The Age of Light (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 1) (25 page)

“It was a being which passed through, Gavaron, one
the likes of which had never been seen before or since anywhere in
Ava’Lona
.”

He was silent, his gaze hot on her, waiting for her
to continue, but she out-waited him.

“So?” he said finally.

“The description matches you. Almost exactly.”

His laugh was forced and his fear was high. “You
think I am that being? That I have been around that long?”

“Can you tell me where you came from? Why there are
no others like you? Where your forebearers are?”

She felt her words fall like hammer blows upon him.
He sidled away as if physical distance could distance her words.

“I can tell you nothing.” His voice was strange in
its pain.

“Cannot or will not?”

“You have come a long way and endured much for
nothing, Jeliya. The answers you seek, you will not find here.”

“And did Jenikia also endure much for nothing?” It
was the lowest, most despicable thing she had ever said, and she knew it. It
cut to the soul of him, and his soul cried out. Jeliya bit down on the shame
and pressed the jagged knife deeper. “Did she endure the Rite of Purification
and Expungement for nothing? Did she willingly let herself be rendered barren
after the birth of my grandmother for nothing? Will her legacy become dust for
nothing
?”

“Stop it!” he cried, driven to his knees by the
weight of the pain her words brought. “Jeliya, I did not know you could be so
cruel,” he whispered, his voice a hoarse ash-gray tragedy, broken with pain. “I
loved her more than
anything
, and I would have given my life so that she
would not have known the pain that she endured! I have sworn to keep her legacy
safe! Am I to betray her for you?” His tears of anguish coursed like rivers of
flame down her face.

“I do not wish to be cruel, Gavaron. You have shown
me nothing but kindness,” she swallowed tears, fought to keep her voice steady.
“But if the
Av’ru
dies, then this land will die,
and the memory of Jenikia and all that she sacrificed herself for will die.
Your promise to her will be aught but ashes. You know this, perhaps better than
I.”

She felt him waiver, felt him acknowledge her words
as true. “Well I know it,” he growled bitterly, the sting of her words still
fresh. “But she could not have known what her request would bring to pass. How
can I betray her? And yet, how can I keep it?”

Jeliya swallowed. She had wronged him, no matter
that she was close to answers she sought. She had to atone for that.

“Gavaron, I - you must understand that I am fighting
for the survival of my Realm. I have to use everything at my disposal to find
answers. But honor demands that I must apologize for the cruelty I have dealt
you. I can only plead desperation. I am twice in your debt. I give my oath to
you, that you may ask any two favors of me when I have come to power, or of my
family, should I pass on, as long as they do not threaten the security of this
land.” She made the sign that sealed her words as formal. It was the strongest,
most binding oath she could give, having the force of a High Order Rite. She
felt him start in surprise - he knew the significance of her oath.

“Through this I ask your forgiveness,” she said
quietly.

He chambered to his feet. “I - will consider - all
that you have said,” he replied, gathering up the bowl and spoon. Jeliya wished
she could reach out to him, wished that she could make some other gesture of
atonement, but none seemed fitting. She wished that she could see his face.
With that possibility closed, she did the next best thing - for as much as she
disliked using the false-vision through his eyes, still the urge to see him was
overwhelming, overshadowing that revulsion.

She opened herself to his sight, saw herself as he saw
her, slightly blurred with shedding, unwiped tears. Then he turned away to move
to the curtained doorway. On the way there he glanced into a polished obsidian
mirror. And he seemed to gaze straight at her as she studied his face through
his eyes. Their eyes seemed to lock; she turned away with a shudder. When she
‘looked’ back, he was gone.

the turning of light was lost among the
shadow places of the shelves...

The
shelves seemed endless. Endlessly they wound, stacks upon stacks of books on
row upon row of shelves. They closely hugged the wide spiral staircase, so
close that one could reach over the railing and pluck any of her/his choice
from the shelves...

But Staventu resolutely kept his eyes forward,
looking neither left nor right, lest the lure of the books divert him from his
purpose. He would have loved nothing better than to stop and peruse those
shelves one by one, losing himself, perhaps for turns on end, among the ancient
treasures they held. But he did not. He was here for an entirely different
reason, in search of an entirely different treasure.

Few besides the Librarians ever delved this deep
into the bowels of the massive Libraries themselves. Other book-lovers
preferred to send servants, who in turn sent the Librarians in search of the
required tome. Staventu was an exception - he loved the softly lit tranquility
of the silent stacks, loved running his hands over the fine, worn leather of
ancient texts. He loved losing himself, reading, among the shelves, a jumbled
pile of books all around him. But this turn was different. This turn he had
come in search of something of totally different value among the stacks, a
thing not so easily read. A thing to rival his love of books.

