway.

Once again, the eerie sound of a nonexistent wind was accompanying Jacob’s deep sleep breathing. But Caitlin barely had time to register it before Yokane shocked her by laughing. The woman’s face and hands were raised up to the ceiling—as Caitlin had done, instinctively, on the roof.

Yokane’s smile was broad and bright, her fingers spread widely, trembling not with dread but with a kind of euphoria. After a moment, the woman turned to exit without even looking at Caitlin. She only said, “I thought they all perished.”

“Who?”

“Those at the final cazh ,” Yokane replied.

Yokane brushed past Caitlin on her way to the hallway. When Caitlin caught up to her and stopped her, Yokane was restoring the wrapped stone to her inner pocket.

“What did you see?”

“What your son saw,” Yokane replied. “A Galderkhaani woman.”

Caitlin waited for more. It didn’t come.

“See, this is the value of having a conversation,” Caitlin said. “I give you access to information, you give me your interpretation.”

“There is no more,” Yokane said, apologetic for the first time. “Not yet.”

Caitlin regarded her suspiciously. “But you expect more.”

“I do,” Yokane replied.

Caitlin was beginning to catch on.

“You didn’t visit me on the subway, in my living room, then come back because you were worried about Jacob,” Caitlin said. “Hell, you were MIA during the whole thing with Maanik—even though you were aware of it.”

“That is true.”

Now Caitlin was angry. The only thing that stopped her from running into the living room and threatening to toss the mosaic tile out the window was that the woman could probably drop her with a twitch of her index finger.

Caitlin forced herself to calm. “Then why are you here, if not to help me and my son?”

“A serious situation has arisen elsewhere. I had to make sure you and Jacob were not the cause. He is just receiving, not generating or channeling. Neither are you.”

Caitlin stiffened. “And if he had been?”

The woman was silent.

“You would have hurt him,” Caitlin said.

“No,” Yokane said. “I would have interceded, as you did with your patients. But it wasn’t necessary.”

“Necessary for what ?”

“To save this city, for a start. And then the world.” Yokane pointed to the living room windows. “You are aware of the animals in peril out there? The stones, thousands of them just like mine, are coming to life.”

“How do you know this?”

“The stone,” she replied. “It has not stopped screaming since a few weeks ago.”

“You mean, it isn’t like that all the time?”

Yokane shook her head.

“Why now?” Caitlin asked.

“Galderkhaan is being freed from the ice.”

“You’re saying that climate change has found another way to destroy civilization?”

“You are perilously flip,” Yokane said, moving in on her. “I am not the only one who knows of the stones and their power. With Galderkhaan comes the Source. And there are those who would seek to use it.”

“How?”

“If I knew that, I could stop them,” Yokane said.

Caitlin backed off. She was silent, overwhelmed. She knew she could not fully trust this stranger, but she had always feared that the recent events had been larger, more encompassing, than the assault of souls on the living. From the madness in Kashmir to the rats in Washington Square Park, global discordance, unease, panic were afoot.

“So what now?” Caitlin asked. “Are we done here?”

“Here, yes,” Yokane said and turned her eyes toward Jacob’s room. “Whoever is in contact with your son has more to tell us.”

“And you know that how?”

“There are no self-inflicted wounds. This is not a forced cazh , a strong soul preying on the weak. I believe she is trying to communicate, not trying to ascend.”

“Communicate what?” Caitlin asked.

“I do not know,” the woman admitted. “But we must find out.”

“Then I repeat: what now?” Caitlin asked.

“I have established a connection with your son on my own,” she said. “What he sees and hears, I will see and hear.”

“Goddamn it!” Caitlin yelled suddenly. “You could at least have asked!”