Darkness Risen (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 4) (15 page)

the light
turned...

Three san’chrons had passed when Han’vonda stood,
her eyes open and glowing. The do’grine and abarine graa also came to their
feet, and all five stood facing the sor’weste. The others, turning at their
movement, stood and came up to her.

“Du’jidi,” she said, as one talking in sleep. The
leader moved into her line of sight. She showed him a crystal hemisphere, with
lines of light weaving a lattice above it.

“Where?” he asked quietly.

One of the lattice threads glowed and an av’tun
coalesced before them. The others went to hurriedly take leave of the Priestesses.
Within granes they were outside and ready, arrayed behind Du’jidi and Han’vonda.
He nodded to the rited-woman, but she hesitated.

“What?” he asked.

“We are not certain this leads to what we truly
seek,” she replied in her deadened voice. “The ways were - strange.”

 “In what way?”

“Strange,” she said again, as if her sleep-like mind
did not have the words. “Deviant. We did not connect directly to the Tunnels.
We have to av’tun - beside them.”

Du’jidi kept any confusion he felt at her words
hidden. He drew his dom’ma and gathered his av’rita. “I understand. Proceed.”

The do’grine graa took the forefront and led them
through the av’tun. They came out in a garden, scoured with paths that were
paved with shimmering flagstones. Around them were plots of ground and ornate
planters, all holding exotic plants the likes of which none of them had ever
seen. The felines, as one, hissed and flattened their ears, crouching in the
very center of the path. Warned and wary, the warru also clustered to the
center, looking around for danger. None immediately presented itself. Then the
male warru, Ikan’be, dropped into a crouch, too, and hissed out, “Hold!” His
was the ability to see kinds of life, and to read the nature of that life,
whether inimical or benign to him and his fellow and sister warru.

“Where is the threat?” Du’jidi asked, following the
movement of his eyes.

“The plants,” was the startling reply. “There is
more to them than...”

His words were made moot as a tree with vines that
held tooth-like thorns pulled up its roots and humped forward, snapping the
vines at them. Du’jidi slashed at the nearest whipping vine, severing it with
an ichorous spray. Then the quiescent vegetation all around came to life, giant
fly-traps opening saliva-filled leaf-mouths, and wuman-sized pitcher plants
dripping acid-sweet, clear fluid as they gaped. Huge light-dew ferns waved
enticing jewel-tipped fronds. And other mobile plant-animals pulled loose of
the soil they slept in to crowd around the new delectables in their midst. Bones
tumbled from the soil around their roots, bones of animals - and wumans.

“There are too many,” Du’jidi said in a flat voice.

“Get down,” a softer voice advised them. The warru
of the small egwae sheathed their weapons and threw themselves flat, Ikan’be
pulling Han’vonda down and covering her head with his arms. They all covered
their eyes.

The last member of the egwae struck. This warru,
small and androgynous, made three sharp gestures. Then from this warru’s hands
came a beam of av’rita like a lance, the waves of light all in line so that
they fed each other. This lance cut down everything from chest height around
them as the warru turned a tight circle. Flesh and trunk were no match for it -
even the far-off stone walls enclosing the garden were scored and in places,
melted. The smell of roasting vegetation and rotting, cooking meat filled the
air. The smoking stumps, all sheared off at the same height, fell over and
turned black, then ash-white.

Du’jidi picked himself up, looking around. There
seemed to be only one physical entrance into the dead, deadly garden. The
remaining members stood, and as one they moved to the sole doorway of the wall
that completely surrounded the place. They arrayed themselves around the
doorway, communicating by ‘tunned thought.

*:One sophant,:* Ikan’be reported. *:Strange.
Inimical. Many animals, all deadly.:*

*:Stun everything,:* Du’jidi ordered.

The last, unnamed member of the egwae gestured
again. Beyond the doorway a soundless, light detonation went off. At a nod from
the leader, another boomed. Then they breached the lain beyond, rushing in,
cleared the corners, and secured the lain.

