The Farris Channel (51 page)
When the transient ripples that marked the exit of a Farris had settled, his father grinned. “I like her. She’s not bad for a Farris. Gritty. Self reliant. Good combination.”
“I thought so.”
“You’re not worried she won’t make it?”
“No. I’m just worried about Rimon.”
“Ah. I saw him die. Him and that Clire woman together. That’s what interrupted me.” He gestured to his robes apologetically. “I saw them across. It was a good, clean death for both of them, though how you managed that I can’t...well, yes, I can imagine. It seems you have finally come into possession of your own wisdom. Though possibly your warding techniques could use some work.” He gestured to the coffer which now resided on the mantle.
“They’re dead?” He’d known it but hadn’t wanted to admit it. “What about Clire’s baby?”
“Alive. Yelling like a newborn. You’ll have your hands full the next few months.”
“Well, then I’m ready for a warding lesson, if you have the time.”
“For you, Solamar, I always have the time, even if I have to come
here
to make it.”
“So how do I protect this coffer that Rimon made when I can’t even touch it?”
“You’ve pledged yourself to this House of Zeor, haven’t you? This thing contains Zeor, so it can be yours as well. That’s brilliant, you know, a children’s game! That is so impressive. How did you think of it?”
“I didn’t, Rimon did. Or actually, he just listened to the children. Really listened. Then he got lost in time, as you saw, and when he came back I’d blocked all his memories. He retrieved the memory of the coffer. It was the one thing he couldn’t bear to forget because it was his legacy for his child.”
“I’ve underestimated your Farrises, I see. Well, then have you married his child yet?”
“Only in the heart, not by ceremony.”
“Bring her here and call me. I’ll be glad to officiate. For now, marriage of the heart should more than suffice if you did the pledge to Rimon correctly.”
“With absolute intent.”
He nodded, accepting that declaration. “Then change the portrait. Fix it so that it always displays the next heir and the symbol of this House. Then take the coffer, open it and insert veils of misdirection keyed to respond to individual capacities. And don’t forget the final veil to protect the memories. Your Farrises are still much too delicate for their own good.”
“They are.”
His father turned and began to depart.
While his father was treating him as an equal, Solamar seized the chance to ask, “Why have you changed your mind about channeling and Farrises as the key to survival of humanity?”
Rhodilan Grant paused and half turned, confessing over his shoulder. “I saw everything Rimon saw. I know what you’ve committed your soul to with this House of Zeor. And I won’t forget any of it.” He turned and walked into the mist saying, “I’ll see to it that we help them, no matter how everyone argues.” He was gone.
Solamar didn’t let himself think about what his father had just said. He set aside visions of Lexy awakening to find her father dead and his aching to be there holding her when she first cried.
With all the discipline that he had ever learned, he applied himself to following his father’s directions, carefully testing each step to be sure he’d done it right.
* * * * * * *
Six days later, Solamar, crept up to Rimon’s office door carrying Syrus Tuzhel Zeth Farris, the future Sectuib in Zeor, asleep over his shoulder.
Inside, Lexy, almost eight months pregnant, had kicked back in her father’s office chair and propped her muddy boots on his desk. She was sound asleep.
Her face held a beatific smile. He had not seen her at peace in the last six days and nights. There had been the three funerals, Clire, Rimon and also Bruce who had given his life attempting to provide selyn for Clire as she voided to death giving birth.
Solamar had zlinned Bruce’s body carefully and concluded he had died of a stroke. It had been his first sign of ill health or age. Privately, Solamar believed Rimon’s death had triggered the stroke, not Clire’s natal draw.
Syrus, though small and irritable, was healthy and much admired by all his caregivers. Solamar’s concern was for Lexy. She had cried, blamed herself, smothered her emotions and buried her most beloved, comforted Bruce’s family, and then gone through an entire replay of the massive pledge ceremony as everyone pledged to her.
She had given herself wholeheartedly to the House of Zeor and accepted every pledge as Rimon had, with full attention on each person, sharing their grief over Rimon and offering comfort in her hope for their future.
Through it all she had never faltered. Not in public. Only when they were alone, did she cling to him, letting her field control disintegrate and her uncertainties reign.
“Is this just because I’m pregnant, or is it real?” she kept asking him and he kept reassuring her things would look much better after the baby was born.
Now it seemed she’d found a moment when things didn’t look quite so bad. Letting his eyes go unfocused, he saw her hovering over her sleeping body and above her head in glowing transparent colors hung Zeor’s symbol as if it were an extension of her non-physical body.
As he watched, she gradually sank back into her body and roused enough to zlin him. Eyes closed she said, “Jor Esren said he’ll marry us, Church of the Unity style, but Shaddyr said that as his wife, she wouldn’t allow it, just simply would not hear of it, until the women had time to make me a dress fitting the occasion. This she declaims in the middle of the steaming Laundry for all to hear. I’m very sorry, Solamar, but this thing is going to get huge and complicated.”
He laughed. “I can deal with it.”
That woke the baby. Syrus Tuzhel Zeth Farris howled with hunger.
THE LAST SECTUIB
Xigram Klairon Farris, Last Sectuib in Zeor, closed the narrative account and gazed out over the assembly of all of Zeor. Those who had wandered off had all returned.
“When Del Rimon Farris visited this future moment, he gathered us up along with the countless Receptions of Zeor by each Sectuib candidate between us, all leading to this moment. He placed all of that meaning and emotion in a coffer for his heirs. We must now gather up all the memories that each of you have recovered of your previous lives in this House and its daughter Houses.
