by Nancy Fulda
The weight of the whole planet fell upon Anduval’s shoulders that night, as he bade goodbye to Tallori and her find, there by the river, and trudged back through fields misted with morning dew, he understood why the magus always walked with his head bowed. It was full daylight when they reached the palace. It became a madhouse as the holy maiden began to issue orders to her skraal attendants, demanding that they begin to gather vast amounts of rare metals from across the world.
Over the coming days, the skraal nymph closeted with Magus Veritarnus for unending hours, discussing her plan to create a worldship. Sketches were drawn and sent to far cities, where modules for the great ship were to be produced.
Amid this bustle, Magus Veritarnus seemed to forget that he had been assigned to be a mentor, and Anduval felt as if he had been cast aside.
It was not a feeling that he could live with. Anduval had no mother or father that he knew of. He had been raised in a crèche in the palace beneath Shadowfest, one of nine human children.
All of his life, he’d craved to belong, to find some sort of companionship. He’d hoped that by working hard, he could prove himself and win acceptance from others.
Somehow, as a child, he’d proven himself well enough to become the holy maiden’s attendant. But the skraals were not humans. They showed nothing in the way of affection, and the other workers never offered any praise.
Yet Anduval hoped.
So he continued his duties as an attendant, bringing fungus and damselflies for the holy maiden each morning, hoping to prepare her for transcendence.
But with each passing day, he grew more concerned. In his brief vision, he had seen into the mind of a dragon, and the threat of the cycor was a shadow that flooded his mind. The cycor were not human. Properly speaking, they were not even alive. They had no compassion, no emotion, no hope or love in them.
There could be no swaying such creatures from their wanton destruction.
And the end would come swiftly, he knew.
Cycor ships were fast. When a spaceship accelerated, the force of acceleration exerted pressure upon its occupants. Thus, a ship that was constantly accelerating created its own artificial gravity. But it also had certain limits. Accelerate too quickly, and the gravity field would crush its occupants. The safe speed for acceleration over an extended period of time was only a little more than one gravity.
But a cycor ship carried no living creatures within; it could safely accelerate at a speed of one hundred gravities.
Human ships were infinitely slower.
Our only real hope is to hide from the cycor, Anduval reasoned.
But hiding was no longer possible. They had been found.
The holy maiden wished to build a worldship, but it could be destroyed as easily as a planet.
What shall the holy maiden do? Anduval wondered. What can she do?
After two weeks, Anduval was finally able to corner his master. He found the magus bleary-eyed and swaying from fatigue as he left the holy maiden’s meditation chambers. Anduval had just returned from his nightly run to gather fungus.
“I want to help build the worldship,” Anduval begged. “We are in a race against the cycor, and every moment is precious.”
“I agree,” the magus said, “and someday you shall help to build our ship. But the holy maiden’s personal needs are more immediate.”
“She has twenty other attendants,” Anduval said. “Surely they can bring her food. I can even tell them what to collect.”
The magus studied the boy for a long moment, weighing his argument. “You too have been touched by the dragon’s dream,” he said, “if only for a moment. How much do you understand?”
Anduval bit his lip, struggling to explain. The dragon’s dream hadn’t come to him in his native tongue. It was like pure intelligence that had flowed through him, only for an instant, and much of what he knew was just stray impressions.
“The scout ship that found us could not have been a long-range vessel,” Anduval said. “It had to have come from a mother ship. That means there is a warship nearby, or possibly a fleet of them.”
“Agreed,” the magus said. “If a vessel had been stationed in this solar system, the cycor would have destroyed us by now. Our nearest stellar neighbor is nearly two light-years away. Let us hope that there is not a warship so close.”
Anduval bent his head in thought. It would take two years for a message transmission to reach the nearest star, and if a warship was there, it would take a few months more than two years for the enemy to reach Danai. “The cycor will be near a planet, won’t they?”
“Mining,” the magus agreed. “They do not need food, but they may be mining asteroids for minerals or mining the gravity fields of a nearby sun for fuel.”
Even the dragons had not understood how the cycor could mine and store gravity.
“Can we build a ship in four years?” Anduval asked.
The magus shrugged. He was not reassuring. “We must try.”
Even if we can build a ship, Anduval wondered, will it be fast enough to outrun the cycor? How far beyond the edge of the galaxy must we go to escape them?
The magus rested a hand on Anduval’s shoulder. “Let us hope that the cycor are farther away than that. I will consider your request, but until further notice, you are the head steward. There is nothing more important than the feeding of Seramasia. Even in ancient times, only one in a thousand holy maidens truly transcended. I can find no genetic reason for this, and so it must have to do with nurture.
“The holy maiden has begun to talk to me about the requirements of our ship. We will build it in modules—engines, the hull, life support. It must be a large ship, large enough to carry every man, woman, and child in the world.
“It will be a complex task . . .” A look of defeat passed across the magus’s face. “I confess, I do not understand how it all works. We can only hope that the holy maiden will guide us.”
