Fire Island: Book 3 of The Chatterre Trilody (Chatterre Trilogy) (7 page)

Chapter 11

Nimri tucked Mica into his carry-basket, then went outside. The garden still glistened with morning dew as she settled down on the long chair that Larwin had designed and built. He called it a lounger and she had spent many hours during the past couple months putting her feet up on her lounger, instead of weeding the garden and planting seeds. Fortunately, the weeds hadn't used her difficulty in bending to take over.

Nimri sighed with contentment and breathed in the garden's healing fragrance as she watched the honey bees and butterflies flit from flower to flower.

If only every day could be peaceful and beautiful like today.

Kazza strolled into the garden, looked around, then ambled over to her and sprawled in a sun-puddle on top of the mother-of-thyme carpeting the ground. Soon, his breathing indicated he was asleep.

With both Kazza and Mica sleeping, Nimri's eyes soon closed, too.

Fat noisy birds soared in the sky, and more of them perched on top of huge rocks, which stuck out of the lapping water.

Nimri frowned, wondering where she was and why she had never noticed a flock or big white flying birds or these rocks in the river, before.

And why couldn't she see the other side of the river?

A gentle breeze brought a spicy aroma, which made her mouth water and her stomach growl. Turning away from the rocks and water, she followed footsteps in the sand along a sheer rock wall. They led her to steep stair steps, which had been carved into a gaping crack in the imposing rock.

She climbed up, until she came to a flat rock shelf, which overlooked the rocks and water. Nimri paused to look down and estimated that this shelf was about the same height as her bedroom, which Larwin described as being about a hundred feet above the ground. Since he had to climb it so often, he often joked that it was part of his physical fitness program. Whatever that was. But what surprised her the most, was that even from this height, looking toward the horizon, she still could not see land on the other side of the water.

Shaking her head in confusion, Nimri resumed following her nose past huge urns holding fruit trees and trailing plants toward the mouth-watering aroma, which seemed to be coming from a window, which appeared to be carved in the sheer rock wall, much as the doors and windows in Thunder's home were made.

As she approached the window, she was surprised to see her crystal cat skull sitting on top of a table just inside the room. For some reason, she sensed it was watching her approach.

How had her skull gotten into this dream, when everything else was like nothing she had ever seen?

And why was she wearing a toe-length saffron-gold robe? Nimri ran her hands over her body and was surprised to notice that her figure had returned, as well as her muscle tone.

Nimri rubbed the back of her neck in confusion and discovered that her braid was gone. In fact, most of her hair seemed to be missing. She grasped a hair and pulled it. Ignoring the momentary pain, she stared at the wheat-colored strand of hair, which was no longer than her pinkie. Larwin's hair was this color, and though it was now below his shoulders, it had been shorter than this when she'd met him.

She ran her hands over her body, again, and confirmed that it was female.

As Nimri mulled over this confusing situation, she spotted the friendly dark-haired man, she had previously seen in her dreams. This time he waved, then motioned for her to come inside. Instead, she stopped and studied him. He was wearing an identical robe, but instead of the golden hood, he had a huge blue cowl, which looked like it could also be worn as an over-large hood. As encouragement, he again motioned her forward with one hand and held up a plate of food with the other.

Were they dressed alike for some reason?

Was this man her mate?

Why else would he cook for her?

Nimri smiled at him to cover her confusion, then, as she stepped back to look for the door, Mica's cry woke her.

~0~

The cry of a bird soaring overhead snapped Tem-aki back into herself. She realized that was a strange way to think about it, but for the past hour or so, she had felt like she was somehow locked out of her body, yet at the same time, she was seeing and feeling everything around her.

Tem-aki stared at the strand of hair she held in a white-knuckled grip and wondered what had possessed her to pull it out. And why, after she'd pulled it out, had she stared at it so long?

It was just a hair.

Holding her hand up to the breeze, she let it fly away and hoped that the residual strange feelings would go with it.

They didn't.

Taking a deep breath, she headed toward the heavily carved door, which depicted two madrox soaring through clouds, talons ready to slash the other to kindling. Tem-aki pushed down on the rustic handle, then pushed the door inward. While she would never admit it to Cameron, it had taken her far too long to figure out the door's simple latching system and she had initially suspected there was a heavily encrypted security code.

Only to have GEA-4 casually walk up, push down on the wooden lever, then pull the door open for her to go out. Tem-aki's cheeks heated at the embarrassing memory and she fervently hoped that no one else had noticed her ignorance.

Until she could find out where Larwin was, she needed these people for food and shelter, but she certainly didn't need them to be in a position of power over her. And history taught that strangers, particularly alien males, were known to take every available opportunity to maximize any perceived weaknesses. Though she had not sensed any intent to dominate and overpower in Cameron, she certainly had in the shifty-eyed one called Varlet.

Tem-aki carefully closed the door and went to the eating area, where Cameron and the friendly gray-haired man called Nolan had already begun eating.

Her mouth started watering even before she was seated. Grabbing the two pointed sticks, she carefully arranged them, as Cameron had taught her, and focused on getting the food from her plate to her mouth without dropping anything. This was always easier planned than executed, but meal by meal, she was getting better. In fact, she hadn't needed GEA-4 to distract Cameron's attention, so she could eat with her fingers, since the humiliating first day.

She frowned and looked around for the android, sighting her by the window of the cooking space, next to the crystal skull. It was strange how often she seemed to be near that strangely beautiful, yet somewhat sinister-looking thing. The first time Tem-aki had noticed GEA-4 there, she had assumed she had chosen the location because it was at the window. Now she wasn't certain it was that simple.

