Twilight in Glen Lyon was not a dimming. It was a siphoning. Pigment bled out from the heather the heavens giving way to a grey that blended with the old stone. Devon stood by with a four-person squad hidden in a thicket of gorse and scree a quarter mile distant from the stone amphitheater. Their thermal visions revealed two heat signals inside the circle: Rex Ralph and a leaner silhouette—Fronie Felicity, the ritualist. The slate was present. They were, on standby.
But Flavio was absent. The "anchor" was absent. The equation was incomplete.
Devon had communicated Pamela's finding in Luxembourg. A sanctuary of passivity. It made dreadful sense. The cult functioned on levels: the harsh compelling physics of the slate in Scotland and the gentle alluring psychology of places, like the casemates. One seized the will the other ensnared the mind.
A chilly moist breeze weaved through his equipment seeking out the openings. His fatigue ceased to be background noise; it took center stage a whisper syncing with the wind's rhythm. What are you clutching onto? What crucial deed makes this cold this dread worthwhile?
To calm himself he compelled his mind to go over the strategy: a stealthy move, at 21:00, non-lethal subduing seize the slate. Clear. Neat. A feat.
His eyelids became heavy. The muted scenery appeared to throb. He hadn't rested well in days his sleep disrupted by the archive's quiet and the glen's allure. The tactical leader, a woman called Costa gave him a nudge. "Keep alert Analyst."
He nodded, eyes squeezing shut.. The closure lingered. The roughness of the stone, under his hand transformed into a firm surface. The roar of the wind softened into a velvety quiet.
He was no longer in the blind.
He stood by the brink of Belphegor's Basin. Not the tangible one nestled in the glen. Its refined metaphysical version. The spiral etched into the ground had transformed into a graceful funnel of obsidian and mist plunging into an endless serene expanse. The overhead sky was no longer a sky. A canopy of grey suede soaking up all light and noise.
At the heart of the basin, where the slate belonged there was a figure standing.
It wasn't Flavio. It was a shadow taking on a graceful shape—towering unnaturally thin cloaked in garments of moving dusk. No face existed, a sleek mirror-like surface where facial traits would normally appear. It emitted no threat. Instead it gave off a complete tranquility that struck Devon like a tangible force relieving the pain in his joints and loosening the tightness of worry in his chest. It was the essence of the chair in Luxembourg, the conclusion of the calculus, the answer to every unasked question.
Devon.
The voice wasn't a noise. It was the stopping of a noise he hadn't realized he was perceiving—the clamor of his own overworked mind. Its abrupt disappearance brought relief.
You have examined the hardship. You have measured the fatigue. You have followed the structure of capitulation. Come. View the closing page.
The figure reached out with a shadowy hand not to call him but to present something. Beyond it across the flatness of the basin images shimmered like reflections, on calm water. He glimpsed himself at his Europol desk the report incomplete and experienced not guilt, but a gentle release. He saw himself departing the glen leaving the squad behind and felt not disgrace but deserved repose. He observed a calm version of himself in a bright room filled with sunlight desiring nothing and it appeared like paradise.
This is not oblivion the voice reassured. It is lucidity. The quiet that follows the idea. The calm your victims were too rushed to identify. You have claimed your place at the core. Not, as a token. As a discerning expert.
The force was beyond measure. It wasn't aggression; it was the form of reason. Each debate he had absorbed every principle, from the Liber Ignaviae, each expression of a victim merged into this instant, this proposal. His exhaustion was not a defect needing repair; it was an ability to be refined. An overwhelming feeling of correctness started to unfold inside him. Advancing would mean finishing the examination. Resolving himself.
Next a discordant ripple disturbed the surface of the basin. It was not a vision of tranquility. A recollection of clamor. Veronica Vigdis's voice: "Love that embraces the pain." He observed Nathania Nora's serene expression, at Geneva station and experienced not jealousy, but an abrupt sharp sense of mourning for the woman she had once been—frustrated, imaginative vibrant. He observed the turbulent spirit of Pamela Pauline, full of sharp angles and movement and recognized it as a kind of intense imperfect concern.
The shadowy figure cocked its head. A wave of what could have been either disappointment or boundless patience passed through its shape.
That… is the resistance. The final factor. The love that demands its pain. It is the mistake, in the formula. You can fix it.
It was a fact. Loving meant welcoming hardship. Caring meant hurt. The logic was perfect; it calculated how to avoid that suffering. To reject was to select disorder to welcome the mistake.
Devon gazed at his hands semi-transparent within this dream realm. He represented a set of data markers ideally suited for finalization. Yet one persistent data point would not fade: the expression, on Javier Jeffrey's face as intrigue shifted to terror. The sensation of striking the core apparatus in Geneva not driven by justice. By an abrupt instinctive aversion to silence. It lacked logic. It lacked calm. It was the fault. The injury.
He retreated a step, from the rim of the basin.
The proposal remains endless the number conveyed, its mood consistent endlessly merciful. The seriousness does not lessen. We will anticipate your capitulation. You are merely selecting a more agonizing route to the identical peace.
The jet-black spiral started to withdraw the soft suede sky unraveling at its borders.
"Analyst! Duncan! Wake up!"
Costa's hand rested on his shoulder giving it a shake. He snapped back into himself into the wind and rough scree. He was panting his heart pounding against an emptiness that had just been replaced by calm. The lingering feeling was akin, to a craving.
"You were awake " Costa remarked, her gaze tightening with worry. "Speaking while asleep. Muttering something, about… a chair."
Devon brushed sweat away, from his upper lip. This wasn't a dream. It was an encounter. A deal. Flavio's "anchor" wasn't an individual to be seized. It was the instant of decision. The cult required a resolve to defy the draw at the point of connection to generate the ultimate disastrous strain that would break and release the stillness. They needed a martyr to fight.
He was the one they selected.
He gazed at the amphitheater. The final ray of sunlight had disappeared beyond Ben Lawers. The mountain's shade was stretching over the valley. Evening had arrived.
"It's time " Costa murmured, inspecting her firearm.
Devon nodded, the calm of the dream lingering around him like a fragrance rendering the impending brutality ridiculous, crude. He had grasped the solution.. Now he needed to battle, for the inquiry.
"Plans have shifted " he stated, his tone hoarse. "Your goal is the slate and the two cult members. Prevent them from escaping with it. My target… is not the same."
Costa looked at him intently. "What is your goal?"
He gazed upon the shadowed entrance of the amphitheater, where humanity's tendency, for repose was measured on a stone.
"To be the error in the equation," he said, and began to move.