Four days later, Anduval was summoned into the holy maiden’s meditation chamber. The deep gray room itself was vast, with a sixty-foot ceiling, and perfectly round. Within this space, white silk sheets tangled on the floor, creating something that was not quite a bed, not quite a chair.
Holy Maiden Seramasia lay cradled in silk. Candles in glass cups provided footlights around the room, but brighter than the candles was the holy maiden’s womb.
Her abdomen, that perfect inverted pear, glowed brightly from inside. Anduval could see her ripening eggs through her skin, like clear marbles.
Along the backs of her arms and legs, and all down her spine, mucilage had begun to ooze out—a clear gel that would harden within a few hours into a chrysalis.
Her courtesans crowded near, like bucks in musth, and from time to time, they would stoop and nuzzle her abdomen, pushing against it, trying to arouse her.
The sexual tension in the room was electric.
Anduval felt grateful to see the holy maiden, but not like this. There was a soft glow all about her, and she was more beautiful and sensual than ever. He had no desire to watch the skraal males fight over her.
Even being here was dangerous, lest one of the males inadvertently strike out.
“Come near, little one,” the holy maiden urged.
Anduval trembled and drew close, until the big male, Cessari, snorted and charged.
Anduval leaped backward, and Cessari lashed out with one long arm. Anduval ducked beneath the blow. The holy maiden reached out and grabbed Cessari, restraining him.
“Stay back, little one,” Cessari growled. “This one is not for you!”
The holy maiden calmed her consort, patting his head. Cessari crouched beside her and placed a hand over her womb, as if claiming it for his own. He glared at Anduval but dared not resist the will of the maiden.
“You have served me well,” the holy maiden told Anduval. “As you can see, I will be going into my long sleep soon. I will eat no more until I wake.”
“But it’s not time yet!” Anduval objected.<
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“Many factors help determine the time when a skraal nymph goes into transcendence. I have been under a great deal of stress these past few weeks, and that has tipped the scales.
“I hereby release you from my service,” she said. “I will no longer need you to attend me.”
She would be gone for years—somewhere between three and twenty—sleeping in her chrysalis, lost to the world.
This was bad. An ancient adage came to mind. Early to the cocoon; late to bloom. Chances were good that she would sleep for many, many years. The ancient tomes suggested that the long sleep was a coping mechanism, a way for the nymphs to deal with hard times.
Anduval had read tome after tome about the holy maidens. He knew that a maiden who went into chrysalis phase early would come out stunted—both physically and mentally. Seramasia would not come out with the great powers that Anduval had hoped for.
Panic took him. “But, milady, you’re the only one who understands how to build the worldship!”
Seramasia nodded sadly. “I have left what instructions I can with the magus. Much of the work can proceed without me. While I am gone, you will grow, and you will help build our ship. I wish you well. I hope that when I waken, it will be to a better world for us all.
“Young man, find love with one of your own kind, if you can. The girl with the damselflies, do you still see her?”
Anduval nodded.
“Bring her to the palace. She wishes to fight the cycor. She will need someone to teach her, to watch over her. I want you to care for her as you have for me.
“Reward her parents. I will prepare a payment for them, to ease their loss.”
Anduval recognized what she was doing. She hoped to deflect his affection. She hoped he would fall in love with some human girl.
But Tallori was only a child, and he had no interest in her.
“Go now,” the holy maiden said, “and get her. By bringing her to the palace, you may save her life.”
Anduval stood for an instant, wondering. The holy maiden could sense things about people. She could read their thoughts and emotions. Was it possible she knew something he didn’t, that Tallori might someday grow to be someone that he could love?
Perhaps, he thought. But the holy maiden was not an adult yet. She had not transcended and gained all of her powers, and nothing guaranteed that she would. Not all maidens broke free of their chrysalis. Many died in the attempt. Even those who broke free did not always develop great powers. Years of meditation and good food might help ensure that a maiden became a powerful adult. Yet most of the time, maidens awoke with little more psychic power than they’d held before.
So if the holy maiden suspected that Anduval might find love with this girl, it might still be nothing more than a hunch.
Ever so gently, Cessari reached down and positioned the maiden’s womb so he could gain entrance, rolling her onto her stomach, and then leaning above her.
The holy maiden let out a little piping call of desire, and Anduval felt the touch of her mind.
It was like being dragged into a whirlwind of desire. The longing for her came upon him so strongly that it drove all other thoughts from his mind. He was only twelve, but at that moment he felt a man’s desires and found himself staggering forward.
She wants me, Anduval thought. She wants me as much as I want her.
But then the maiden caught herself, and her desires withdrew, leaving him empty and embarrassed.
“Go,” she pleaded. “Get out of here before it is too late.”
She was almost mindless with the need to mate. Anduval turned and ran.
That night, the stars were blazing overhead when Anduval walked to Tallori’s sod house.
He breathed in the rich scents of the night air as he walked. It was late autumn, and the farmhouses along the path boasted trees ripe with fruit—tart peaches, sweet pears, and fat plums.
In the night, the deer had come from the shadows of the forest. They huddled under the apple trees, sometimes rising up on their back legs as they picked fruit with their mouths.
