by Chris Reher
“By the Gods...” he whispered.
She floated serenely in mid-air, swathed in rich silver fabric and reddish clouds of mist. The most beautiful, awe-inspiring creature he had ever seen and likely ever would. He stared in wonder, taking in the luminous features of her demurely lowered face, the white hair in a thick braid over her shoulder, the small hands folded in front of her.
She raised silver eyes to look upon him and he felt his heart burst in his chest. “La'il...” he breathed and fell to his knees.
It was She, he knew, although no images of Her existed other than a few crude carvings in the secret shrines. To the Descendants, she was Mother Goddess, the Exalted Deity of the Two Moons, The Lady of the Homeworld, Champion and Defender of Thali. He felt a helpless sob rise in his throat, just as he wondered why she would choose him, his bathhouse, to make an appearance.
“Rise, Delann,” she said, her voice the sound of a distant songbird at dawn. Delann came to his feet, swooning.
The La'il regarded him silently for a long while, observing his soft, awe-struck face and the way he stood, arms slightly raised in supplication, and wondered how to approach this. Finding her way back to this bathhouse, although hardly a suitable stage, had been easy. More difficult was the task of catching the attention of a non-adept whom she had never touched before and call him to her. Now, finally, the contact was made and the merchant stood before her, ready to serve. Unlike Galen, he could not even begin to imagine ways to keep her out of his head. If he even wanted to. “I am here because of Aletha,” she said finally.
“Aletha?” Delann managed. “Why? What...”
Enjoying herself, the La'il allowed her face to change slowly from delicately angelic into something sterner, more befitting what they called the Mother Goddess here. “You sent her away, Delann!”
“I… what?” Delann stammered. “But...”
“She is among my favorite of mortals. You know how special she is, don't you?”
He nodded, still unable to speak.
“She was safe here with you, Delann. But you let her leave!”
He blinked. “She wanted to go. She said she had to! The emissary…”
La'il shook her head. “You sent her into great danger. She is in terrible trouble.”
“No!”
“Those two men with her. Demons, both of them, who wish her harm. They have turned her against me, against her gods. They will try to keep her from me and they will use her for their evil purposes!”
“No, please, no!” he exclaimed. “I’ll send for her at once.”
“You will do more than that, mortal.” La'il waved her hand dramatically and an image of Aletha appeared before him, her expression frightened and surprised. It was as the La’il remembered it from only a few nights ago in this very room, when Galen had mistaken Aletha for herself. The adept had to hide a pleased grin when she saw how well the vision blended into the background of the bathhouse, of course identical to the real incident.
“Aletha!” Delann’s hands flew to his lips when he saw a large hand grip Aletha's neck. It was one of the twins, upon her at once, tearing at her clothes.
“This is where you have sent her, Delann! Instead of sheltering her here, where your influence protects her, you sent her into the wilds with these demons!”
She embellished the vision a little by convincing the trader that Galen had also struck the girl. Delann could not hold back the raw sound that tore from his throat as he fell to his knees again, his fists raised to shield his eyes from the ugly scene before him. Fascinated by his pain, the La'il observed him for a moment before deciding that he had had enough. The ugly vision disappeared and Delann was broken before her. She reflected briefly on what it had taken to break Galen to her will, if he had ever been completely broken. But Delann would serve, of that she was certain.
“What am I to do,” he said, his voice without inflection.
“Stand up, face me, and listen,” she said sternly.
He obeyed, his limbs trembling, possessed by a sudden thirst for mindless revenge.
“She has escaped them and is fleeing north toward the mountains. They will use their magic to find her if you don't find her first. Even now they are gathering their strength to strike out at her. You will command a great company of men and send them north. You will find her and deliver her to a place to which I shall guide you. Go well-armed. You may encounter Galen and Chor. They are sure to hunt her down.”
“I will destroy them,” he promised.
“I want them alive. And take care not to run afoul of the emissaries. They must not touch her! Let nothing keep you from your quest.”
Delann nodded slowly, as if in a trance. It would not be difficult to assemble an army of fifty men, surely enough to contain the two demons. His brigantine had returned to the harbor, and a cutter was due to arrive this evening. If he started arrangements now, he could be outfitted and ready to sail by the tide.
“Dawn tomorrow,” he said, as if to himself. “Two ships going north, a fleet of boats to comb the islands. They will not escape.”
The vision of the La'il nodded, pleased. This merchant would hold together. His infatuation with Aletha and the images she had shown him assured his will to obey her, even if a visitation by the Great Goddess alone wasn't enough to convince him. She only hoped that in his fervor he did not take a knife to the twins.
* * *
La'il opened her eyes, taxed by the distance through which she had projected her image for the second time this day. Her body felt weak and in need of replenishing after her contact with the non-adept. While Galen’s considerable talents made their mental exchanges almost effortless, maintaining her grip on Delann’s mind had taken her to the edge of her abilities. Yobar supported her when she sat up, worried and frightened by what he had witnessed.
