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“My dearest Jonah…”
Elias sits up a little bit straighter at his desk. He doesn’t listen in on every statement that the Archivist records, but occasionally, some internal clock will chime at the mention of a significant idea or name. And a surprisingly pleasant shiver runs down his spine at the sound of that name – by which almost nobody has addressed him in years – in Jonathan Sims’ voice.
Jon shares some similarities with the author of the letter that he’s reading: he’s every bit as relentlessly curious and more tenacious than he realizes. He might scoff at the suggestion that he himself might venture into a wintry forest and descend into a foreboding mausoleum after having been warned away. Elias, however, can easily imagine such a scenario, especially when Jon’s voice fills with Albrecht von Closen’s excited fascination at having found an ancient but remarkably well-preserved book…
When Martin blunders into Jon’s space, half-dressed and disheveled and fretting about the hive-creature that has targeted the Institute, it breaks the spell for a moment. After he retreats, Jon slides easily back into the rhythms of Albrecht’s story and the embrace of his deepest terrors, as if it’s already the most natural thing in the world.
“I look forward to showing you the book I have acquired, and the revelations you will no doubt glean from it.”
The two of them had pored over the book by firelight, careful not to spill brandy upon it, but allowing their fingertips to brush each other across the pages. When Jonah closed the cover and twined their fingers together, Albrecht’s protests had not lasted long.
Much later, Elias will allow himself to dwell upon how some of his old friend’s other choice words, and much less coherent noises, might sound in his Archivist’s mouth.
-
“I have tried to write it down, to put it into terms and words you would understand. And now I stare at it and not a word of it is even enough to fully describe the fact that I itch.”
Jon waited until Martin had stepped out of the Institute for the evening before he reached for Jane Prentiss’ statement. He thinks that he’s protecting his assistant. He thinks that delving into the true nature of the hive will help him to protect them all.
Nobody will interrupt him as he disappears into the voice – by turns teasing, desperate, and alive with vicious certainty – of the creature that is all too close to finding him, invading him, and marking him for the Corruption. Nobody will stop the movement of his fingernails upon his own shoulder, as if he’s trying to dig something from beneath his skin. When he reaches the end of the statement, it seems to take him a tremendous effort to remember who and where he is.
Elias waits just long enough, and knocks on the door of the Archives as Jon is trying – and failing – to recover his professional detachment and veneer of skepticism, like a half-drowned man trying to speak coherently. He startles and fumbles to turn off the tape recorder. “Who is it?”
Elias opens the door and steps inside. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re still here.”
Jon lets out his breath, and his voice sounds closer to normal as he says, “There wasn’t an optimal time during the day to attend to this matter.”
“And yet it couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning?” Elias asks with precisely the right amount of gentleness.
“I suppose it could, but…” Jon shakes his head. “It has potential significance for all of us.” The words strain under the weight of everything that he isn’t saying. For the first time, he seems to sense what this process is doing to him.
“In that case, I suggest that we talk about it. But after,” Elias adds, placing a hand on Jon’s shoulder, “you’ve gotten some rest. You look like you need it.”
“You’re right.” Jon doesn’t seem to realize that he’s leaning into the touch. “I’m sure that I’ll be able to think more clearly tomorrow.”
“I don’t doubt it. Some of our statements can be intense, but I know that you can weather them.” Jon hasn’t backed away, so Elias can’t resist reaching into his mind and pulling forth a long-dormant desire: to relax into someone’s arms, with an abandon that Jon hasn’t let himself feel in years (and certainly wouldn’t allow himself to feel around his boss); to let all of that tension flow out of him; to stop worrying and wondering, if only for a moment. “I wouldn’t have chosen you for this position otherwise.”
-
“The first of the dark powers to touch me, perhaps, but it did not claim me.”
Jon perches on the sofa, pouring his own story into the tape recorder as he has offered so many others, as if it is his only friend. Perhaps that is not too far from the truth. An old connection from university has offered him temporary shelter, but even if he tries to explain his desperate circumstances, she could never fully understand. Gossip about his role in the ongoing murder investigation swirls throughout the Institute, and even his surviving assistants don’t entirely know what to think. (Martin has proclaimed Jon’s innocence to anyone who asks, and a few people who haven’t, but the doubt – the fear of everything that he doesn’t know – still eats at him, and it’s delicious.)
Jon trembles so sweetly in the grip of old memories, and even the reality of Ms. Barker’s return doesn’t quite shake them loose. They follow him into an uneasy sleep, from which he wakes with one fist jammed into his mouth. He half-recognizes the longing for a hand to stroke his hair, to smooth the tension from this shoulders, to gentle him into sleep, and if he wonders where those thoughts come from, at least they’re preferable to thoughts of spiders.
The Web might not have claimed Jon as it claims its true avatars, but it prompted him to make the first of many choices that led him to where he belongs.
-
“Statement… extracted from subject…”
The Archivist probably assumes that nobody knows about his new eating habits. He is mistaken. Even the walls of a prison can’t sever their connection.
When he stalks his victims, pries them open, and feeds upon their trauma and terror, does he feel as close to Elias as Elias does to him? If Jon lets himself feel doubt and self-loathing, does he think that he should be alone with them, or does part of him still wish for the reassuring voice and touch of someone who understands, even someone that he should despise?
When the remaining half of the creature that once called itself “Breekon and Hope” turns up at the Institute, Jon surpasses himself. For the first time, instead of pretending to ask for knowledge, he simply reaches in and takes it, crackling and vibrating and bursting with irresistible power, no matter how much pain it causes him or his subject. And with that knowledge comes a whisper of – Elias chuckles at the pun – hope. Jon starts to imagine he will be able to save a onetime ally from the Buried. He might even be stubborn enough to succeed, but if he survives – which, one way or another, is by no means a certainty – he will not emerge unscarred.
“You are magnificent, Jon,” Elias breathes into the darkness of his cell, bathing in awe and arousal and the electric, ecstatic hum that few others will hear or feel. “Try to stay in one piece for me, just a little bit longer, won’t you? We’re almost there.”
-
“It’s rare that you get the chance to monologue through another, and you can’t tell me you’re not curious.”
When Jon started reading, miles away, Elias was ready.
He doubts that he will have much use for that name, in the world to come, but it was the name by which he introduced himself to one of his most essential creations. It may be one of the names that Jon curses as the statement takes hold.
Jon clenches his teeth, straining beautifully against the words, but they slip out anyway, in the confident, sly cadence that has haunted his nightmares. He tears one hand from the paper to claw at his lovely throat, as if he doesn’t care what happens to his own flesh or the weapon that is his voice. He yearns for his precious Martin to return to their little hideaway, tear the paper from his hand, and coo reassurances into his ear.
But as much as he wants those things, the Archivist – the perfect Archive – needs to know. He needs to fully comprehend the ultimate goal of centuries of planning, and his true purpose in it all.
And Jonah Magnus shows him.