On the floor, a young man of indeterminate age or
Tribe was sprawled, as was the squirrel-like animal he had been holding. Han’vonda,
still caught up in her rite, felt her eyes drawn down to the man. There was
something about him that drew and repelled her both at once, something... and
then she saw it, like one of the glittering threads of av’tun construction, but
with the pale, pearlescent, pinkish cast of the deviant av’tuns, leading from
the heart of the man to - what?

She squatted near the prone figure and brought the
crystal close, watched with fascination as the thread interwove through the av’tun
potentialities without touching any, and - disappeared. She tried to follow it
with her mind, turning the globe to see where it went.

“Han’vonda?”

“A thread,” she said, trying to put into words what
she had witnessed. “He is connected - connected... to something far away.” She
turned back to the thread and the globe.

The man began to rouse, however, and Ikan’be and N’mbu’yi
drew Han’vonda away and moved in to tied his hands behind his back. They pulled
the dazed man to his feet. The rited warru woman lowered the globe. Without
being close to him, the thread became invisible among the others.

Du’jidi and the small warru looked around the lain.
It was almost as long as the Great Laine, and half that wide, and filled with
row upon row of iron cages. In those cages, still stunned, were mirrli, lor’ugawu,
and many other creatures, all looking starved, all collared with corrupt
pearls. The small creature that the man had been holding showed fangs and
vanished into the depths of the lain.

Du’jidi studied the cages with an unreadable
expression, then looked at the captive man, who was awake and staring at him in
terror and fascination. The man wriggled and jerked trying to get away, but the
grip of the warru was unbreakable.

Du’jidi turned away and closed his eyes, sending out
a ‘tunned message. A shriek from the man intruded on his awareness, but did not
break his concentration. When the call had been sent, he nodded to the others,
and he studied the captive as they settled down to wait.

the darkness
turned...

The investigative warru were still holding the
struggling man ten granes later, when a radiant av’tun admitted the First
Voice/Prince Consort Presumptive into the lain. He came forward and looked into
the eyes of the captive, who quaked and moved endlessly, though his eyes never
shifted, as if the touch of the warru caused itching that he could not scratch.

Luyon continued to stare, silent menace like a
predator glaring through his eyes, at the young man until the other began to
whimper and shrink back in terror. Around them, in the dim recesses of the
lain, were the calls and growls of caged monsters and beasts. Luyon ignored
them, focusing all his attention on the hard contemplation of the captive. Then
he stepped back and the lead investigative warru took his place.

“What are these corrupted pearls?” Du’jidi asked
quietly, pointing to a silk-lined box filled with the deadly gems. “Where do
they come from? How were they changed?”

The cowering man suddenly spat in his face and
laughed even as he continued to struggle to get out of the vice-like grip
holding him.

The lead warru calmly wiped his face, then raised
his hand. It glowed with power, with av’rita. He held it up for the captive to
see, then casually reached out and took hold of the man’s neck. Though he
exerted no pressure, and performed no rite that could cause harm, still the man
began to choke and gurgle. His eyes bugged and his mouth opened as if he were
strangling and trying to scream at the same time.

Du’jidi held on for another gran then released him,
and his captors let him double over to catch his breath.

“What are these...”

“Ha! You think knowing will make a difference, Av’born?”
The man burst out hysterically. “You will fail and die, because, ultimately,
there is only so much light in your souls!”

“Av’rita is now anathema to you, yes?” Du’jidi
asked, reaching with glowing hand toward the man’s heart. The man screamed and
began to chitter nonsense.

Luyon touched Du’jidi’s shoulder, and the warru
stepped aside. The Prince Consort silenced the prisoner with a look.

*:I am the Prince Consort Presumptive of the High
Queen,:* he ‘tunned.

The man screamed and jerked from the grasp of the
warru. He collapsed, actually snapping his restraints as he grabbed his head,
as if assailed by sound beyond his hearing’s tolerance. But it was light that tormented
him.

*:I live deep in the influence of Av, being so close
to the...:*

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” the man shrieked. The
thinnest stream of smoke seemed to come from his eyes.

Luyon squatted. “Then tell me what these - things -
are,” he growl.

“They - they are Dio’gin pearls,” the man wept.

“Yes, I know that. How were they changed?”