The stairs
ended and the walls opened out to a cavernous, domed, circular room, the walls
of which were nothing but endless shelves of books. Long ladders on rails
reached the height of these literary monoliths, and perched upon these ladders,
like huge insects, were Librarians, from novice to senior researcher, working.

High-arched hallways, like gaping throats, led away
from this central room in all directions. Staventu paused to ask a discreet
question or two, and became the center of attention. People everywhere dropped
what they were doing to bow to him, seeming more interested in abasing
themselves than answering his queries. Finally he was able to ascertain down
which passageway he might find his quarry. He hurried down the indicated
hallway, away from the bows and murmured honorifics, the awed looks of novices,
the inviting smiles of the young women and the sometimes hostile glances of the
young men. Normally such things did not faze him - he was accustomed to it all,
especially the shy and sometimes not-so-shy invitations. But this turn they
made him uneasy, for some unfathomable reason.

The gloom of the tributary swallowed him, the little
rit’
light
in its crystal globe that he carried at the end of a black iron staff the only
thing that kept the shadows at bay. It chased them along. They clove before it
and closed behind, an eternal dance for dominance. Distracted by his own
thoughts, his eye slid to the left - and was caught by a book title. Beyond his
ability to control, his stride slackened and his head swiveled from side to
side, his eyes trying to devour the titles of books as he went past. Caught in
an internal struggle between the lure of the books and his original reason for
being there, he turned a blind corner and came upon that reason quite suddenly
and with unchecked momentum.

“Oh!” his quarry yelped as he plowed into her. The
books and
papi’ras
arranged around her went sliding and flying all over with a crash. She and he
went down in an unsanctimonious tangle of limbs. He caught her and turned their
fall into a controlled tumble with lightening quickness and easy grace. These
were skills born of one who had spent hundreds of
san’chrons
practicing the
War’don’mi
,
the Dance of
Swords, with spear and sword and shield. He took the brunt of the fall on his
back and shoulder, the other landing across his chest and middle. He grunted as
the air was knocked from his lungs. Her hair came undone, long, thin
guinne
boiling across both their faces in a cloud of sweet-smelling black silkiness.

Both lay stunned for several heartbeats before his
unwitting victim began struggling to disengage herself from him. He helped
lever her off his middle. He reclaimed the glowlight as she groaned and sat
back.

“Next time,” she growled in a testy voice, moving
slowly as if checking for injury, “why don’t you just pull the bookcases down?
Why don’t you watch where you are going, you great oaf! You’d think you were a
first-term novice to be so careless!” She squatted back on her heels, trying to
push the fine
guinne
out of her eyes and failing as
they slid around her hands. They almost seemed to have a life of their own, as
if once free, they were reluctant to be bound again. Half-blinded by them, she
began searching around for the lost fastenings that had tamed them. All the
while she continued to berate her assailant. Pentuk had not been having a good
turn.

“
Ak’suya
give me
patience, I’ll have to start all over again! Who are you to be let down here
and not know enough to watch where you put your feet, charging around like a
yoni’do bull in heat?”

Staventu picked himself up, feeling his face grow
warm under the tongue-lashing. No one had ever dared speak to him so, not even
his teachers! He felt indignant rage rise, then clamped down on it, quickly.
She could not see who he was. She had no reason to suppose that she chastised a
son of the High Family. His wrath, however, would have more dire consequences
than hers, so he checked it. To incur his wrath would be the same as forfeiting
all honor, and if he called no punishment on her, she would bring it upon
herself. He had to smile, though. She had quite a sharp tongue when she chose
to use it!

“My apologies,” he murmured, helping her sweep her
guinne back and retrieving pale mother of pearl circlets from the jumble of
books scattered about them. “You are right, of course.”

“Yes, well, you just destroyed three
san’chrons
of work,” she groused still, though her tone was not as sharp. She vainly tried
to control the cascade of fine
guinne
and collect
books and fastenings all at once. A low table slid over to lend itself to the
clean-up process. He put the light in a wall bracket, then squatted to help her
pile up books, cards,
papi’ras
sheets,
stilos and ink pots on the table.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, keeping his voice low as
she did. “If I may be of assistance...”

“No, don’t bother.” Her voice sounded resigned.
“I’ll just have to make up for the lost time. Look, I’m sorry I was so hard on
you - this has been a very trying turn, and it isn’t even half over. I’m sorry
- uh, I don’t recognize your voice. What’s your na....” her voice seemed to dry
up like a dying creek. Staventu glanced up to see why she had stopped speaking.