“Close your eyes and come with me to that other place where Rimon left his gift for us all. See the large transparent cube we have carefully prepared there. Place your memories inside it, so they will be there for those in the future to find when they require them. This will be the legacy of Zeor to the galaxy, for all its species, for all time. Pour your most precious lessons here for our posterity, and I will close and seal this new, larger coffer.”
He paused as he felt memories not his own pour into the great cube.
Gradually, the colorless cube began to glow. When they had finished, he sealed the lid into place and left the coffer there before the ashes in Del Rimon’s hearth.
“The House of Zeor is not gone, not lost, but it ends here because it has succeeded.”
Klairon took a large ring that had been prepared with the necessary sensors and turning toward the bubbling fountain with its selyn-glowing Lamp, he tossed the ring. It settled around the Lamp, whirling in a circle. By the time it had settled to the bottom of the fountain, encircling the post that supported the Lamp, the light had sputtered out.
“Out of Death Was I Born, Unto Zeor, Forever!”
Here Ends The Beginning
When Jacqueline Lichtenberg came to the first mention of the villain, she asked the fans to name that villain.
The Winners tied:
Villain Name: CLIRE FARRIS (Janet Coleman Sides)
Villain Name: RAVEN STONEDRAGON (Deborah Thompson)
So the Villain is named Clire Farris, and nicknamed Stonedragon.
THE FOUNDING 400
(Blanks are anonymous)
1 Donna ambrov Zeor
2 Sibiella ambrov Zeor
3 Hajene SaySha ambrov Zeor
4 Hajene Veraik ambrov Zeor
5 Ray ambrov Zeor
6 Hajene Enidan ambrov Zeor
7 --- ambrov Zeor
8 Karen Farris ambrov Zeor (Farris Gen)
9 Anton ambrov Zeor
10 Eskalie ambrov Zeor
11 Ronniebob ambrov Zeor
12 Meg ambrov Zeor
13 --- ambrov Zeor
14 Gethelwain ambrov Zeor
15 --- ambrov Zeor
16 Hendel ambrov Zeor
17 --- ambrov Zeor
18 C’Reyl ambrov Zeor
19 --- ambrov Zeor
20 --- ambrov Zeor
21 --- ambrov Zeor
22 --- ambrov Zeor
23 Patir ambrov Zeor & unborn Tianjin
24 --- ambrov Zeor
25 Jancie ambrov Zeor
26 Chayuta ambrov Zeor
27 Nora ambrov Zeor
28 D’Vorah ambrov Zeor
29 Larissa ambrov Zeor
30 --- ambrov Zeor
31 Colin ambrov Zeor
32 Pearl ambrov Zeor
33 Anne ambrov Zeor
34 Frevven ambrov Zeor
35 Lady Sirona ambrov Zeor
36 Judy ambrov Zeor
37 Terry ambrov Zeor
38 Rebecca ambrov Zeor
39 Lynda ambrov Zeor
40 Ruth ambrov Zeor
41 Dione ambrov Zeor
42 Aislinn ambrov Zeor
43 Torun ambrov Zeor
44 Marliss ambrov Zeor
45 Larry ambrov Zeor
46 --- ambrov Zeor
47 Jayne ambrov Zeor
48 Julie ambrov Zeor
49 --- ambrov Zeor
50 --- ambrov Zeor
51 --- ambrov Zeor
52 --- ambrov Zeor
53 --- ambrov Zeor
54 Ffrann ambrov Zeor
55 --- ambrov Zeor
56 Gillian ambrov Zeor
57 --- ambrov Zeor
58 Warren ambrov Zeor
59 Ann ambrov Zeor
60 JoEllen ambrov Zeor
61 Phoenix ambrov Zeor
62 --- ambrov Zeor
63 Seanara Farris ambrov Zeor (Farris Gen)
64 --- ambrov Zeor
65 David ambrov Zeor
66 Sandra ambrov Zeor
67 --- ambrov Zeor
68 --- ambrov Zeor
69 Leora ambrov Zeor
70 --- ambrov Zeor
71 Aliana ambrov Zeor
72 --- ambrov Zeor
73 Marens ambrov Zeor
74 Elektra ambrov Zeor
75 DarFishbaum ambrov Zeor
76 Christine ambrov Zeor
77 Bruce ambrov Zeor
78 Jirelle ambrov Zeor
79 --- ambrov Zeor
80 --- ambrov Zeor
81 Samuel ambrov Zeor
82 Shani ambrov Zeor
83 --- ambrov Zeor
84 --- ambrov Zeor
85 Rhymers ambrov Zeor
86 --- ambrov Zeor
87 --- ambrov Zeor
88 --- ambrov Zeor
89 Lyn ambrov Zeor
90 --- ambrov Zeor
91 --- ambrov Zeor
92 R’jeeb ambrov Zeor
93 --- ambrov Zeor
94 --- ambrov Zeor
95 --- ambrov Zeor
96 Nova ambrov Zeor
97 --- ambrov Zeor
98 Ken ambrov Zeor
99 Bonnie ambrov Zeor
100 Hajene Judith ambrov Zeor
101 Levana ambrov Zeor
102 --- ambrov Zeor
103 Jasmin ambrov Zeor
104 Klon ambrov Zeor
105 --- ambrov Zeor
106 Jackson ambrov Zeor
107 Heidi ambrov Zeor