“The - Av’s Companion. They were - they were
consecrated to Av’s Companion!”

Luyon’s brow furrowed. “Av’s Companion? Be clear,
man!”

The prone man laughed again. He opened eyes that
were misted over, as if exposed to great heat. “The dark star. You Av’born
think it is a myth, some nansi story to tell little ones. It is no myth, Av’born!
The Dark Companion exists, and feeds off the life-stuff of Av, even as we crawl
upon this tiny world and feed off of you! The Dark Companion will eventually
kill your ever-lasting Av! Drain it of light and life-stuff even as these
pearls drain you!”

Luyon bolted up-right, his eyes wide. “Lor’avin Cho’a,”
he breathed, making a sign against evil. “The anti-star! You corrupted these
pearls by connecting them to the anti-star?!”

Again the maniacal laugh erupted from the man on the
ground, though it was weaker, as if his life drained away to his own deadly
pearls. The laugh was his only answer.

*:Who made these?!:* Luyon thundered, forgetting his
composure for the barest instant. The man’s sightless eyes crossed and
exploded, and his body convulsed once and went slack; and almost comically,
steam came out of his ears and nose. Han’vonda looked to her globe. The fading
life of the man had cut the thread. She might have been able to follow it, but
the opportunity was gone now.

“Av blast it!” the Voice swore, kicking the dead
man.

“We have other leads, Av’lati, “Du’jidi said,
unperturbed. “We will dispose of this one and contact you when we have another
captive.”

Luyon nodded, his face wooden. “I will leave the
questioning to you.” He then left as abruptly as he came, without another word.

The lead warru looked at the corpse. The head was
sunken in, as if softened and caved by a perfectly round object.

the light
turned...

CHAPTER
VIII

the darkness, a masked dancer clothed in
veils of sequined silk, turned, slowly pirouetting upon the dome of the house
of Av; he danced among the coyly glowing moons, his veils covering the crystal
bowl of the sky...

Pentuk
returned to the Palace with the High Queen’s entourage, fairly bursting with
excitement over her good news. The first thing she did after completing the
Rites of Purification was run to find Rukto. He was quite overwhelmed by her
exuberance and just managed to glean what it was all about from her rapid-fire account
of the whole expedition. Then she was hugging him wildly and bouncing away. He
shook his head, smiling, and rearranged his glasses, they having been jostled
akimbo. He gathered that the excursion had been good for her.

Pentuk was breathless when she found Denyo.

“Denyo!”

He looked up at the sound of his name and caught her
in his embrace when she ran to him, laughing as he swung her about.

“And how is my little adventurer?” he asked, his
eyes bright and sparkling, his arms holding her close.

“Betrothed!” she said, laughing. “I’m betrothed,
Denyo, to Staventu! Can you believe it?” She looked up at him happily.

His face froze and his smile disappeared like ice in
the stare of Av. Then his arms dropped away from her and he stepped back,
shaking his head as though there were something wrong with his hearing. Then,
abruptly, he turned away.

“Denyo?” Pentuk moved around to face him again, frowning.
She caught his eyes, and they were like glass, hard and cold and remote. He
gazed at her, her beautiful face, her familiar features, and he wanted to kill
something. Her eyes asked silent questions.

He looked away from those questing orbs, to gaze out
the window. “I - am happy for you,” he said in a voice devoid of expression.
The lie rolled off his tongue as easily as any of his wild stories, but not
nearly as convincingly.

“Denyo?” she said again, puzzled, touching his arm.
“You don’t sound happy.”

He moved out of contact with her and went to gaze
out over the garden below and the curve of the city peeking beyond. “I
am
happy. Why wouldn’t I be happy?”

“You tell me,” she said, approaching him again,
touching his back. He stiffened. “Please, Denyo, I want to understand. Why are
you angry?”

He looked at her, and the utter lack of expression
in his eyes itself was fierce expression. She backed up an involuntary step.
She had never really seen him angry before.

“You are betrothed to one of the Crown Princes,” he
said, his voice as knotted as his fists, now stiff at his sides. “That’s quite
an accomplishment. Better than half the eligible daughters in the Realm.
Congratulations.”