“I'm all right, Yobar,” she murmured. “Or I will be.” She concentrated on the great store of chi’ro below the building, drawing from it to refresh her depleted resources. While weakened like this she was prey to the intrusions from Chenoweth, which were making themselves felt more and more openly. Someone up there was watching her, feeling for her when her guard was down, making frequent forays to Thali dangerous.
“I am confident of your strength, La'il,” he said. “And your ability to protect us all.”
“But?” she said icily.
He practically squirmed before her. “These visits to Thali. The drain on our reserves is becoming alarming because of it. Feel it, La'il. Feel how depleted the stores are! It will be days before they are replenished. I've had to stop the construction of the northern dam because we don't have the resources. What if some disaster strikes while we are so wanting in chi’ro?”
“The next disaster to strike will be a conduit opening from Chenoweth to here, through which will come creatures who have done nothing for the past three hundred years but laze about and soak up limitless quantities of chi. And we won’t be ready for them. Not until I have the girl. Once she is with us Chenoweth is powerless.”
Yobar regarded her doubtfully. “You have much confidence in… your sister,” he said.
“I do. Don’t worry. That merchant and his people will keep her safe from Chenoweth’s agents if the twins don’t figure out a way to track her down. If she can stay ahead of the priests, she’ll get to the launch.”
“What of it? Even if she gets to the launch by herself, you still need the twins to open the seal.”
La’il regarded him thoughtfully. “Do I?”
“Don’t you?”
“All I ever needed was someone to help me contact her at the launch. If the twins can’t manage that, then the smuggler will do, now that I have him. Through him, I will show her how to break through the seal and anchor a stable conduit between here and there.”
“He is not one of us! He won’t live through that.”
“True, but I am not taking any more chances with Galen and Chor. Oh, this would be so much easier if I could just reach h
er myself!” She drummed her fist on her knee in exasperation. “She might as well not exist for all I can even perceive her mind. I can’t even touch her through Galen! I wish I could just go up to Thali right now and take this job out of his hands. Did you feel him, Yobar? He’s practically unconscious. I doubt he would even notice if I walked into that hut and slit Chor's throat.”
“Losing Chor would kill him,” Yobar warned.
“Maybe, but he's survived worse,” she said, rising from her couch. A distant expression stole over her features when she continued. “I’ve got grander plans for Galen. He might suffer for a while.”
“You can’t mean that. He’s served you for a long time, La’il!”
She ground her teeth together, hissing her words. “They are useless to me now. He’s learning how to shut me out. I no longer trust him. I no longer need him.”
“Don’t do this! You must bring them back!”
“There was never any purpose for them but this, Yobar.”
“What purpose?”
“They were bred for this. Since the moment Dazai shut us out of Chenoweth, I’ve been working for the day when we will find the means to return to the moons. And for that I needed to send a new class of adept there.” She touched her forehead. “Someone who can communicate with me from that distance. A mental adept.”
“Is this why we’re getting so many telepaths in this generation? You’re breeding them for this?”
“Been breeding them for almost three hundred years, waiting for my chance. I thought I had a few more generations to go before I had someone who could do the job. I had intended to mate Galen or Rangii to Shai, which could well have given me what I wanted.” She walked to the window and leaned out to look at the streams of chi’ro flowing to and from the tower. “Then Aletha came along and I knew I didn’t have to wait any more,” she said, smiling into the bright sunshine. “I had been trying to breed an adept who is both powerful as well as a telepath, but now all I needed was a telepath to let me communicate with her. Too bad I can’t touch her or I wouldn’t even need that!”
“And that’s where the twins come in.”
She nodded. “There are a few other adepts in this generation who might also do the job. Shai and Rangii, certainly, but Shai is untrustworthy and Rangii can’t find his shoes without chi’ro to help him. That left Ciela and our beautifully matched set of twins.”
“Ciela is capable. I’m surprised you let Galen leave here at all.”
“It was a hard choice. But Thali is an ugly place and I’ll not risk my dainty little Ciela up there. So I made sure the twins can work without chi’ro if they have to, they can ride and fight and get along in that waterlogged jungle. But the main reason I sent them instead of her was that little matter of their ancestry.” She laughed to herself. “It’s Dazai’s blood in those veins, Yobar. Who better to bring Chenoweth to its knees than his own descendants? In finally triumphing over Chenoweth, I’ll have my private revenge on Dazai himself.”
Yobar made as if to rise from the couch but then remained seated. He didn’t think his ancient legs would support him at this point. “Dazai’s progeny? La’il, is that why you’ve singled Galen out for… for your games? Is that why you torment him?”
La’il gazed up at the pale disk hanging in the sky for so long that Yobar wondered if she would answer him at all. She her fingers along the pitted stone sill, lost in dreamy contemplation. “He thinks he’s going mad, you know that?” she murmured. “He doesn’t even know what he wants any more. Maybe, after all this time, he is finally starting to crumble. You think it’s unfair of me to punish him for his sire’s mistakes? Maybe it is. Probably it is! But every blow against him is a blow against Dazai.” La’il trailed her fingertips lightly across her lips. “At first, I didn’t just want to hurt him. I wanted to destroy his mind. But I found something else there: a powerful energy that I can draw from him as I wish. Properly provoked, he’s like a living riser!” She chuckled at this comparison. “That little quirk is probably my fault.”