She was staring slack-jawed at him, forgotten
guinne
falling and parting across her forehead to reveal one large, incredulous eye,
concealing the other. The things in her hands fell again in a loud, rustling
thud that made him wince inwardly. Annoyed faces that had appeared at the first
crash peered around the corner a second time, only to retreat again, quickly,
at the sight of his royal visage. Pentuk, in all this time, sat as if frozen,
her eyes riveted to him.

“Ah... I... arg...” she gurgled, whatever else she
intended to say seemingly strangled off before it reached her tongue.

He lifted an inquiring eyebrow. Her eyes bugged;
then her mouth snapped shut. She closed her eyes, swallowed, and very slowly
made obeisance to him, going to her knees among the scattered books and bowing
her head with her arms crossed before her. Her breathing sounded troubled.

“Pentuk, that isn’t necessary,” he said,
uncomfortable. Such prostration always made him uneasy, even when it was
warranted. He much preferred her berating him, or apologizing genially to this
abject genuflection.

“F-Forgive me,
Av’Son
,”
she gasped, her voice a liquid tremble. “I-I d-did not know, I...” words seemed
to fail her.

“It is all right, Pentuk, I am not angry with you,”
he said, touching her shoulder. She trembled beneath his touch. “It was an
honest mistake, and it was my fault. I should have been paying attention.”

She would not move, even when he took her elbow
solicitously.

“Pentuk,
please,” he whispered, looking around, embarrassed. He did not want anyone to
see this. “Get up. This is all unnecessary, really.”

“I beg your forgiveness, Highness. What I did was
unpardonable,” she said carefully, attempting to control her quaking voice.
“One does not speak to an
Av’Son
that way.”

“No,” he replied, his voice grave. “One does not.”

She looked up, her eyes filled with dread, only to
see his smile. “But I won’t tell if you won’t - just don’t do it again,” he said
lightly. When she only continued to stare at him fearfully, he sighed. “I
forgive you, Pentuk. You are royally pardoned. Exonerated. Absolved of all
guilt. Freed of all penance. All right? Now will you get up? My back hurts.”

She blinked stupidly for a while, then slowly stood,
helped by his hand on her elbow, her face unreadable.

“Actually, I’m glad I ran into you, so to speak - I
was looking for you,” he said, noticing for the first time how scantily clad
she was as he began expertly arranging her
guinne
.
She wore little more than a linen loincloth girded across her hips with a fine
silver mesh. And across her breasts she wore only a long strip of gossamer-like
gauze arranged as a bustiere. On her feet were soft-soled sandals. He put the
finishing touches on her hair as this registered in his mind. It was a prudent,
though alluring, way to dress here in the hot, somewhat stuffy sub-basements.
His own linen
de’siki
and
kwats
were already sticking to him with sweat. She kept very still as he worked, her
hands clasped tight about each other, then she stepped away, her hand going to
the arrangement, unconsciously checking it. She looked at him with wide eyes, a
streak of grey dust upon her forehead. She looked disarmingly sweet.

“You - were looking for
me
, Av’Son?” she
echoed.

“Yes.” He pulled a kerchief from a pocket and took
her chin gently in one hand. She stiffened and began to pull away, then thought
better of it. “I came to ask you if you would care to accompany us in
retrieving the Heir. I know that sending for you might have been more
convenient, considering our little mishap, but I get to come to the Library so
seldom these turns.” He wiped the dust from her forehead. Her face grew warm in
his hand and she finally did pull away.

“Ask?” she said, swiping at her clean forehead with
a dusty hand. Staventu smiled sadly to himself. She was obviously still not
over her shock, and he doubted that anything he said or did would speed her
recovery of her wits. He had never known anyone like her. Any other young woman
would have been flirting with him by now, once he had given his pardon. But
Pentuk seemed almost painfully shy, at least around him. It was quite a change.
He sighed as he watched her. She
was
adorable with dust on her face.

She looked around at the scattered books and wrung
her hands, at a complete loss. He waited for her to get hold of herself.

“I interrupted you,” he said at last, bending over
to gather those texts nearest his feet. “I can help you with whatever it was
that you were doing.”

“No! That - that isn’t necessary,
Av’
Son.
I’ll get someone else to do it.” She took the books from his hands and dropped
them on the table, then went to a waist-high drum at the end of the stacks, her
movements as graceful as a dancer’s. He watched her move, admiringly. She
thrummed out a message with her fingertips, the only part of which that he
understood was the title ‘
Av’
Son.’ He looked
at the title of the books around him, stooped to pick another one off the
ground.

“Pre-
Yo’teng herstory?
”
he asked when she returned. She nodded, taking the book gently from his hands
and holding it as if it were a shield.