“What!? W - what’s the matter with you?” she
demanded, hurt, stung, furious. Did he think that she threw herself at the
Prince and tricked him in to the betrothal? “Why are you saying this to me?
What did I do that was so terrible? Don’t I deserve to be happy?”

“Happy? Is that what you want?” Denyo’s voice rose,
then dropped. “Fine, be happy! You think that’s what he can do for you? He just
came in here, swept you from your studies and out of your books and off on some
wild journey, and now you’re betrothed and blissfully happy! What does he know
about you? Was he there to help you when you cried at night? Did he even know
of your existence before you told them about your research with the Heir?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” she shot
back defensively, not even quite sure what it was that she was defending
against. “What does that have to do with you and me, and why you’re so angry
all of a sudden?”

Then his face did become terrible, an amalgamation
of rage and pain and desperation. “
I
was
there
, Pentuk,
I
was there. I loved you before he even knew you were alive! Why does he deserve
your love and I don’t? What can his love do for you that mine cannot? Am I not
good enough for you now? Is his royal seed the wine that slakes your thirst?”

Her eyes filled with tears as she backed away. Denyo
regretted his words immediately and moved toward her, but she turned away.

“Denyo, I -” she shook her head, her voice melting
to water, trickling away at a loss. She could not say that she had not known
because she
had.
But she had never quite felt the same way, though she
felt she should have. Guilt, like lead, sat on her stomach and turned it sour
green.

“Pentuk, I was waiting for you.” His voice was
tortured. “I wanted you to decide in your own time that you wanted me. I didn’t
want to force you.”

“And that’s what you think he did, forced me? What
do you know about it? Maybe I threw myself at him, just like you implied. Maybe
I begged him to take me, and use me. Maybe I
did
trick him. Is that what
you want to hear?” She glared at him, but not because she was angry at him anymore,
but rather with herself. He was right, in a way. The glitter and lure of the
Prince had shadowed her eyes against what had already been there, had made her
forget what was waiting at home. Denyo
did
deserve her love. She
did
love him - did she not? She was defending against herself.

“Pentuk,” his voice was a soft plea, “do I mean so
little to you? I must, if this is what has come of this journey. I must mean
nothing to you at all.”

“You meant everything to me,” she said softly. “You
were my first and best friend, you were there when I needed you. I did love
you, Denyo, I
do
love you.”
But not in that way.
She looked him
and dissolved into tears, confusion at her own feelings turning rapidly into
turmoil. And his familiar embrace supported her, his gentle touch wiped at her
tears, his voice tried to soothe. She clung to him for a long, longing moment,
then pulled away.

“No, no I can’t do that. I can’t hide in your arms
anymore.” She cast about as though unable to see, cast a look back at him. “I -
I don’t know what to do.” She shook her head, feeling more tears and fighting
them. “I - have to go, I have to think.” And she fled.

“Pentuk!” he called after her, running in pursuit,
but she was gone.

…the darkness,
its duty done, laid itself down to rest, and the light, called to take the next
watch, turned…

The rumble of the door tuk’ni announcing a visitor
woke Jeliya from a dreamless doze. She was tempted to plead fatigue and request
that that whomever it was come back later. But when the door guard gave the
name, she knew that this visitor would not be put off – and for her to try to
do so would indicate a major weakness in her position and her self-character. After
all, she had as much as requested this one’s presence when she accepted the
responsibility of answering the challenge made against her. She accepted.

As the guest went through the formalities of entry
(for he was not of the blood), a flurry of servants and maddi descended on her
briefly, like a perfumed and gauze-covered dust dervish, dizzying but not really
dangerous.

“Peace and light to you, High Heir,” the visitor
said, gliding into the lain as a panther glides in the shadows. And like a
panther, this one had a quiet way about him as of enormous power or energy
seething just underneath a tranquil exterior.

“Peace and light to you, Chi’ol’bey T’mundo,” Jeliya
replied, rising with just a little bit of difficulty to return the bow and
spread arms of the other’s greeting. She invited him to sit across from her at
a low table that had been brought in just for the purpose of this meeting. He
folded himself to the plump cushion with the fluidity of settling honey, and
with her permission clapped for a service of refreshment to be brought.