“How so?”
She shrugged evasively. “I’ve been keeping an eye on Dazai’s line since he left his boys here. I think I might have been around when certain people were busy being pregnant. You know how us women stick together at such times.”
“You didn’t!”
“Did. Just a little careful, hmm, zygote adjustment, I’ll call it. So easy. The twins are almost pure, undiluted Dazai. And so, to me, Galen is Dazai. I guess you could say I brought him back from the dead. Isn’t that wonderful? What’s a few quirks in light of that?”
“We have laws—”
“I am the law, Yobar! And I change it as I need it to change.”
“Just so you can have your revenge?”
“Well, yes. But it was a worthwhile experiment, in any case. This sort of… hmm, of genetic management is what’s giving us the telepaths. Probably a little more useful than recreating Dazai.” She snickered. “Didn’t work out so well, anyway. I guess maybe I wanted Galen to grow into the sort of Dazai that could have been useful around here. But he just grew into every little weakness that I loathed in Dazai.”
“Dazai? Weak? What weakness? Dazai was worshipped by adept and non-adept alike. His visions for the Homeworld are still with us.”
“Because of me! Do you think the chi’ro distribution network would work for even an instant if I hadn’t ensured safeguards? Our adepts are more powerful today than back then because I manage their breeding. I did this, Yobar! Dazai had only dreams and notions, without the resolve to carry them out.”
Yes, Yobar thought, his troubled gaze on the excited, beautiful face from which her eyes flashed like diamonds. Yes, you did all this. And those who stand in your way die. It’s as simple as that. And that was not part of Dazai’s dreams. He wanted to shout this at her. He, perhaps the only one who could ever dare such a thing, felt a terrible need to just once, finally, tell her of his loathing and disgust for her ways, for the pain and torture she inflicted upon her subjects to keep her iron control of everything that moved on the Homeworld.
He took a breath and when she drew back, startled, he knew that something in his expression, perhaps, warned her of his intent. She regarded him expectantly and he realized that nothing he could say about Dazai or about her leadership would touch her. She would hear his words and allow him to live, because he was Yobar. But it would change things. He was her confidante and in some ways even her mentor, but he was not free to criticize, to censure or to judge. His unflagging support of her was what afforded him his position – without it he was just one underling among many, to be used but never to be trusted. He dropped his eyes, defeated without having begun the battle, and sighed. She knew who she was and what she was. Perhaps she even knew the real reason why she recreated Dazai.
“Galen is not Dazai, La’il. Dazai spent his life in study and discovery. Galen is too busy working for you to take that path. He’s done things in your name that Dazai never would. He is not the same man.”
Only the slightest twitch of an eyelid disturbed her features before she shrugged carelessly. “Can’t waste all that brawn, can we?” she said. “But, sadly, he’s ruined now that Aletha is showing him how to hide from me. A little mental trick I’m sure we don’t want to encourage in the telepaths. He’s practically off his leash. I have no more use for him.”
“You mean to kill the twins, then?” He had never regarded Galen with any fondness and, if he dug deep into the hidden places of his old soul, he knew that the man’s sordid involvement with the La’il filled him with a jealousy that made him feel profoundly unclean. He, Yobar, knew the La’il better than anyone and, in spite of the ruthless, remorseless ambition fuelling her actions, he cared for her deeply. To see her fail to win Galen’s heart and then take him by force pained Yobar without measure. Yet, for all his resentment of Galen, he respected the adept’s talents, strength, and loyalty that did not waver even when she turned him from a scholar into a warrior. Surely his service
to the Homeworld did not earn him and his twin the sort of death that might satisfy the La’il.
She smiled. “Oh yes. It’ll be sweet. Even sweeter will be to take Chor first and let Galen live through that. After I’m done with Aletha.”
An anxious shiver crept upward from the base of Yobar’s spine until it made the hair at his nape bristle uncomfortably. Was she about to confirm his suspicions? “La’il? What are you saying? You were going to bring her down here. She is to help you defend this place when they come.”
La’il returned to her inspection of the bright day beyond the banister. “I don’t need her down here. Chenoweth is made up of a scattering of wasteful degenerates that would be outlawed on the Homeworld. If they were really so unstoppable, they would be here by now. Any handful of prime adepts can defend this place against anyone. You, Lichet, Rangii, Fromm. But you see…” she hesitated, teasing him. Her hand reached out to some birds roosting below the sill. They ignored her. “I needed someone far more powerful for what I have in mind.”
Yobar’s throat worked convulsively as he tried to swallow his panic. “Powerful enough for what, La’il?”
She turned, her face alight with excitement. “To give me Chenoweth, of course. Think, old man! This is almost too simple: I just need to get to Thali myself. I need a stable conduit. And the only way to do that is either with a huge amount of chi over there, which just doesn’t exist, or with the help of a very powerful adept able to anchor it. That would be our sweet little Aletha. That’s it. Job’s done, we can take it from there. When I get there I punch a hole into Chenoweth’s seal and tap their chi like a barrel of wine.”