Anduval saw a herd of four deer under Angar’s apple tree. The small buck that led them showed no fear of Anduval, but simply held his ground, as if claiming the tree for his own.
At the sod house, the rich smell of peat and earth mingled. The hide flap that served as a door allowed easy entry, but Anduval stood outside and clapped until, at last, Angar came to the door.
The huge man was drunk and wavering on his feet.
“What do you want?” Angar demanded.
“I’ve come to pay you for your service to the holy maiden,” Anduval said. He produced a pouch and handed it to the drunkard. “The price of a dragon’s head.”
Angar shook the pouch and frowned when he did not hear the clinking of coins. “Wha’s this?”
“Rubies, emeralds, and diamonds,” Anduval said. “Enough so that you can swim in a lake of beer, if you like.”
A maniacal grin spread across the man’s face. Excited shouts issued from inside the house. His wife had heard the news.
The young girl, Tallori, appeared at her father’s back, peeking out from the shadows.
She isn’t really pretty, Anduval thought. Her face was plain and freckled, her hair too bleached by the sun. She was not a promising child.
Does the holy maiden really know something about her? Anduval wondered.
“The Great Lady wishes to bless you, too, Tallori. Your damselflies served her well. What boon would you ask of her?”
The girl looked down at the ground as if studying the dirt on her bare feet, then glanced back toward her mother. She was obviously poor. Her dress was little more than a sack made of the crudest brown cloth. It looked as if the only comb that had ever gone through her pale hair was her fingers. Anduval waited for her to ask for money. Peasants were such simple creatures that wealth was the only reward they could imagine.
“I want to fight the cycor with you,” she declared. “I want to come live in the palace and help build the worldship. If the holy maiden has any power at all, then she knows this.”
If all children spoke with such ferocity, Anduval thought, even lions would fear us.
Immediately, Tallori glanced back into the room where her mother hid. Regret was stamped upon the child’s face, as if she had betrayed the family.
“The lady bids you welcome to the palace,” Anduval said.
Tallori stared at her mother in the darkened room and asked, “Can I go?”
There were sobs from the mother then, and the peasant woman came and gave her daughter a hug. Angar made a huge show of hugging his daughter, and Anduval had to wait at the door while her mother got Tallori’s things and kissed her good-bye time and time again.
Anduval had never had anyone treat him so, and he stood for a long moment out in the shadows, watching the stars twinkle overhead. As he watched, one of them flared for an instant and then winked out.
Somewhere, he knew, a distant star had exploded. The cycor had struck again.
He heard a gasp and saw Tallori standing outside the doorway with a small bundle of belongings tied together with a rag. Her face was tilted upward. She had seen it too.
So they took off, running through the warm night, Tallori struggling to negotiate the path in the darkness with her bare feet.
Once again, Anduval felt the weight of the world falling upon his shoulders. He was no skraal nymph, but he could sense the cycor out there in the heavens, hunting him.
Tallori surely felt it too. She looked small and frightened as she hurried under the starlight.
Somewhere along the path, she reached out and grasped his hand for comfort.
Anduval became the big brother that Tallori had never had. He began that night as her mentor and tutor, but she had been raised in a world where the most complex tasks included weaving wool on her mother’s loom and churning butter.
In theory, Anduval was an apprentice to the magus. But after only two weeks of instruction, the boy
’s understanding of physics soon dwarfed that of the magus. It was widely rumoredt he had been blessed of the dragon, had accepted its dreams, and Anduval went to work as head of construction for the most complex system of the worldship—its navigation system.
Anduval tried to make Tallori his assistant, but she often became frustrated and wept when Anduval tried to teach her. She grasped basic math well enough—simple things like trigonometry and calculus—but Anduval’s mind was far more powerful than her own.
His memory was flawless. He recalled everything that he both saw and heard, but his mental prowess went far beyond that. He could multiply or divide any pair of numbers in his head, or calculate pi to a thousand decimal places.
More importantly, when confronted with a mystery, he could often consider it for a moment and intuitively recognize the answer.
She tried to keep up with him, but one day as she tried to multiply two six-digit numbers in her head, she began to sob uncontrollably.
Anduval put his arm around her, patted her on the back, and said, “Don’t cry, little sister. Don’t cry.”
They were in Anduval’s room where he was studying a sketch of the celestial navigation system for the worldship. He had been making notes about gravitonic sensors, red-shift resolution equations, and skraal brainwave-computer interfaces.
Even with all of his understanding, he struggled to make sense of the holy maiden’s often-crude schematics.
“I can’t keep up with you!” Tallori blurted, wiping her nose.
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “The skraals can’t keep up with me, either. Even Magus Veritarnus has been humbled. But all of us must learn as fast as we are able.
“It’s not your fault that you were raised in a stone-age existence,” he explained. “The skraals willed it to be so for many reasons. Technology carries inherent dangers. If we had used ancient telecommunications equipment, it would have unleashed radio waves that would have alerted the cycor to our presence. Power plants would have left energy signatures that cycor scouts could easily pick up. And even the simplest of electric machines can emit energy fields that adversely affect a skraal.