The morning, after the boat had been tied to the floating dock, GEA-4 had followed the freckled boy with red highlights in his dark hair, who carried the skull. In fact, she had followed him so closely that it would have been considered an invasion of personal space on Guerreterre.

And now, GEA-4 was standing over the skull, like a protector.

The eating sticks paused halfway to Tem-aki's mouth as she wondered if the android had suffered permanent damage and if its judgement could be trusted.

Cameron said something to Nolan, and she abruptly realized they were both staring at her. Before she dropped the morsel of fish, she popped it into her mouth and smiled at them.

They turned their attention back to eating, but she couldn't get past her misgivings about GEA-4's reliability and kept wondering if she could be considered an ally or not.

Worse, in light of the way she had felt since she was on the beach, she wasn't even sure that she could rely on herself.

It was a terribly vulnerable feeling – one that she needed to camouflage with an air of confidence.

~0~

Cameron tried to focus his attention on Nolan's report about the preparations for the up-coming ceremony, he had supervised at Dragon Ridge, but instead of focusing on the papers, his attention kept returning to Captaintemakiatano, who seemed preoccupied and kept distracting him by muttering unintelligible things under her breath. He wished she would communicate with him instead of using the celestial language with GEA-4, but apparently, her reason for coming to him did not require verbal communication.

At least, not yet.

Her lack of verbal communication lured him to give her more attention than he had ever given any woman. Even including his mother and Annosha, the non-stop-talking high priestess, who he frequently needed to coordinate plans with. The thought of Annosha made the fish taste off, so Cameron took a sip of lemonade. Since coming upon Annosha one day at the shore, and hearing her talking to nothing but the water, he had wondered if she talked in her sleep or if females saw the world in a different way.

And now, he'd met her opposite, a woman who barely spoke and usually didn't even respond, when spoken to.

"Has she told you why she's here, yet?" Nolan asked softly, as he tilted his head toward Captaintemakiatano. Cameron shook his head. "Have you asked?" Again, he shook his head. Nolan raised a brow and silently urged him to speak.

Cameron laid down his eating sticks, took a deep breath, then turned toward her. "Captaintemakiatano?" It seemed to take her a moment to realize that he had spoken directly to her, but she swallowed and gave him her full attention. "What is your purpose here?"

Her expression indicated that either she didn't know why he was asking or didn't know how to answer. Then, she smiled, pointed to the food and nodded as she licked her lips.

Well, that hadn't gotten him anywhere. He cleared his throat and began, again. "Captaintemakiatano -"

"Tem-aki."

He bowed his head in acknowledgement of the privilege she gave him to address her by an intimate name. "Tem-aki, thank you." He gestured to include Nolan. "We are honored by your presence, and wonder if you will tell us why you came."

"Isn't it obvious?" Nolan asked. "It is the end of the thirteenth cycle and the beginning of the new era."

"I am certain that is part of it," Cameron said. "But I wondered if there were more."

Tem-aki watched their interchange, but showed no sign of answering. Perhaps she considered his question shallow. After all, in the 1066 years since Draco Shakura, his sect's founder, had followed the Goldens through the portal, for the most part, the 82-year-cycles had continued calmly into the future. After their faction had established their settlement and farms, the only real blips in their peace had been when dragon-father, Shaka-dun, died in the storm; then centuries later, when fire mountain exploded and the rumors began that dragon-mother, Shaka-uma, was dead as well as all her young had passed.

The problem was that the rumors seemed to gain more power and the faction lost more followers each year.

Worse, he could not prove that they lived, any more than his predecessors over the past century could. Still worse, his prayers for good crops certainly were not being answered with abundance.

Since this was the end of the thirteenth cycle and with it another eighty-two year life-span, it was particularly important that the year's Solstice Ceremony be special. Cameron had hoped that Tem-aki and GEA-4 had come to assure that, but day by day, his doubts grew.

How could he lead, when he, also, felt uncertain?

His gaze narrowed on Tem-aki and he wondered if the other tests had been small because she had come to test his faith.

~0~

After the meal, Tem-aki approached GEA-4. "Are you making progress on the language decryption?"

"Affirmative, but it is incomplete."

"Do you have any idea when you will finish it?"

"Negative. However, it is proceeding more quickly now that others are present and I have the opportunity to listen to conversations."

"Yet during dinnertime, you stayed in here."

"I am capable of multi-tasking."

Some of Tem-aki's frustration at being so isolated evaporated. But only some. "What is your fascination with that thing?" She pointed to the carved crystal-quartz. "I mean, I can see how pretty it can be when the sun hits it just right and rainbows of light dance around the room, but I didn't think androids were attracted to art. Is it the sunlight angle?"

"Nimri and Thunder have skulls very similar to this one."

That statement surprised her, since she had assumed this was a unique piece. "I had no idea this culture was capable of mass production."

"They aren't. This was handmade. Possibly myst-made."

Tem-aki wondered what manufacturing style the latter was, but wasn't interested enough to ask. "Why would anyone make three of these things? I mean, I know they are interesting and well crafted, but they're sort of gruesome." The first thing she had noticed about this culture was the bones lying on that hand-carved shelf in a lava tube. This skull was obviously based on a natural bone skull, so apparently they considered the skeleton important. "The strangest mystery is why they chose to carve a feline's skull instead of a human one."

"That assumes that a human was the artisan."

"What other type of artisan could have executed it?"

"If it was myst-made, perhaps Kazza or another of his kind could have made it."

"The feline?" Tem-aki asked in disbelief.