“I have heard that you have been through some trials
these last few ten’turns,” T’mundo said conversationally as he began preparing
gulu and suga’dish tea from the golden service set before them.

“That’s one way of describing it,” she answered, and
the words implied a dry, wry snort.

“So, tell me about this Jur’Av’chi that you have,
and about the one you are linked to,” the chi’ol’bey prompted, pouring tea and
honey for both of them.

Jeliya hedged inside as they gave thanks and poured
small libations. The thought of revealing what she had learned about the link
within her was almost as disconcerting as showing a personal journal in which
one’s secrets are kept – an invasion of privacy. How to justify that which
defied justification?

She drank a sip of tea, then stared at the surface
of the liquid, as though hoping to read some answer to her hesitations in the
rising steam. And perhaps there was an answer curling in the vapors, for
inspiration hit her with a spark of memory.

“Have you ever read any Kab’yo’teng Herstory?” she
asked, looking up into his quietly penetrating eyes.

He raised an eyebrow at the unusual direction that
the answer was coming from. “The herstory before the coming of the Tru’Av’ru? Some,”
he replied, his gaze mysterious through the rising steam. “What area in
particular?”

“The Rite of Solu and Solu’san’a before the coming
of the Tru’Av’ru.”

T’mundo’s eyes widened. “No, not in depth. Though I
specialize in Solu’san’a, I’ve never ventured that far back in my research.”

Jeliya nodded. “That’s not unusual. I did a little
research in that area when I was beginning my search for the cause of the Zehj’Ba.
It might interest you to know that Solu’san is not the same as it was in Kab’yo’teng
times. Before then, it was not even forbidden to share the Rite of Solu with
someone of the opposite gender, so long as one’s ‘rita did not grossly
out-weigh the other’s. There were soft castes back then, according to av’rito’ka
- two people of the same rito’ka level could share the Rite without ill-effects
or special rito-balancing preparations. It was only after the Yo’teng that it
became forbidden.”

T’mundo looked piercingly at her. “Are you saying
that your link is a result of committing Solu’san?”

She made a negating gesture, setting her cup down.
“No, I’m building a premise. Something for you to consider when I tell you my
tale.” And she recounted to him most of what had taken place, including the
possibility of having performed the Rite of Solu in Gavaron’s presence, though
she had not been aware of it, and all the other times they had voluntarily
joined souls.

When she finished the chi’ol’bey’man came around the
low table and performed the Takati’jur’na, a High Order Rite that examined and
weighed the Jur’Av’chi within another without directly entering the other’s
mind.

“I have never seen the like,” he admitted when he
resumed his seat. “And I can find no other chi subsumed within your own. But
you
did
commit the Solu’san.” His voice was grave.

“No,” Jeliya insisted. “What I did was
not
the Solu’san because the one I am connected to is from across the Av’ru. The
rules changed when the Tru’Av’ru came into being. Perhaps they changed again
when it left. The Goddesses have not turned from me – I still feel Their
regard. I am not cast into the Supreme One’s shadow. I have thought long and
hard about this, wondering why, how this could have happened and –
not
have
happened
.”

“And you propose that because this other is not the
progeny of Ava’lona, that what you did can be excused?” His voice was almost
incredulous.

“I propose this: first ask, why does the Solu’san
happen? What is the difference in men and women before and after the Yo’teng?”
She knew that she was getting close to the secret that she must not share, just
skirting its edge. But just.

“Women were blessed by the Ava’dan.”

“And men were cursed? The Goddesses never decreed
that.
I
think that women’s rita became stronger and men’s, perhaps
weaker. Think! You did the research. In all the cases of the Solu’san, it is
the man’s chi that is subsumed. What if on the other side of the Tru’Av’ru men’s
ritas became stronger? What if that is true now, and we don’t even know it?”

“Highness,” and there was a note of almost warning
and not quite reproach in the chi’ol’bey’s voice, “you flirt with the edge of
heresy. None may speak against the Goddesses and the Supreme One, not even you.
Especially not to excuse a trespass.”